New Year's Eve, 2009

We all know from previous posts that Eric and I closed on December 28 and started moving immediately. Miss Madeline graciously spent 3 days with my mom and dad so that we could get the bulk of our move done sans 16 month old in the mix. Needless to say, New Year's Eve was not at the top of our minds this year. We love a good toast, but we were exhausted and excited to get situated. Our friends, John & Shay, felt our excitement & lack of doing anything "fancy" for New Year's, so they ventured out our way to spend New Year's with us in the new digs. I became super motivated to get the house looking "guest ready" since I had a goal of having friends come to spend New Year's with us!

We had a wonderful time --- after all, we do spend a week at Fripp with them each summer, so we knew good times were to be had with this crowd. They have two children, Drew (3) and Emily (1), and after this visit I decided that Drew should live with us a few times a week. (Shay said we were welcome to his "pseudo-older-sibling-fun services anytime!) Madeline could NOT get enough of him. She LOVED him. Madeline and Emily took a bath together, and again, Madeline apparently needs siblings because she LOVED having a bath playmate. (Eric and I need to get on the ball in the sibling department after seeing how much Madeline loves other children in the house.)

Anyway, Happy 2010 from our NEW home to yours! May all of you have a blessed year. I know that I am truly a blessed woman for my dear, sweet, hard-working husband, my spunky child, my family, and my friends. What more could I want or possibly wish for?

(Captions are under the pictures in this post.)

Cheers! Happy New Year! The wine saver that my brother and his wife gave to me. So Anne. :)

Our attempt at getting the four of us in a photo --- obviously, we thought we were hilarious and were racing to get situated before the timer went off, but the picture turned out okay!

While Eric and Shay were having a dance party/rock band KISS moment, John and I were cheering them on from the sidelines. This was getting close to midnight. We were having a good time.

Again, John and I were watching our spouses have a dance party.

So typical of the Stewart-Lansche functions.

More dance party...

Pre-dance party --- making sure all of our kids were taken care of. Miss Madeline was about to snatch that bottle from Emily's little lips.

Our girls having a fun bath together --- Madeline 16 months, Emily 12 months

While we all commented that we wouldn't have dreamed of spending our New Year's like this (hanging out at home with 3 kids running around) five years ago, we certainly wouldn't change a thing now. My, how things have changed, but how wonderful is this change --- Good friends, good kids, good food, good beverages, and just plain old fun! Happy 2010!