New Years’ Eve in photos!!

Blogged on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Blog365, Holidays, Philosophical, Photos.

I know, like you haven’t already seen a million other bloggers’ holiday photos. I’m SORRY. It’s not my fault you went and looked at everyone else’s first!

The kids and Troy and I had a really nice, laid-back New Years. Even though I was rather sick (and getting sicker that day in particular), we still had a rockin’ holiday celebration. But before the four of us could party down, I had to take Ian back to his dad’s house after our week with him. And before I could do that, I had to run out (in my wobbly, flu-ridden state) to the local cheap-stuff-store (it’s Family Dollar here, yo) and get him a new pair of shoes, because in the week he was here he GREW. His feet are a whole size bigger! We measured him on the wall again too, and he got taller by a half inch. Which is A LOT for a small person to grow. I personally would be ecstatic to grow a half inch, or at least I would have been back when it mattered, ha ha.

Anyway.

I took some pictures of him with his new shoes, and because he was also being full of the cheese and the adorable, I got some really nice shots. I have to confess that I tend to take a lot more photos of him on the day I take him back to his other house, because I start missing him the night before he has to leave. It’s like a tearing in my heart every time, and there is a big wounded spot there until the very minute I get him back. When he is here, we are a whole family again.

See? I just don’t know how you CAN’T love that adorable, serious, little-boy face. He turned into a boy from a toddler in the past several months also, and it amazes me how normal he acts for a kid who gets shuffled back and forth on a regular basis. He’s more sturdy and brave than a lot of two-year-olds, I’m certain. Nobody could ever tell me this kid wasn’t special in a million different ways.

Of course, he’s also a huge ham, so he makes us all giggle until the milk comes out our noses. I think that’s traditionally the job of the youngest, so he’s right on target there too.

After I dropped him off and drove my sorry, tired, and increasingly sicker ass home, the remaining four of us - who ARE a family too, don’t get me wrong, we don’t sit around and mope and bawl when he isn’t here - got ready for 2008!!! This mostly involved explaining and re-explaining to Joey how the whole thing works. Today it’s this year, and tomorrow it’s next year! And actually, TONIGHT it will be next year!! At midnight!! What? You don’t understand this? (I guess I remember not really getting it either, at least not until I understood the concept of calendars and months and weeks and how midnight was technically not tonight but TOMORROW MORNING.)

We put in a movie for them to while away the time until it was close enough to midnight that Dick Clark’s alarmingly twin-looking replacement was being broadcast from Rockefeller Center, complete with confetti and crazy making-out people. I got cream soda for the kids to have in their champagne flutes, because I personally think that overly carbonated apple and grape juice is the epitome of gross things to drink, and cream soda is indeed a yummy, delicious beverage. I was kind of jealous, actually.

So then we took a bunch of weird, blurry, hyper pictures:

And then some not-so-crazy ones:

..

Then it was NEXT YEAR!! Well, this year, I guess. It can’t be ‘next year’ any more than it can ever be ‘tomorrow’, which is another fun topic for long car rides.

Happy New Year from all of us here at the Big Words Emporium. I hope yours was just as awesome (and not so full of the flu)!