Brock Buzz: Happy New Year (a little late) and Happy Birthday!

We had a fantastic time on New Year's Eve this year, celebrating at my friend Erica's house with old friends, new friends and lots of kids! Erica has a great house for entertaining because the kids had the whole upstairs and playroom to themselves and the grown-ups got to have an adult party - no tiramisu martinis, wine or champagne for the kiddies! Isabelle loved running around with her friend Laney, Laney's five-year-old sister Emersyn and Emersyn's kindergarten friends. The adults thought we would be so smart and celebrate the new year at 9:00 for the little ones (the advantage of living on the west coast with east coast T.V. stations - we can see the ball drop in Times Square early) and then put them to bed. Little did we know they would still be up celebrating into the wee hours of morning!

Early on in the evening. This is a game called run back and forth while throwing things and screaming. Can you tell why the adults were happy the children had a room to themselves?

Laney and Isabelle taking some down time to play house.

Playing dress-up

While Isabelle had a great time with her friends this was her first time celebrating the new year and had never seen anything like it. In this picture she's thinking, "My parents have brought me to a loony bin. Grown-ups aren't supposed to blow horns and act crazy. And why am I wearing this silly hat?" She quickly recovered from her shock though and was soon throwing confetti off the deck and drinking sparkling apple cider.

Just a few of the children at the party. At this point the boys had made themselves scarce as the girls were playing rock star and putting on make-up. They did reappear later in the evening to wreak havoc by chasing the girls around the house.

With all that playing Isabelle still found time to sit down for a snuggle and snack with Emersyn.

Some of the older children did fall asleep before midnight but Isabelle and Laney just got going at 11:30, when they started their own private dance party while watching High School Musical. Do you think they could stand any closer to the T.V. I think they are literally trying to be sucked inside!

Laney, Emersyn and Isabelle playing, definitely NOT sleeping, in Erica's bed at 1:00 in the morning.

The next morning Isabelle slept until 9:30 (thank goodness!) but wanted to go right back to Laney's to do it all again! She also picked up some new dance moves, as pictured below.

Is she too young for So You Think You Can Dance? :)

Today is also Jason's birthday, which we celebrated in a very low-key way by going out to dinner and having birthday cake at home. I won't embarrass him by revealing how old he is but I will say he's older than me!