New Year's Staffy Style

I know that you have all been on pins and needles, holding your breath in anxious anticipation of my New Year's post.

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Well dear blog friends you can breath a sigh of relief because the day has arrived. Yes , on this 28th day of January.... only 27 days late... I am showing you the wild and exciting way we celebrate the New Year in.

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Now, I know some of you went to Time's Square in New York.

Some of you went to Broadway Shows.

Some of you went to fine restaurants.

Some of you went to First Night Celebrations....

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We considered doing some of those things...

...but no...

We decided to have a Staffy Style Celebration

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Our celebration started early in the evening with a stage show of the musical Wicked staring Grammy's girls.

Not to be out done Grammy's guys entertained us with their rendition of "Popular" from Wicked.

Even Grampy put on a costume and got into the act.
After the performing the cast was ready for treats.

We decided to make Marie's reindeer cookies again.

With encouragement from the big boys the girls made silly reindeer.

They may not be beautiful but they were surely unique and tasted great.
(We were thinking of you Marie)

This was the first of our many treats of the evening.

We always love taking a dip in the Jacuzzi and decided that would be a fun thing to do on the last evening of the year.

Of course you can't play in the jacuzzi without lighting a fire..... and you can't light a fire without making "smores".

So we soaked....

and then we ate..

Grampy and the girls kept the soakers supplied with "smores"

(We don't drink alcohol but we were probably getting a sugar high from all the sweets.... and there were more to come. We actually had nutritious food too. I just didn't get a picture of it.)

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As the evening wore on we got into intensive wii competitions

Go Justin....Go...

Claire was so anxious to compete she couldn't even wait to change into her dry clothes.

She dropped her wet towel on the floor and was ready to go.
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Somewhere along the way we decorated the Gingerbread house that Erin brought us. We meant to decorate it days before but hay....better late than never....right.....like this post.

It was such an exciting evening we were all really energized.

You can see how much fun Mindy was having.
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About 11:00 Claire and I started making Marie's Sticky Gingerbread.

Then we turned on the TV to count down to midnight with Time's Square.

Welcome 2009

We toasted in the New Year with Sparkling Cider.... but our little gingerbread chef crashed, still with her apron on, and could not be awakened to welcome in 2009.

The gingerbread came out of the oven just after the clock stuck 12:00...

...so our first treat of the new year was gingerbread...

...which is appropriate since I am the Gingerbread Grammy

I give my kids a Gingerbread gift every year.

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The gingerbread was delicious and disappeared quickly....

...of course we saved a piece for our little Claire.

After our cider toasts and gingerbread we got on our knees and thanked our Heavenly Father for the blessings we had received during 2008.....

... and we asked His blessings to be upon us in 2009.

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As you can see, we didn't do anything grand to celebrate the New Year...

...But for me.... I could not think of any other way that I would have enjoyed celebrating more.

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So from my home to yours I am sending you all my best wishes for a blessed and

Happy New Year

Love, Grammy