December 31

Happy New Year's Eve!

We had lots of fun today, starting with a trip to the Butterfly House. Since it was just me with all three kiddos, it was crazy crowded, and I let Lily walk most of the time, I don't have any pictures from our visit. Highlights included Daisy freaking out and not wanting to go into the actual butterfly area, Daisy begging to leave the whole time, a butterfly landing on Caleb's shoulder and Caleb freaking out, and a butterfly landing on Daisy's dress and Daisy freaking out. More reasons why I didn't take any pictures. Still, we had fun, and the kids' favorite part was when I let them each get two bags of popcorn. We lived it up! (The popcorn was free.)

After naps all around, I got out some leftover New Year crowns and noise makers. The kids were so excited! 

Okay, maybe Lily wasn't so excited about having her picture taken. But she was loving the festive accessories.

Daisy and Caleb had a noisemaker battle. (I have no idea what the technical term is for these things. We called them "tooters" all afternoon.) 

After pictures, I began preparing for our special New Year's Eve dinner. For the past several years, we've celebrated with a fancy meal at home, but this time I upped the ante and we all put on fancy clothes, too. 

Daisy wanted to wear her dress-up princess gown, but couldn't find it. Instead, she wore her Princess Ariel slippers, her favorite dress from Aunt Jenny, a sparkly necklace of mine, and her crown. She felt so fancy and special!

Caleb was briefly disappointed at his lack of anything sparkly, but he ended up looking quite festive in his tie and fedora. I can always tell when Caleb feels good about the way he and Daisy look when he wants  to walk holding her hand or poses with his arm around her. It's the sweetest thing.

Lily dressed up, too, but spent most of the evening attempting to remove her clothes. She had a sparkly cardigan on, but that came off, and she removed her golden sandals at least three times. She also didn't want her picture taken. So it goes with a 17-month-old.

That might be the best photo I have of the three of them together, and Lily is preparing to bolt.

Daisy didn't mind having her picture taken, though!

(Since I'm 31 weeks pregnant today, none of my fancy, sparkly clothes fit. I had to make due with an ill-fitting dress and some sparkly jewelry.

Caleb was still chewing the remains of his filet mignon and crab legs, but he couldn't resist a photo op with his two favorite ladies. Chris had us all giggling with his ninja photography skills.

And Daisy snapped this one of Chris and me; we had been dating for 3 days when we celebrated our first New Year together on the eve of Y2K, which makes 16 New Year's Eves that we've celebrated together! (Is that right? My math may be fuzzy there. Maybe it's only 15.)

In honor of that, here's a throwback to when we first started dating. I don't think this was New Year's
Eve, but it was somewhere around then.

I wonder what 18-year-old us would think of 33-year-old us? I bet they'd be pretty happy. I know 33-year-old me is.