Noon time New Years

I read a great idea on JDaniel4's Mom blog for celebrating the New Year at noon on New Year's Eve. This way, you can still party it up, have a count down, etc, but no one has to stay up all night. So here is how we rang in the New Year noon time style.
First we had to "make a party" as Logan calls decorating. I hung some streamers while Logan used a poster paint marker to trace the numbers 2011. Luckily, those are easy numbers. The 2 was the only one that was hard for him. He's good at making the letter o, so I showed him how that was the same. Then when he made the 1 he said, "Start at the top and go down." He did it all by himself!

After making the party, we had to celebrate.
First, we had a dance party.

Practicing for Brian and Kari's wedding

Then we had a tornado! Ok, that part of the party was not planned. We were inside dancing away when it started looking ominous outside. Greg and Logan went out to watch.

It was almost 70 degrees at noon on New Years Eve. It was in the 20s by the next morning!

I heard Cindy Pressler saying, "If you live in Barnart, Arnold, Fenton... take cover NOW!" So I went out and told them to come in. We actually went to the basement.

A view of the storm from our basement.

The tornado blew right over the top of us and there was no damage in our area. However, parts of Fenton did get hit pretty hard.
We actually had to toast the New Year at 12:01 after the tornado was over. We had kiddy cocktails of Hawaiian Punch and Sprite. We counted down and everyone gave each other hugs and kisses. Logan still says, "Happy New Year!" and then gives me a kiss.

Logan got to open a firecracker shaped treat. It had candy inside. It actually did "explode" because he ripped it so hard that the candy went flying.

Then we ate Chinese food for lunch since it was January 1, 2011 in China.
After our big party, it was nap time!
We had a lot of fun ringing in the New Year. After our disasterous December, we are looking forward to 2011 being a better year.

Remember when New Year's Eve used to be about partying it up with all our friends. But now, I'm very happy to be spending a New Year celebrating with this little man and his big bro and his Daddy!