New Year's Eve Skookie Party

For New Year's Eve, we decided to have a fun family party. My brother, Todd, and his wife gave us a skookie for Christmas, so we decided to have a Skookie party. Skookies are the 7-inch cast iron skillets you see in the pictures. We let each person make their own personal pizza . . . well, except for Tanner. He got to help put some of his toppings on (more like he threw what toppings I gave him onto his pizza!), but I didn't think letting him go at the pizza sauce was that good of an idea! Kiersten, though, had a great time and felt very grown up, making her own pizza.


Tanner LOVES playing with the spatula, and when he found this round of pizza dough just sitting on the counter he couldn't resist getting out the spatula and helping!
We had quite the festive dinner - Nate bought matching paper cups, plates and napkins (my way to do dishes!), and Martinellis (although, now as I think about it, we forgot to have a New Year's toast!). Kiersten really liked the Martinelli's, and I think we let her drink too much because after dinner was over, she told me that it felt like there were bubbles trying to come up her throat!
I even gave Tanner some of the Martinelli's (I figure he likes grape juice, so why not?), but he didn't like it so much. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of the horrified face he made after a couple of sips. But, when I let him keep his straw to play with, he was in heaven!

After dinner we had a race to see who could put on their pajamas fastest - I don't remember who won. Probably Kiersten, she's quite competitive! Nate put Tanner to bed and then we played a game of "Somethin's Fishy," a card game Kiersten loves. Then we got out the blowers, and rung in the New Year (at 7:15 pm!). I must have ended up with the dud, though, because everyone's but mine made noise as you blew on them.
After that we put Kiersten to bed, and Nate and I played several rounds of a game Santa brought him for Christmas, Sequence. Let me just tell you, I LOVE that game! Nate is very analytical and thinks all the possible scenarios through before ever making a move. I, on the other hand, tend to make the first move that looks good. Needless to say, he almost always wins whenever we play a game. But, with this game, I won 3 of the 4 rounds we played! I love a game I can win at on a regular basis, and I really LOVE a game where I win more often than not!

We finished around 10:30, and were ready to head to bed. Nate got on the computer to check something "real quick" and I was going to read "just a couple of pages" while I waited for him. Yeah! At 12:05 Nate looks up from the computer and says, "Happy New Year" and then we get sucked back into what we were doing for another half hour until we realize it is MUCH, MUCH later than we should be up and head for bed. We're such the party-ers, huh? :)

(Unfortunately Kiersten didn't sleep well that night, and I was up from 2:30-4:00-ish with her, and then up for the morning with Tanner at 7:30, and Nate slept through it all! Oh well, he made up for it - he got up with her the next 2 nights.)