Happy New Year, 2015!!

Our babysitter had better New Year's Eve plans than we did this year, and the only babysitter left in the neighborhood was 13 and could only stay out until 11pm...so we decided to stay in.  And with 48 hours until the ball drop in Times Square, we invited any of our friends without sitters to join us.  It turned out to be a fun time!

It was Marc's birthday, but he brought ME flowers!  And even better, they were the kind I would have bought myself if I'd have been in the store, they make me smile every time I look at them!

Last year we filled out a New Year's list and the kids' answers were so fun I wanted to make it a tradition .  It will be so cool to see how they grow through the years based on their own year-end reviews.  

Maeve's 1st Birthday cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes was such a hit, I ran with the idea again for Marc's cake.  White White Chocolate on top and Chocolate Chocolate Chip on bottom.  And we finally had reason to bust out all the champagne glasses I bought for Molly's First Communion and Maeve's Baptism in 2013.  They are stemless because they were 1/4 the price of stemmed ones on Amazon.com that year.  That made them so much more good-looking to me I had no choice but to buy them!

I had 48 hours to whip this party together, so the veggies were store bought and the dip was homemade from a Tastefully Simple mix that takes seconds to prepare.

The entertainment was storebought too!

The only other thing that wasn't storebought were the two special sauces I tmade for Marc's cake.  He's obsessed with bourbon these days, so I used one of his favorites to make a Bourbon Cream sauce and a Bourbon Caramel.  They were amazing, but I halved the bourbon in the cream sauce after taste testing the caramel and nearly growing chest hair!

Disclaimer: anyone who knows me knows it killed me to not have cute little labels on these canning jars.  With 48 hours to plan, something's got to give!  for the record though, it would have been something like this....

Someday!

For the record though, both sauces were DIVINE on the cake. 

And the sparklers on top were loads of fun too!

I tried to get pictures of the 13 kids that were in attendance, I swear I tried!  But the boys were too fast for me and the girls were BANANAS - this was the best I could get!  

Unlike their mommas, who are more than happy to pose for the camera!

I wanted to keep Maeve up to sing Happy Birthday to Daddy, but the last of the guests didn't arrive until 9:30, so she was starting to get glassy-eyed  (her bedtime is usually 8:30).  The Elmo app on my iPhone came to the rescue though!

This girl had a BALL.  But she kept stealing my fancy tiara.  Next time I'll make sure to buy her one too!

She  made a point to 'match' her outfit to Maeve's dress.  Too sweet!

She was looking so grown up tonight.  Maybe it's the Katy Perry bangs she got butchered with at the salon?  Wisftully, I think it's just father time creeping up on us.

This little one was also making me wistful in her hand-me-down dress from Molly's second Christmas.  I remember Molly tiptoeing barefoot around Nana and Papa's house that year - the year she got her baby doll bed, that Maeve played with just that morning.  This evening however, she'd taken a shine to one of the woodland animals that decorated our fireplace this year.

She's got her Daddy wrapped around her little finger too.

 
  Eventually Maeve made it to bed and we tucked the others in at 12:15 after all the noisemakers were tooted and New Year's kisses and hugs given.  We paid for that dearly as they were grumpusauruses the next day and Ben was a complete train wreck at bedtime for two days running.  1-2 hours of hysterical crying because he was so overtired.  But that's the price you pay sometimes when you're a parent.  All those celebrations and late nights we enjoyed without strings when we were in our teens and twenties and could sleep until 2pm the next day....I sure appreciate them in hindsight!

Happy 2015 to everyone, and Happy 42 to Marc!  We may not be able to sleep in until 2, but at least we've got some super-cute company when our early risers wake us up!