happy new year

It's been a long time since Mike and I have spent a New Year's Eve out of the house. And to be truthful we had no real plans to do anything this year either until ML told us we'd be spending it at her place. Bring the kids, she insisted, they'll amuse each other until they pass out. So we did.

I thought we were in for a quiet evening with ML, T, my online BFF and his lovely wife and our collective kids. ML and T live in a large old farm house (shocking I know, what with them owning a dairy farm and all) so there was plenty of room for the gaggle of us (Jersey Girl, JJ, came with her crew too) that ended up there. That would be 8 adults and 10 kids. To quote the Grinch... the noise! All the noise, noise, noise, noise. Yep, ten kids, most up past their bedtimes can get plenty loud. Although I am happy to report there were very few disputes and the only tears shed came from one of mine..... I'll let you guess which one. Here I'll give you a hint - it rhymes with papaya. More shocking revelations!



Maya actually did not too bad once things got going. She was not pleased when we got there. All the strange kids and the noise was too much. Before too long she was trying to keep up with the big kids which wasn't too easy as she was the youngest by far. She did okay though, she had T playing a board game with her at one point and she befriended JJ's Mister while playing the Wii. Somehow she even managed to stay up until midnight with the rest of the kids. She wandered around "clinking" her paper cup of water and offering up hugs to ring in the new year.

As for Abby I hardly saw her all night as she moved from hide and seek to the Wii to board games to movies with the rest of the bigger kids. She did appear by my side again at midnight, ready to ring in the New Year with her plastic top hat.



So what were the grown ups doing while the kids tore around the house? Well I stuffed myself silly on pumpernickel bread and spinach dip. It's my fave! And various other goodies that were out, like JJ's bacon wrapped water chestnuts. So good! And we played spoons. Have you ever played spoons before? No?! Well either had I before, but it is seriously one of my most favourite games now. Jersey Girls be prepared for a spoons night in your future. So much fun!! And odds are you have to supplies you need to play at home right now.

You need......

1. a deck of cards.
2. spoons.

And what do you do with this stuff once you have it? Well you gather some fun card playing friends around the table, as many as you want. We had 8 playing at one point, that means there's 7 spoons laid out on the table. Get that? One less spoon that you have people playing. Kinda like musical chairs, but with cards. So the dealer deals out four cards to each player. The idea is to get 4 of a kind in your hand. The dealer will have what's left of the deck in front of them, as quickly as they care to they will draw the top card and look at it. They either keep it or discard to the person on their left. The person to the left looks at that card and decides whether they will keep it or discard to the person on their left and so on. You can't ever have more than 4 cards in your hand, so if you do keep a card you must discard one from your hand. As soon as you get four of a kind grab a spoon. And the rest of the players, if you notice someone grabbing for a spoon, you grab for one too. The person who ends up without one gets an s, then a p, then an o and so on until they spell spoons. Then they're out of the game. Once someone is out of the game you take one more spoon away so there is always one spoon less. It's a great game for a group of people. Play it, you won't be sorry.