The 500 Babies Ring in the New Year!

(Pardon me for a moment while I blow some dust off of my blog....Ok, that's better.)

Let's just pretend that it hasn't been over 7 months since I last updated, all right?  That'll make this a lot easier. :) And while there are several reasons for my bloggy absence, the main one happens to be a 7-month-old little cutie we call Katherine who joined the 500 Babies last July.  She's our newest foster baby, so I can't show pictures of her just yet, but Lord-willing and fingers-crossed we get to make her official in a few months.

So, on to business:  The 500 Babies New Year's Eve Blowout.  Forget Times Square, the place to be on New Year's Eve was our end-of-the-year bash.  Billy and I decided to let the kids stay up as late as they wanted, figuring most of them would fall asleep before midnight anyway.  Starting at 5:00, we planned one activity per hour and let each kid pop a balloon filled with confetti and containing a slip of paper identifying the activity.  Here's the first group shot of the night:

Can you feel the excitement?  The first activity was pretty basic: EAT!  Here Rebekah poses in front of the spread:

The 6:00 activity was to make glitter fireworks pictures.  At this time, one of the children pooped their pants.  I gave Billy a choice:  lead the craft or clean the child.  He chose glitter and I think afterwards we both agreed he chose wrong.  So remember:  if given the option, choose the one poopy child over four glittery/gluey children.

But the kids enjoyed it and here's the proof:

The next activity was sock fight!  It started off girls vs. boys but then we decided kids vs. parents was more fun.

At 8:00 we drew pictures of our favorite memory of the year to put inside a time capsule.  You can see a glimpse of Katy in Billy's arms.

Here's Billy digging a hole for our time capsule.  The plan is to unearth it next New Year's Eve, if the dogs don't get to it first.

By 9:00 we had the kids put on their pajamas because we figured pretty soon they'd start falling asleep.  We also planned a strenuous activity to get them even more worn out:  DANCE PARTY!

We had technical difficulties with the music at first, so Billy taught the kids a few moves.  This one is clean the ear, throw the Q-tip away.  Clean the other ear, throw the Q-tip away.

I finally got the music sitchiation resolved, and we commenced the dance party with the Official Morrison Family Theme Song. 
                                         
We partnered up.

And danced away.

                         

Mikea and Joe started to get a little tired.  Maybe our plan to wear them out was working?

Joe had the honor of popping the 11:00 balloon which contained the activity of...playing board games!

Technically Twister isn't a board game, but we decided to give it a try.  We soon learned a little left-right hand-foot labeling was necessary.

But other obstacles, namely a two-year-old who was determined to use the Twister mat as a blanket, proved to be too great to overcome.

So we put Twister away and played Mouse Trap instead.  Can I get an Amen for the awesomeness that is Mouse Trap?  LOVE that game!

The second-to-last activity of the night was to revist our family purpose statement and write New Year's Resolutions based on what we could do better as a family. By this time Billy and I thought we would be alone.  Obviously we were very wrong.

And here it is, the final group photo of the night!  All six kiddos (including Katy) were awake to ring in the new year.  We popped the balloon and went upstairs to watch the fireworks display courtesy of our neighbors.

We are so grateful to God for the innumerable blessings of 2012 and can't wait to see what's in store for 2013!