New Year's Eve - McCormack Style

Afton had wanted to get together with her friends Amelia and Kelsey over the holiday break, but with everyone's travel schedule it wasn't able to happen until New Year's Eve. So we planned a party and had the girls over for a sleepover. I found some fun items at the local dollar stores, we planned an exotic dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread, and the girls brought their American Girl dolls along to help celebrate. Afton even planned some games for entertainment.

For the most part all three girls got along famously. Afton gave each girl a set of pajamas for their dolls and the set came with a little book containing a play. They all had the same book, so they went to the bedroom to rehearse the play, after changing the dolls into their pajamas and setting them up on the kitchen floor for their own little picnic. The play was a blast to watch, as each girl had either two character's parts to play, or was also the stage manager/sound engineer. Kelsey was quite the thespian, being particularly adept at switching roles, even stepping back and forth to "stand" in the right person's "mark."

After the play, we hunkered down to celebrate the arrival of the New Year -- East Coast Time! We discovered that we get a live feed of the Times Square celebration and so we can bring in the New Year at 9:00 p.m. local time. We pulled the strings on our party poppers, toasted the new year in our plastic champagne cups filled with Martinelli's cider and wished each other Happy New Year. For some strange reason I thought the girls would go to bed shortly after and we'd all be done...Nope! We got to celebrate again at 12:00 local time too! How do they do it? I finally fell into bed about 1:00 a.m., listening to the three of them talking away in Afton's room. I regret not getting a photo of all three of them in the bed. We'd set up the pull-out trundle and all three girls slept together with their heads at one side of the bed next to the wall and their feet towards the other side.

Now you'd think they'd sleep in, right! Not a chance. So at 8:00 a.m. I'm up making breakfast and trying to keep my eyes open.

They all did seem to have a good time, and I think Afton wants to do it again next year...Might have to rethink those sleeping arrangements though, as the girls are all getting taller and taller. Either way, it was a fun way to celebrate.