a New Year and a warm house

As the holidays drew near, I kept toying with the idea of a New Year's Day open house.  It fell on a Friday this year, and with the whole week to prepare and the whole weekend to recover, I thought it might be fun.  There's also nothing like a gathering to help motivate one to get S done.  While the list of to-do's is long with the new house, now our nearest and dearest can say they "saw it when."  Also, life is short, and people are pretty happy with football, food, and a clean bathroom or two. :)....and they were.
We began at 11 am and told people to come whenever throughout the day and into the evening.  There was a nice, natural split with a big group leaving and another coming about 10 minutes apart.   Throughout the day we had about 50 adults and lots of kiddos.  I got to meet lots of Ryan's co-workers and their better-halves, which was fun.
As most of us are old and have kiddos, there weren't many hangovers to cure, but Jill and Cole were in really rough shape.  We had spent NYE at Jill and Jason's and thanks to a puppy with a tiny bladder, were home by 10pm.  Apparently the Fireball didn't stop flowing for those two until nearly 6 am, and thanks to nice weather, they didn't spend much time inside at our house. ;)

Our only capture of NYE revelry

I'm pretty sure I hardly sat down until about 6pm and our last guests left about 9.  I also took very few pictures but my warm home and heart will carry me far into the New Year.  It was delightful to spend the beautiful day with family and friends, old and new.  

mules, mary's and blood orange vodka soda's were the specialties of the house

sweet Emmaline loved Hayes and he loved her right back

total chaos and the reason the basement will be the last thing we renovate

A is for super Alaina

 
And, as I'd hoped, the party was just the push we needed to get the office and basement bedroom unpacked and in order.  You could hardly walk into the office at Christmas and the basement bedroom housed everything we hadn't unpacked and lots of to-be-stored items.  By that Friday morning, the office was in tip-top shape and the bedroom was empty except for an extension of the basement playroom for the kids.  Now I vow not to start another project until February, but........we'll see. ;)

Happy, Happy 2016! I wish you health, happiness and whatever makes your 

heart sing in the new year.