New Year's Eve

Yesterday Lily and I took down all the Christmas decorations. We had taken the tree down the night before when Chip was home. Normally I like to leave them all up as long as possible, but it was so cluttered in here and the tree was so dead that I was actually itching to get it all down. Plus, since Lily's been born I've been getting it down earlier since I am out of Christmas mode and into birthday mode now! But it was a great holiday and I have only two regrets -- one, that I never got a photo of Lily and Santa. She was way too terrified this year and it was obvious that it wasn't going to happen without some major trauma for her and that would not be good. And two, that I didn't get a video of her singing Christmas songs. Thanks to the singing Elmo stocking and the Chipmunks Christmas CD I bought, she learned a lot of Christmas songs. Her favorites were "Up On The Housetop," "Deck the Halls," "Jingle Bells," "Frosty the Snowman," and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer." She'll also sing "The Christmas Song" by The Chipmunks. She is pretty good and learned them all so fast! It was so cute listening to her sing songs all season long -- I loved it!!!

All the Christmas decorations gathered and ready to be boxed up until next year.
Saying goodbye to the Elmo stocking. She did not want me to pack him up, but after playing with him all morning and saying our goodbyes she was okay with it, so we took a last picture before putting him in the box.

After all the cleaning was done we had to bake brownie cookie bars for New Year's Eve.

Then my wonderful angel demanded (I swear!) that I put Pearl Jam on so she can dance.

Crazy moves!!

Dancing with Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.
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After that busy morning (and 2 hours of work while Lily napped), Lily, Chip and I went to Patti, Bryan and Emily's house to celebrate New Year's Eve!

Lily with her New Year's tiara eating her cupcake.

With a horn noise maker.

Lily and Emily with their horns.

They had set up camp in Patti's bedroom to watch Aladdin and Cinderella.

We weren't sure if we were going to actually stay until midnight since we didn't know how Lily and Emily would do that late. Emily was going strong, but a little after 11pm Lily was done and actually asked to go home and to bed!!! The cool part was that in Texas, with the Central time zone, all the TV is live with the East Coast feed. So we actually watch the ball drop live in NY at 11pm and then watch the Dallas celebration from 11-12. So we got to watch the ball drop at their house and count down with the girls. By the time we got home and Lily in her PJ's with her teeth brushed and a potty stop, it was 11:55, so Chip and I tucked her in real fast and got to watch the countdown and fireworks on TV. Of course in typical Lily fashion, she went potty in her diaper and I had to go back in and change her (she is still only going poo at bedtime), so techincally she did stay up for the New Year and I got my New Year's kiss from by baby right after midnight! :)

** As a side note we started 2010 off great too -- she slept in until 9:30 (which means I got to sleep in too!!)