Happy New Year!!

New Year's Eve we hosted a Murder Mystery at Dan and Tracy's. The afternoon leading up to the party was quite busy, too busy actually and very stressful. It was a work day for me, thank goodness it wasn't a very busy work day. We worked hard on the decorations, making Tracy's home look like a paradise resort. We put up a scene for the wall and an inflatable palm tree. We placed dozens of paper tropical flowers we made. The tiki bar was the highlight and the prop for most of our photos. We served lots of Margaritas and put out quite a spread of food. I made a Martguerita glass cake that didn't seem to make it into a photo unfortunately -- but it was certainly tasty.









As everyone arrived we were pleased to see the effort they put into their costumes and characters. We got going shortly after the last few guests arrived and everyone quickly mingled fulfilling their objectives. As the evening progressed our victim was murdered and the investigation started and we presented the guests with new objectives and evidence. We closed the game with evidence presentation and everyone cast a vote as to who dunnit?, best dressed and best actor. In the end we had two guests that guessed correctly. Shortly after the game we rang in the New Year. There were a few contenders for each award but Dave did a fantastic job playing Lucky Numbers, the lottery winner and the best costume went to Uncle Warner, who played millionaire Thurston Howard.
The next day was tough, we were tired but the kids didn't sleep in. We didn't leave the house all day which was really relaxing after the party planning chaos.

On Saturday the 2nd we attended Julia's birthday party. The kids had lots of fun playing with Julia's toys. Hailey was particularly pleased with the Tinkerbell cake...Dylan didn't waste anytime digging into his piece, although later I found a chunk of it under his bum on the chair. After lunch and cake, Julia opened her presents which was lots of fun. Dylan and Hailey started to get a bit cranky so it was time for us to head home...for naps.