Happily Ever After (and our adventures along the way): NYE 2011

Wow, three posts in a week, that is a new record, and its not even my New Year's Resolution!

It is amazing how different NYE looks now, two (almost 3) kids into our married life, vs. what it looked like when we were dating/first married and living in Chicago. Don't get me wrong, the 'party' scene has never really been for us. But when we were young and living in Chicago, both working, etc, we went out to Benihana for dinner, stayed up super late and slept in until noon the next day...

This year, we based our dinner plans on where we had gift cards to, and Chili's it was. But that is great, we love Chili's. Just in the last few weeks my mom got bunk beds at her house, so she offered to let the boys have a sleepover on NYE so we could have a night alone (thanks mom!). Miles and I dropped the boys off and headed off to dinner around 6. The service at Chili's was kinda slow, but it was also FABULOUS. Miles V is getting super talkative (and his brother isn't exactly silent either), so our nightly dinners at home tend to be a lot of chatter with our three year old. Which is great, but Miles and I really enjoyed our two hours of adult conversation Saturday night. We could just sit there. Although I did go through about a box of Kleenex that night (what a fun date I am!), we didn't have to get up to get more milk, or to take anyone potty, or to get our own drinks which we forgot in all the hustle. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner together.

Earlier in the week we had invited our good friends, Chris & Anntonette Franklin, to come over after dinner. We had plans to play games and just hang out. This worked out BEAUTIFULLY! Saturday morning our dogs decided to get into some sort of fight while we were at the grocery store, so it turned out to be a good thing we were home most of the night. Kramer ended up with a bunch of stitches, a drain port, antibiotics and pain pills. Not to mention we had to keep the dogs apart for a few days to make sure they didn't attempt to kill each other again.

With the Franklins we played 'SceneIt', Mario Kart and Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. We had some snacks and dessert, and toasted with sparkling grape juice at midnight. Yes, I said midnight. We made it all the way, and even then some after. I think for Miles and I it was knowing that we wouldn't have a little Max and Miles ready to play at 7:30 am that gave us the energy to stay up.

Overall, we had a fabulous 2011 New Year's Eve. We are very much looking forward to what 2012 brings, most importantly, of course, our new little guy (or girl) in June! This year also bring plans for Miles V to start pre-school, as well as other fun things we have planned.

Thanks for sharing our NYE 2011, below are a few pics from the evening!

Please pardon my sick, puffy eyes in all of these pictures!

My hubby and I: