New Year’s Eve

Things were very low-key this year for New Year’s Eve.  We normally go to a friend’s house for a party, but they weren’t doing it this year.  It worked out just as well since we had a lot to do before Gary leaves for Slovakia.

Michelle invited us over for lunch, so it was a big highlight for Ethan to go to William’s house to play (a highlight for me to get out too). Sienna peeping around Joshua’s back William and Ethan played, and of course, right when it was their nap time and we were going to leave, they both decided to chase each other around the house.  Course, I’m sure it made them sleep better. :-)I put this picture of Sienna in for Nana

Each year our neighbors and people on the street behind us set off fireworks.  Well, this year, it started about 7:00.  Ethan was excited about the fireworks and even asked to go to bed 30 minutes early (I think because we had been telling him that there would be a lot of fireworks happening when he was in bed).  While he was upstairs getting ready for bed, Gary and Ethan looked out the window to see some fireworks.  After seeing a few Ethan said that he didn’t want to see them anymore.  Once Ethan was in bed he said that he was afraid of fireworks.  So, we went over and over talking about how they don’t hurt you, blah, blah, blah.  Well, I must say that these fireworks were right over our house (you probably could have reached out Ethan’s window and touched some).  So, I can’t say that I blame Ethan for being scared of the noise.  He just wanted to be in the same room with us.  We finally decided that we would bring his tent down to the living room, and he could sleep in that.  Gary and I were both actually working on stuff, but decided to watch A Flintstones Christmas Carol to try to create "good noise” to drown out the fireworks.  Ethan fell asleep in his tent, but woke again right at the end of the movie.  By this time, our neighbors were having a party and being VERY loud.  When we went upstairs Ethan didn’t want both of us even leaving the room he was in.  So, we put his tent in our bedroom and all went to bed about 11:20.  We all fell asleep despite all of the noise from the party coming out of our neighbor’s open window which was about 10 feet away from our bedroom window.  Gary and I both were woken by fireworks at midnight, but lo and behold, Ethan stayed asleep.  I really don’t know how he stayed asleep because they were really loud, the light flashed in our bedroom, and they lasted about 20 minutes.  Gary and I watched some out of our bedroom window, and they were quite nice, actually like what I was used to seeing (or pretty close to it) in Boone and Wilkes on July 4th.  Gary and I fell back asleep, and they started up again about 2:30.  Thankfully not as long.  They also did some fireworks last night, so we went through a little bout with Ethan being scared again.  It didn’t matter how much we talked to him, prayed with him, explained things, etc… I’ve probably never seen him scared over anything as much as over these fireworks.  However, he will say that he is afraid of the “big fireworks”, not the “little” ones.