New Year!

How do you celebrate the new year? Do you go out and celebrate until after midnight? Do you have friends over and celebrate at home? What are some unique ways of sending the old year out and welcoming the new year in?

We aren't late nighters anymore. Of course our girls are. But we also get up very early in the morning, and the girls usually don't. Lauren will be going to church with her "guy" friend. I say that because when asked if they are dating, she always replies, "we are talking". How ever he bought her a pair of Coach shoes for Christmas. And although he is working in Jackson, Miss for a little while, he made a special trip home last night to stay until Tuesday morning early so they could spend New years eve together. His church is having a special New Years Eve service, so she is going with him to that and then to a friends for a get together, so that leaves Megan, Noah, Andrew and I. Megan will insist on staying up past midnight. Noah is clueless and will be asleep by 9:00 at the latest. Andrew and I have been up since before 5:00 this morning, so we will be tired.

I was looking for different ways to celebrate without staying up half the night. I was thinking maybe we could celebrate with Italy. Italy is six hours ahead of us, so that means at 6:00 our time it is midnight there. So we could have a meal and some *Christian Champagne*(see below), toast in the new year at 6:00 and pretend we are in ITALY!! Which is somewhere I would love to visit anyway.

Of course, tomorrow, we will be having the traditional Black eyed peas cooked with ham hocks and greens. I don't like cooked cabbage so we always substute with greens. I will make a pan of cornbread and we will feast on the meal of the gods, or at least Andrew and I will, maybe Noah will try it also, but the girls wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. What can I say, they don't know what is good. I grew up eating this way, not just on the new year, but every week. We had beans and peas and greens and other fresh veggies for the garden. In fact, I lived on that kind of thing. Meat was never a big thing for me until I married and Andrew wanted to eat meat. Don't get me wrong, we had meat, but I preferred veggies.

Other than that, we will probably sit around and relax and enjoy the day. We may get out for a little bit and let me take some photo's with my new camera. I am going to try to start a photo journal of the kids, taking a photo of them every day of the year. Then at the end of the year, putting them together in a book for them, entitled Noah 2008, Megan 2008, and Lauren 2008. That way they can have something to look back on in the years to come.

If you have any suggestions of how to ring in the new year or spend new years day. Please share with me, either in a comment or a link to your post where you tell about how you will spend the new couple of days.

Today's Inspiration

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential. ~Ellen Goodman

My New Years Blessing for each of us

May the New Year bring each of us peace, prosperity, happiness, and love.

May we accomplish all we set out to accomplish, and become everything that we dream of becoming.

May we find contentment and fulfillment in the areas God has gifted us.

May we learn from the failures of our past, and move forward with a new determination, passion and inspiration, toward the goal of becoming the best that each of us can be.

God bless each of you!!

*Christian Champagne*

1-2 liter Ginger Ale

1- jug White Grape Juice

The mix is almost a 1:1 ratio, you can adjust it to your taste

The white grape juice offers the non-alcoholic "champaign" and the ginger ale gives it the bubbles of champagne.