How I Spent My New Year's Eve

What I Ate On New Year's Eve:



Is throwing a pan of Stouffer's lasagna into the oven for 2 hours and 10 minute technically considered "cooking?" Hell, yeah. Plus Mexican dip, shrimp cocktail, fruit salad, veggie plate, hummus, chicken wings, and three different desserts.

OK, if I bought some of this stuff...and several items were brought by guests...WHY did I feel like I'd spent two solid days slaving in the kitchen?

What was *I* even doing in the kitchen to begin with?

Who I played With On New Year's Eve:


Hubby and Matt (the booze bottles are for "show")


Sister Karen with her dollies


Molly (the other half of Matt-and-Molly) and Beth and Ruthy (our "adopted" sister)


Leah, who loooooves being photographed...


And Nate, who does NOT


Sophie, Chris, Genevieve (future characters for my next YA?)


Beth with baby Ba'al. Note the half-eaten piece of cheesecake on the table. That is not my cheesecake. I've never eaten HALF of a dessert in my life.


Jove and Lydia, hamming it up

Noticeably absent from this montage is me. *I* was taking the pictures, so Leah took one of me--but it sucks rocks. Delete, delete...

What I Did On New Year's Eve:

1. Grazed endlessly.

2. Watched the ball drop, then switched between the Twilight Zone marathon and South Park: The Movie. Fear not, we kept the little ones locked sequestered caged up drugged-and-unconcious occupied in another room.

3. Discussed names for the current Bambino ala Utero. We decided if it's a girl, she will not be named Ennis or Hortense. If it's a boy he will not be named Arthur, Ignatz, or...Victor, which *is* in the running.

(Victor was the name of today's chicken dinner, BTW)

4. Text messaged. And sent a "Happy New Year" message to the wrong number, lol.

5. Talked on the phone to friends in Florida.

6. Discovered how much fun it is playing with a two-month-old baby. Like, you know how you can make them dance in your lap and manipulate their rubbery little limbs like a Gumby doll and you can make really stupid comments in a funny voice and pretend they're coming out of the baby's mouth? I entertained myself with this for hours last night. :)

7. Drank one Kahlua and cream, one frozen strawberry Daiquiri, two sips of Asti Spumanti, two bottles of water, and about a half a pot of coffee.

8. Wondered how long shrimp can sit out at room temperature before it becomes somewhat unsafe to consume.

9. Wondered the same about the bottom layer of cream cheese in my Mexican dip.

10. Ate both anyway. 24 hrs later, I'm still alive enough to write this.

Photobucket is not cooperating. I've been trying to shrink these pics for hours.