New Year's Eve

We had a fun get together at the Winfrey's for New Year's Eve.  Brian, Aubrey, Brinley, Morgan Hill and I went and met up with some of our very favorite friends: the McKowns, the Martins, and of course the Winfreys.  (Park was out of town and Tanner chose not to go.)

They had a delicious spread of food: shish kabobs, meatballs, queso dip and chips and more.  Natalia made a delicious Ukrainian dessert, Napoleon, that was light and fluffy and divine.  We all ate and  visited and then played some fun games. 

Everyone trying to come up with three nouns to enter into the bowl.

First we played "Fish Bowl" which is kind of a charades game.  Everyone writes down a few nouns to put in the bowl.  Teams take turns having one minute to guess as many answers as possible.  In round one, you try to get your team to guess as many clues as possible by using only words and sentences.  In round two you can only act out the clues.  Round three is the hardest because you can only give a one word clue.  

Bryn acting the words out for her team.

We had a great time and I loved that my girls and Morgan were involved and engaged.  Seva, Avery joined in as well and Kate was our official time keeper.  

Next, we played "Do You Love Your Neighbor?"  Isaiah and Kate Martin could more fully participate, which was nice.  The men, aside from Dave, opted out but everyone else played.  Here are the basic rules which I copied and pasted from a handy dandy web page: 

1.  Arrange chairs in a circle; one chair per person playing, minus one.

2.  One person stands in the middle of the circle and approaches a person sitting in the circle and asks: “Do you love your neighbor?”

3.  If that person answers: “Yes, I love my neighbor,” the two people sitting on either side of him/her, quickly tries to exchange seats before the person in the middle sits in one of their chairs.

4.  If they answer “No,” they continue with, “But, I love everyone who… __________” (i.e. …has brown eyes). Everyone in the circle with brown eyes finds a new chair.

Emily asking someone if they loved their neighbor.  From left-rt: Seva, Kate, Brinley, Dave, Natalia, Martha & Aubrey

We had ton of fun teasing our neighbors and dashing to get a chair before it was too late.  On the way home, Brinley, Morgan and Aubrey mentioned they had a blast.  I was so glad.  

We took a few pictures in front of the TV backdrop.  Silly girls.  

A big thanks to the Winfreys for the invite.