Ringing in Chinese New Year

Can anyone match the crocs and the kids?

These are a few fun pics that we took on Saturday night, celebrating the last night of the Chinese New Year celebration... We had Anna, Steven and Norah over for noodles (for the kids) and a fabulous london broil and salad for the grown ups...and that's it.....well, alright...I'll tell the truth...a few pomegranate martinis were consumed along with some really good wine...and the kids stayed up MUCH MUCH MUCH too late...but it was very fun! I bought a lot of poppers in Chinatown for the kids, and they had a blast throwing them on the ground and hearing them "pop" and stepping on them.."More Please"
Norah was having a very good time with the poppers.....
but all that celebrating tuckered out the girls...and they had some down time, watching Charlotte's Web...they all had their little stuffed pigs with them, and some popcorn and they got comfy in our bed....(and I was finding popcorn for days after under the covers).....

and then, things got "lively".....Meigan and Norah got their jammies on and got happy feet....Brian was playing some very old vinyl records and the girls were having a great time dancing around.....

Catie was making all of us menus for her restaurant called "Friends and Family" and taking our orders..writing down everything that we wanted...she's such a smart girl...reading and writing....then she decided that Steven needed some "doctoring"...and made him homemade casts....out of my nice chinese new year napkins and scotch tape...

and at last the party was over and it was time for all little girls to go to bed! shortly after this hug, Meigan went to bed and passed out!

It was quite a fun CNY party at the Van Weele house....next year we'll be hitting the big parade in San Francisco and splurging for the bleacher seats! Catie loves the parade, but this year, it was going to be too much for Meigan and Norah...lots of loud drums and firecrackers..

Happy Year of the Pig!!!