Gone are the days that I go to a New Year's party and stay up until midnight drinking way too much caffeine and junk food. New Year's has always been one of my favorite holidays. My best friend growing up and I spent many New Year's Eves plotting our plan and toilet papering this boy in the neighborhoods house. We would always have to take her dog for a walk the next morning with hopes to catch a glimpse of him cleaning it up. One year he caught us and chased us down the street and made us help him clean it up. I remember New Years 2000 all to well with our matching shirts that said 2000, Millenium and New Years printed all over them, except hers was blue and mine was red.
New Years is still one of my favorite holidays even with little ones. How will you spend your evening? This was last year. I can't remember all the activities we did, but scroll down to find some ideas with what we have planned this year!
The eve before New Years Eve once the kids are in bed, we take all the tree decorations down and replace them with balloons, fun glasses and hats, streamers, etc. All found at the Dollar Store or a party store. It is such a fun surprise for the kids to wake up to. They immediately know that the day is going to be special!
You will also want to plan your activities and type/write them out on paper and put one activity in each balloon with a time counting down to your "midnight". Our midnight is 7pm. (see picture above for balloons with times)
Here is a list of activities, not in any particular order.
dinner- we have made it a tradition to go get pizza at The Pie Pizzeria
balloon painting- we did this last year.
material needed: balloons
paper plates
paper
paint
blow up balloons (don't fill them up too much), poor just a little paint on paper plate, dip the balloon and stamp onto paper. it makes the most fun marble look.
paint nails (just the girls of course! ;) we will have to come up with an activity that dad and brother can do together while we paint nails. maybe shoot some hoops or make paper airplanes? )
funfetti playdough
find the recipe here - we are excited to try this!
bake and decorate cookies - in all honesty we will probably just do slice and bake sugar cookies this year, but here is a good recipe if you are up for baking some up from scratch! (I just took a look at the recipe myself and we just may need to make them! we'll see if i'm up for the challenge! ) And here is my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe! It's a rule to eat one right away, but save one for "midnight". Find plastic "champage" glasses at the Dollar Store and balance the cookie on top. "So darling" as my 3 year old would say!
make a noise maker
follow the link here
or make these!
blow bubbles
We love these bubbles from Gymboree.
dance party- The station Kidz Bop on Pandora provides some fun dancing music!
make snack necklaces- use anything with holes in the middle- cereals, pretzels, cookies, lifesavers, candy such as peach rings
Make it fun! Ringing in the new year with toddlers/children isn't so bad! :)
4 comments:
I love snack necklaces- especially for parties and road trips! We're going to have to try the balloon painting! So many great ideas!
Such cute ideas - I especially love the funfetti clay! My kids would LOVE that!
New Year's Eve must be a blast at your house! What a fun mom you are!
Wow! I LOVE the idea of taking down Christmas decorations and replacing them with balloons and decorations- it's always so depressing to take down Christmas decorations. Like gone is the fun part of winter and now it's just depressing winter. Your way sounds much better. Also, my kids have never celebrated New Years because it's not worth it to keep them up late- genius idea to celebrate at 7 - love it!
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