Happy New Year!

My mom's side of the family always has a big New Year's Eve party in Idaho. It was one of the best times of my Christmas vacation growing up and I still look forward to going every year. Gavin couldn't come along, but Emery and I had a wonderful time celebrating with my family. We had a hilarious white elephant gift exchange (where I scored a huge bag of chocolate gold coins which is PERFECT because I want to use them in my treasure box for primary!), lots of delicious food and fun games, and a New Year's countdown around 9:00 pm. :) It was a wonderful time to catch up with my cousins and aunts and to see all the little kids run around playing.

This girl would NOT let me get a picture of her with any party stuff on! I had to sneak up on her to get this one.

Here's Tobin, ringing in the New Year!

Olivia found the best seat in the house and just honked her horn at passer-bys. 

At one point I went to check on Emery and she was just running around through all the rooms upstairs, laughing and playing with all her cousin-friends. It brought me so much happiness to see her because it was like looking straight into my past and re-living New Year's Eves gone by. I have so many happy memories of our New Year's parties, and now here is my daughter, getting a chance to make her own memories. I was so grateful to be there with her. There's so much about her childhood that will be different than mine because the world that we live in has changed so much. Sometimes that makes me really sad. I feel like her childhood will be more complex than mine--the simple joys of running around my grandpa's orchard, or turning his old pigpen in to a fort (that smelled terrible but we didn't care), will be replaced by tablets, cell phones, organized uber competitive teams, and having to deal with society with crumbling morals. I know there is still so much goodness and happiness in the world and that Emery will have a wonderful childhood, but that doesn't mean I don't still yearn for simpler days of the past. I feel like I'm not properly communicating how my heart felt at that moment when I saw Emery, I just can't seem to transfer the feeling into words. Maybe you've had similar experiences with the children in your life and you can understand what I'm trying to say. I guess it felt like a bridge--connecting my past to my future. And it felt wonderful.