Thanks For Playing, 2013...

I had promised myself last year, after we faked a midnight countdown at 11pm, because Steve and I were the exhausted parents of a one-month old, and there was no way either one of us wanted to stay up until midnight, no matter how much Brigid wanted to do so herself, that I would make more of an effort to fully celebrate the end of 2013.

With my parents and sister in town, having a few more people at our house gave us a built-in excuse to buy champagne and noisemakers and sparkling cider. We made a ton of food and celebrated with fancy crackers/poppers/whatever you call those things you pull apart with a bang that have a toy and a crown and a cheesy joke inside of them. Brigid wore a tiara, because you should always welcome in the new year in something sparkly.

And then my family decided that if everyone else in the vicinity was going to set off fireworks and shotguns and who knows what else was making all of that racket at 12:30am on New Year's Day, they were going to shoot the bb gun into the ground off of the back porch. So they did.

(I mean, WHAT ELSE would you wear to an impromptu backyard shooting session, right? Rainboots, a nightgown, and a pink fluffy jacket. NAILED IT!)