NYE 2017!

I wanted to do something fun, yet low key, for New Years Eve so I looked for a few ideas on Pinterest and came up with a few of my own and the culmination of it all was exactly what I had hoped. I invited another family with kids the same ages as ours. Unfortunately, they couldn't come, but the night was equally perfect with just our family (which included Mike and Alexa).

I wanted to do a balloon countdown (we popped one balloon every 30 minutes. And I didn't want everyone to stay up until midnight, so we did the countdown from 4 until 8 pm and labeled the balloons like it was 8pm-midnight. It was genius!

We set a timer for 30 mins every time we popped a balloon, and it was crazy how fast the evening went by. I originally wanted to have a different activity inside each balloon, but I ran out of time and wasn't sure that much structure would actually work, so instead I just had a list of activity ideas and we did whatever we felt like each 30 mins.

For dinner we ate a bunch of appetizers. Pigs in a blanket, queso and chips, baked brie, and fruit and veggie trays. It was yummy and great to be able to just keep coming back to it throughout the night whenever we wanted a bite to eat. No big cleanup or fancy meal.

We did New Years madlibs, in which the kids picked most of the words which was pretty funny. There will apparently be a trip to Okinawa with Mike and Alexa in the coming year ;)

I didn't print as many photo booth props as I had planned, but again, it still turned out great and I had some fun Target decorations for the backdrop. The ability to go to Target and easily decorate for every holiday for a couple of dollars is something I still don't take for grated. Okinawa helped me appreciate the little things like that.

Happy 2018 from the Laytons!

Who are these friends we trust with our children?! ;) Look at Rowan's face, haha!

For dessert we did fancy milk and cookies. I've never felt so sophisiticated eating chocolate chip cookies and milk :)

Dylan couldn't even make it until our fake midnight! He passed out around 7:30

There was an epic nurf war (with the new Christmas presents)...I think the adults enjoyed it as much as the kids. Boden was so cute and would come to Alexa's rescue (very seriously) every time she got hit.

Nurf wars with Marine Mike

Boden rescuing Alexa

My New Year's kiss (after kissing Grant of course!) We turned off all the lights, had fun glow balloons and did a little dance party while we did the countdown and watched the London fireworks. I even seriously felt like it was midnight and the new year when we counted down and screamed happy new year!

We had so much fun...I plan to make this kind of party a tradition. It was so easy to put together and so much fun!