New Family Traditions

Happy New Year everyone! How can you not smile and look forward to things to come when you see these two cute faces?!

 They are definitely the reason I do everything I do.

With the new year I thought it would be nice to start some new family traditions. We are often at different places for different celebrations and it has never really felt like we had any traditions that we did without fail. I decided to take charge this year and make some traditions that will hopefully build memories for the kids and be something they can carry on with their own children someday.

I asked my Facebook friends the other day for some suggestions on New Years Even food. Usually what my family would do, especially growing up, would be to order Pizza Hut. I love/loved Pizza Hut, but I wasn't sure that would be the best choice for me as I'm trying to make more nutritious choices. With that, some friends mentioned doing homemade pizza. It was so delicious! I even had another round of pizza for dinner tonight.

I bought the traditional pizza goods (sauce, cheese, pepperoni, olives and ground beef) and then I also picked up some BBQ sauce and chicken. For the crust I found some foldout "crust" that is supported by Hungry Girl and is only 2 Weight Watchers PointsPlus for the whole wheat ones and 3 Weight Watchers PointsPlus for the White and Pretzel varieties. It was all so delicious and I LOVE this new tradition!

Now I should note that as much fun as the kiddos had making the pizza they didn't so much love eating it. I'm going to be persistent and they are just going to have to learn to love this different kind of pizza.

Making the pizza was some serious business for both LD and EM!

  

Yes, this may be a shock to some that know him well, that is CHEESE in DC's fingers and he is putting it on his pizza!

Our creations! I can't tell you enough how much I loved these pizzas and I honestly believe that it was a much healthier choice than ordering from Pizza Hut.

Not so much a planned tradition, but something that just naturally seems to happen is us (being me and the kids) falling asleep before midnight. This picture was taken about 10:15 and DC insists that I was out about 30 minutes later. He said he kept trying to wake me to have me go lay in bed, but I was out cold. I guess he even gave me a midnight kiss that I missed. I finally woke at about 1:30 and stumbled to bed.

 

I have seen this idea over the last couple of years, but never really tried it out. I decided that this was finally the year I was going to do it. I took one of the empty dish soap containers I had and wrapped it in black cardstock and then Echo Park pink paper. The ribbon is from Pebbles in my Pocket. 

I cut strips of paper and have a pen sitting next to the can and the idea is that we are going to write down memories and things that we are grateful for throughout the year. Then next New Years Eve we are going to open the can and read through all of the papers from throughout the year.

 

DC also suggested that I make a frustration can where we can vent and then at the end of the week or month we throw away those papers and move on from whatever was causing us stress. I'll have to work on that one!