A New Way to "New Year's"

With Brendan still testing positive for COVID on New Year's Eve day, I knew that I was going to have to get extra creative if we were going to still make New Year's a celebration. Somehow, we had to have fun together...separately. Haha. All I can say is thank goodness for technology!

A couple of days before New Year's, Brendan helped me get Riley's Minecraft account up and running on the home computer, while Brendan got his up on Caleb's laptop. That way they could play multi-player on Brendan's server - one playing upstairs and one playing downstairs. Riley has been enjoying playing that "with" him. It also would be their filler activity between popping balloons and doing the things I had planned. 

To get set up, Riley and I wore masks and taped the hourly balloons to the hallway ceiling downstairs outside Brendan's bedroom (where he's been quarantining all this week). Then at 7 o'clock, we starting poppin'. 

7pm was GroupWatching "Brain Games" on Disney Plus and making homemade ice cream. I got the ice cream going in the ice cream maker, and then we all watched the episode together (Brendan downstairs and Riley and I upstairs). It was a fascinating episode about how our brains miss details because we can only really focus on one thing at a time. Lots of magicians doing their slight of hang tricks on us. So fun! Brendan didn't seem to get fooled as much as Riley and I were. At least, that's what HE says. Haha. Afterwards, we added mix-ins to our ice cream and dug in. My favorite!

8pm was a bedroom scavenger hunt. I came up with a list of items which the boys had to find in their respective bedrooms. They raced to find things like "something fluffy", "something that starts with the letter D", "something smooth", "something green", "a tool", "something that used to be living". They had to get creative, but it was a fun little activity!

9pm was drawing a superhero from an Art Hub YouTube tutorial. Brendan chose to draw Miles Morales, and Riley chose Robin from Teens Titans Go! They both went to their computers to follow the tutorials and then shared their masterpieces. They did a great job!

10pm was a Lego building challenge. I had printed out a bunch of little building challenge cards and they each got to choose four different ones. They had to build whatever was on the card. Again, I was pretty impressed with their creativity and building prowess. 

Brendan did his building in the family room.

Riley did his from his bedroom. 

Then we came together, Riley and me masked, and they showed off their creations. 

Here were Brendan's.

Here were Riley's. 

 At 11pm, we watched a little video compilation of 2021 which I made using iMovie. We had a good laugh when the Spotify playlist I was using as the background music stopped to play a commercial. Ugh. Haha. The boys did enjoy the walk down memory lane, though. Then we all shared our 10 favorite things about the year. Everything from their favorite memories with friends to trips to Brendan's hair! 

Later when I was able to talk to Caleb for his P-Day, I asked him what HIS top 10 favorite 2021 memories were. His were (in no particular order): finishing his first year of college, going on a mission, meeting, teaching and baptizing Maria Jarvis, being called to the same mission as his good buddy Tyler Hunter, not having lost any family to COVID, strengthening his testimony of the Book or Mormon, Joseph Smith, Jesus Christ and the Atonement, his miracle of listing to the first "bing" and talking with Imaris, Riley being worthy to get the priesthood, getting his endowment, and seeing so many friends go on missions. What a great year, despite it's challenges!

Finally, at 11:50, we broke out the Martinelli's and many, many poppers which Nana had bought last year (but there were so many that we had tons of left overs). We did the countdown together via FaceTime with Brendan so that we could have our masks off for the toast. Jacob walked in the door from work JUST in the nick of time! Hello, 2022! We are ready to find the good in you!