Christmas-New Year's Eve phone pic dump

 Happy New Year! We had a nice party here last night with our annual blowing up the Christmas tree. Let's just say this year's tree went out in a blaze of glory. Best one we've had in a while. Big tree, nice and dry, right amount of accelerant, well aimed roman candles. Woot!

I'm not even going to try to recap the whole year. It was a pretty good year for us even if it was on the strange side. You can look back at the blog posts if you really want to recap.

We had "secret church" this morning in honor of all the christians around the world who are not permitted to openly meet and worship Christ. It was a good service and really made you think and to be thankful for our blessings.

I've shared a few pics through the season already but I went back on my phone and dumped a bunch of pics here. This is Skylar with a bow in her hair. She doesn't look real impressed with it, does she?

And another one of Skylar just because she's so cute! We need no other reason to take and post pics of Skylar.

I think this was the night before A got her tonsils out. R won. I wouldn't have thought that because of how much A works out but apparently R is pretty strong from lifting saddles and keeping kids on their horses. Or something.

The cats were not impressed at all with Skylar. By the end of the visit Diesel was playing with her some but for the most part, they avoided her. This was best accomplished by staying outside or up out of reach. Misty was much more tolerant of Diesel with Skylar around, so much so that they shared my chair with me. One on each arm.

JT did a little artwork on J's face. He could barely color it in for all of J's laughing. J said it tickled.

And his contemplative look.

A passed out puppy...

...and a cuddly kitten. Look, he's actually hugging my neck. How sweet is that?

A bunch of us tried on JT's bullet proof vest. It weighs about 20 pounds the way we were trying it on. That's without all the other stuff they add to it. I was supposed to be showing my muscles but I'm not sure I have any. Definitely not anything worth showing off.

And then the guys arm wrestled. This is JT and A's boyfriend, P. P won. Those Coloradians are scrawny but strong and JT gave it his all but P finally overtook him. Both the girls and the guys were kind of "locked" in these positions for a while. It was fun to watch both arm wrestles.

Skylar says, "Hey, that's my dish!"

Diesel says, "Ok, I'll let you have some too."

And the New Year's Eve party. We had so much food and so much fun. And we watched some fireworks.

The kids played with sparklers while the big kids got their roman candles ready. One of the roman candle bursts lit the tree and it was engulfed in this huge flame. It was so hot, so big, and burned so fast that it truly went out in a blaze of glory.

And that's all the pics for now. 2012 is here. Zoiks! Prayers for health and happiness for you and yours for this year. And that even when things don't go the way we'd/you'd like them to that we allow God to work all things together for good. He will if we let Him.