the Hambrick's rockin' new years eve (or not)

Ah, New Year's Eve.

It's always such an inspirational and momentous evening for our little family.

We started off our evening eating an organic vegan gluten free grassfed raw homemade dinner (1). A slight...ahem, discussion arose amongst the kids when I insisted they could not have four servings of green vegetables, but they quickly redirected their feelings into sweet family affirmations that lasted for hours (2).

We enjoyed the three part harmony of the older kids as they sang the night away (3), and especially reveled in the talent of our 16 month old who attempted her first pas de deux. She struggled a bit, but made up for it with an amazing arabesque.

What a calm and peaceful way to end such a calm and peaceful year (4).

Despite a few minor (5) mishaps, 2012 will go down as a glorious year in our history.

Jeremiah spent his abundance of free time this year reading through the entire Phenomenology of Spirit, where he especially enjoyed Hegel's refutation of Kantian idealism, history of consciousness  and quintessential explanation of the process of the dialectic (6).

The oldest three kids had an amazing year and continued to meet milestone after milestone earlier than most kids meet their milestones (7). They all three love literature from the romantic period, handcrafting wooden toys, and organizing sing-a-longs for the little children in the neighborhood.

The baby is no longer a baby and continues to amaze all with her above average intelligence and superb fine and gross motor skills...thanks to our strict adherence to our tried and true attachment-ferberizing-delayed vaccinating-no baby food-parenting method (8).

I have continued to thoroughly enjoy the day to day activities of motherhood (9) and even managed to slowly grow a successful (10) photography business while embracing the concept of simplicity  and still find time for myself and the finer things in life (11).

From our family to yours...

Happy New Year!

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(1) Chinese food...again. In all its MSG laden glory.

(2) The kids fought over who got to eat the extra fortune cookie and Jeremiah and I snickered as we mentally added  "under the covers" to the end of every fortune that Ella read out loud.

(3) We watched free Disney movies on netflix, gave 50% of the children a bath, and Jeremiah woke me up from the couch at 11:59 so I could ring in the new year with him.

(4) Only if calm and peaceful is code for totally unexpected and slightly confusing.

(5) The break-up of Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez, 50 Shades of Grey, and tight pants.

(6) What the heck is free time? He is still majorly talented in quoting the entire Napoleon Dynamite movie if you are interested.

(7) Ella is turning into an emotional teenager at the age of 7, Eli already knows how to tune us out, and apparently 5 is the new 2 for Ezra. Or 16. Or tourettes syndrome. They all three love happy meals, Elephant and Piggie Books, forgetting to change their underwear, and throwing mud on the neighbors house. True story. We've totally sold out.

(8) Zoe can pick her nose while going up and down the stairs.

(9) Because who doesn't love refereeing numerous fights, wiping snot rockets, and cleaning up hundreds of toothpicks dumped on the kitchen floor?

(10) Only if successful is code for I'm obviously not charging enough because I am way busier than I thought I would be.

(11) You know, things like peeing in privacy, reading books without pictures, and occasionally walking around Target without a kid in tow.

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