Happy New Year

New Years was twice as fun this year...and not just because there was an extra Madsen at the table.  This year we celebrated New Years Eve twice.

We usually celebreate New Years Eve with Søren's friends from boarding school, Thorkild and Rasmus, and their wives.  However, Thorkild had to work  on New Years Eve this year so we decided to celebrate a few days early on the 29th. The party was at our house and it was great to see them all again.  We made sure that the night was just as festive as we decorated, ate a delicious 3 course meal and even had champagne at midnight. 

Then on the 31st we celebrated the coming of 2012 again! Again we were at our house, there were 2 other couples, and we had a delicious meal.  The biggest difference was probably that at this party there were 5 kids and a lot of fireworks.  After a nice and a little louder meal the older kids headed outside to light off some fireworks before bed.  That gave me peace and quiet to put Silas to bed and he slept almost instantly.  After eating ice cream cones the other kids were put to bed and the adults had some fun playing games. At midnight we cracked open a bottle of champagne, jumped of the couch, kissed, and hurried out to see the fireworks in town.  It was the first time we had celebrated New Years in Skjern (a not very big town, but still many more homes then out in the country), so we were amazed at how much firework activity there was.  Five of the six homes on our little street were home with guests and had a bunch to light off. Then of course you could hear and see the rest of the town's fireworks and it was like you were in the middle of a lightning war or something.  It was so beautiful and SO loud.  We all had the baby monitors with us outside assuming the kids would be woken up by all the noise, but all 5 slept soundly through the entire hour of activity! We were so amazed and impressed. The night didn't end until 2am and all of us parents were quite tired towards the end but had a lot of fun. 

We all had to wear hats to the party!

Lighting off fireworks

Girls just wanna have fun!


It was hard to say goodbye to 2011, as it was a year FULL of blessings for our little family.  But we know that the Lord has more exciting things for us in store for 2012.

Happy Belated New Year!