Jared's birthday and New Years

In our family, Christmas is just the beginning of the festivities. We follow Christmas with a trip to Idaho to party it up with lots of Looslis, then we head to Park City to party it up with lots of Eyres, then we celebrate Jared's birthday and New Year's Eve on December 31st, then we usually have a big party with my mom's extended family New Years day or thereabouts, then we top it all off by celebrating Ashton's birthday on January 3rd. Then we can take a breath and relax from so much celebrating for a few days until it's the twins' birthday on January 14th. Meanwhile, it's someone in our extended family's birthday pretty much every single day in January. I wouldn't mind it if some of these special occasions were more spread out, but hey, what can you do? I feel bad for Ashton because by the time we get to his birthday, everyone's partied-out. But he's a great sport about it and we try to make it special for him.

Anyway, here are a few shots of Jared's birthday and New Years:

Jared's birthday tradition is going bowling - we went with my parents and my brother Noah and family
to a pretty swank bowling alley in Park City and had a great time.

Jared's birthday breakfast at my parents' house

Birthday cake time

We had tons of fun with my brother Noah and his wonderful wife and kids

Silas was excited to meet his new cousin Bennett who has the same middle name as him -
they both have their grandfather's name for a middle name - Richard
(I just realized Bennett seems to be flipping us all off. I'm quite sure he didn't mean it.)

Isaac couldn't get enough of new baby Bennett. He loves babies so much.

 After lots of great times with family in Park City, we headed home for New Year's Eve night.

The kids were excited to have their own little New Year's party with lots of treats

Jared and I headed out to a grown-up New Year's party with friends for a couple hours 

 And then it was done. 2011 is done. It was a good year. It was a hard year. 2012 is going to be awesome!