The New Year is a time to reflect on the past year and enter into the next with a renewed sense of hope and enthusiasm. For me, 2017 was an absolute blessing. After 2 rough years struggling to grow our family, we finally welcomed sweet Faye Elizabeth into the world last January. That little lady has brought me back to life in a million and one ways and I can't believe she will be turning one in a few weeks. I spent the first half of 2017 in shock that she was actually here and the 2nd half in shock with how fast the first half went.
Just as life goes, we've experienced some rough patches in 2017, too. I guess you can't appreciate the highs without the lows. But in true Tweedall fashion, my husband and I overcame those roadblocks and hardships by loving and supporting one another through them. At this point, I like to believe we're practically unbreakable. I guess we can thank our angels Sprout and Grace for that.
Just this week I officially stopped nursing Faye. We had a good run, but I'm tired. It was getting too hard to balance it all, but the guilt of stopping has proven to be even harder. I will miss that special bond with her so so much, but it's time for me to get back to me.
And therein lies this year's New Year's resolution: Get back to me.
Parenting and adulting is hard. Between raising two kiddos, working full time, attempting to be a good wife, cooking, maintaining the house...basically just getting from one day to the next is tiring. I know, that's just part of life. But then slap on 2 really shitty years of grief and heartbreak and anxiety and everything else we went through on top of life's chaos, and I guess you can say I just sort of lost myself. I started realizing how far I've wandered when I began to feel happy again. It felt so foreign.
Many of the things that used to bring me happiness I wasn't even doing anymore. Like I used to love being outdoors. I used to run. I used to love having people over and seeing friends and being social. I just feel like I've lost a lot of that the past few years. I've even lost touch with some good friends because at the time, it was too emotionally difficult for me to be around their pregnancies and new babies.
So this year, I want to get back to me. It's like finding the new and improved old me. (Does that even make sense?) I want to keep up with our tradition of Sunday family hikes that we started a few months ago and find other ways to stay active outdoors with my family. I signed up for the Nashville half marathon in April which will be my first race back post-kids. I want to travel more, go on more dates with James, soak in more of the mundane moments with my kids. Oh, and I want to be more social - more play dates, more parties, just overall MORE FUN. Grief may be a never-ending journey, but this year I want to choose happiness.
So to kick off this New Year of welcoming in FUN and HAPPY, my husband and I decided to host a New Year's Eve party with a Great Gatsby theme. New Year's holds some really tough memories for us, and I was determined to create new memories this year. My wonderful in-laws took the kids for 4 days which gave us plenty of time to decorate, cook, and the best part - sleep!
James and I might be living in the wrong era because I think the 1920's style suits us well.
[Shout out to our friend Wil for taking some of these fun pics!]
ALL THE JAZZY DETAILS
Everything was sparkly GOLD, my absolute favorite color in the world. We decided on two classic 1920's cocktails as our signature drinks - the Sidecar and the Bee's Knees. I made a little drink menu to let our guests know what drinks were available.
My Mother-In-Law is a rockstar and found a ton of 1920's coupe glasses at various antique shops, so my lifelong dream of hosting a party with a legit champagne pyramid finally came to fruition. We also spray painted a few champagne bottles with gold glitter so our big pyramid pour at midnight had some extra glitz.
I couldn't help myself, I had to get some dramatic era-inspired pictures with my pyramid!
I used two different recipes which were both delicious, however the Moscato Jello-O shots came out a bit fluffier. If you make the Champagne & Lemon shots, I suggest doubling them for more depth.
Champagne & lemon
Moscato
Champagne & Lemon
Moscato
To give the hors d'oeuvres table a focal point, I made a centerpiece using traditional 1920's glam - a candle stick, flowers, feathers and pearls. I also added some gold Christmas balls to all of my tables, because you can never have too much gold!
I think the highlight of the night was the photo booth. I ordered some 1920's props off of Amazon, and we used a metallic gold plastic tablecloth and silver tinsel door hangers to create the back drop. Super easy and super cheap. I borrowed some professional-grade lighting from a coworker which really made a huge difference with the quality of the photos, and we set up an iPhone tripod so our friends could snap their own pictures. All of my friends got super into their costumes - I was impressed!
CHEERS TO 2018!
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