February 25th 2023

Chapter 198
All of Us in the New Year

They couldn't exactly call it a tradition, not yet, but as they'd approached the date, they'd almost just fallen into the conversation. From there, a plan had started to form, and it did feel like it might be something they'd want to do again the following year... and the one after that... and each one to follow, so long as they could. They wanted New Year's Eve to stay an important day for the Friar & Olsen bakery, each time right ringing in a year in business ended and, at the turn of midnight, a new one beginning. This would be the first, their first year ever of operating their bakery, Maya and her aunt Charlie together.

In that one year, it felt, their entire world had changed. One year ago, they had not so much as known to expect Simon or Jackson even as they had hoped for a fourth child, and now they had six, twice as many as they'd had when the bakery had opened its doors... and that was thanks to the twins, and Ava with them. They hadn't known that she existed yet, out in the world, but they soon would. In her own way, as the babies had theirs, she had just changed every part of their lives and made them better. Their family felt bolder and more wonderful than they could have imagined.

It wasn't so long ago that the idea of having six children to see to, to care and provide for, would have felt impossible. To this day, some part of Maya and Lucas carried this thought like they shouldn't get ahead of themselves, which was probably a very useful mindset in raising their growing family.

They weren't who they had been when they had started out anymore, two kids in college facing the very unplanned prospect of becoming parents once and then a second time so quickly afterward. Lucas worked with his father in the office, and he also worked at the ranch, as a riding instructor and creating those segments for television, either by himself or with Ava, while Maya taught art in middle school and helped run the bakery. She was still minimally involved there at the moment, being on maternity leave, but the big picture held. They were doing alright. The early years had taught them very well how to make use of what means they had, so by now it was second nature, but it didn't mean that they had forgotten any of it or how they'd felt. They were fortunate for the support system they'd had along the way, even as they had set out to stand on their own as much as they could, and especially for the house that had been theirs to have even before the need arose. They had been able to make the very most of their sons' beginnings, enough so that what struggles they had experienced were nowhere for their Sprout, Bee, or Tadpole to see, while their little brothers or their new sister would never have experienced it at all.

The bakery was everything Maya and Charlie had hoped it would be and more. Taking what had started as Maya making cakes in her kitchen while she was home with her baby boys, taking what clients she could, first by herself and then with the assistance of her junior baking squad... and her Huckleberry husband... to then expand over the summer the Olsens had visited Texas, and open the door to their moving over, to the business becoming a storefront... It still felt like a too beautiful dream that she'd wake up from at any moment.

But if it was a dream, then it was a waking one, and it would not evaporate in the blink of an eye. The bakery was thriving, one year along. Ideas became realities, whether it was in the products and services that they offered or in the way they operated, with their full and part-time employees. They had their day to day people, along with Charlie and David. The ones Maya was always proudest of were her juniors. Some were her siblings, others her students, others existed somewhere in between... But they were part of the team here, and Friar & Olsen would not be the same without them.

Most of them were there, working in the kitchen, learning more and more, whether they were of her original junior bakers, or if they had come along later, through the club at school, like Lambert Day, who was fast becoming nothing short of a phenom. Then they had someone like Taylor Munroe, who didn't bake for them but did just about anything else and did it with such energy... Maya and Charlie would sometimes joke how, if they ever decided they wanted to move away from the bakery, they could call it Munroe & Day and it would keep going like they hadn't missed a single step.

The bakery had become something important to the family and to their employees, just as it had been that for their clients, whether they were connected to them or not. Of course, just a few months back, it had been the spot for the Hart and Brett families to officially come together even before the wedding and the move to combine their homes. And at one time, though it had been in great part for the people she'd find there, it had been a safe haven for Ava. Those were going to be the most personal stories to them, naturally, but they had plenty more to look back on from that first year, and stories they had witnessed or been told about from others of the employees, and they would continue to cherish them, too.

"I had an idea," Ava told Maya as she stood next to her, at the kitchen counter. It was two days after Christmas, several more to go before New Year's Eve and the event at the bakery, which meant a lot of prep work. Plenty of that was happening back at the bakery itself, too, and she could have done this back there, having access to much more in the way of equipment, but it was so much easier not having to travel just now, what with the twins barely a month old and in constant need of care. So, she was working right at home, which was fine. She was where she'd started, in her element, and she had her daughter to help her out. She still stopped and felt the urge to smile when she'd catch herself – rightly – referring to Ava as her daughter.

"Hit me," she nodded over at her.

"Okay, well, you know how Elliott, and Noah, and Jamie, and Simon and Jack have their treats out there?" Ava started, and Maya turned to her at once.

"They do, and don't think I've forgotten about you," she vowed, then paused and realized… "Unless you've got something?" she dramatically gasped before getting a good grin that made her drop everything she'd been doing and turn herself to face the eleven-year-old. "It doesn't have peas in it, does it? Might be a hard sell for some people… I can name a couple just in this house," she hummed, reminiscing.

"No," Ava laughed. "It does have an ingredient that starts with the letter P though… And it's 'sweet,'" she air-quoted.

"Sweet P…" Maya slowly spoke, pondering, and then her face spread into a smile. "As in Potato," she guessed, and Ava nodded. "Anyone ever tell you you're very clever?"

"I've heard it," Ava proudly nodded, which made Maya laugh.

"We definitely need to have it ready to debut at New Year's. What do you think?"

"I think we need to get to work," Ava matched her energy, and that was all that her mother needed to hear.

By the time Lucas would return home with Elliott, Noah, and Jamie, who had accompanied him on a few errands, they were afforded a very special sneak preview of the new Sweet P cupcakes. The boys were beyond excited, and not just because any time they got to eat some baked good that their mother made was a happy occasion, while Lucas had that great Proud Dad smile going. He was as thrilled as Maya was that their girl would join her brothers in the display cases of Friar & Olsen's Bakery. Over the next few days, it would become this thing that was just theirs. No one else got to have one of the cupcakes or even know about it except the eight of them in the house. Not even the great grandparents in the little house, not even Charlie or anyone at the bakery got to have a sneak preview. It was a wonder that no one, especially the boys, slipped up, but they made it to the big day at last, no one the wiser.

"I don't want to nap," Noah protested. He had that big, determined furrow going in his brow, the one that insisted that it didn't matter how little he was: he would get his way.

"Alright, fine," Lucas shrugged, and Noah started to celebrate at once, not yet seeing the trap that his older siblings had caught on to, even as his younger brother stood there with a confused look that read like 'hold on, this doesn't add up.' "We can leave you with the Sandersons tonight while we're at the bakery for midnight."

"Ah…" Jamie blinked, while Noah looked at his father and sent his curls shaking.

"No, I wanna go, Daddy!"

"You do? But you just said you didn't want to take a nap," Lucas reminded him. He tried not to laugh as he watched the four-year-old come up to a very dramatic conflict. He really didn't feel like going to sleep, but there was no way he was going to miss New Year's, with the party, the people, the countdown, the food…

"Are you napping?" he pointed up to his father like he'd found the perfect solution.

"I am," Lucas honestly replied, and Noah blinked. "Now, do you want a story first, or a song?"

Somewhat grudgingly, Noah did as his whole family did and went to sleep for a couple of hours. For all his protests, he was out like a light within minutes and stayed that way until his mother came to wake him. When he opened his eyes and found her there, he sleepily reached out so she'd lift him from his bed, which Maya gladly did, cradling her Bee boy in her arms. Everyone had to get ready or be helped to get ready and, by the time they were set to go, they looked good and set to ring in 2029. Ava had put on the dress her Granny Mel bought her for the portraits. She was so in love with the thing that she took any and all chances she had to wear it. She'd worn it at Christmas, too. Her curls were in full might, as were Noah's and, though they hardly counted just yet, short as they were, the same went for the twins.

"Good to go?" Maya turned to Lucas, breathing out and nodding. He looked around at the children, the baby boys in their seats, and the bags that came with them, before turning to his wife again. He might as well have been reading her mind, as neither of them said a word but immediately set to checking whether anyone needed the bathroom or a diaper change. They were in the clear, so off they went.

"That's so shiny!" Elliott proclaimed, the first of the children to stop and take note of the bakery as they neared. It wasn't dark yet, but the sun had started going down, enough that the signs out front did sort of seem to glitter, drawing the eye.

"Wow!" Jamie crooned.

"Where's the people, Mommy?" Noah called without looking away.

"They're not here yet, Bee, it's early," Maya told him, even as she checked on the babies via the mirrors.

That wasn't completely true. Once they were parked and able to head inside, they found the place was already bordering on packed. A great part of that was thanks to their families and those of the employees, and of course their friends, but also a steady presence among their regular customers. If it was already this way now, they could be certain that the party would once again spill out on to the street. It was a good thing that they'd expected as much in their planning.

"Hi, guys!"

They had barely made it through the doors that the three standing Friar brothers spotted their Grandpa Shawn. In that event, there was really only ever one appropriate response: they made a mad run for him and heaped on to him as best they could. They nearly sent him toppling over, but from the look of him, he might not have minded at all and called it a very respectable way to fall.

"I like that bowtie on you, Chewie," he told Noah, touching the thing and instantly bringing out a toothy grin from his grandson.

"Daddy put it on," Noah informed him.

"Yeah, and he wouldn't stand still," Lucas revealed with a kind smirk. Noah looked at his grandfather like he had no recollection of this at all. No one argued with this.

"Miss Ava, I do declare," Shawn tipped his head to his brand-new granddaughter, adopting a drawl he might have practiced off his daughter's long exaggerated one… or off some cartoon or another. Either way, it made the girl so happy to hear it, to hear him do it of all people. To hear of it from her, she could not have lucked out any better where it came to grandparents. They were all so wonderful to her, all of them taking her into the family as though she had always been there, bound by blood along with the rest.

"Sir," she responded to him in kind, holding to the skirt of her dress for a proper curtsey, too. Shawn gave his appreciation for this even as his wife and younger children cut in, the better to reach the two babies and look in on them.

"They're asleep," MJ noted, doing little to hide his disappointment in this, enough that they half expected the seven-year-old to try and wake his tiny nephews.

"Yeah, they might stay that way a while," Maya told her little brother, doing her best to sound apologetic instead of hopeful. Maybe it would help in the long run if they were awake a while here, so they'd sleep later, but they'd just wait and see how it all went as the night unfolded.

"Oh…" MJ sighed.

"Hey…" Maya whispered, leaning nearer to the boy. He looked at her. "I really like your outfit tonight," she told him, and he brightened about as fast as one could; it all depended on what made someone happy, didn't it? Small as he still was, MJ always put so much thought in the way he dressed, the way he looked.

As the evening progressed, it became harder not to stop in awe again, remembering that it had now been a whole year of this place as it was to realize that it had only been a year. It had been a busy one, hadn't it? Busy but so deeply fulfilling in so many ways. Not all of it had been bright and happy, but they'd made it to the end that way, and wasn't that what really mattered?

Whether they realized it or not, the nap had likely gone a long way in ensuring that the boys made it to midnight after all. As far as they experienced it, all they really saw was that the big countdown rolled up and they were so excited to be a part of it. The party was inside the bakery and outside of it, too, and whichever side they landed on, when they got to counting, they could all hear. Through no intent of their parents', the twins did wake again not long before, but that worked out for them and their family in the end. They got to stand together, Maya, Lucas, Ava, Elliott, Noah, Jamie, Simon, and Jackson, crossing from one year into the next. They could look at each other and know that this would be the first year they would start, all eight of them in each other's lives. It sounded like a pretty wonderful year already.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners