Merry Christmas Eve!

 

CIimbing the Walls

 For Christmas, our cousins gave the kids passes to an indoor climbing place called Climb Zone.


It was amazing!

And super fun, and very photogenic, if you'll excuse another photo heavy post!

 They had walls for all ages and climbing abilities which allowed our noobie climbers to start slow and gain confidence.


And our expert climbers still had fun challenges.

Really a fun few hours!

Christmas in NJ

My sister got  my mom the sock monkey hat

 It was the first Christmas I spent with my sister in years! She happened to be home helping our parents this year instead of in North Dakota.

 We had a ton of fun, despite the fact that I had gone all out on the llama theme this year before I realized my sister (who was traumatized by a llama as a small child) would be there.  Oops.

And, speaking of traumatizing, the Emperor and I received matching inflatable T Rex costumes for Christmas!

Here we are, terrorizing my mom. 

I know it just looks like she's taking pictures, and laughing hysterically, but I can only presume it's terrorized laughter!

My sister thinks this was the most bizarre Christmas present she'd ever seen, however I also received the following three items.

 I'm not saying I didn't like and enjoy these items (I can't get enough of that mug!!), just that I'm not convinced the T Rex suit was the most bizarre.

Christmas in Maryland

This was our house this Christmas.





When I started adding a penguin a year, I really thought we'd only get a year or two out of each penguin and we'd end up with about three at a time. 

I have to admit, I love our nativity!

We rescued it when a church was throwing it away because it was damaged.

We learned to repair plaster and paint them!

 Now I actually like ours better than our parish's set!

Theirs is quite lovely, but about half the size of ours, except the camel.




Our judgy camel is about 4 times the size of theirs, but 100% judgier...

We moved the creche from the traditional side platform to the center this year,and people loved it!

Also this year, Leena had the idea of doing window arrangements.  They were a ton of work, but they really were beautiful, especially at the Christmas evening Masses when the candles were on.

And we accidentally got wreaths that were too large (the bows looked tiny), so we ended up using our extra berries and pine cones to decorate the wreaths.

Again, extra work, but the results were excellent: everything looked very coordinated!

On the First Day of Christmas

The Zoomlians give to you... Christmas greetings!

Wrapping Up Christmas

So, Christmas actually ends tomorrow with the feast of the Epiphany, so it seems like a good time to sort through Christmas photos.  Here some of the high lights:

On the Eighth Day of Christmas

The Zoomlians give to you: best wishes for a happy and blessed 2018!

 

And for extra fun: a post from Oob!

Today’s report: January first, morning.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! Welcome, 2018! Goodbye, 2017! 

Indeed, I hope we can all have A happy new year. But WHAT a new year! (totally not a reference…) anyway, so the Zoomlians have been hard at work this morning, and having some fun along the way.

They opened presents! They changed the sheets! They took baths! (well, some didn’t need it.)

I wrote a post! Saying: “today’s report: ja-“ no wait… this morning, the Zoomlians wish you a happy new year (along with a merry Christmas season)! I also hope to get a afternoon and

Evening report soon. GOODBYE!!!

Blogkeepers note: Since the Zoomlians favorite (non religious) part of Christmas is giving presents, and since we like to open a present and then spend time enjoying it, we end up opening presents throughout most of the 12 days of Christmas.

For extra extra fun, here's an explanatory post along with pictures from 5 years ago today!

On the First Day of Christmas

The Zoomlians give to you: Christmas greetings!

Ten Things We Did Instead of Blogging Last Month

In the order we did them:

10.Chemistry! Lots of Chemistry.

9.We made sushi!

8. We had a great time visiting family!

7. We made tiny snowmen.


6.We made awesome cup towers.

 5.We cat sat.


4. We ate Old Bay on everything.

 3.We gave presents!

2. We made ninjabread men.

1.We had a fabulous time together!

First snow!

On the First Day of Christmas...

...the Zoomlians give to you:  Best wishes for a Merry Christmas!

We got to decorate our parish this Christmas!

Seven Quick Takes: Summer Daze

1.  The thing about summer is... I always think it will be mostly like this (lounging about at my friend's pool) and it always turns out to be mostly like cleaning up the back basement. And going on vacation! 

I'm super happy about the going on vacation and honestly glad we cleaned out the back basement, but I am planning a solid day of doing nothing as soon as the Emperor goes back to school!

 2. Oob and I went off on a rambling adventure, looking for some red mushrooms he had seen a while back.

Those were gone, but we found some mushrooms growing in our own yard, and eventually, we called everyone else over to see!

I'm pretty sure I'm the only home owner on the block who hopes to get mushrooms in their yard.

3. Another summer project has been touching up  a large nativity scene.  I recently finished the larger pieces (and stored them in the newly organized basement!), and I decided to have each Zoomlian work on one sheep.

My theory is that if all the Zoomlians ever grow up and move out, every Christmas I'll have a sheep from each of them.

The touch up is not too hard since the sheep started out with a really nice paint job.
 
Although some of their eyes give them a bit of a crazed look. Curiously,  I think this was the look some of my neighbors gave me when I was working on the whole nativity outside in August.

4. Speaking of neighbors, we have a very dear couple of neighbors! 
The gentleman loves to fish- and I mean in a boat on the ocean or bay fishing- and his wife does not like to eat fish.

His solution is to give us (and others) loads of fresh caught rockfish! Truly the best fish I've ever had!

This time he had leftover crabs.  This is a regional delicacy, and I think it's mandatory for Marylanders to love Chesapeake Blue Crabs. We sure do, but usually it's out of our price range!

Which means we hadn't had them in a few years... and Choclo and Oob hadn't really done crabs... I had forgotten how intimidating they are!

But we helped out and everyone got to enjoy crabs!


5. While the older people have been working on projects, Choclo and Oob have been left to their own devices. They always have devices.

I found this on one wall.  It says "Join the Cody Club today!  Awesome outdoor activities, cool coloring stuff and more!"

In another area of the house I found this. 
"This Cody Club game demo should get your attention... MR FILL!  How to play: Fill in the blank spots!  Your pencil is above this sign."

Pretty fun! Mine is the one in the upper right.

6. Leena and I  did the flowers for our parish this weekend!

The flower thing is very fun, but it also is a reminder to me: the only reason we do flowers is that someone asked us one day if we would like to give it a try.

As it turned out, we loved it! 


It's also a direct way for Leena to offer her beautiful creative gifts to God!

The whole experience has made me want to look for other people who have gifts, but are waiting for someone to ask them.


7. This is Oob with his "Summer Drink." 

A Summer Drink has 4 parts:
1. It must have ice.
2. It should have a straw, preferably a bendy straw in a tropical color.
3. It needs a little paper umbrella (you can make one with paper and a toothpick).
4. There ought to be some kind of drink.

And this is Choclo with his look alike sandwich.

Have a great weekend!

More Quick Takes fun with Kelly!