Christmas Fun...Part 2!

Every year one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is when Robert takes a week off in the beginning of December to do fun holiday things, and every year we go to the world Wildlife Zoo. They come into Channel 5 every week, and Robert always gets to hold cool animals, and the kids and I are super jealous, so this time when we went, he arranged for us to do the same.
I wasn't so thrilled about holding the snake. I am very grossed out by them cause they don't have bones, and they are the one thing (besides cockroaches) that I scream at. Knowing this, Robert, Stanton and the zookeeper still peer-pressured me into holding it, and I was not scared at all, ya right!
It totally creeped me out, but I guess it felt good to face my fear.
Stanton on the other hand was not scared one bit! He held four snakes and loved every minute of it! He's come along way considering last year he was to scared to even pet a dog.
It was neat feeding apples to the pretty birds and talking to all of the funny parrots. One of them even knew the Sponge Bob theme song.
The kids really loved playing with the torises and llamas and deer and chickens. Winston's favorite are always the chickens.
It was also fun feeing giraffes, petting the zebras and handing leaves to the monkey.
Those last two activities were not zoo-approved, and Robert warned me not to exchange leaves with the African monkey that kept sticking his hand out of his cage. It was all fun and games until I let Noelle do it, and the monkey grabbed her arm and scratched her. We all screamed! Luckily, she wasn't hurt, just forever traumatized by primates.
Also, I have learned my lesson, that I need to listen to Robert and Stanton when were at the zoo because my judgement tends to be clouded when it comes to interactions with exotic animals.
Christmas lights at the train park is another one of our favorite Daddy/Christmas time activities! It's so fun seeing all of the lights and characters and going in the new train museum and pretending to be on the Polar Express and singing carols really loudly, even if we were the only passengers singing.
Noelle loved all of the inflatable Frosty the Snowmen! She is a little obsessed with him this year. She gets really depressed about him melting. She would just start crying randomly throughout the day thinking about him turning into a puddle.
Then when I told her that he was just pretend, she got even more depressed that he would never come to life for her. She said it was her "only Christmas wish!" Very dramatic!
We also did our yearly gingerbread making party while Daddy was on vacation. I think more candy adorned the inside of my belly than the outside of my house, but it was a really fun time!

Stanton had his first piano recital! Every year they bring a piano into the post office for the kids to play for all of the people waiting in line. He played 7 songs, three times each. I was beaming the entire time! He practiced so much, especially "Cu-Cu," which was his first song with both hands, and he did a great job!

Winston liked the piano music and even danced to it for a little while, but mostly he just liked trying to ship himself, priority mail. He also liked making the automatic doors open and shut.
Noelle listened to the first song very intently, but after that she just liked rolling around on the floor, describing the greeting cards, really loudly during each song and putting Express Mail stickers all over and Winston's face.

Daddy had to go back to work eventually, so we had to go back to finding ways to entertain ourselves. Going to a friend's birthday at Chuck E. Cheese was one good way! What a blast!

Filling up a cart with papayas that we didn't buy was another way. That's Winston's favorite way. he loves pushing around the tiny carts at Trader Joe's!

Going on a hayride, looking at lights, caroling and visiting Santa with friends was a most excellent way to spend a night!

Winston enjoyed the treats as much as the lights!
One of the best Christmas activities turned out be visiting all of the grandmas and grandpas at the nursing home.
Robert said i was running a coloring sweat shop, but I like to think of it as more of a family art gallery. Stanton is a very neat and careful colorer, and Noelle is like a coloring machine. She pumped out about 5 pictures for every 1 of Stanton's. Then she covered them with Christmas stickers.
By the end, we had 48 pictures, which we thought would be plenty, but we turned out to be 1 short when we got there so we grabbed a blue crayon and piece of scratch paper and made a bunch of snowmen.
Crisis averted.

The kids had the best time going from room to room handing out their pictures and singing. At the end, some of the grandpas and grandmas even gave he kids unlimited popcorn and cookies and turned on Dora for them. Then they showed them the giant fish tank and the huge floor to celing bird cage and they let Stanton play their piano. It could not have been more fun!
We made lots of new friends! It was such a wonderful time and it really made it feel like Christmas!