christmas eve fun

the keenans spent christmas eve solo this year (so that the kiddos could wake up in thier own house/beds). at first, mom thought it might be a tad ho-hum, but it ended up being an absolute blast. the kids are at GREAT ages for the whole santa thing and they were as cute as can be, singing christmas carols and being extra good. here's how the eve unfolded:

a little play time in boxes (random, but cute nonetheless):
making (vegan...no milk, eggs, or butter but still pretty yummy) cookies for santa.
rolling the sicilian white cookie balls

while the cookies cooled after baking, the keenans took a trip to see the awesome christmas display at the millis wonderland. it was amazing and we got in with barely any wait! funny enough, though it was only 5:30 when we went, both kids fell asleep on the short drive there. we literally had to shake zack awake to see the lights!

back home -- time for some glaze and sprinkles!

we then began our annual (?) "making homemade popcorn" ritual. it's where we make homemade popcorn (the old fashioned way, in a pot) and eat it. what does this have to do with christmas? you'll have to ask tim, who came up with the idea. unfortunately, we have no photos of this exciting event ;)

ready for bed, out tiniest elf leaves cookies for santa and lettuce (all we had in the house...) for the reindeer.
mom and dad ordered sushi in and had a wonderful, relaxing evening. perfect prelude to what will be a busy christmas day.

merriest of christmases to all!

TP

each day, while in the restrom, zack unrolls and rerolls the toilet paper. we appreciate the fact that he rolls it up but it makes it a tad difficult to use. silly zack!

coach

penny is refusing to wear a diaper this afternoon, so we're doing a mini potty training session. zack has been coaching her through the process, even sitting next to her so she doesn't get bored. he even insisted that she borrow some of his undies. :)

dentist!

zack went to the dentist this past weekend for his first cleaning. he did awesome! on a scale of 1-4 (4 being the best in terms of behavior / dealing with it), zack scored a 4. much better than the last visit that mom took him to, where he actually managed to score a 0!

urban planner

a not-so-tall tale

we got a tree last sunday.

zack picked it out. it was a little tree but looked pretty good.
since you can't take the first tree you set eyes on, we walked around to check out some more.
...and more...
...and more.
but we ended up back where we started,, with zack's tree (tied to the roof since we forgot to empty out the trunk)
oops! dad forgot we had a tree on top of the car and pulled into the garage. it made some scratching noises. looks kinda puny on our car.
but the tree was still perfect.
maybe we should have zack make more of our decisions.
merry christmas.

special visit

the keenans had a special visit from "auntie" tara and "uncle" ryan last weekend. they are due in may with their first baby and her baby bump could not be any cuter. penny thought so too, obviously. the kiddos loved playing with tara and ryan, especially with uncle ryan and his basketball belly baby!

uh oh! looks painful, ryan!
dr. penny (in scrubs, of course) checks the situation out.
zack really wants his ball back!