Nopsi’s Family Christmas, Christmas Eve, and Post-Christmas Zoo Visit

My goodness have we been busy over the past week. I apologize for not posting yesterday (see previous sentence), but I am going to do my very best to get all of my Christmas recaps done before the end of the year. Here we go!

Last Sunday we gathered with Nopsi’s family for our first Christmas celebration. We went over to Nola and Nopsi’s house, watched the extremely unfortunate Saints game, and ate a really delicious dinner.

 

Riley also took a huge liking to Blaire, who was in town with Cathryn and Aunt Dawn from North Carolina. She chased him all over the house, played trucks with him, and even helped him open his presents. Friends 4 life, those two.

Then on Tuesday evening we went to our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at GW Fin’s. It was a very small group this year, just Nola and Nopsi, Grams and Bop, and Kenny, me, and the boys.

  

The night was almost disastrous on account of it being way past Rory’s bedtime, but he pushed past his initial fussiness and did really great (despite not eating his dinner).

  

And Riley was perfectly entertained by the festive confetti strewn all over our table. He even got permission from our waiter, Moose, to take some home in his shirt pocket. Too funny, that kid. His dinner consisted of three Fin’s biscuits and a dish of fruit. Thank goodness we were given bags of biscuit mix to take home with us again this year!

Shockingly, Rory did not fall asleep in the car on the way home, opting instead to happily chatter to himself and his brother. So we raced inside to get both boys into their PJs and have them open their Christmas Eve books.

  

Then Kenny put Rory to bed while Riley and I snuck outside to sprinkle magical reindeer food (a.k.a. cereal) onto our front lawn. We came back in to read his new truck book and he was snoring within a half hour. He didn’t hear Santa come in at all!

Christmas Day was nonstop from 7am until 10pm. I have lots of pictures, Riley has tons of new trucks, and I will probably need a whole bottle of wine to sort through the day’s events to blog about it all. Wish me luck.

So let’s turn instead to the day after Christmas. The ‘Woods came in town this year, and we got together yesterday for one more day with them before they returned to California. We ate Christmas leftovers for lunch at our house before heading out for an afternoon at the zoo.

  

It was a beautiful day to walk around outside, so I’m really glad we went. A surprising number of the animals were out and visible, which made the trip all the better. We went expecting not to see too much but instead had a really nice visit. One of the orangutans even put on a little show for us!

 

 

The five cousins had a blast together. They love being around each other, which makes me wish the ‘Woods lived closer. Riley still adores Nicholas and would freak out if he lived near here.

 

They ran, they jumped, they climbed, and they laughed. Rory had to watch it all from his stroller, but I think he had a good time, too. He even took a little nap while we were walking around.

It was another busy day, but it was so much fun. Always great to spend time with the ‘Woods. We keep trying to get them to move back, but somehow I don’t think they’re budging.

Check back often for our Christmas Day recap; I’m hoping to have at least part of it up sometime in the next couple of days!