The high today here in Oklahoma City was 70F.  We have had a few days of unseasonable warmth the last week. It does feel a little weird but it was nice to get out and about in light sweaters.

We went to the zoo today to let the kids run off some energy.   It was pretty busy since school is out, but we knew to head to the quieter areas of the park.

Both the Red Pandas came out to play. We had to be a little patient as they went inside for a few minutes, but it was worth it!

The Meerkats got spooked when a huge flock of geese took off from the zoo lake. This guy is on lookout.

I had the tropical birdhouse to myself.  The kids got spooked by the birds being "free" so Daddy escorted them outside where they waited for me.    

We headed up to the back of the park to go look for the Spectacle Bear that the kids adopted.  He was nowhere to be seen - humph!

We saw the new giraffe though, they have 4 giraffes now.  I hope there will be babies in the next year or so!

We promised the kids a trip to Norman to see an exhibit on Dinosaur Eggs at the "Dinosaur Museum".
Our super generous kids shared their cold with me but fortunately it only seems to have caused laryngitis and a night time cough.  It must have been funny observing me with no voice trying to get the rest of the gang to look and smile at me from the dino dig area!

Dino diggers

Fossilized ferns

Tiny Dino, the skull is only a couple of inches long.

 
 The Mammoth sculpture and the fellow above were still in a festive mood!

It all started this morning when kiddo came though and asked if we were getting up.  When we asked him what time it was on my digital clock he said "ummm I think it's 7.07, or maybe it's 1.01?!"  It was 7.07, so we sent him to waken up his sister whilst I switched on the tree lights and went to get my camera.
We had to tell them to slow down as the present opening approached a frenzy!
Kiddo got some of his favorite toys from Santa, playmobil and sis got a Sleeping Beauty vanity.  My parents bought the whole family a Wii. Hubby's parents went on a spree at FAO Schwartz in New York City when they were in the US a few months ago.

Has he been yet?  The anticipation was high!

Yay, this was at the top of his list.  It's an animal trainer ring from playmobil for his zoo collection.

 
"Just what  I wanted too!"

This was from Granny and Grandpa L.

A new movie for Little Lady.
 
They spent the best part of the morning playing with their favorites then I set up the Wii.  They watched me play Wii sports a few times before they gave it a try.  Kiddo loves the boxing game, he is pretty good. His forehead was all sweaty after playing with it for a while! Little lady prefers the bowling.

We had duck for dinner with wild rice and asparagus for us and white rice and beans for the kids.  The kids had raspberry mousse and they had some of our dessert too - cream puffs, yum yum yum!

The kids crashed out a little after eight and so once this is done I'm heading to watch Indiana Jones with Hubby.
I hope you all enjoyed your day too.

It's become a tradition that we make a gingerbread house on Christmas Eve.  I am not quite brave enough to make our own gingerbread for this although we do make gingerbread men.  Last year the roof of our house was broken and was impossible to fix.  This year I decided a gingerbread train might be easier to make.

We started assembling it this morning (the kids are still in jammies) and finished decorating it after lunchtime.

Lucky Santa is going to get a couple of train wheels left out for him tonight!

 Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas Eve!!

I was looking through my photos and found a couple of movies I took of the kids on Christmas 2005.  Little lady is 2  and her brother is 4.    For some reason picasa has turned the image on the side but really it's all about the music!

Merry Christmas, dear Xanga friends.  I hope that 2009 brings you good health and happiness.

With love and best wishes from Gill and family

Little lady is getting better although she was feverish in the night and came through to our bed, as did her brother with the hacking cough.  Hubby bailed out to the guest room - smart guy.

I finally got to play a little this morning with some of my photos from a trip to the zoo last weekend.  We decided to adopt an animal at the zoo as our gift to the kids.  I sneakily tried to get an idea of their favorite animal, kiddo said he could only narrow it down to his top 20!  In the end I chose one of the new animals to the zoo this winter, the spectacle bear.  It does say in the fine print that we can't take the animals out of the zoo!!

 
Close up and personal with one of the gorillas

Snow leopard kitten, photo enhanced with virtual painter

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Who needs mistletoe??

This time using Firefox as a browser.  Ahhh there is no place like home!!

School broke up yesterday for the Christmas holidays and some germies have come to visit our house already.  Poor little lady is stuffed up and has a fever.  She is miserable, poor thing she couldn't even keep any tylenol down this morning.

I am glad she didn't get sick yesterday as I would have been very disappointed to miss candy day with Alice and Chris.  We all had a fun day and I came home with way too much candy (although my family would argue that, I'm sure!)

Fortunately we have no plans this weekend and we have a good supply of candy to keep our spirits up .  It got pretty chilly here again when another cold front came over today, so I don't mind my little blast furnace cuddling in with me.

I got a little further with my desktop computer, my photos are all still there but I can't get on the internet with it.  I have plenty memory cards for my camera so once I am up and running you all will have a big pile of photos to wade through!

Well, I'm not sure if it has died completely or if it can be fixed.  So for now I only have hubby's laptop and no photo editing software (boohoooo).

Goodness only knows when I will get it in to see what the problem is, I have a busy week ahead of me and the weather man is talking about ice storms this coming week too.