Holiday Round-Up and Welcome 2025!

Happy New Year!  Looking back at our pictures, I have a lot of catching up to do since the last time I wrote.  We had a busy couple of holiday weeks filled with family, fun, delicious food, gatherings, and some lazy days sprinkled in during the break, as well.  It was really a perfect blend of celebrating and relaxing!  Our kids have reached the age where they sleep in during vacation, so we got to enjoy a few luxurious days of sleeping until 9 or later (quite a treat when our usual wake-up time is 6:15am!).  The return to school/work last week was a little rocky, but thankfully it was just a 2 day week, and now we're ready to find our routine again this week.

King Me pre-holiday gig at Cider Lab

Pickleball at the new indoor facility - The Pop!

Snow fort time

Play date with friends

Happy pup

Leading up to Christmas, we did a lot of wrapping, baking, and Matt made many batches of his famous chocolate and maple fudge to share with family and friends!  Evie and I also got to help make the traditional Slovak Nut Cakes with the Zehnacker side of the family.  It's always fun to be part of the process, and to remember Nana Mil's special tradition of making these every year for the family.  The addition of the "Nana's Bakers" aprons this year was so sweet (thank you, Kiera!).

Maple fudge

Nut cakes

The nut cake crew

Evie and Noah helped with the chocolate fudge this year!

Making up cookie boxes for neighbors

The office was converted into the wrapping station for a couple weeks.  Phew!

Christmas Eve arrived, and we were graced with fresh snow for a beautiful white Christmas!  We started off with mass at St. Mike's, a tasty dinner at Aunt Pea's, and finally got home for bed around 11pm.  The kids were up early the next morning (our rule is 7am at the earliest for Christmas morning), and we opened our stockings and Santa gifts at home.  Frankie was especially excited to see what was in her stocking this year!  Noah got a new remote-controlled rock crawler, and Evie got a Ninja Creami for making all sorts of frozen treats.

New PJ's for all the cousins!

We then ventured back to Aunt Pea's for the majority of Christmas day to open gifts, devour Grandma's amazing brunch, and we all had some fun tubing behind Elliot's snowmobile after we had finished the festivities.  We ended the day with a cozy Christmas movie (and a nap for some!) before heading home.

After Christmas, we had a few days of relaxation and enjoying our new gifts, and then we geared up for the next round of celebrations.  We had the Zehnacker family party/bingo night, which is always a fun time.  This was the first year without Nana Mil, but it wasn't a sad occasion, because being with the family always makes us feel like Millie is there with us.  And of course, she loved her games of bingo!

Lazy time

Uncle Jon and Aunt Kaki gave out the blessings this year in Nana Mil's place

Next, we celebrated Christmas with Grandpa Tom and Sharon and had another wonderful meal and played some games together.  We all agreed that it was nice to wait a few days after Christmas to celebrate again, so that we all had a chance to recharge.

Rounding out the vacation, we made a trip to Church Street to see the Christmas lights, and then we had a little New Year's Eve game night and some appetizers.  Noah has been cooking up a bunch of different recipes from the cookbooks he got for Christmas, so he made some pizza bites, then fired up his DJ board with lights and music for entertainment.  It was actually a very low-key New Year's, but we enjoyed it!

A few of Noah's new recipes

Sprinkled throughout the break, Noah still had a few basketball practices and a few games.  Noah's team is mostly 5th graders, and they play against teams that are 5th-6th graders, so they've had a lot of opponents that are very tall!  After one particularly frustrating game, Noah said, "Mom, how was I supposed to compete with that kid?!  He had a MUSTACHE!"  Ha ha!  Lots of learning opportunities this season, and despite the challenges, his team is improving.

Evie has also let her creativity shine in a couple ways lately.  She made up a festive Christmas Irish dance routine that she shared with us on Christmas Eve, then she made a few flavors of homemade ice cream in her Ninja Creami for us all to enjoy.  Evie did a beautiful art project at school - a math/art combination where they created Barn Quilt squares that are now hanging on the fence at Black Flannel!  Evie's project was a blue bird, which is right in the middle of the group of quilt squares if you're looking for it as you drive by.