Sixteen is Sweet

If you were to look up "Sweet Sixteen" you would find the name Steven Weller Zinn. He's like wine and gets better with age. (Not that I drink wine.)

After eating his birthday crepes, Steven opened up presents. 

Then David and James finished building the garden enclosure. Yeah!

I told David that it would be the perfect spot to house a rabbit. To which he replied, "I wouldn't have built this if I'd known that." (I guess we'll never get a rabbit.)

Playtime on the trampoline.

David took the older kids and a couple of Steven's friends ice skating for a couple of hours.

Family came over. Grandma Zinn holding her two granddaughters, Elsie and Lonetta.

Dessert time. Steven loves peppermint, so I made him a peppermint ice cream dessert. I also hit all the after-Christmas sales and bought a LOT of peppermint candy, which we snacked on throughout the night.

And New Year's Eve wouldn't be complete without making our hats.

Happy Birthday Steven. 

And a Happy New Year.

Another Project Day

Today was another project day.

James and Justin put together the Christmas trampoline.

And David worked on framing the door and stapling chicken wire on the garden enclosure. It's almost done!

They set out to work in the cold California winter morning. It was in the mid forties (which is freezing for us).

ZOOpendous Day

Today we went to the SF Zoo with Mom and Dad Zinn. Dave-o has been wanting to go here for quite some time now; and it's not to see the animals.

It's for some cotton candy.

Somehow we started the tradition of buying cotton candy at the zoo. That's pretty much the only time my children get this sugary treat.

We got to see three reindeer that are an exhibit until the first of the new year.

Dave-o's favorite part (besides the cotton candy) was seeing the tiger. It was bigger than he expected.

Loni fell asleep within minutes of driving home from the zoo.

Shortly after returning home, Loni started fevering up. Poor thing. She just got over a cold too.

Project Planter Box

With two weeks off from work, David is trying to finish projects that have been left incomplete. 

Today he spent a good chunk of the afternoon building my enclosed planter box.

James and Steven were good helpers most of the time. Other times, they were just plain goofy.

Lonetta had fun playing in the planter box. She even made some mud pies.