Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve!

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

CHRISTMAS EVE. I know, it was weeks ago but better late than never! We started the day off by making sugar cookies at my parents' house in the late morning. We might have to make this a tradition. This year Jack was only interested in cutting & decorating for a grand total of three minutes but I'm thinking in future years he will love it!

^^ there are almost never true candid photos of me & the boys because T just isn't a picture-taker and so a special thanks to my dad for capturing this moment with Jack Jack!

Before heading to the annual Wallace family Christmas Eve party that night (which I have exactly zero pictures of), we let the boys open their Christmas Eve presents (always a book - or in this year's case, they both got a set of books!).  Jack was pretty excited to finally get to open one of the presents from under the tree!

We actually bought these Cars books back in October while we were at Disneyland because I knew they would be perfect for his Christmas Eve book present! He immediately wanted Daddy to read him all four of them.

I promise that little Phillip was with us on Christmas Eve all day. Somehow he just didn't make a presence in any of my pictures ha! I think he was napping during the sugar cookie making and I know I took pictures of him opening his books (If You Gave a Mouse a Cookie-type books set!) but either they didn't turn out and I deleted them or they are missing. Because they are not on the computer haha. But he was there! And he opened his book present! And he liked it...for about two seconds before something else was more interesting haha!

After our Christmas Eve party we came home and put the boys to bed and Santa Claus came not much later! We didn't do any milk/cookies or reindeer food this year because the boys were beat (who am I kidding - so were we!) and they wouldn't really understand anyway. Plus I think Santa got his fill of cookies & milk at all the other houses :) Next year, Santa!

I'm pretty sure I'm more giddy at Christmas now than I ever was as a child! It is SO FUN to wait to see your kids' reactions to their presents! I seriously could not wait for Christmas morning to come! Stay tuned for Christmas Day post coming soon!

PS Santa sure did make quite a ruckus while putting out Phillip's Little People toys (which all make sounds with no volume control!) but luckily no little children were awakened :)

xoxo

Read more »

Christmas & New Year's Recap

Christmas & New Year's Recap

It's heeeere. Our Christmas & New Year's recap! Less than one month late, let's CELEBRATE! But you can all forgive me now that you know about the baby and the first trimester exhaustion, right? Great. Onward...

^Christmas morning!^

We had to wake the boys up at 7:15 so they could see what Santa brought for them before we had to run out the door to be at my parents' by 8am. My littlest sister is serving a mission and was allowed to Skype us on Christmas Day. She's on the East coast and was Skyping at 11am her time so 8am california time ahhh! SO EARLY. But we definitely didn't want to miss even a minute so we hurried our Christmas morning festivities and dragged our tired booties out the door by 7:45am. Eek.

The boys loved their presents and my suspicion that they would both be more interested in Phillip's presents because they were toys (Jack had coloring supplies) was definitely correct ha.

After emptying their stockings (full of toothbrushes and sippy cups - so exciting!) Jack really wanted to read Phillip's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books from Christmas Eve. Can you believe I have actually never read any of those books? I should now that we have them!

My sister has only been gone since early November but it was still so fun & exciting to get to Skype her!

And my very favorite facial expressions happened when the boys started updating her on 49ers football... (sidenote: sorry for the horrible yellow-ish lighting!)

After Skyping we did our annual Christmas breakfast with my family (no pictures) and then spent time opening presents with them (minimal pictures...I'm awful).

Easily, Jack's favorite present of the day was his Mr. Potato Head from Great-Grandma. We could barely get him to even open the rest of his presents haha!

 

I swear that 90% of our gifts were wrapped in Amazon boxes and every time Jack saw one he'd exclaim: "YES! A package!!!" Clearly, we have been receiving too many packages this time of year ha!

Loved having my little sister visit for the fact that she carried all my laundry inside my parents' house for me (our machine was leaking for awhile eek!).

PS I liked her visiting for other reasons too.

We celebrated my 26th in my favorite way...playing games with family, ringing in the new year with sparkling cider, and CREPES.

Read more »

Holiday-ing

Holiday-ing

Sunday, December 21, 2014

We were so excited this weekend to go with my sister-in-law and family to Old Sac's Theater of Light show. We've never been before but the kidlets loved it! After the show we took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the town. Jack was pretty enamored with the horse. He was pretty sure it's name was "Callie" since that's the name of the horse he rode in Colorado ha. Turns out it was not named Callie. Imagine that. And...pictures!

 ^excuse our creepy eyes^

 ^jack jack was so lucky and got to go on the carriage ride twice! once with us and once with his cousins.^

huge photo dump posts coming soon!

because i am determined to be caught up by christmas and blog about the holidays in real time.

xoxo

Read more »

[Free!] Christmas Desktop Background

[Free!] Christmas Desktop Background

Sunday, November 23, 2014

CHRISTMAS IS COMING.

and so I decided today that I really needed a Christmas-y desktop.

and why not just make one?!

so i did. and i'm sharing it here with you!

you don't have to use this as a desktop background. you can just do the regular and print it to use in your home. just know that it is made to fit a computer desktop so make sure your preview looks okay if you're sending it for printing! - and if you are sending it to print please make sure auto-correct is turned off!

here is is as my desktop background:

You can right click and save right from here or you can go to my shared dropbox folder and download it from there. Find it under "Desktop Backgrounds - Christmas - Merry & Bright." And don't forget you can always request free printables (or desktop backgrounds!) by clicking the tab up top ^.

Sorry it has been so quiet around here lately! I have just been so exhausted lately trying to keep up on all the housework (why does it seem like the cleaning never ends?!) while also catching up on everything that has been sitting around before I had a computer while also prepping for Christmas! And then it seems like when I do have a spare minute to blog, I nap instead ha! So I'm sorry. But I will be back soon! T is off work THIS WHOLE WEEK so I plan to do lots of catch-up! See you soon!

xoxo

Read more »

Christmas Printables (a bit early?!)

Christmas Printables (a bit early?!)

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Well I had a totally different post planned for today buuut I feel like a little kid on Christmas Eve because I am just that excited that Halloween is over and it's November 1st and time to start listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies and reading Christmas books.

I have to admit that I'm a little bit of a Halloween grinch. We dress up and trick-or-treat etc but mostly I just can't wait for it to be over so we can get to the real holidays haha!

And so I'm bringing you the first (free, as always!) Christmas printables of the season! These ones are really simple and classic! I promise there are many more to come.

And don't worry - I love Thanksgiving too and have no plans to skip right past it so look for Thanksgiving printables coming soon!

Read at the bottom if you're new here and aren't sure how to save these images to print!

Print. Use. Enjoy.

:]

AND remember: if you want these in a different color or are looking for something else, feel free to send a request my way by clicking on the "request a free printable" tab up top!

Saving and printing instructions:

You can save these directly to your computer from my blog OR if you are going to print them larger than a 5x7 I recommend downloading them from my shared dropbox Printables folder here.

Send the saved images to your favorite local printer. I love using Costco!

And [so important!] when you print these make sure you turn off auto-correct on your local printer's site before you submit them. Otherwise the colors might come out differently than you see here!

Psst...Hey friends.

I'm quickly running out of Dropbox space.

In order for me to keep posting lots of free printables I need more space...desperately!

Will you help me?

Click here and get a dropbox account (if you do not already have one).

Doing so through that link will put me as your referral and I will get more space.

Thanks a million!

xoxo

Read more »

PwC [Kids'] Christmas Party

PwC [Kids'] Christmas Party

Friday, December 7, 2012

A random start to this post...

on our way out tonight we saw this crazy [cloud?].

Can you see it coming straight down all twisty-like?

If you look closely

then you will see it turn toward the bottom.

Neither T nor I have ever seen anything like it.

Tonight was the PwC kids' Christmas party.

T was volunteered to dress up as an elf.

He was a super good sport about it

and he was definitely the most handsome elf I've ever met :]

The bummer part about him being an elf was that I barely got to see him all evening.

And since I was holding Jack in one arm and my diaper bag in the other

[and there was only one table which was taken up by all the kids]

I couldn't eat until he finished his elf duties.

By then the pizza was cold.

[but there was a microwave so I heated it up.]

Jack Jack got to meet Santa Claus

and he slept through the whole thing!

He woke up a few minutes later so he got to take a picture with one of Santa's elves.

This elf looks suspiciously like Daddy :]

These were my conversations tonight

[these are the same conversations I have whenever Jack is meeting new people]:

Person: How old is he?

Me: 4 months

Person: *starts smiling and nodding then jaw drops* Did you say four months?

Me: *laughs* Yes, he's a big boy!

Person: He's huge! How big was he when he was born?

Me: 9-1

Person: *jaw drops even more if that's even possible* But you are so tiny!!

[this comment always makes me feel especially proud.

During the two hours I spent delivering Jack, I never imagined I would receive so many compliments on my accomplishment of a vaginal delivery. But, thank you strangers. Now I'm not sorry I had to deliver such a big baby. It's become one of my shining moments.]

*Pretty sure I had this same conversation at least five times tonight.

There was one baby there who was 9 months old and he was maybe two pounds bigger than Jack.

Someone asked who was older and pointed to Jack and said, "this one?"

haha!

Another person [plus several more people]: Wow, he is such a good baby! Does he ever cry?

I hear that a lot. The answer is yes. He does cry sometimes. He is a baby, after all.

One person even expressed they hoped their babies were just like Jack.

I'm not sure what I did to deserve such a sweet baby but I'm not complaining!

I did have two firsts tonight.

One woman told me that Jack is the most perfect Gerber baby she has ever seen.

My heart melted.

And then I had this conversation with a little girl named Makayla (McKayla, MaKayla?)

who will be 10 this weekend*:

Makayla: Aww, your baby is so adorable!

Me: Thanks!

Makayla [to Jack]: Hi! You are so cute!

Jack: Goo.

Makayla: He looks like he's going to be very smart.

Me: Well, thanks.

Makayla: I can usually tell. I can see it in people's eyes.

hahaha!

Well, she is probably right.

Jack Jack's daddy is the smartest person I know.

Even if Jack has just 1/4 of Daddy's smart genes

he will still be brilliant.

Lucky baby!

*I overheard MaKayla tell somebody that and it seemed very important to her so I thought I should let you know that she is not just 9 but not yet 10.

I'm calling tonight a success

[even though Jack missed the real experience of Santa Claus

and I spent most of the party with myself and a sleeping baby]

 since it ended with a trip into Macy's to buy something so we could validate our parking :]

[if you are going to pay $8 for parking you might as well put it toward something you get to take home, right? that's how we see it, at least.]

We left with a super cute something that will become one of my Christmas gifts.

You will have to wait until Christmas to find out what it is.

It has to be a surprise to somebody!

Read more »