Christmas Break

Christmas Break

• Tuesday, January 7, 2014

I guess I didn't really have an official "Christmas Break" since I'm not in school or working outside the home BUT because my sisters were on Christmas Break, it FELT like I was on Christmas Break! Plus I did sort of neglect my regular duties like cleaning the house and keeping Jack on a schedule. So it was a self-proclaimed Christmas Break. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Several years ago my family started a tradition of setting up a puzzle either during or after Thanksgiving break which we would work out sporadically throughout the holiday season. I'm pretty sure we used to get through one 1,000 piece puzzle during that time period but my family this year somehow has made it through three or four 1,000 piece puzzles? Not really sure how that has happened. Especially since T & I have continued the tradition and our ONE puzzle that we set up during Thanksgiving break is still unfinished. Haha oops.

MAYBE the way they've finished so many is by having like fifty people working on the puzzle a once.

Case and point.

It's kind of a mad house trying to sneak your way in there just to place a piece or two.

Jack's favorite Christmas present might have been the candy in the stockings.

Daddy left his stocking out in the playroom on the ground all week so Jack kept bringing me candy asking "please? please?" When he brought me three Reese's at a time I made T move his stocking out of Jack's sight haha!

We spent a LOT of time at my parents' house since my sisters were staying there. Jack discovered the Lincoln Logs one day and suddenly cares a lot less about the car bucket and a lot more about the Lincoln Logs bucket.

My sister is a BABY WHISPERER.

We went to the mall and she took Jack out to sit on a bench while my other sister & I checked out at American Eagle. When we came out 10 minutes later I witnessed THIS SCENE.

I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped. My sister will testify to that.

She didn't know she had accomplished such a marvelous feat until she saw my expression. And then she was pretty proud of herself and her baby whispering skills. I'm pretty sure she told everyone she saw that day...and the next day...what a great baby whisperer she was ha! Seriously. Jack never falls asleep with stuff going on around him! I don't think he has fallen asleep in public since he was like 6 months old.

Look at these beauts!

Jack even stayed asleep during the walk to the car.

Miracle worker, that sister.

We celebrated my 25th birthday on New Year's Eve!

Started the day with a trip to the temple with my fam to do sealings.

Isn't my sister gorg?

We are physically unable to take more than one normal picture.

Seriously, if you don't follow the Gilbert's blog, you really should. They're too cute!

The parentals.

Sure do love my mama!

After the temple we headed to IHOP for breakfast. So yum.

You should know that I ate my breakfast (crepes, eggs, sausage) plus most of my brother's breakfast (a huge stack of pancakes with strawberries & bananas) PLUS a piece of french toast from my sister's plate. WHAT. It was a little bit ridiculous. But so yum.

What did I tell you about one normal picture with my sisters?
Apparently it's mostly them.

Later in the day we went on a serious hunt for some Vernors for my brother-in-law. He had been craving it for a few days but he usually gets it from stores in Utah that we don't have here. So we weren't really sure where to find it. We checked FOUR stores before we finally found some! And we almost missed them because they were pushed way back on the shelf.

But look at Taylor's happy face.

And I'm pretty sure I won sister-in-law of the year award since I'm the one who spotted it.

Too bad this was on the 31st so I only held the Sister-of-the-Year title for less than 24 hours.

What do you think I can do this year to earn it again? I'm already thinking. I'd like to carry the title for longer than 24 hours this time. Hmmm.

My sweet sister sent me this bracelet for my birthday.

Jack maybe loves it even more than I do. He took it from me right away and put it on. And then kept it on while he ate his fruit loops haha.

In the early evening we did presents. My husband is a little bit of a slacker when it comes to shopping (he's so last-minute) and wrapping so "unwrapping" this year was just pulling stuff out of the H&M bag. Don't worry, it was still just as fun!

I obviously can't not include these attractive pictures.

And apparently I was pretty excited about my iPhone running arm band.

Even though I can't say I'm excited to get back to beating the pavement after the babe comes.

I don't think I got any pictures of our night but we hung out at my parents' with friends & family playing a million games and watching the ball drop. And then cut the birthday cake which nobody touched since we were STUFFED. Also. Before I blew out the candle I wished the baby would come SOON. It didn't come true but I'm pretty sure that's because we didn't do cake until after midnight and my birthday was already over. Pretty sure that's the only reason baby is still not here. How rude.

ON TO THINGS OTHER THAN MY BIRTHDAY.

Look at my cute fam. Love love love.

We played a ton of games over the "break."

Playing games with my sibs is probably on my top 5 list of favorite things to do. Too bad most of them live in another state so we don't get to do it that often anymore.

Little Jack Jack couldn't sleep through all the noise we were making [pretty sure we went to bed past midnight every night over the two week Christmas break]. But he entertained himself while we played games by emptying my parents' spice cupboard and delivering all the spices to Aunt Kelli.

It started to get a little bit out of control so I showed him how to put them back instead of getting more out. He was a pro at that too.

Tom's brother's family was also in town for a week so we got to spend some time with the Wallace clan too!

Jack pretty much loves all the attention he gets from his cousins. He LOVES having so many cousins!

And just to leave you with a sneak peek of how much my sisters love Jack Jack...

They pretty much tackled him every time they saw him. Clearly, he doesn't mind.

Is it not the saddest thing ever when out-of-town family goes back out-of-town?

I've been so sad all week!

Come back, family!