July 2014 / The Wallace House

Jack Jack is 2!

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Say whaaa?!

Our baby is 2!

I'm only a week late posting about it but Jack Jack had a birthday!

A recap? Okay, sure!

The child is obsessed with balloons.

So, naturally, we planned months in advance that we'd buy him one and tie it to his chair to start out his birthday morning.

And naturally, we forgot to pick one up until 11pm the night before.

We ended up having to pay almost $3 for one at Walmart instead of $1 at Dollar Tree but hey...we got it.

So the day started with a Mickey Mouse Happy Birthday balloon which Jack was thrilled about.

2 year olds are so easy to please.

And then. We produced the tent & tunnel we've had in hiding for 6 months.

He played in it for about 10 minutes and hasn't touched it since.

So there's that.

After breakfast (I meant to wake up and get donuts but I forgot to set my alarm. Fail), the boys & I went to Petsmart to look at all the animals.

Because what 2 year old doesn't love that?

After Petsmart, we headed to my parents' house so Jack could play on the trampoline.

Because what 2 year old doesn't love that?

Are you sensing a trend here?

Basically we spent all day doing things Jack loves...minus naptime.

He didn't love that but I enforced anyway.

For lunch, babies & I went with my parents to Leatherby's Creamery.

We did this last year too so...it's tradition?

Last year's face and this year's face when the ice cream came out:

Some things just don't change?

Last year he cried when they sang happy birthday.

This year he just made this super excited face (lies):

After leatherbys, we did the whole nap business I talked about earlier.

Then when Daddy got off work we headed to a bounce house place with some cousins to play play play.

^ we made jack do the slide even though he always said "no! no! no!" but he loved it when we actually went down.

^just because it's your brother's birthday you don't lose any attention...at all.

this baby is always being passed around and loved on.

he can't think of a better past time ha.

We paid to go to this bounce house which we thought Jack would love and all he wants to do is play basketball.

Shocking. Best laid plans?

But we PAID for this hence why we made him go down the slides and in the bounce houses haha.

Living by cousins is so, so fun!

Thanks for coming to play!

After bounce house fun, we went back to my parents' and had some chocolate pudding for dessert.

Jack had asked for it for breakfast (and being the mean mom I am I said uhhh no) so he was in heaven!

^and see those mcqueen pajamas? he opened those at night and was ecstatic^

Overall, I'd say it was a very successful birthday!

Stay tuned for his family party from Sunday.

xoxo

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

I think I've told you before but once upon a time I wanted a girl first - and then all girls after that

And then I had a boy.

And then I had another one.

And now I can't even imagine life without boys.

I actually want a boy next.

And then another one?

Ha, no I really do want a girl one day, I think.

But I tell T all the time I don't even know how to be a mom to a girl!

So bring on the boys.

These three boys? They're my world.

And this whole brother business?

Oh my goodness. Insert emoticon with heart shaped eyes.

I think my actual eyes turn into hearts just looking at these.

^i meeeean^

^ You guys. They like play together now. Sort of. More like Phillip tries to play and 80% of the time Jack's okay with it and 20% of the time I hear "NO! BABY! STOP BABY!" So I mean ... they interact now in a new & mostly fun way!

^ I just can't. They're too much. ^

^ They look almost the same size ha! ^

^ Nap time can be hard because if Phillip starts crying (which is approximately 100% of the time that I lay him down for a nap), Jack goes running into the bedroom to rescue him. This day I heard Jack come barreling down the hall yelling "whoopsie! mommy! mommy, whoopsie! baby crying!"
Whoopsie.

I couldn't catch him in time before he barged into baby's room and baby sure was happy as a clam about that.

And Jack's like duh mom. he stops crying if you just come in here and get him.

Whoopsie. Duh.

My favorite things about this little guy^?

He is such a people person. The most social baby in the history of babies. He loves anybody and everybody.

He's a huge mama's boy. While he loves people in general, mom trumps them all. Sometimes it's sweet and sometimes it's...well, you know. Can't I catch a break when Daddy's home?!

He's inquisitive. He scoots around everywhere and investigates everything. He's crawling 3 months earlier than Jack and is into way more stuff.

And he has the brightest smile in all the land.

My favorite things about this little boy^?

He makes me laugh every single day. Why are toddlers so funny?

He's so patient with me when I do his hair or change his outfit 5 times.

He's so fun to play with because he's at the stage where he soaks everything up like a little sponge...it's so fun to see him learn new things every day.

He's friends with everybody he meets.

He's the world's best big brother. So, so sweet to Phillip and so patient with him.

[Having two ridiculously smiley boys is fun but can be a pain when we got o the store and it takes us twice as long to get out because everybody and their dog wants to come talk to the boys.]

He's so brave. Like take him to the pool and he will dive right under the water to you.

He's a really big helper around the house - more about that on his birthday post coming soon.

and my favorite things about their daddy? ^

he is the boys' best friend.

[it's a great big party when daddy gets home!]

he's sooo smart.

he doesn't get mad at me when I spend more money than I should.

he works so hard so i can stay home with the babes.

he pretty much never, ever complains about anything.

[i could learn a thing or two from him about that].

basically, he's the best ever.

I mean, you guys. I'm so lucky.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Yeah, it was like a month ago but we did it and it needs to be documented.

Welcome to the next 50 blog posts of catch-up.

This year we celebrated the 4th in Utah because a lot of our California family was down with a flu bug. We were headed to Utah on the 5th anyway as a stop-through for our family reunion in Colorado so we just opted to head out a couple days early and celebrate the 4th with my siblings in Utah!

We started the day like this...

And then we really started the day with the amazing Provo 4th of July parade. You guys. People stay the night in tents on the street to get a good spot. For real. For an Independence Day parade.

We opted for showing up halfway through the parade instead of spending the night ha. And we still got a seat in the shade?

Jack loved the parade (mostly the horses, motorcycles, police cars, and fire trucks - why did we go to a parade?) and Phillip loved hanging out and having a selfie photo shoot with mom.