Rewind to December 2015...
SAN DIEGO HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS
This year marked my first ever BIG company holiday party! Intuit boasts a great company culture and the Christmas party didn't disappoint! They rented out the entire Natural History Museum in Balboa park and there was food, drinks, and music on all 4 levels of the museum - plus a jazz band and bar on the roof! They even brought in the Broadway cast from The Lion King for the entertainment. It was quite the event. Corporate life can have it's perks!
In mid-Dec, we had a small little kid's Christmas party with Jack's friends. We did pin the nose on Frosty...
Jack was totally into it! The other kids didn't care too much.
And we decorated Christmas cookies...
It was quite the fun mess. The kids were on a crazy sugar high for hours.
One evening we went to the holiday celebration at the zoo, a recent tradition. It's always fun to see the lights, dance to the music, and ride the little train.
The weekend before we left for Atlanta, we had a little practice Christmas. Jack opened a present on fake Christmas eve...He got a little guitar that he ran around with singing "rock and roll, rock and roll" for over an hour.
Kara ate some wrapping paper...
And then we read a bedtime Christmas story and left out some freshly decorated cookies for santa (and a couple of carrot sticks for Rudoph.)
On fake Christmas morning, Santa had come and brought Jack the Paw Patrol Look Out tower. He was so excited!
The first few presents he opened were all Paw Patrol figures which set the false expectation that ALL his presents were going to be Paw Patrol related. He was very disappointed when he received a book (not Paw Patrol) and tried to rewrap it so he could return it for the Paw Patroller (a giant bus thing). It was hilarious.
Once we reset his expectations, he was very excited to receive some play food and a Buzz Lightyear among other things.
FAMILY TIME IN ATLANTA
On the 23rd, we headed back east to see the fam. I can't remember how the flights were with the kiddos, which is probably better because I'm sure they weren't enjoyable.
Our first stop was to see my mom in Cartersville on Christmas Eve. We went to her church for a pretty awesome concert service and then just spent the evening catching up and letting her play with the kiddos.
On Christmas morning, we had a nice little hotel breakfast - which felt a bit weird - and then went back over to spend the day with my mom and family.
Santa had visited Grandma's house too and went a little overboard...(Side note - Check out Jack's horrible "cheese" face these days...Haha. Definitely not photogenic!)
While waiting for everyone else to arrive, Jack had a blast playing with this keyboard microphone toy. He was hilarious making up songs and singing at the top of his lungs. We really need to get him a mic at home.
Once my brother Ken arrived with Macy and their son Jude, the present opening frenzy began. It was nuts!
My dad came late with Dawn and brought even more goodies.
My brother Jason was still in CA at the time (he's since moved back to ATL) so we FaceTimed him in. It was almost like having everyone together!
It was quite a fun morning!
The day after Christmas, we went to a kid's play place called Crayon Panda by my mom's house with my mom and brother's family. It was a great place for the kids to play! Jack and Jude loved the cars and motorcycles...
My mom got to play with little Kare-bear...
And we all had fun on the air-jumpy-slide thing!
The next morning we checked out my brother Ken's new house and tried to get a cousin picture and a family picture before saying good bye. This was the best we could do...
That was part 1. Part 2 of the trip was staying at my dad's house. We mostly just hung around and played with the dogs...
Ken and fam came over a couple times and Jack played with Jude. They actually were pretty good with the whole bean bag toss thing.
Kara found ways to keep herself entertained..
One morning, our friends Pradeep and Sarah came over with their little twinsies. It's always good to catch up!
On another morning while my dad was working, we went to meet our friend Eric and his family.
Jack had a blast with Evie.
Kara enjoyed the slide. She's such a little daredevil.
Back at my dad's, Mimi (Dawn) gave Jack a little haircut in her newly renovated hair studio.
And Jack got to try his hand at a little HVAC work. Ok, not really, but he did like playing in the van.
Joey had fun playing with Jack on a broken motorcycle thing. They were riding down the steep driveway hill. Good thing I didn't know about this until after it happened - this kind of stuff makes me nervous!
Jack was pretty thrown off his routine from the time change and travel so he had a few hard nights going to sleep. Grandpa stepped in to help.
One morning we found Jack sleeping under the bed...not sure how that happened. (See his little PJ feet?)
And after a few days, we were off to our next stop. We had a farewell breakfast at WaHo and said our goodbyes.
Next up was visiting the Heithauses at the lake! Grandpa wasted no time loving on the kids!
We were there to celebrate New Year's Eve. The kids were cute with their little hats and party blower things.
We even had a fake champagne toast at fake midnight.
One of the warmer afternoons, Jack enjoyed a little boat ride with Grandpa.
Joey's brothers and sisters trickled in with their families over the next few days and by the weekend it was a packed house! We celebrated Christmas again with all the cousins.
Jack had so much fun with all the kids. He just fit right in and we barely saw him over the next few days. He played with the big kids...
And his little buddy Luke...
And his cousin Zachary...
They all watched movies together...
And played cards. I especially love this picture of my little card shark with his feet up haha.
And played video games. Jack wasn't actually playing but he thought he was and he was really into it. I wish I had a video of this.
Brianna and Kate took great care of Kara. They held her and walked her around...
They were the best babysitters ever!
As always, it was a lot of fun and it was bittersweet to say goodbye and head home.
So much has happened since then I'm not sure I'll ever get caught up. Some things I'll try to post about soon - Jenny and Eric visited SD in Feb, Jack and Kara's birthdays, my dad and Dawn visit, we bought a house (that's kind of a big one!)...and more.
Happy Sunday everyone!
