It's Christmas!

 

Christmas finally arrived after 25 days of counting down. (Each morning in December he would look at our little countdown Santa display and say "how many days til Christmas?" and yell "9!" or whatever.) Anyways, Jack came out in his reindeer PJs and was excited by all the presents under the tree and in his stocking. He eyed up his stocking suspiciously before he dove in.

   

 He excitedly showed his daddy a few of his new toys.

 

 

John was also excited about his own presents...

   

 Aunt Julie got Jack a cool Italian book that he loved reading with her.

   

 One of his favorite gifts from Santa was his new numbers poster. Simply numbers 1 through 100, it still completely wow'ed him and he spent a lot of time laying on the floor and counting.

   

 Jack's favorite present though had to be the one from Grandpa and Grandma. When Grandpa brought out the trampoline, he went into his excited pose which is sort of bent over, hands tensed, and jaw jutting. That's when you know he's excited. And he ran after Grandpa as he went to put it in the family room.

 

 

 I'm pretty sure he liked it.

 

 

 Just too cute. It was a really wonderful day and so fun to see the huge difference in Jack from last year's Christmas. He was totally excited about Santa and the Christmas tree and gifts and stockings. And, it was really lovely that he was even more excited about having Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Julie, Aunt Leslie, and Pepe at the house. I have lots of pictures from the big day but here are just a few more.

 

playing with his new rain stick

Julie skyping with her Italian host family

playing with his new stuffed animal dog from Aunt Leslie

showing his love by smothering the dog

finally dressed for the day

playing with another toy...his Thomas the Train toothbrush

Jack and his new ornament

Jack giving a gift to his buddy, Pepe

ready for a walk

"Let's eat!"

So much joy.  So adorable.

Christmas Eve

 

 Well, it's been a long time since I last posted but we were busy enjoying the holidays. What a great Christmas we had and I really can't believe it's over already. We've taken down the decorations but it's time to catch up with blogging all the photos.

   

 My parents and two sisters came up to our house for the holidays and on Christmas Eve we decided to attempt an Italian tradition - the feast of the seven fishes. Let me tell you, that is a lot of seafood. Octopus salad, shrimp, tuna sashimi, baked clams, mussels, white fish, and calamari.

 

 

My sister Julie, newly back from living in Italy, was nice enough to make homemade gnocchi which was delicious.

She also made a mean tiramisu that I didn't take a picture of because I was too busy eating it. :) In between eating courses, Jack got to spend some quality time with his grandpa and grandma. He loved being flipped by grandpa and asked him to do it "again!" and again.

  

After dinner we decided to bundle up and head out to the local christmas caroling parade. Temperatures were pretty low so it required some awesome winter wear.

 

 This was the same thing we did last Christmas Eve and it was so fun to take Jack again. He was excited about going when I talked to him about it all week. But, I have to say, when we got there he was just pretty much in amazement the whole time. Wide eyed and quiet.

 

 And, just a reminder, here's what he looked like last Christmas. Same hat. :-)  Though with him all bundled up, he doesn't even look that much older...

 

 We had a really great time that night and Jack was so cute the whole time. Such a great age.

Christmas Card Lane

While we were in San Diego, my mom, Jack and I went to local holiday favorite, Christmas Card Lane. It's such an amazing neighborhood with great lights and giant wooden character stand-ups/signs in yards. Plus there were some amazing train set-ups. Of course, I didn't really take any pictures of the lights or displays. But I did get one of my winter buddy. (who was not amused by the bright annoying flash).

 

We walked the route rather than driving because I thought he'd like to see everything up close. He certainly enjoyed being that close to the lights but, then again, he also ran up everyone's yard and touched everything and was always in danger of bringing everything down. Oh well. I guess he's a boy. But a cute boy.

Weekend of Decorating

This past weekend we celebrated my birthday by decorating for the holidays.  My favorite thing!  All week Jack had been excited about getting a tree ("a big one!") and he was pretty psyched about the tree lot.  He helped his daddy pick out the perfect tree.

We got it home and Jack helped John untangle all the lights.  Super helpful.

Soon the masterpiece was done and Jack admired his work.

The only thing left was the star on top.  Which Jack was very excited about because all week he had told me we had to get a tree "with a star on top".  I brought out the star and he just was all smiles.  He tried to put it on top but he ended up needing a little help from daddy.

It was a great birthday weekend and I even managed to get a date night with my lovely husband.  Woohoo!