The break

It breaks my heart to think our last official Christmas school break is over.  Never have we known a life without school breaks- over a month of vacation for Christmas.  But at least I can say we really enjoyed our last break.  Pretty much all our friends were gone visiting family for the break and since we decided to stay here we had lots of time to kill as a family.  We had big plans to go to DC or Williamsburg and do a mini vacation but the weather wasn't the best so we just stuck around Cville.  It was relaxing and nice to take lots of naps and just hang out.  We did start to get a little bored near the end but that worked out great because we went to Utah for a week in January.  A few pictures of us playing and hanging out.  P.S. I recognize these pictures are mostly of Charlotte.  I try to keep my picture distribution even between the two kids but I figure I have lots of catching up to do with Charlotte to make up for the two years I documented everything Jack did.  Also, Jack never holds still so it's like trying to photograph a cheetah.

Puzzles.

Playing in the car when it was too cold outside.

Hahaha. I promise she doesn't really sit on the iPad all day.

Playing vet with a fun app we found.

Char has suddenly really taken to Disney cars.  This is great because we have a million.  These have pretty much been Jack's life for the past four years.  It makes me laugh how she likes cars but mostly just the cute/girl ones.

We hiked the famous Hump back rock.  It was quite a hike for a pregnant lady with a kid on her back but somehow we all managed to get to the top before it was dark.

New Years Eve

This was the first New Year's ever I wasn't in Gunnison.  Just one problem, no one was around to babysit.  We took the family alternative and went to the Charlottesville downtown First Night Celebration.  We headed downtown around 3 pm and went around to various performances and activities held throughout the mall.  It was cold but still lots of fun.  We saw a children's comedian, acrobats and a magician.  We ate a yummy and warming dinner of Revolutionary Soup and then headed home with fresh donuts.

We started at the Discovery Museum

They had face painting there.

Then we went to watch a comedian which was hard to endure but Jack thought he was funny.

Next we watched the Charlottesville Acrobatics.

And finally the magician.  Our friends, the Vedomske's, got called on stage.  

We grabbed some warm donuts for the ride home.

Happy 2014!

Craigory

Those animal shelter people know what they are doing.  We are now the official owners of Miles the cat.  We had no intention of getting a pet.  In fact we aren't even allowed to have them in our apartment.  We take the kids to the shelter to visit the cats and dogs a lot.  I happened to see an advertisement to foster a  pet over the holidays.  Jack had just recently had a melt down when I told him we couldn't get a cat and that maybe when we get to Utah we could think about it.  Also, I needed activities for my Christmas advent calendar.  It was fate.  Everything lined up to push us to the idea of just fostering the cat over the break because it would be fun.  So sure enough we went and picked out a cat the day after Jack's birthday.  I didn't take it serious because I knew we would be bringing it back.  So we walked around for 20 minutes and then said, this one looks great, and took Miles home.  The kids loved him right away and he was nice and well behaved cat.  He was friendly and would allow the kids to torture him (dress him up, carry him around, feed him toys, etc.).  Then it was time to return him.  We decided to keep him a little longer.  Also we learned of quite a few apartments in our complex that have cats and we breaking the rules anyway and somehow this helped us justify.  Then after about two weeks we got an email that said they were doing a promotion that you could keep your foster pet for free.  The cat had already been fixed, had all it's shots and was litter box trained and now it was free too.  And before we knew it, we had a cat.  We went back to the clinic to adopt him and they asked what to engrave on his collar, we hadn't thought about it and Jack yelled out Craigory so we went with that.  He is a super nice kitty and the kids love him.  At least the novelty hasn't worn off yet.  The real question is now, how to transport Craigory 2000+ miles to Utah here in a few months.  Hmmm.

Christmas

Finally Christmas came!  Jack almost couldn't stand it (and to be honest I was super excited too since this was our first little family Christmas).  Christmas Eve we had dinner with friends at the Fairbank's home.  Delicious ham and rolls with all the trimmings.  Then we headed home and started the Christmas Eve traditions of decorating cookies and leaving them out for Santa, watching Christmas cartoons, reading about the birth of the Savior and opening jammies.  Once we finally go the kids to bed, we started getting presents ready.  Logan had the wonderful task of putting together Jack's train table which was about a three hour project.  Around 1 a.m. we were finally done and ready to go to bed when Charlotte woke up.  I went in to check on her and she was mad.  This wasn't like her.  We are pretty sure she had an ear infection.  Her crying woke Jack up too.  After trying to get her to calm down for about two hours, she and Jack finally fell back to sleep around 3 a.m.  She was back up at 6 a.m. but I got her to fall back asleep in our tiny bed with us and Jack was up and ready for presents around 9 (thankfully he slept in).  We let Char sleep a little longer so we didn't make it in until about 10 a.m.  We were all pretty sleep deprived and Char was a little under the weather, but we still managed to have a great Christmas.  We opened presents.  Jack was way into it and Char was kind of catching on.  We played with our gifts and relaxed at home.  We talked and Skyped with family and Jack loved telling them about his Christmas.  

A not so great picture of our group at Emily's house after eating dinner.

Emily Fairbank, me, Amanda Weedman, and Stephanie Aud.

Christmas Eve.  The wrapped gifts were already entertainment before they were even opened.  They loved playing with them and making towers out of them.  

Typical older brother taunting.

Decorating cookies for Santa.

Opening jammies, toothbrushes and a stuffed minion.

Reading about baby Jesus.

Getting the gifts ready.  Charlotte's kitty and grocery cart.

I wanted something for the kids to get their energy out during the winter and found a gymnastics wedge like the one Jack used in gymnastics on Craigslist.  I was surprised at what a hit it has been with kids for tumbling, climbing, racing cars and watching TV on.

Jack's train table.  Spoiled little boy.  Char loves it too. 

Stockings.  A tiny one for the baby.

Char catching up on sleep after a long night.

Sleep deprived.

To prevent Jack from running to the front room, we hung up a sheet in the hallway.

His first reaction.

Char testing out her Elmo couch.

I found some girly Disney cars for Char.  She loves to play cars with Jack but likes to play with the cute cars so this was perfect.  She loves bows too.

Opening stockings.  Jack has tried and tried to chew gum but always ends up swallowing it, even if I right beside him to remind him to not.  I finally gave up and told him he couldn't chew gum until he was four.  So on his fourth birthday we tried again (three times) and he swallowed it.  I gave it one more go and gave him bubble gum in his stocking.  He swallowed it.  After he swallowed it he told me he better wait until he was five. 

Logan got golf clubs (to fit in with the lawyers) and a another Simpson season.  I got clothes (of course) and a fancy blu tooth speaker.

And at the end of the day, with many new gifts, the iPad still wins.