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Hi friends! Did you miss me? I’m so sorry I’ve been gone for so long, but let’s be honest, your probably didn’t even notice! I decided not to blog over the holidays so I could spend more time with Jude and BTR while he was off work. I had every intention of recapping Christmas already, but on New Year’s Eve Jude came down with a cold which turned into a week of more snot that should be possible coming out of someone so small. And then I didn’t feel great, yada-yada, excuses! BUT now I’m back. Well sort of, I really want to recap our holiday break before anything else because it was just wonderful I have lots of fun ideas for future posts, but nothing really scheduled. #justbeinghonest So we’ll see what happens from here!
And onto our Christmas recap! We had the most wonderful time and it was absolutely magical celebrating with a toddler. Seriously, I think it was the best Christmas ever! We did pretty much everything I had written down on my little bucket list of things to do, plus even more! This is going to be a pretty heavy photo dump, and please excuse the awful lighting and iPhone quality, I promise taking better photos is at the top of my New Year’s resolutions!
We drove through the Shrine lights one night and Jude thought it was amazing. That or he just really liked sitting in my lap in the car and eating kettle corn. #samedifference
We made homemade waffles multiple mornings over the two weeks Brandon was home and they might be my new favorite thing ever. And I forgot how easy it is to make and clean up, honestly!
We visited downtown Belleville to see the Chriskindlmarkt before it closed up for the year. It was super cute!
We also had a super secret photo shoot in BTR’s shop (aka our garage) I can’t wait to share all the details and photos from it!
BTR took an evening to put together Jude’s big Christmas gift, a kitchen!! It took many hours and many beers to complete, but it was worth it 100%. I could probably devote an entire post on my love for this kitchen. It’s so amazing and Jude LOVES it!
One morning before Christmas Jude woke up extra early so he and BTR headed to the store to let me sleep in and they picked me out a few extra treats for my stocking! I love that BTR snapped this photo of Jude picking out the socks!
Jude got his kitchen early on Christmas Eve since it was actually gift from Brandon’s mom and then that evening we went to mass and then came home and played some more before putting out cookies for Santa! And once Jude was asleep Brandon and I finished wrapping (nothing like waiting till the last minute!) and assembling the trampoline and art easel.
Jude slept in a bit on Christmas so we woke him up and took him out to see the tree. He was a little hesitant at first since everything looked so different. We had to show him how to rip the wrapping paper at first but then he went to town and loved it!
One of BTR’s presents was a shiny new French press for coffee on the weekends, so I made us some coffee and we ate blueberry coffee cake for breakfast on my favorite holiday dishes!
My mom came over a little later in the morning with more presents for Jude and we got to open his train set and he really liked it! We just have a little circle set up for now, but we are going to set up a big track in the basement on his train table soon!
After a little nap (for me and Jude) we headed out to all of the other family Christmas parties we had to attend for the day.
Oh and my cousins got a black lab puppy and it was the sweetest thing ever! Jude actually wasn’t too interested in it, but I wanted to steal it and bring it home!
I actually wasn’t feeling well on Christmas so we headed home early that evening to rest and go to bed early.
As for the rest of Christmas break, I ate lots of yummies, like these French macarons my aunt and uncle sent us!
We went on a day date (with Jude) to one of our favorite breweries, 4 Hands, and they had the cutest coloring sheets for kids!
We also went to the Magic House one morning but it was cray-cray so we didn’t stay too long. Definitely a benefit of having a membership is that I don’t care if we don’t stay for a long time!
And me being super type A, I couldn’t handle the mess of all the silverware in Jude’s play kitchen, so I had BTR make a little silverware caddy for it! Of course Jude just takes the tray out and dumps it everywhere, but we are working on our sorting skills!
And we ended our wonderful holiday break by being sick on New Year’s Eve and having a low key night at home. BTR picked up a party hat at the store and Jude was mildly interested in it.
We put Jude to bed early and made a fancy dinner of stuffed shells (our first time making them and they were sooooo yummy!) and then for dessert we pulled out the 151 and made bananas foster! And I snapchatted the whole thing, so hopefully you got to see the fire show! :) Recipes for both coming soon, I promise!
Wow what a post! We really did have a wonderful break, and I can’t believe next year we will have two little ones running/crawling around! I hope you all had some quality family time over the holidays like we did!
