Christmas Week 2015

Here's another picture heavy documentation of the second half of our Christmas vacation. We got to spend the majority of the next week at my parents house. We got home late Saturday (the 19th) from Mexico. Sunday was my birthday :) Tanner gave me the best birthday present...

Since we found out baby #2 was a girl, there has been some good debate about what we should name her. I've still always wanted the same name I've wanted since before we found out Harvey was a boy...Greta. He's been pushing for Ingrid. Also a good one, but I really have had my heart set on Greta. Well, weeks before we went home he had his mom pick up this bracelet. Obviously not an "I". It matches the "H" I have for Harvey and I have another little mother charm he gave me with the "H" for Mother's Day last year. I cried. It was awesome. He's the best. So verdict is in...Greta it is!!

We had a yummy breakfast and then went to church with my parents. After church we headed up to Tanner's parents for our mini family party. It was a little different this year since we had done Mexico, but she still did the tradition of us all getting little Steinbach ornaments. They were all little Mexican guys or airplanes, which I think was so awesome - a perfect way to remember a perfect vacation. Harvey's face in both of these kills me. Just kicking back with the cousins like he's too cool for school. Haha. I thought I took more pictures here, but apparently not.

 

Right after that we headed over to Grandma Elaine's for the Burningham family Christmas party. I didn't take any pictures and haven't acquired the one fam picture they took. But it was fun. Great food. Good socializing and an always entertaining white elephant bingo. Harvey played really well with all the kids and did great for not napping that day. I guess I did take one picture...

He's got the couch lounging down, that's for sure.

I'm having a hard time (only a few weeks later) of remembering exactly what we did and when. I'm sure none of you are worried about those details, so I'll let it go and just say we had a great week. 

Since Harvey, I'm sure, didn't get in enough golf whilst in Mexico, we found some mini-golf at Fat Cat's. We played the 9 holes 3 times and he wasn't a fan of being done. 

He thought this one was cool until he realized he didn't get his ball back.

A little arcade fun... His favorite was the basketball. We bought some airheads with his massive ticket winnings.

 Laura and Dallin came over that night and Harvey was the most precious thing ever with Logan. It makes me so excited to see what kind of a big brother he'll be with little g.

 

One thing that was a necessary evil that had to happen for me was Bruge's Waffles. We met Kathryn and Laura and Dallin at the Sugarhouse location one morning. Fills my heart and soul with sweet waffley joy.

We stopped at the Planetarium on the way home. I'm not sure it was the highlight of Harvey's trip but we had some fun for a little while. We wandered through the gift shop and he honed in on a colorful striped bouncy ball and wanted nothing to do with anything else. I guess he could have had much more expensive taste there than $3. He fell asleep while Tanner was carrying him out to the car. I think he was getting a little sick because we had a few rough moments and fever off and on the next couple of days.

Climbing through a real live space shuttle tire ;)

 

 My parent's had the temple Tuesday evening so we met Tanner's parents at Rio Grande. We rode trax downtown and wandered around City Creek, then ate dinner, then wandered through temple square and took a token picture. It was snowing and SO crowded, so it really was a quick walk through. Then trax back to car and home. I think Harvey thought the train was pretty cool.

We also spent a morning at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. That place has been around a while but I'd never been - guess that's not that shocking as I never had a kid when we were around it. Harvey loved it. There was TONS of awesome and fun things. He probably spent the most time in the grocery store and at the ball area. Julie and her girls met us there.

Of course all the balls had to be blue.

I love this picture Tanner snapped.

Love my dad's face in this. Love the big kids playing too!

Hahahaha. That's all I can say. Love my mom.

 

Pretty sure T had equally as much fun.

This makes us laugh. Reminds me of that flu commercial...

 

 

Tanner and I wanted to try the hurricane simulator. Well, Harvey wasn't about to be left out, so we let him come in with us. It was hilarious. He wasn't a fan.

 We also had our first family photo booth experience while there.

Annnndddd...after all that fun...we got to leave like this.

Life is rough, huh, kid?
We did get some yummy food after and he had luckily relaxed by then. Nothing a few garbage truck videos on youtube can't fix.

Some more fun at home...

 My dad really is the best...

Some post fun exhaustion...

One evening we went out to my cousin Ty and his wife Lori's house for dinner with cousins and my aunt Shirley. That was fun. He found the car stash.

Christmas eve was a rough day. I think he wasn't feeling good. Didn't nap. Didn't sleep good the night before. And just was a constant grump and whiner all day. It was hard. We hung out at home that day. Played games and did a puzzle. I saw my friend Brooke. It was a low key day which was probably for the best. We may have started a new tradition though by doing a Lego gift Christmas Eve and putting that together. I think it will stick. Harvey seemed to like it. And I know dad will!

By some miracle, he slept good, and woke up happy. And it was an absolute magical day. He was SO much more fun and entertaining than I was expecting. We woke up and Tanner walked him up to the Christmas tree to show him all the presents. No one was quite ready to attack the presents...except him. He wandered right over to the tree and just started tearing into a present. Luckily it was his, and my mom and dad and Kathryn joined soon after. We took LOTS of pictures. (Weird, I know).

His loot prior to going under the tree.

1st present!!

 

 

 

His Christmas was very truck heavy...if you couldn't tell. The garbage truck was definitely the highlight.

Still missing at least one...

 Trucks are a lot of work...gotta have a milk break.

 Trying to get a little variety...

 My parents gave him a tonka truck, a little tykes dump truck and that hat. The trucks held a little more appeal than the hat :)

After Harvey loaded up on stuff, we watched my parents and Kathryn open their Christmas. Then they gave us some great things too.

 

I got a maternity outfit, including pants that are too comfortable for words. I also got an ice cream maker!! So excited! Tanner got a yeti soda can cooler and a puzzle and sweet gift card.

Then the rest of the fam started showing up. We had aebelskeivers for breakfast...a most delicious tradition. Then we did more family gifts and family gift exchange. The rest of the day was puzzles, games, resting, playing, holding baby Logan, etc. Seriously, it was such a happy and perfect Christmas. Tanner's parents and Grandma Elaine even stopped by for a bit.

 

Harvey got a ball popping gun and shark car from Austin.

Tanner got a arc'teryx shirt from Shane

Poor lighting - got some sweet piano books from Laura

 

My cropping on my phone didn't cross over to the computer. Focus on the cute more central part ;)

 

It was fun that Harvey was so entertained by toys - it left some good time for me to puzzle and relax too. Also after bed we did a little gaming.

Cool artsy photo by Tanner.

Tanner wouldn't cooperate and look at the camera- and again - no cropping saved when putting the pics on the computer. 

Again - a perfect trip home. Mexico and Utah were so great. And the drive back home was even better. We left the trailer, had better weather, broke it into two days, and just everything about it was better. Here's Harv carbo loading for the drive.

And just because it's still Christmas-ey, I'll add these. We had some gingerbread houses that we never got to before we left. So Sunday when we got home we did them. Harv helped with mine, ok?

  And picking the candy off of them after is probably the best part of gingerbread houses, right?

Whew. And now we are solid week into January. January is such a weird month to me. And it feels like Christmas was months ago. I am looking forward to 2016 though, for sure. Lots of big and exciting changes in our future!