Rock Stars in the Making

I don't remember doing things with my little brother when I was as young as Andrew is but if we had half as much fun as Andrew and Austin have together, we had a blast! Already, Austin wants to be just like his big brother, even if for a quick guitar jam session.

Making sure the guitar is in tune

Checking to see what he should be doing...

Andrew was about to start rocking out. You can tell Andrew is moving and Austin is wondering what is going on.

I know it's a silly post but it was such a cute moment between these two little boys. They love being brothers!

Austin's First Snow Day

I have to give Kyle credit: sometimes, his spontaneity is AMAZING! He loves living life and when I have the opportunity to keep up and entertain his spontaneous ideas, they turn out to be pretty great. With the upcoming rain forecasted, Kyle wanted to surprise Andrew and take him to the snow. I was nervous since I was having flashbacks of this time last year when Kyle took us to Big Bear and we got snowed in...when I was 8 months pregnant. It was fun but I did not want to have an unplanned overnight...again...with an infant....nope!
Anyhow, we packed for the day's errands and on the way home, drove to Idyllwild. Thankfully, it wasn't raining while we drove up there and for the moments when we were trying to find a place to settle. It snowed early in the day as most of So Cal had thunderstorms and flash floods. To our surprise, even with all the snow, Idyllwild was a ghost town. There was NO ONE there! When we grabbed a quick bite to eat, the serving staff had said they were disappointed that with all the snow they had got, that there weren't more people in town. It was our lucky day!! After dinner, it didn't just sprinkle, it snowed! It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and Andrew and Austin were in awe! It was gorgeous!

Austin loved the snow, particularly when it fell from the sky and onto his face. He stared into the sky with mouth opened wide and took it all in. It was so sweet! I especially loved the snowflakes on his nose and eyelashes (gives new meaning to how these really are a few of my favorite things!)

I know they are dark but you can see the joy on Austin's sweet little face.

Austin's First Christmas

You hear people say it all the time that Christmas was magical as a child but was simply the best watching it through the eyes of your own children. Andrew has certainly made this a true statement in our household but there is a level of cuteness and magic that I am not sure I can capture in words when I try to explain to you how sweet it was watching Andrew share the magic of Christmas with his baby brother. Every decoration, ornament, Christmas card, and gathering was so sweet watching Andrew try to explain to his brother. It put things in perspective for me and definitely helped me realize what Christmas meant to Andrew.

It seemed to be a common conversation with the majority of my friends that Christmas was done minimally this year, particularly in the decorations. I know for us, we went very minimal on decorations. For one, I tried to decorate when Austin napped during the day. This little boy is FAST and gets into EVERYTHING! So, I was able to make progress while Austin was sleeping. However, when he was awake, I realized that I had to undo my "typical" spots because unlike Andrew who was 4 months old at Christmas, this busy little crawler wanted to see, touch, and eat anything in sight, including the Christmas tree. We had "that tree" with zero decorations on the bottom branches because he wanted to pull them all off. I also had to resort to writing the To/From labels on the packages since Austin loved to pull the tags off. It was a busy process just trying to get ready for Christmas. By the time I finished the tree and the stairs, we I was DONE! Minimal it was! And honestly, I was okay with it!

This year was an especially busy one for the Wallace Family. It seemed like we had some holiday gathering to attend almost every day! We are so fortunate to have such a full dance card but man, we were wiped out from all the fun! Unlike most of the 16 years Kyle and I have been together, our Captain was home this year!! It was great, especially since it was Austin's first Christmas! And Andrew is at such a great age right now for Christmas. Our elf, Buddy, made sure to tell Santa that both of the Wallace brothers had been very good this year.
Some of Buddy's shenanigans:

Round One: Christmas with Uncle JJ and Auntie C

Caught Red Handed!

"Are you kidding me??"

Round 4: Christmas Morning

Santa had come!

Andrew was SOOOO excited

Santa had set the scene

The after math

Merry Christmas Family and Friends!

Ten month fun!



With all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, if you blink for just a second, you will miss this little boy change. He changes everyday!!

 

We are teething...again!!

Pretty accurately depicts this little boy's personality! Such a silly and sweet boy!

Kyle's Birthday: Doheny Style

For Kyle's birthday this year, the big 3-5, I should add, all the man wanted to do was camp! So you can imagine his surprise when on a whim, an entire week at Doheny State Beach became available. Welp, looks like we are going camping! Never mind that I had to work everyday that week, we were going camping! And what a beautiful, perfect week it was! The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we had the entire beach to ourselves! The first day the campground was full but for the remainder of our trip, there was only half a dozen other campers there in the entire campground.  And Andrew could not have been any happier about spending his days with his toes in the sand and beach bum days. It was pretty picture perfect and I think the birthday boy was pretty happy too!

A boy in paradise

Having a great time...

I mean, come on!! Does it get any better than that?

Little man had his own chair.

The sunsets were pretty spectacular every night!