::christmas eve pt 2::

My Kris was a little bothered that I didn't mention the awful ridiculousness of Max's cheesy picture face.
Well, it does deserve mentioning--though Kris is lucky I'm not making him do a special post of his own on it.
So, a moment of silence wherein you can bask in the horrible squirtyness of Max's picture face:

Oy.

Oy vey.

Urgh.
OK, that's enough for now. But wow, how weird is that goofy smile?

So on to more Christmas Eve.
We went to lunch and it was fun. I always like doing that.
After that we went and got cold weather gear for both Grandma and Sandy.
After that we went home and worked on more cookie making. Sandy wanted to prove that he wasn't 100% miserable and he ate a sugar cookie with no frosting. In a funny way no less.


Now, at this point Max was getting so excited he could hardly handle himself. So Kris sent him out to the courtyard to make a big pile of snow. It kept him pretty busy for an hour or so, surprisingly enough. Though you can't see it, the mound is all of about a foot and a half tall. Impressive, right?

And after that there was some icicle fencing. Even later, there was some sledding on the driveway. That's some pretty memorable great stuff.

After all that fun we headed into town in order to walk down Canyon Road. This is a Santa Fe tradition. There are lots of art gallerys and little fancy shops on that road and they all get fancied up with lights and luminarias. We've never done it before--last year we thought about it but it was so crowded with cars and stuff when we drove by that we decided to forget it.
We went down there early, just as the sun was going down and found a far away parking spot.


Poor Sandy doesn't look too happy, does he? He did ok for most of the walk, but by the end he seemed to be cold, bored, unhappy and super cranky. But before that happened we got to see some fun stuff.

It got more crowded as the light disappeared.

Here's a crazy huge horse head statue for my mom.

There were fires here and there for people to sit by. Some folks were standing around them singing Christmas carols.



More horses--cool flower things too in the background.

Look at that cute dog with lights around his neck.

It got prettier as it got darker too.




So lovely!
At this point we had to turn around and hurry as fast as we could back to the car so Sandy wouldn't melt in despair.
Then we thawed out and hurried home for more fun.
Part three to come..Whew!!

::festive & not festive too::

Kris has been practicing his trombone and baritone--mostly playing fun Christmas tunes. His dad used to really enjoy getting the kids together to play Christmas tunes on their instruments.

Anyway, today he got out the baritones to play a few tunes for Sandy. It was quite cute and festive. Well, it was until Sandy heard it.


He wasn't too sure at first.
Then he was sure.


Poor Sandy!



Yes, I picked him up and hugged him after this. No babies were harmed in the making of this blog post.
Poor guy just hasn't been himself since he got sick. He's tired and cranky and the steroids, though making him breathe (thank heavens) seem to be making him unhappy. Poor guy.
So not too festive of an attitude, but I do love his little outfit.

::festive part 1::

The first festive thing that has been happening lately is: SNOW!
Not today or yesterday, but a couple of days earlier this week we had lots of fun snow.



Snow is always fun and festive, and we're always glad for more moisture out here. Though the snow did make me nervous since the baby was sick. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get around to the doctor and stuff. But we didn't get as much as we were supposed to, so it was all fine and beautiful.

Next festive thing:
Sandy can breathe. He's SO cranky it's hard to believe, but he's breathing and sleeping and sometimes eating.

(this is not a good picture of me, but so cute of Sandy!)
And so far nobody else has been sick (though Kari's poor family back in UT is sick--can't blame it on us though!) So far anyway. We've all felt a little goofy, but it looks like we might get away with no sickys for Christmas. And that would be nice.

And last, for this installment anyway:
More snow.
Here's the front of the house, I think it looks so fun!

And here's a little darling cactus that looks to me so much like a little Christmas tree since it's so snowy.


More to come, hopefully later today!

::unfestive::

Since I'm planning a post or two for tomorrow detailing the festive things that are happening around here, I thought I would tell you a few UNfestive things. You know, get them over with.

First, but not most bummerish is the fact that one of the strings of lights on our christmas tree has gone out. No amount of shaking or twisting or any tweaking will fix them. And they're halfway up the ten foot tree.
Such a bummer because every time I look at the tree it makes me sad--and after all that hard work! I want to fix it, but in the sake of simplicity (if you remember that was my theme word this year, or was it simple?) Anyway, in the sake of saying sane I should probably just leave it alone. And Kris says he doesn't notice it--so I'll try not to either.

But the real non festive thing around here has been sickness. Poor Sandy has been soooo sick. Turns out he's had RSV or something similar. Poor baby started wheezing and having a hard time breathing at the beginning of the week and we've been struggling with it ever since. Finally after a late night near visit to the ER (he seemed so much better by the time we got there, we turned back) we got into the doctor first thing the next morning and got some steroids. He's done so much better since. (though he HATES having a nebulizer held in front of his breathers for thirty minutes!)
So instead of decking halls and making cookies and watching Christmas movies the last few days we've been trying to take care of wheezy sad and pitiful cranky sick babies.

AND he's teething--he's got about four teeth coming in. So at first we didn't even know that he was really sick.
Anyway, he's doing so so so much better now and we're all glad since we had a couple of bad nights.
Thank goodness for modern medicine and solutions to scary problems.


So the sickness is pretty unfestive--and it would be sad if the others of us got it. I sure hope we can stay well.
But the fact that baby feels better is beginning to be festive--so that can be the opener for my festivity report tomorrow.

::festive part 2::

Here are some more festive scenes from around here--mostly from yesterday (Christmas Eve!)
Festive sunsets!
From monday:

From yesterday on the way to the methodist Christmas Eve service we attended (which was fun, by the way.)

The color of the sky was so amazing, and the clouds were really low and cool looking.


I showed Max the Santa tracker at lunch and he tracked the big man for the rest of the day. He loved it. I loved how it kept him occupied. I love how the mobile version of google maps got in on it this year--if you searched "santa" the phone would show you where he was. We saw him in Uzbekistan, Saudia Arabia, the Seychelles and Cape Verde. It led to some pretty interesting conversations about geography.

Here are the ornaments I made this year. I try to always make a Max ornament every year for the Grandmothers--and this year we got to add Sandy which made me very happy. I think it turned out cute--not anything too special, but cute!




We read this book together every Christmas Eve. It's a lovely pop-up book and kids love it. It's a tradition that I carried from my home growing up. I found this copy of the book for us at a second hand book store before amazon.com really existed--it was a triumph then! And wow, I just searched it on amazon just for fun, and they're selling used starting at $50. Crazy!
Anyway, we love it and it's fun to remember how I felt reading that same book when I was Max's age.

Boys in Santa hats are quite festive.

This one was usurped from work--the staff each had one and Max was really coveting them. One of the sweet ladies donated hers to his cause and wore it for two days straight.

Boys in Christmas sweaters are even more festive!

I waited all day to try and get a picture of them together where Sandy was awake, but he just had too sleepy of a day.
Max's sweater came from my mom and Sandy's came from Kris's mom. Thanks moms!! The boys looked so cute.

The nativity scene:

This is festive, but I'm just not sure what to say about it. Hmmmmmmm.

Luminarios/farolitos:
Lots of people have these on their houses out here--and especially businesses and big buildings. They're so fun looking and very different. This is a picture of a house on our street. I wish I would've been able to snag a picture of one of the big multi level places downtown for you. Next year.


And last, but certainly not least, my favorite festive activity for the day was Kris getting pooped on. We were trying to hurry and get ready to go to the church service and Sandy just couldn't seem to finish pooping before he got changed. Kris actually went through a couple of diapers and then finally just got a bad angle and was really in the line of fire. He shrieked (in a manly way of course) and had to go and completely change his clothes. Sandy was totally nonplussed, which cracked me up. And of course I took a picture or two even though the light was totally awful.


HAH!!

We've had a great Christmas Eve and a lovely Christmas day. The best part is spending time together as a little family as well as talking to all our loved ones. I hope everybody else had a great couple of days too.
Merry Christmas!!