::festive part 2--decor::

So this isn't quite as festive as it once was meant to be--now that it's after Christmas. But sick babies will slow people down and put things off. Some things are just more important than blogging I guess.
Anyway, we did some fun decorating this year and I wanted to show you guys.

Kris worked hard and put up a bunch of outside lights, and they make me happy every time I see them.

This is just part of them, I couldn't get them all in the picture, and it was too cold to keep trying.

Kris specially wanted to get us some chile lights. He's wanted them for a while I guess. I think they're a tad cheesy, but as long as they're not on the tree I think they're fun.


In the corner of the pool table room, right by the chile lights is a little tree--it's the small one we cut down when tree hunting.
It's very goofy looking--a classic charlie brown type tree. But it's fun and it serves it's purpose. I went through and picked out a bunch of fun family pictures--mostly from Dec, but not all--and laminated them. Then I cut them out and put them on hangers and of course, hung them on the tree.

It turned out pretty darn fun, and I love seeing my little boys' faces dangling there when I walk by.


What do you think? Fun idea? I stole the germ of the idea from a good friend of mine who does something similar.

And now for more trees. I was excited to finally have some space to put up a little silver tree I bought several years ago in Kansas City. And that tree needed some friends. So we gained a few more trees as Dec went on.
So there are a few cute ones on the way into the living room.

Then on top of our built in TV cabinet (that we will eventually be changing and remodeling a bit, hopefully) is a little forest.


There are little birds and butterflies all hanging out up there in the trees. I love how the little forest turned out. It's so cheery and fun.
Then I put sparkly mylar star things along the shelves up high too--not until after Sandy swallowed at least one star though.
Then on Christmas Eve Kris was putting together our luminarios that didn't get put outside, and we decided to put them up on the shelf also.
They look SO festive. In fact I'm tempted to keep them up year round for mood lighting!

So there are my fun things I did this year. There's other fun stuff here and there, but these were the major ones.
And then of course, our awesome lovely tree that we will all be sad to see go. It's been a a good one.

It's so fun to actually have Christmas day, but isn't it always so sad when it's over--in so many ways?

::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.

::st george pt 2::

So for part two:
One little bonus photo from the swimming. The Go Pro camera is so awesome.

I took pictures of Kari's family. I haven't finished editing them yet, but I have done a few and they're quite cute. Like this.

Then we left.
Poor little Sandy had a big puke--the first real one of his life on friday night. It was very sad, and then he seemed totally fine. We hoped that it was just overfeeding or travel or something. Anyway, he was fine after that and so we went on with life.
We left on sunday morning and the GPS told us to go through Zion's. It wasn't the quickest or easiest way to go, but it sure was picturesque.

It's gorgeous. And so fun to drive through a huge tunnel through the mountain.



The bummer was that the little twisty roads made everybody a little carsick--except Sand. Max especially felt ill, and we had to pull over so he could decide whether he was going to be sick or not at some point.

He wasn't quite himself.
We stopped in Flagstaff and stayed the night. We ate a kind of gross dinner and went to bed. Sadly, I woke up at 1AM sick and threw up all night. Then Max woke up and wasn't sick at first, but.... Kris didn't feel all that well, but survived without a puke, lucky for him.
Kris took the boys down to breakfast while I tried to catch up on a little sleep.

Sandy ate a large and healthy breakfast. He loves breakfast.
Max _tried_ to eat a large and exciting breakfast.

Wow, right? Kris said he managed to eat about 10% of all the food he had gathered.
Then he proceeded to be sick for the rest of the day. He threw up all the way home.
We did make it home in the late evening and we were so glad we made it.

Lucky for us we're not used to this sort of thing. Our boys are such great travelers. Hopefully we'll be spared this happening too many other times!
It was still a fun weekend though. Lots of fun pictures anyway!

::more on sand::

Just a little more evidence of how tidy my little Sand is. I really hadn't noticed it until after the birthday cake.

Any moms out there ever given their kids these gross things?

(Can you see his worried look? He's afraid that I'm not going to actually give him the food, but just take pictures all night.)

These things are gross. I usually don't buy these types of things because they are expensive and he eats them so darn fast. But I was at Target today and feeling generous--or just overwhelmed by all the merchandise--and I got this tub. I was actually thinking it was the cheetos type things. Anyway, I got home and got them out and realized they were the gross huge wagon wheels.
Sandy didn't care though, he was ready for them.

"Give me the DARN FOOD!!"

I got these things for Max one time and that was the last. He made such a soggy slobbery slimy mess out of them. So I was rather dreading it tonight.

Here's Sandy post first wagon wheel.

Looks perfectly clean to me really. A little on the bib, but nothing else.

And 2nd wheel:




And there he is with the leftovers--at some point he decided the wheel was kind of gross on his own. He thought real dinner sounded better.

Anyway, such a funny boy. And the differences and similarities between the two brothers is hilarious to me.