::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!!

::family shots::

In November we got together with a friend who did a family photo shoot for us. Unfortunately we had a limited window of time to do it in, and the light was super bad. So a lot of the pictures didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. We're going to redo the session at some point here when it's not so darn cold. But a few of them were cute, so I wanted to show you all.
We found a gorgeous house with big wooden gates and blue doors in their courtyard wall. The people there were kind enough to let us use their place as a backdrop. It made me want to go home and paint all our doors blue!




Sweet little boys:


That Sandy sure does love his brother!





And after the blue door house we went down to the railyard to try to get a few shots with the trains. But the boys were pretty much worn out by then. And it was windy and cold. And Max was hungry.
So we'll have to redo those too--but at least you can see what a cool setting it is there!



So there ya go!
I used a couple of the photos for our Christmas card and it turned out fun. I'll post it here later for those of you who might not've got one! (Or for those of you I sent them out to and then got them back later for various reasons!)

::out my kitchen window::

I was feeding the boys breakfast a few mornings ago, and when I looked out the little window over my sink, the sun was shining into my little tree there. I realized it had finally changed color, and it was just as orange as could be. Gorgeous. And with the angle of the sun, the leaves were glowing like fire.
So of course I grabbed my camera and tried to capture it. I mean, 1. it was so gorgeous I couldn't help it and 2. I wanted to prove to all you skeptics out there that not only do we have leaves and trees and stuff out here in the desert, but we have fall and pretty changing colors!

But the window screen kept getting in my way when I was shooting from the window.

Argh.
And it didn't look quite right when I stepped outside to try to shoot it--besides my feet got freezing cold on the bricks.

So if these photos look pretty to you, imagine them glowing with a lovely morning light, and then know what I was trying to show you.
Happy end of fall!

::chiles::

On Saturday we took some crazy kids to lunch.
Then Blake wanted some roasted chiles. And since Santa Fe is crazy with the smell of roasted chiles in the fall Kris was easily convinced to find a spot where we could procure some.
So first you go in and pay the big bucks for a bag of Hatch chiles. And the checker, who barely speaks english tells you a bunch of times that only the HOT chiles are left.
Then you go out and give the guy your receipt and he hauls a huge bag over to the roaster.


Then the roaster turns on and the chiles roll around and around the barrel, dumping spicy seeds everywhere.

When you stand and watch, chile ash lands on your clothes and face and it smells so darn good.


Grace and Kris decided to get the baby out of the smoke.
Evie found a red chile. Luckily she didn't taste it or anything.


There were red and green chiles on the ground everywhere.

And there they are:

And if you think that's a LOT of roasted chile you'd be right.

When weighed at home they came out to be about 20 pounds. Yikes.
But to put the finishing touch on buying chiles, you must dig into the bag after you get home and pull out a big red chile. Definitely don't get the seeds out or cut it up, just stick it straight in your mouth and take a huge bite. Then after saying how darn spicy it is, keep taking bites.
Then when the real spiciness hits, cry.
Drink milk, hold ice against your lips and get your just deserts.
I'm glad I'm married to a crazy man that eats straight red chiles, he wouldn't be my man if he didn't do goofy things like that. But he sure is silly.
And roasted chiles sure do smell like fall.

::fun run::

(Max is on the very far right in this photo.)
Today was Max's school's biggest fund raiser, the "Fun Run."
They have a 5k race at 8AM then a 1 mile run at 9AM.
Last year we sponsored the race and it was really fun to do, so we did it again.

Last year we came in dead last in the 1 mile run. Cammon & Lorri were visiting us, which was awesome. But we were late in getting there and as we were running up there the main field took off, way too far away for us to have a hope of catching up. So we walked and Max wimped out and we were the very last. Well, except little Scooter who decided to run the whole way. But the rest of us were pretty slow. No big deal.

But this year, we wanted to be faster.

I've been running a bunch, working towards doing a half marathon in January 2012. This is amazing for me because I've always hated to run. I've always been the slowest worst runner. So working on this is hugely tough and challenging for me. But as of today I've run (and when I say run I mean a combo of running and walking) 70 miles! That's in about the last month and a half to two months. So I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Though I'm slow slow slow, I'm at least getting some miles in and I have to be getting better, however slightly.

So I did the 5K. It was my first official race and it was tough. Some fat ladies passed me and stayed ahead and I couldn't keep up with some kids--BUT I finished and I wasn't last. There were slower people than me, somehow. And I didn't wimp out. It got kind of warm and I got tired on the hills, but I made it.

Now for Max.

(There he goes, tongue out of his mouth as usual and feet not even touching the ground! This picture was taken by my friend Mandy, thanks Mandy!!)
We've been trying to get Max into getting more active and having more fun with it. Running and biking have been the things we've been encouraging. So we've been talking up the Fun Run here. He was ready to try hard because one of the prizes was a toy store gift certificate.

He took off pretty quickly and Kris says he definitely walked a bunch, but he did it. He didn't wimp out and he was running when he started and running when they came up to the finish! I'm really pleased with the progress since last year. We're both quite improved. And our attitudes are better.

Max didn't win anything of course, but I did take him to the store and get him a prize. As far as I'm concerned he was awesome.

Judy from the office came and joined us and did super well. It was fun to have her there! I was excited when I saw her at the finish line cheering me on when I was done.

IT's pretty fun that we have a great event like this we can sponsor and get involved in right down the street from our house!
And we're pretty proud of ourselves--and tired tonight.