::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.

::pink-eye::

Oh ick. Ick ick pink eye.
I don't think it's fair to get things like this as an adult. It's so frustrating and embarrassing as well. And unfortunately, just because mom is sick doesn't mean the world stops spinning. In fact often it seems that it spins faster.
Anyway, Kris got sick last week after he did an insane 12 hour bike race. I think he just wore himself out completely and then was very ready to get sick. He got a bad cold then what ended up being pink-eye, though I just thought it was part of his cold. We had to go to Phoenix for the weekend for work. We were supposed to go swimming with some friends on monday morning (we were leaving for home monday at noon.) When the baby woke up I noticed his eye was all crusty and then I knew it was the beginning of the end.

The next morning I got it and then the morning after that Max got it.
Max missed his field day at school and the last three days of the year. He didn't mind it too much of course, but I got pretty tired trying to entertain everybody.
I loved having eyes that looked like they belonged to an elephant. Plus, to make it even worse I obviously couldn't wear my contact lenses, and unfortunately my only pair of glasses got melted on a space heater at some point. They won't stay on my face very well and they make me feel claustrophobic and terrible. They're also a little outdated so everything's just a bit blurry.
So, all complaining aside, it was a pretty bad week.

See that sad weepy swollen eye?

Max the lightest case of anybody--plus his eyes are so huge that you could hardly tell they were swollen at all.

The boys did get to spend some quality time together this week though and that was nice.


But don't even get me started on the torture it is to give these boys burning eyedrops. So sad and awful and frustrating.
The things I learned this week?
1. Avoid pink-eye like the plague.
2. Get some glasses that work.
I think I'm going to go look for some tomorrow morning.

::Lava, we're gonna do it all day::

I'll explain the title of this post a little later.
While we were in St. George we decided to take a drive out to Flagstaff Arizona to see what it was like. We'd heard that it has four seasons, which we like and was high up in the mountains, and we like mountains. And since we're only a short two years away from actually deciding where we want to be, we are trying to check out some of the places in the west we might be interested in.

So anyway, we headed out for an overnight visit to Flagstaff. It was a very interesting drive. First we went through Zion's, which of course is incredible looking.

I love how even the road is red.

Then we drove out through the Navajo reservation and saw some more really amazing landscape. The desert red rocks and mesas and stuff are so striking. Its hard to take pictures of some of that stuff--it's almost too much for a camera to take in.

We got to our hotel in Flagstaff and then decided we'd like to go on a hike. There's a famous old volcano crater just outside the city, so we went over there.
I wore the wrong shoes.

But I was tough, so I survived. Don't look too close at my dorky toes please.
It wasn't a tough hike, but it was very cool looking out there.
There were piles of the old lava rock everywhere.

The crater itself was a very cool color--which is probably why they call it "sunset crater"

Max wore himself out running way ahead of us, and finally just had to be carried most of the way.

Little did we know that he had the stomach flu and would wake up the next morning and throw up all day. Good thing we didn't know.



We couldn't really figure out what his deal was. Oh well.

He made up a song while he was riding on Kris's shoulders that went "LaVA, we're gonna DO it ALL DAY" and sang it over and over and over, very loudly the whole way. It was funny.

After the hike. All that shoulder riding must've been very dehydrating.

After our hike we went and had dinner (good yummy mexican food) and went to bed, planning to take a good look at the city in the morning. Then as you already know, Max decided to throw up. All morning. When he finally stopped throwing up for more than about 15 minutes we quickly threw him in the car and hurried away. We drove through the city a little bit, but after he threw up in the car we decided it was time to head back. So I don't even have any good pictures of Flagstaff. We liked it though. It was small and kind of interesting with lots of pretty trees. I do have a tree picture.

Just imagine a city where most of the buildings are hidden behind trees like this. That's the jist of Flagstaff. Or at least that's our impression after spending about 12 hours there.

We had to skip the grand canyon on the way back, but we made it to St. George without any more big problems, luckily.

Doesn't it seem like little kids always get sick on trips? And always at such inconvenient times? Remember what happened to me at Disney World?!?......Blah

::Sicky::

As you know, poor little Max has been sick for the last few days. He's started to feel better on saturday and sunday, but now seems to have had some sort of relapse. It's sad! He hasn't been this sick for a while.
I have mixed feelings about him being sick. Of course I don't want him to feel ill and terrible and to be hurt, but man when he's sick with a fever or something he is SO snuggly. I love that he just lets me hang onto him. It's pretty relaxing. Well, it would be if he wasn't so hot that he burned my lap after sitting on it for 10 minutes.
The first day he was sick, thursday, he was like that. Just really cuddly, tired and sweet. He even said he needed his bed in the afternoon and went straight to sleep when I put him in it.
You may remember this picture from a few days ago. I'm putting it back up here because I think it's so adorable.

Poor little cute snoozer. The best part about this picture is that you can't smell him. OK, that was probably too much information, but it's true, he was a little stinky.
Here he is thursday morning, resting in his chair.

Here he is taking a much protested "nap" on his bed.

yes, he's on his bed, AND in a tent. That's another story for another day.
Anyway, when we got sick when we were little my mom would often make "sick eggs" for us to eat. Ok, it sounds gross now that I'm writing the name down, but it's supposed to mean eggs for when you're sick, not gross eggs.
They consisted of a couple of warm hard boiled eggs sliced up with a little bit of butter and salt and pepper mixed in. To a sick little one it was like heaven.
So I made Max some sick eggs. He appreciated them quite a bit. He was an instant fan.

Have somebody you love make these for you the next time you're sick. I tell you, they're like magic.
So Friday morning we thought he was doing better, although he still wasn't 100% himself by any means.
Max was lying on the couch when Kris left for school. About two minutes after Kris walked out of the door he puked all over everything. Nice timing, huh?
So he earned himself a bath, which took care of the stinkiness I alluded to earlier.
After that he thought he was back to normal, but when I came into the room and found him lying on the floor on top of his sock monkey blanket I knew better.

Here he is trying to pretend he's not the palest thing that ever walked the face of the earth. He didn't fool me. Notice the towel on the couch, strategically placed to catch anything nasty. The couch cushions had to spend some time airing out...yick.

After the cute sweet snuggly sick stage comes the horrible cranky cranky whiny sick stage. This is where he thinks he's well enough to do stuff, but everything he does either hurts him or makes him mad and frustrated. This stage makes up for all the pleasantness in the first stage and is what keeps me from wishing he was sick more often!
Here are some examples of this from sunday:





See what I mean? It's no fun for anybody. This was even after he'd taken a nap.
Today we thought he was feeling better and so he went to school, but when I went to pick him up he was all warm and feverish and looking smushed. So he's doing a little bit more recuperation. Wish us luck getting him better. I know we can do it.
We'll have more happy photos to post here before you know it.