::are you ready for this?::

Check it out.
So there was yesterday morning:

And yesterday afternoon:


And do you want to see how it looked first thing this morning? Here you go:

WOW!
It snowed all night and now the snow is so deep here. It's amazing. And it's funny because this one of the biggest snows we've experienced, even after living out east and in the midwest. And it was the least hyped by the media! If this snow had been heading towards anywhere else we lived people would be mobbing the grocery store to get supplies and getting ready to hole up for weeks. Funny stuff.

Kris left this morning in the Land Rover because he had a dental surgery scheduled at the hospital at 7AM. He barely made it out of the driveway. The patient didn't make it to the hospital of course. By the time he got done calling all of our patients for the day and rescheduling them, he came home and all the freeways and highways were being closed.
We'll see if we make it out of here this afternoon--we're supposed to be going to Albuquerque for the NM Bowl. We were going to stay the night and go to the game tomorrow. We'll see!

Here are some more snowy scenes for you.
The french doors in the dining room. Poor Sultan can't make it out to use the facilites:

Our high windows in the living room, all plastered:

Max, enjoying his snow day home from school:

Sultan, bummed because Kris left in the Land Rover without him:

The view from the front door:



And the view out the back door onto our weird patio:

I think these little snow dunes are my favorite.

A fun view from Max's bathroom window:


Days like this make me truly appreciate a warm cozy house and other temporal blessings. It's also nice to be the bosses instead of being bossed around--making the call on whether this should be a snow day or not was nice instead of just being forced to go in whether we wanted to or not!
Happy snow day. Looks like it may still be white by Christmas!

::today::

Today was our first big snow storm of the year. It started early in the morning and just kept on, light and steady.
This is how it looked this morning at around nineish.

This is how something else looked around nineish.

I think he wanted me to be doing something besides taking pcitures.

Kris left us with a roaring fire and a big pile of wood. What a sweet husband. The fire makes it really cozy.

I used up all the wood.

And here's how it looked at about four after we picked up Max from school.

Brrrrrrrrr.

::look alikes::

Here are my two boys. Can you tell which is which? Max couldn't even tell. These were the most similar pictures and poses that I could find. These are two cute little boys that look so similar.


They have the same little bow lips and the same little pokey out chin and double chins for that matter. They have noses that are very very similar. They both have/had those little bruised looking eyelids. Those come from Kris.

I think though they look a lot alike now that is going to change. I think Sandy's going to end up with his own look.

Here are a couple more poses that I tried to use for comparison--not as good as the top ones, but still so cute I couldn't help but posting!!
Max at about two months old:

Sandy last week:


Max at about two and a half months:

Sandy last week again:

There are some similarities there, right?

And last but not least, here they are in the same outfit--Aunt Leslie gave me this one when Max was born. A little boy always looks adorable wearing the Hungry Caterpillar.
Max probably around a month old:

Sweet Sandy just yesterday:


Love it!

::highlights from week 4::

So I didn't get a picture a day, but that's ok. A picture a day is way too hard, especially in the winter when it gets dark so soon. And I'm all about not putting extra pressure on myself. At least that's how I try to be!

So here are a few fun photos from Sandy's week four. I can't believe he's been here a month already. Time really does go way too fast.

Here he is waiting in the car for big brother to get done from school. Boy is it complicated to take care of a tiny guy and a big guy at the same time--scheduling conflicts! The logistics can be quite complicated. So far so good though, and I have developed a heathy respect for all you parents of multiple children out there!


Another photo from the "kissing grandpa" scene. This one is way too blurry but I still think it's super cute.


Sandy gets to hang out in his bouncer when we're trying to eat meals or get something done. He likes it for about 10 minutes usually and then thinks it's too boring. This is one of my favorite outfits he's wearing. I just love the little stars!


Baby in an elf outfit. I love this little stripey sweater with the pointed hood! Good thing Sandy's small enough to be patient with my dressing him up like an adorable little doll.
Max went and got his Santa hat and pretended to be Santa to Sandy's elf for the rest of the day. Cute stuff.

I love my boys!!

::found::

I found this on the dining room table the other day.

I don't think I can play this song, but as long as Max can we're in good shape.
I think it's the cutest song I've ever seen.

::visits::

We were lucky enough to have Kris's parents here to visit for what was essentially a long weekend. They got here Saturday night and I took them to the airport on Wednesday morning. We had a great time. Kathy has been here before, but this was Ken's first time and we had fun showing him around.
Kris and Max took him up on a four wheeling drive in the Land Rover into the mountains where they saw wild turkeys and wore Ken right out. We took them to a delicious Mexican restaurant. We went to the Cowgirl grill where they got to enjoy the awesomeness of the ice cream baked potato. Kathy and I did a little shopping. Ken got to see the office and meet the people that we work with. We got to sing christmas carols--especially Max's current favorite "The 12 days of Christmas" over and over...

I think Kathy's favorite part was Sandy though. She said this was the oldest any of her grandbabies had ever been before she got to hold him. She made up for it though while she was here. The boy was always happily snuggled up in her arms.

I love this picture. Sandy was in heaven.


He has his eyes open so much more lately. It's very fun.

The bummer was that poor Ken had a work emergency come up just before they came out, and so he was stuck at his little makeshift workstation in our living room for a lot of time. But what would a visit from Ken be without a work emergency, really?

At least we have a bunch of computer stuff, so we could make sure he could get stuff done.

But he took a break long enough to play guitars with Max. Max is doing really well with his lessons, and so was able to play with Ken quite well. It was really fun to hear them play and sing together.



Max is lucky to have such a rich heritage of guitar playing and appreciation from both his Grandpas. We expect great things from him as far as guitars are concerned! At least we want him to be able to serenade girls in college...

Even Sandy got a little Grandpa time. Ken was holding him for me while I did something, and when I came back into the room this is what I saw:


It cracked me up. Lucky Grandpa--not everybody gets those special Sandy kisses.

We're so glad they came, and we'll have lots more to show and do next time they make it out here.
And if you want to see some more fun pictures, see Ken's post here.

::the tree::

We love our fabulous tree from the forest. It's huge.
Luckily we have a large front room with a high ceiling, otherwise there's no way it would've fit and we would have all cried.
But happily it fits, though we did have to trim the back branches a touch and take part of the very top off. I think it's about 10 feet tall now, and the bottom branches probably stretch about six feet. It's definitely the biggest tree we've ever had.
You know what's weird about it though? Unless your nose is basically stuck inside the branches, it just doesn't smell that piney. I've hardly smelled it in the house at all. But oh well, that's what Christmassy smelling candles are for, right?

Last sunday I put the lights on, once Kris's mom was in town to visit and could hold the baby. The poor tree had sat bare in the living room for four or five days, just begging for lights. But I could only do so much. It was great to have two free hands for a bit, though the hands missed the snuggly baby.
Here the tree is, all lit up.

I wish I could give you an idea of the scale, but you'll just have to imagine it. Well maybe this will help. Kris had to do the top lights for me, and he had to get a ladder to do it!

And of course he had to reenact putting the star on top so we could document it for posterity.

He's pretty cute!

So sunday afternoon we got out the ornaments and decorated the tree. First thing Max did was get out a glass ball and hang it on the tree. It directly slipped right off and shattered on the bricks. I decided at that point we'd go 95% non-breakable as far as ornaments. So we're missing some of our favorites this year, but that's ok. It gives some of the others a chance to shine.

Max likes to hang things in big clumps. I'd give him a few to hang, then look up and see them all bunched up on one branch. So after he hung stuff I had to go back through and redistribute. But he was very insistent that the Mama Fish ornament hang as close as possible to the trombone ornament, so she could play it whenever she wanted.

And the best part? Now we get to hang out by the light of the tree whenever we want. I love Christmas trees, especially busy ones with colored lights like ours. They're just so fun to look at, there's always something new to see. Sandy loves to stare at it too.

When he's not sleeping that is.

::week 3::

This is late, and it's the last week I've had a picture every day. Some things just aren't 100% practical, right? But he's so cute honestly it's hard NOT to take pictures of him all the time.
Anyway, so here's his week three.

Day 15:

Does it get any cuter than this? We were on our way to watch the BYU vs UT game with friends. Sandy is wearing Max's old football jersey.

Day 16:

Taking a sunday afternoon snooze with Daddy. I love sleeping babies. And sleeping 6 year olds too really.

Day 17:

You've seen this one before--Sandy waiting while we picked and cut down the christmas tree. He was super patient and slept the whole time. What a man.

Day 18:

Stripey velour suit day. He looks so cute in it. And he's awake, wow!

Day 19:

Propped up in the corner of the couch wearing one of Max's old outfits. I could eat him up.

Day 20:

Me, trying to actually get something done while the boys were in Phoenix. Can you see the dirty dishes in the sink behind me? I didn't get them washed. But Sandy does love the carrier. It's just hard to do anything that's right in front of you when he's in there. But it's nice he enjoys it. He falls right to sleep usually.

Day 21:

A phone picture we took to send to Dad and Max so that they could see how cute his outfit is and how cute HE is.

And that's week three. I can't believe how fast the weeks are flying and how big he's already getting. Slow down baby!

::out with the boys::

Kris had a conference in Phoenix over the weekend, and like the awesome husband that he is, he thought it might be easier for me if Max went with him. It was true, and Max was SO excited to get to go with dad.
I think they generally had a great time. These are some of the pictures that were emailed to me over friday and saturday.
A huge hotel breakfast--I can't believe he ate all that!

Max's little workstation for during class time. Lots of fun entertainment.

Producing cool stuff like this:

Love it!!

Testing the temp of the pool water with a changing color car. Max swam, Kris was too wimpy for the colder temps.

Max getting to be the dummy for demonstrations of headgear. This one cracked me up! We had to make sure he earned his plane ticket somehow!


I'm glad they had such a good time together, and it did make things tons easier for me--love you Kris!!