::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.

::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!)

::kansas city::

In early November we got to go to Kansas City to see Kelly's family and to be present for baby Gray's blessing. We were pretty excited to go, considering it has been years since we've been back there. We're quite fond of Kansas City and there have been many things we've missed about it over the years.
The bummer was that it was seriously a whirlwind trip. We got there saturday afternoon and left monday morning.
So it was tough to squeeze in all we were hoping and wanting to do.

But of course, most importantly, we got to see family. Kelly and Lechelle had a nice little open house before the blessing with lots of yummy food. We got to hang out together for a bit there, and then go to church. The blessing was so nice and their ward seems great.
Before church we took a couple of photos, but Boston was NOT wanting to cooperate. Cute, but cranky!



This was the very cutest one:

And then the whole group of us Hendricks.

Some cute kids in there!

Besides the family time, we got to go and eat some of our favorite foods at our favorite places. The Taqueria Mexico was still there, just the same as when we left it.


And still delicious. Sandy loved digging into the rice and beans.

We also went to our favorite sandwich place--Planet Sub. Twice. And it was just so stinking good.
The funniest thing is that we started taking Max to Planet Sub (regularly) back when he was about Sandy's age. He would eat a little bite of the kid's sandwich and then be done.
Well Mr. Sand the crazy eater chowed the whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then asked for MORE!


I think he may have the potential to grow up to be a competitive eater. YIKES. I better watch out.

So it was a fun quick trip. Wish it could've been longer, truly it only seemed like we saw Kelly & Lechelle for a few minutes. But we can do it again soon! We're always up for more Planet Sub.

::do they still look alike?::

Max at about 1 year old:

Sand at about 1 year old as well:

What do you think? Opinions? I definitely see some similarities, but also a lot of differences. Coloring for sure. Max was blond and though Sandy's hair isn't super dark it's not blond.
They're both STINKING cute.

::car dealership::

One sunday a month or two ago Max decided he wanted to play "car dealership". He got out his big ol' box of matchbox/hot wheels cars and went for it.
He's always always loved cars. He's spent so many hours of his life playing with them. I love how engaged he gets.
Anyway.

And this is what he ended up with.
Isn't it amazing looking? We have lots of video with him explaining it and showing how you shop for cars, and having cars shopping for other cars. All sorts of good stuff.

But the biggest challenge is protecting the work of art from the little stinker.

But back then little piglet had just barely learned to crawl and he didn't go too fast. In fact I don't know if he ever even noticed the dealership was there. Our living room is big enough that Max can go back behind a chair and stay out of the line of sight.

So the dealership went on all that day, and it was, of course, super tragic when we finally had to clean it up.

He's such a funny guy, that Max.

::a little perspective::

So just in case somebody out there couldn't tell just how huge this tree is from the last few photos.

Isn't it a cool and unusual little (oh whoops I mean big) tree?

::tree::

And we got it in and we got it all lit! It was intimidating to light, but not so hard once I got started.
What do you think? We think it's really fun.

And my favorite way to show a lighted tree!

And the little tree is hanging out in the pool table room. I have plans for it. I'll tell you about them later.

See the chile lights up on the window? Kris is excited about those, he's wanted some for a long time.
More later, as always!