::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!!

::christmas eve pt 1::

Christmas Eve morning dawned bright and crisp. All the cactuses were glittery with frost and old snow. I ran out to try to capture some of it, but didn't really succeed--you don't have to know that it was prettier in real life though.

It was such a lovely sunny day.


I made the dog sit in the picture so that you could see the scale of the huge cactus that is in our front yard.
And don't step on those spines--you won't like it. I know from experience.

When we first moved into our house I looked at our driveway that slopes down into the arroyo and thought it might just be a good sledding spot.
Well the boys tried it late in the day, and though it's not any ski run or anything I think they had a good time.

Max was psyched out of his mind. He was walking around warbling Christmas carols and vibrating with excitement.
He helped Kris wrap presents for a few hours in the morning while Kathy and I worked on cooking (cookies and dinners). He came out and showed us each gift when it was done. He was so proud and excited. It was very cute.


Poor Sandy was not so excited. He was on steroids for his cough by then and they were making him tired and cranky. He also probably had an ear infection. He was sad and droopy and cranky and not himself.
He slept a lot.


Poor poor baby!
We spent the morning cooking and getting things ready. We tried to keep Max entertained, which was tough. But he did ok.
Then we went and had lunch downtown and went to REI to find Kathy some good winter clothes so we could go and see the lights on Canyon Road in Santa Fe--a classic Santa Fe tradition we wanted to try out.

Part two tomorrow! It was definitely a fun day.
Christmas Eve is probably my all time favorite holiday. It's the best.

::decor ps::

I forgot to show you one of our fun decor things.
This really doesn't deserve it's own alone post, but it's fun and I wanted to include it, so here we go.
I went and bought a bunch of Christmas goodies at Trader Joe's in early December. And it was a good thing I did too, turns out, since when I went back some of my favorites were all sold out.
Anyway, the paper bags were special Christmas themed ones, and they caught my eye.
The side panels were made to cut into strips that could be made into a paper garland.
And so Max and I did it. I had to. They told me on the bag that I had to.
It turned out really cute.
Just another reason to love TJ's.

::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?

::merry christmas 2011::

::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.