::matching christmas boys::

I just can't keep trying to catch up on backlogged posts or nothing will ever get posted! Here are my boys today in their matching Christmas finery---no it's not Christmas yet, but it is the sunday before when we always try to look extra nice and cute. And Max thinks he's too good for smiling these days.











Funny to compare these to this and this (you have to scroll down a bit to find the pictures on that last one). And THIS!!! AHHHH!!!

::work party::

Since I had some fun photos on my phone of our Christmas dinner party for work I thought I'd post 'em up here.
We did a big combined party for both office this time--last year we split the offices up. It was fun, but dang was it a huge group of people. We filled up a special banquet room in the back of the restaurant and even spilled out into the hallway.

More than 20 people! And that was just employees plus our kiddos. Nobody else.

It was a fun evening. Lots of delicious food and good company. We also did a white elephant gift exchange this year which turned out quite fun. A few of the staff had never been involved in one before. I think they all enjoyed it.

Max wore his "party shirt" as we like to call it.

Sandy was plied with cookies from all sides. Everybody loves him. He's the office pet.

And Kris, stylin' it up as he lays down the rules for the white elephant.
And there you go.

::sandy & santa::

Sandy got to meet up with Santa at the ward party. He was pretty excited at the concept of it--sitting in Santa's lap, etc., but when the guys actually showed up he just wasn't so sure anymore.

"Santa" and "his Elf"--looking like trouble to me.
He was the first kid in line because we had other places to be that night, and once it was time to actually climb up in Santa's lap he was just not so sure.

But he did it, and just stayed silent the whole time.

It didn't help that when he wouldn't say what he wanted for Christmas, Santa asked him if he wanted a new baby. At that point the answer was most definitely no, so that was the end of the interview, and off Sandy scooted as fast as he could.

::christmas tree hunt 2013::

On the saturday after Thanksgiving, after Cammon's family headed on home from their visit, we packed up and went out into the woods to find ourselves our traditional New Mexico desert forest Hendricks christmas tree.

The hunt this time was hard and long. And because there had been a pretty significant snowfall about a week before, the roads up the mountains were muddy and goupy and sticky and slick. It was a little bit treacherous from time to time.

Our good old Land Rover had been out of commission for a long time, but Kris bartered an ortho case with a dad who fixes cars, and after a looooong time the car came back to us, pretty functional (just a few stalls from time to time that scared me), and the perfect car for this kind of crazy activity.

We went up higher and higher without seeing many good candidates for our tree. All the trees had such scraggly bottoms, or had grown up so closely with another tree that taking one from the other would leave you only with half. When we came across an big old dead tree blocking the road I was discouraged, but Kris took matters into his own hands and busted the thing up and got it out of the way.
We finally found ourselves in a big open field at the end of some small dirt road. It sure seemed like there had to be something out there in the woods surrounding the field. I went for a walk and just still couldn't find much.

It was frustrating. Finally, after searching hard and long Kris saw a lone pine mixed up in a stand of something else. It was a big one and it was really hard to see how full it was because of how it was mixed up with other stuff. But Kris was convinced the tree would work once it was out, so we went for it. We let the boys and dog out of the car to explore and Kris got to work.


Kris finally broke down this year and bought a chain saw, but this tree was cut down with the good old fashioned hacksaw with a little saws-all action thrown in.


The boys had a set of walkie-talkies that Kris bought for skiing, and they were having a blast blabbing to each other and making different paging sounds.


And of course they were enjoying getting just a little too far away for my comfort.


I wish Kris wasn't so out of focus in the above picture, but oh well. He was enjoying his manly role of lumberjack and four wheel drive expert.



Above is original tree, straight after it was cut down. Below is the revised version after a little trimming of the bottom. After we got home we did some top trimming too--maybe a foot or even two off the top really brought the shape together nicely.

A much better shape if you ask me.


Tying the tree on the car always seems to be the toughest thing and take the longest, but maybe that's just because at that point everybody is always cold and hungry. The boys eventually got tired of exploring and climbed back in the Rover, looking forward to our eventual lunch.

We were all set and ready to go, and the drive down the mountain didn't take terribly long even though the roads had melted and gotten even more goupy during our search. We had to blast through a couple of pretty deep rutted puddles that made me very nervous.

On the way home we bucked tradtion and didn't stop at the ghetto Pecos Dairy Queen for lunch. Max was pretty bummed, but Harry's Roadhouse tasted a whole lot better and was much closer to our new house!
It was a good day, and we even got the lights on the tree on sunday. Gotta move quickly when the Christmas season is so short!

I'm glad we have some fun traditions, even if they do bump you around a little more than is to my taste. That's what I get for being the only girl in a family of crazy boys I guess!

::::

The title that's too long for the title box: Baby Eats Nutella Toast that Dad Gave Him for Sunday Breakfast--This Results in the Best Mustache Ever and Also a Good Amount of Nutella on Everything Else.




(OK mom--that's enough pictures for now!!)

::sandy turns three::

My baby Sandy three?! How does time scoot by so fast?

Kris and I had a conference in Florida that we had to go to a few days before his big day (seems like we always do, doesn't it?). Anyway, Kris's mom came into town to watch the boys for us, which she does kindly and often. She couldn't stay until Sandy's actual birthday, so we celebrated two days early. This turned out to be a very good thing because we were in the deep midst of packing and moving stuff from the old house to the new house and it was crazy times. We took possesion of the new house on Monday, the same day we celebrated Sandy's birthday. We started some construction projects at the new house on that day and also started taking big loads of stuff over there whenever we could. It was an exhausting week. Anyway, on Monday Sandy woke up early. I went and picked him up from his crib and as I was carrying him into my room I whispered to him "Do you know what day it is?" He whispered back, "My BIRFFday!" And so it was. He had lots of fun playing all day and I made his special cake. He requested an M&M cake. I think he remembered what I made for him last year, and evidently loved it which was great. I guess he picked the orange color too, though I don't really remember discussing that part with him. Anyway, he was extremely excited about the cake. And I was happy that he loved my cake enough last year to want another one.



That boy was pretty psyched out and proud of himself for being three. Luckily I stopped Max every time he tried to say "BUT it's not his REAL birthday!!!!!" "He's not ACTUALLY 3 yet!!!" and all sorts of older brother stuff liket that.

We had a few (too many) presents which Max "helped" with opening. Most notably Captain Hook from Jake & the Neverland Pirates, and some more train tracks. There was also some birthday singing of course.

And of course we ate hot dogs for dinner before the party, since hot dogs are one of Sandy's preferred meals--healthy tastes, right?

And that's about the whole story. I was kind of bummed about not celebrating on his actual day, but it was good thing we didn't. It would've been so hard. And luckily little guys don't know the difference.


We sure do love this adorable three year old. We're so happy and lucky to have him in our family. He's a cute chubby cheeked blessing.

::gorgeous desert fall::

I love how yellow our new aspens got this fall. And I loved Max's hustle while picking up a package from the gate for me.