::outtakes::

Taking photos for the Christmas cards is so dang hard.  Especially when one leaves it until the last minute and has to take the photo themselves AND be in it.

Here are some outtakes from our recent quick and not so fancy little session.  Unedited.





















Wowzers, YEP that's us!

::hairs::

I've kept Sandy's hair short in the past because in the morning he would wake up with the most wicked bedhead in the back.  Ratty and rough and fuzzy and disasterous.

But his hair has been growing out the last few months because I just haven't had time to get it cut.  And it's so cute and curly when it's long!  BUT it still gets so bad in the morning.  When we're someplace humid like say San Diego it's great, his hair behaves without too much coaxing, but out here in dry old New Mexico his hair is dry and crunchy.

So anyway, this particular morning was a seriously messy bed heady day.  And we tried to use a hat to cover the rat's nest, but all it did was sit on top.  But it's slightly better.  If only he would keep hats on for longer than 10 seconds.



His face isn't shiny from snot or something else gross, he's got "mustache" on there--this is what we call heavy moisturizer that we put around the kids mouths at night so that they don't lose their lips to chappedness.

Anyway, what's with the below look?  Seriously?



And in other hair news, suddenly I realized that Lucy probably had enough hair for a little clippy that somebody gave me a long time ago.  And it was true, she does have enough!  So exciting!  I feel like she has way more hair than the boys did at this age.  And honestly I'm thrilled to get to stick little clippies in there.



She likes to play with her food packets after they're empty.  Don't ask me why.

Imagine some jumping action here.



And there are the two youngest goofballs.  Sandy is good at photobombing.  Can't wait until Lucy get the crazy hair!

::::

Mr. Bedhead Sandy finds a "Hidden Mickey" at Albertson's.



Honestly there's so much to say about all this I don't even know where to start.  Do I start with how pleased I am that all my hidden mickey searching training has paid off?  Do I talk about the bedhead issues and Sandy's hair?  Or do I just let this photo speak for itself and move on?

::::

Our miss Lucy sure has been struggling with her sleeping habits.  The only time a person can trust her to take a real true honest-to-goodness long refreshing nap is Sunday morning.  Right during church.  She consistently will nap at that time--and for a good 3 hours.  But any other day that I carefully set aside the time and make sure I'm home so that she can nap and I can get stuff done, it never really works.  The nap ends early, never happens, something.  Anyway, for the last couple of weeks I've stayed home from church or left after sacrament so that Miss L could sleep.  And sleep she has.

When she wakes up she's so cheery and adorable, I just wish we could get her sleeping like this more regularly.  Look at that cute little face.  Immediately post nap.



And after a great nap she got to wear Daddy's hat for a while in the afternoon.



I'll do anything for that little face.

::swim meet saturday!::

We had another Maxwell swim meet this Saturday.  And of course, though I was hoping Kris would get to come to this one, he had to go on a Scout campout.  Luckily our babysitter was available and she watched Sandy for me, so all I had to manage was Max and Lucy.  And even more luckily the meet was in town, just at our community center pool!

 Max did really great. He had a relay that he was really nervous for, but he did amazingly! He was the backstroke guy, and I guess the backstroke guy always goes first. He set a nice fast pace and his team did great. His coach was really proud.

He also had individual events in the butterfly and freestyle. He felt really proud of himself afterwards and he should've been. He was brave and strong and really fun to watch.

 Lucy was a good sport all morning, and luckily all three of his events were early on so we got to leave when the meet was only about half way through. Tender mercies.

 

::our sand is four!!!::

 And here is the boy REALLY turning four!! "How old am I?  Am I still three?  I'm FWOUWR!!"

Kris got up early and made Sandy his special birthday breakfast of waffles.  Pumpkin waffles.



And he ate them with a flock of toys attending of course.  Mostly Octonauts.  And Darth Vader.



It was pretty sweet of Kris to make this crazy kid his requseted breakfast.  Since of course though it's Sandy's birthday it's just another super busy work day for the rest of us!



Sandy had school that morning, and so did Max.  Or so we thought for Max anyway.  I got everybody dropped off and I was back at home prepping to make Sandy's cake when I got a call from Max's teacher.  A pipe had burst in the school and there was 3 inches of freezing water covering the floor of the school.  Evidently all the kids were standing outside freezing.  So I got right back in the car and picked up Max and a friend and brought them home.  THEN I got started on cake and wrapping presents.  After Sandy pickup it pretty much took me all day to get the cake and the rest done between Lucy and everything else.



But besides a slightly crooked number four on top, the cake turned out really good looking, so it was worth all the hard work.

But of course it was worth the hard work, I mean look at this face!  He made a special request for another m&m cake.  I made him a cake with m&ms on it for his 2nd birthday and he's wanted one every year ever since.  This time he requested a chocolate cake with white frosting, but I couldn't get the frosting to be white so we went with yellow instead.



He was very pleased.  And so adorable and excited with all the birthday attention.  He's so cute with his little hair wings.  Hypnotized by the candles.



In this scene we were doing ichat with Grandma I think, she was watching him blow out the candles.



And here are some of the rest of us.  Lucy was happy to be an audience to the birthday fun.



Sandy got some fun Star Wars and Octonaut presents.  An R2D2 jacket and hat was not the least of these.  I'm hoping it'll encourage him to actually wear a jacket as it gets colder and colder.



And here's the cute toy that Max picked out for Sandy after much deliberation.  More octonauts to add to his collection.  Quazi and the Gup C I think.


It was a great day with a happy cute little boy.  The next morning he woke up and asked me two important questions.
1. "Is it still my birthday?"
2. "Am I five now?"

::frustration::

Poor Miss Lucy!  She's trying so hard to learn to crawl, but instead of going forward and getting to where she wants to be, she pushes herself backwards.  Always.  And sometimes she ends up half stuck under a couch or a chair.  Pretty frustrating for a poor little baby!



But I always grab her and bring her back up to where she wants to be.  So no more tears.  She's such a cute girl.



Remember poor Sandy doing the same sad backwards thing?



I keep telling her she's going to figure it out eventually.  Soon enough.

::pre-birthday party::

Since Grandma was at our house but couldn't stay until Sandy's birthday we had a little pre-birthday party.  We got a couple of delicious pieces of pie from Harry's Roadhouse and stuck a candle in them.



Luckily we had a FOUR candle hanging around the house from somebody else's birthday in the recent past.  Sandy looks nervous here, but really he was super excited and happy to be in the spotlight.

Remember how he used to cry when a group of people would sing Happy Birthday?  Well he doesn't do that anymore.



And then Grandma gave him his present.




It was great--something he really wanted.  One of the exploring submarines from the Octonauts show that he really likes.  He was thrilled.



And here's a special new picture face.  Not sure where this one came from.



Maybe from his goofy brother?  Anyway, it was a fun night.  Nobody complains about having more than one birthday celebration--especially with Grandma there!

::phoenix::

Kris and I had a business trip in Phoenix, and we talked Kathy into coming along to watch the kiddos.  It was at a cool hotel in Scottsdale--the Biltmore.  It was party designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and it had fabulous art deco style.

Of course I didn't get any pictures of it's awesome looking grounds or buildings because we were way too busy.  But I did get a few pictures of the kids having fun in the pool and hanging out with Grandma while Kris and I were working and learning.



There was a great big water slide that both the boys loved.  I think the first day they both went down it for hours.  Long enough, Kathy said, that Sandy started asking the life guard at the bottom of the slide to push him towards the stairs because he was too tired to swim over there anymore.



Lucy was happy to hang out with Kathy and watch the boys swim, which was so nice.  She even took a couple of naps in the stroller.  Yes, she's adorable.



Look at this silly guy.  He swam so much that he got his bottom all chafed and had to quit early the second day.



I took Lucy with us for the afternoon session on the last day and she got SO much attention from all the people.  I don't blame them, she is so cute.

It was a good trip, the kids had fun and we got a lot of stuff done.  I want to go back there sometime and just relax though, it was a fun place.

On Saturday we just had a half day of conference and then we went to the mall--which is something that must always be done in Phoenix since that's one of the only positives out there--and then flew home, taking Kathy with us for a few days.