::sleep::

This Lucy of ours is really quite terrible about sleeping.  She was never a good sleeper to begin with and she's only improved _slightly_ in the last year.

The pictures in this post are all from attempts at napping--usually pictures I sent to Kris.  Oy I have tried to have her nap so many zillions of times.



Usually when I give up the fight and lie down with her for a nap it works and she sleeps--but of course, not always, and the not always is usually when I'm so tired I'm ready to die.



This is how all of this makes us feel.



The teething hasn't helped.  Her teeth have been coming in slowly and in the wrong order.  Babies are  supposed to get their bottom teeth first (according to our resident growth and development expert) and she's gotten her tops first and we're steill waiting for the bottoms to make their move.  We saw a picture of Sandy today at the same age and he already had SIX big old teeth!



She had a really bad cold for a couple of weeks too and that really didn't help.  The teething made it worse too.  So not a lot of night sleep and like NO naps.  I used to think Sandy was a bad sleeper, but HAH!



Hopefully after the teeth finally arrive we can settle into some sort of routine, but honestly she hasn't taken good or even decent daytime naps since around Christmas.



I sent this picture to Kris and it was supposed to show my sympathy for the pitiful little baby.  He said I looked defeated.  It's a little true.

But on the bright side, she's a really good natured little thing and does well on less sleep than I think she really needs.  She's pleasant to have around all day even without naps and is adorable.  So we'll keep on working with it until we get things figured out.  And hopefully at some point I'll get to sleep through the night more than about once a quarter!

::after church::

Not sure why, but this happened on the way home from church.















There's not really a lot to say about all this, but I love these silly people.

::ski day::

Kris had a boy scout campout on Friday night, but we really wanted to go skiing together on Saturday morning, so we had to work out the details.  Kris and the president decided to camp up near the ski area, and then to try to get parents to come and pick up all the boys so that I could meet Kris up at the ski area in the morning.

He took Max on the campout with him--Max always enjoys this, but he got extra cold in the middle of the night this time.  They still had fun though.



Some of us were more excited about going up to ski than others.
The way the child care works in Santa Fe, when a kid is over 3 they have to do ski lessons for part of the day.  Sandy has had fun a couple of times doing it and not so much fun a couple of times.  Today he was convinced he WAS NOT going to have fun.  His face looked like this before he even got dropped off:



If he didn't usually end up having a good time we wouldn't force him to go, but he does usually have tons of fun.  But, as you can see, he had a rather defeatist attitude this particular trip.



But despite all that we finally got both of the kids dropped off (Lucy was happy to go and play in the nursery), and trucked all of the ski gear up from the parking lot to the lodge.


I don't look excited I know, but I'm happy to be there.  I'm just already tired from having to drop the kids off and do all the prep.  Everything in life just takes so dang much work!

Max was losing patience with us and all our time it took to get ready, so he started to make his favorite silly faces.



Kris doesn't really have a tummy like this, I have to point that out.  He'll probably be annoyed that I posted this picture, but besides the slouching he looks so cute!



And off we went! (After more photos than Max could even handle)



It was fun to spend a little time just with Max--I mean how often does that even happen?



The guys and I stuck together all morning.  I practiced and got better (I get a little better every time) and fought off their suggestions to go on harder and harder hills.



Later I went and checked on Sandy and Lucy.  Lucy was great, Sandy of course was sad.  He didn't want to go and ski.  I had to bribe him with the offer of some videography--"I'll take a video of you that you can watch later if you will just ski!!!"



He actually looks pretty good, but I think he just doesn't enjoy the group setting.  There were a lot of kids on this particular day, and it seemed like the teachers were just going around picking kids up off the ground the whole time.  I did get a video (in case you were wondering.)



The guys and I went to do one more run--up to the very top of the world!!  The view from this run is so crazy, you can see EVERYTHING.  It was a little scary for me but I made it down.

It was a fun day--somehow worth it even though it takes a lot of work to get ready and get the kids all dropped off and then to reload the car and etc.  Doesn't everything in life just take more work than it should?

::lucy does things::

Lucy wears the hat from Grandpa's race while she plays in the bathtub waiting for me to get ready in the morning.  She's usually cranky in the tub so it's nice that she's happy right here.



Lucy knows how to use remotes.  She's always trying to change channels and etc.



She packs herself for a trip.



Cute?  Yes.



Lucy regards me with suspicion.  What is that crazy lady even DOING?



Lucy wants her bear hat OFF even though her ears will get cold.  Some diabolical grown up put a snap under her chin though, so her pulling and fussing was all in vain.



Lucy smiles for a photo during breakfast on Grandpa's birthday and melts my heart.



Lucy steals my drink during a meeting at work and helps herself.  Luckly it was full of water.  She was very serious about drinking it.  I don't think she got any out at all.



Lucy does a lot of things these days.

::escape::

It was Sunday, we had just gotten home from church and I took Lucy back to my bedroom so we could get changed and dressed down.

And then, she escaped.





She's a fast crawler, and she gets so proud of herself when she gets up the little step.  She usually sneaks into the bedroom to play by the air filter.



She always turns around when I call her name.  Little escape artist.

::lucy fuzzes grandpa::

When Grandpa Guy was visiting in Feb for his adventure race he was playing with Lucy while I was doing something else in the other room.
Suddenly I was summoned for some photos.  But of course as soon as I got there with my phone Lucy decided to quit that particular cuteness.

She had been fuzzing the beard, a favorite activity of our kids for ages.




But she wouldn't let us stage it for photos.



But the two of them were still so dang cute I couldn't help but take more pictures.  It's my one weakness--taking too many pictures.





There!  Almost the fuzz!  What could be more fun that fuzzing the Santa Claus beard, really?



Lucky us we got to keep Dad here for an extra day because he was all worn out from the race.  He hung out with me on Monday and it was just nice to spend a little bit of time together.  On Tuesday morning he headed back home.

::the variousness of february::

Here are some random bits of Feb for you.

First, this is how I often feel in life.  There's always somebody using my face as a prop.  Always.  Often in bed when I'm trying to rest or nap.

Ugh, that's an ugly picture too.



Let's make up for the last one with this one.  Here I am wearing my favorite sparkly lip gloss.  I think it's so fun because it has blue sparkles in it.  I took a picture of myself to send to Kris to make him miss me.



One amazing sunset.  Sometimes they are just so stunning, and of course we're in a perfect position to appreciate them at our house.

Orange sherbet anyone?


Kids at work both sitting in Judy's lap.  Judy doesn't like pictures so she's hiding.  Sandy looks so old in this photo.



Another car shot, this time the car is chock full of (crazy) kids because we're bringing two of Max's best friends home for the night--Max and Griffin Barth.  They live in New Orleans now, but were in Santa Fe for Feb and Max got to see them a lot.  Too bad Sandy started puking not too long after we got home and the sleep over was cancelled.  But they had lots of fun up until that point.



This is Lucy's face when she wants you to know you've hurt her feelings.  She's sad about something. Maybe you took the phone away?  Maybe you rolled over when she didn't want you to?  Maybe she pinched a tender area with her little sharp fingernails and you removed her from that spot?  Who knows, but whatever it was, she's offended.



Seriously hurt.



One more car shot, this time in wintery weather.  Little ones in the back holding hands.  Well, it's mostly Sandy holding on to Lucy's hand but it still works for me.  So dang cute.



And there's your various taste of Feb.