Christmas photo FAIL

Last night we went to a Christmas village with more lights than I can ever remember seeing at a Christmas display of this sort. It was military appreciation night, so not only did we get in for free, but we also got to experience the festivities without half of Las Vegas elbowing their way through the forest - the night was only for military cardholders. We froze (it was in the 50s), but were thankful for the dry weather, and for the fact that although we couldn't feel our fingers, we couldn't actually see our breath. The girls LOVED it.

One of my goals was to get a picture worthy of our 2009 Christmas card. Total failure.

Where's Luke?

Merry Christmas from the Red Eye family! No amount of photo editing can get Luke's eyes to turn an actual color. Glowing white is nice, no?

Lost Luke again.

Kate and her beloved hot chocolate. "It's also called cocoa, Mom."

Tim with "spirit hands". Yes, that's a princess coach adorned with lights. They had everything there.

Ornaments!

My favorite display.

The girls really "got into" the decorations.

I cannot remember the last time Luke fell asleep on someone. He was just adorable. And such a good sport.

Oh, Dear.

He's so close. He's up on his knees all the time, and is constantly pushing himself backwards. He gets himself stuck under furniture and then complains about it. His father is encouraging this behavior.

If you listen carefully, you can hear me in the background:

Crabby

Hi, my name is Luke and I'm having a tough day. I skipped my morning nap, but slept in the car for 10 minutes, which is plenty. My mom thinks I should sleep a little longer, but I'm not gonna do it! I'd rather cry and wail. I didn't go to sleep for my afternoon nap until after 2:00, and then I decided to sleep for just about an hour and a half, which my mom says isn't nearly long enough.



The other day we walked to a restaurant for dinner. My mom gave me miso soup, which was way better than the green stuff she was trying to get me to eat. My big sister, Claire, loves "going to Japanese"; she fancies the soup with the white jell-o, too, but says she doesn't like the weeds in it. My mom also let me try something called "green tea ice cream", which was awesome! Dad looked at her kind of weird after, but I thought she was pretty cool for letting me try it. Then she let me taste the pumpkin cheesecake she made yesterday. Wow, that stuff is so good. Plain pumpkin can stay in the dish, but I'll take the sweet stuff anytime.

I didn't wake up until everyone else did this morning, which is such a bummer. I did start crying right after mom was asleep last night, which frustrates her. I think she can't figure out how I know she has just fallen asleep, but it seems like such a good time to wake up and have her come in and play with me for a bit. I also like waking up when it's super dark out and mom is zombie-like. Those are great times - it's just me and her, and she'll do just about anything to get me to go back to sleep. My cold is finally starting to go away, though, so I'm not waking up many times during the night coughing and choking. I think my mom is glad about that part; she seems kind of nervous when I make horrible sounds.

My biggest sister, Kate, is super fun. She loves to hold me, and I'm so big that we usually topple over. She makes me laugh all the time, though, and gets me toys when I cry. She makes funny faces at me and then I smile at her. She's the only one who can make me smile like that.

My dad has been trying to get me to crawl. For some reason, my mom seems reluctant to help me acquire this new skill. Dad is also cool because he helps me walk with my walker toy. Mom glares at him when he does this. She says it's something about stairs and tile floors, but I'm not sure what the problem is. There are so many things in this house to see! And put in my mouth! You should see all the cabinets that don't have "child locks" on them. It's going to be so fun around here soon!

Yeah, that's what I thought.

You know all those cold medicines that used to be labeled for toddler use and are now only recommended for those 41 and older, because "they don't work for children"? [Um, if they work for me, why wouldn't they work for someone smaller than me?] Someone today suggested I talk to a pharmacist to see what dosage I should give my children. . . and what do you know! LUKE is able to have 1/2 teaspoon of the cold medicine I've been eyeing every morning at 3am when he wakes up unable to breathe or sleep because he's so congested. I just woke him up from a 3 hour nap, and although he's still sick, at least he's not sick and exhausted.

A pickle

I didn't have any dill slices on hand, so Luke got to taste a sweet pickle instead. Sadly, he didn't make many good faces, but he did look at it with great suspicion.

After it disintegrated, he nearly choked on some of the seeds. He was a good sport, though, and is now regularly begging for what we affectionately refer to as "real" food. As much as he wants to eat whatever you have in your hand (especially if it is paper-based), he is only authorized stage 1 and 2 baby foods at this time. He now has 4 teeth, though, so chunky solids can't be far away. Four teeth. How did this happen?

He is also "rocking". All you mothers of more than one child know what I am talking about here. It's one of the last steps before you lose all sanity and your baby starts CRAWLING. Tim has been encouraging this behavior. Tim is also going TDY next week, so it is likely that Luke will choose the first day Tim is gone to begin scooting around the house.

Unauthorized Yams

It might finally be fall here, as of today. When I ran this morning, I wished I had been wearing long sleeves and gloves. And that the wind would stop blowing. It's cloudy, and the temperature is only in the 60s. And the wind! We're having gusts to 70mph today, according to the weatherman.

We knew the weather was turning colder soon, so we took the kids to the park to feed the ducks on Sunday afternoon.

I love the golden hour. And the children loved throwing stale bread at feeding the water fowl. No one fell in the water, which is always my biggest fear. Tim was completely grossed out by the disgustingness that surrounds ducks and geese. But I was relaxed, knowing that it could be worse, like the week prior when Claire let a goose eat out of her hand. Ew.

Seriously? Stale garlic bread? Ohhh, yeahhhh. They aren't picky, those fowl water fowl.

Fighting over who got to have the next chunk of concrete-like bread.

And then they flew a kite.

And then it got dark and they called me repeatedly on my cell phone to inquire if I had finished grocery shopping and picked up the pizza yet.

I knew Luke and I would grow restless after the feeding of the birds, so I agreed to take him to the store and then to pick up dinner on the way back to the park. When shopping at our local grocery store, I generally go through the self-checkout lane. It's faster, and I don't have to talk to anybody. Every once in awhile, though, I mistakenly pick out produce with no code sticker on it, or I accidentally hit the button for 'celery hearts' instead of plain 'celery' and then I have to wait for the checker to come over and fix my mistake. My favorite incident so far, though, was the one on Sunday. I put my produce on the scale and typed in the code on the sticker. My machine beeped and a picture of a pharmacist came up on the screen. It read, "unauthorized purchase", in bright, shameful red letters. I finally got the attention of the supervisor, and she scoffed. "We really need to fix that code." Yes. Unauthorized yams, indeed.

In the midst of sickness: a pumpkin!

Last week I called one of my sickly babysitters to come infect my children with swine flu watch the girls for a few hours while I took Luke for his 6mo photo shoot. He wasn't as cooperative as he can sometimes be, and was pretty stingy with his smiles, but I think we got a few cute ones.

Coy boy in a gourd costume.

A smile! Pay no attention to the legs hovering over his head.

My favorite pictures always include drool. It's just so Luke.