The way I got the lights right now, I have to close the switch to turn them on. I dont care ir relays are used or not, they would take up space but that's not a huge conceren.
I could change my lights to not use relays, I just needed to know how to make an output do the flahing pattern I wanted. I dont know 555 timers good yet.
check this out. it says a lot of how to use 555.
and the circuit i atteched does this: red-pause-red-pause-white-pause-white-pause-back to beginning.
or you can have other color leds. but i remembered that you said you have white and red.