it's snowing!

I know for all of you in Montana and Kansas snow is not a big deal, but for us here in Seattle, it brings the city to a complete hault... literally. Last night Patrick was stuck in traffic for three and a half hours trying to come home. On a normal day his commute is about twenty minutes, so that should give you an idea of how bad it was. We only have about 6" of snow at our house, but it's more than we've seen in a long time.

Thankfully, today we are all staying close to home and just enjoying the scenery. Alden is particularly excited about the snow since he just learned about what snowflakes are when we put up some ornaments on the Christmas tree.

a place to rest

For months now, Alden has been looking for a little place of his own to sit back and relax. Nothing was quite right, though... he tried pillows, blankets, daddy's big chair, his booster seat, but he always came back to mommy's lap—until now! We recently purchased his own little "red chair" as Alden calls it.

He looks so grown up when he sits in it to catch an episode of Curious George or his favorite movie, which right now is "All About John Deere."

We were hoping that this little piece of furniture would be placed nicely in his room, but he'll have none of that! He wants it in the living room so that he can lounge like mommy and daddy.

king of the wild things

As tradition would have it, our family attended the "Harleween" party in October to celebrate our friends, James and Kathy Harleman's, anneversary. The theme this year was fictional liturature, so we dressed up as characters from the children's book Where the Wild Things Are. Alden went as Max and Patrick and I went as "Wild Things."

After a month of sewing, painting, and paper mache-ing, this was the finished project. I think next year we'll opt for simpler costumes! Our house was covered with fur, and poor Alden would walk around with his fingers in his mouth trying to scrape out the "fuzzies." All of our hard work paid off though, and we won grand prize at the party.

We dressed Alden up again on Halloween and took him to a couple of the neighbor's houses to trick or treat. He had been practicing saying it and putting things in his pumpkin bag all day. He seemed like he was really going to enjoy it, and even had fun knocking on the doors, but as soon as someone answered, he turned around and ran screaming, "GO!" Oh well, maybe next year.

Enjoy a few more pictures...