Snow falling on Seattle

 Hurray! The snow came! We had a wonderful snow day yesterday. The buses were on snow routes & were few & far between so Matt worked from home & took a break to play in the snow with us. It was nice, light fluffy snow - not great for snowballs but easy to brush off the car. We went to co-op in the morning and had no problem with the roads. It was fun to see all the kids bundled up and the moms in their boots and some pushing strollers to avoid driving. (I walked to co-op last week to pick up Addie and was surprised by how nice of a day it was & how the walk only took me 15 minutes but got my heart pumping good. Not sure how much more I will be doing that the next few months but it was nice.)

 Addie was not ready to make any snow -angels of her own, but liked watching me make them. She loved watching the snow out the window and talked about catching snowflakes on her tongue like her teacher Jennifer talked about, but when it came down to it she was not that into being out in it.

Etta on the other hand really enjoyed the experience. She kept wanting more time on the toboggan. This morning around 8am she found the laundry basket that I had all the dried-out coats, mittens, etc in & she pulled her snow coat out & tried to put it on. I kept telling her it was too cold to go out, but she very clearly wanted to coat on. So I put it on her, again telling her we were not going out yet. She thought maybe we needed some convincing, so she went back over to the basket and tried to pull Addie's coat out. I let Etta keep her coat on for a little while, and the only way I got it off her without her throwing a fit is that I told her it was breakfast time and we could not wear coats when we ate.

The only downside to the day was that the internet went down. I never fully realize how dependent I am on it & how many times a day I casually glance at my email etc until it is taken away from me.

There have been a lot less cars on the streets today & yesterday & a lot more people walking. It is fun to see them all bundled up and carrying their sleds as they go to the small hill at Sandal park.

Tomorrow will probably be a day of sludge as things melt. Better that than ice as things melt & refreeze.

I had a lot of fun in the snow and would gladly spend an hour sledding down a big hill, but it will be a few years before the girls are ready for that I think.

Holiday Greetings

This week my good friend Katie is going to take family picture for us. Katie & her husband have a really good professional quality camera & equipment since they do some wedding photography. What is best about this arrangement is that it is free! Katie gives it as her Christmas present to us. (Thank you Katie!) I know some people get cute shots of their kids from photo place at the mall, but I so much prefer having the pictures taken in the comfort of our home by someone the girls know. I also tend to like the more relaxed pictures instead of the poses.

But I lack the time, motivation and creativity to create our own Christmas cards from scratch. And I am not to the point of wanting to do a newsletter listing all the big events for the year. So we, along with the majority of our friends and family it seems, do photo cards from an online provider. And why not? If they are good quality cards from a well known place like Shuttefly, it is worth it!  Last year we did stationary cards on "cardstock" paper. I want to do it again this year for sure. I try to write notes on the back of each card so they are personalized, but with the glossy paper the writing leave bumps all over the picture. Shutterfly has same super cute stationary cards to choose from! There are so many great ones, how do I chose? Usually Matt & I like to pick our favorite photos from the photo shoot with Katie and see how many we can squeeze on the card. If we are doing 4 pictures this year we might choose http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/joy-and-magic-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&fa=8&storeNode=93479 or if I do this style http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/bright-christmas-story-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&fa=8&storeNode=93479 I can do some brief info about the girls without writing a full newsletter. Ha! This is so clever http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/cards-stationery/top-ten-moments-christmas-card-5x7-flat?sortType=1&fa=8&storeNode=93479 you can have your top 10 moments of the year printed directly on the cards.

Ok I have GOT to stop looking now. It sucks me in. It is snowing outside right now so I want to go out & play with Addie.

Check this out "We can stamp and mail any quantity of individual cards directly to your recipients for an additional $0.99 domestic or $1.49 international per card." What a time-saver! If I was not wanting to do individual messages on cards, I would totally consider this.

Look at all they have to offer!

· holiday cards  http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards

· Christmas photo cards  http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

·  wall calendars  http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

· birthday invitations  http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/birthday-invitations

· upload pictures  http://www.shutterfly.com/upload-pictures

1 word I like, 1 word I don't (and neither does Etta)

Toboggan - I love the word toboggan. It makes me happy just saying it. It also makes me happy to think about the snow that could be on the ground that I could pull the girls along in the toboggan. Sing it with me now " I'm dreaming of a white Monday". A white Christmas would be lovely too but I do not want to wait that long to see snow.

Weaning - Etta has been adapting just fine but probably she does not like this word. This past week we have been weaning her from her before-bed nurse. So now there are only two left: when she first wakes up and after her 2nd nap. I really don't foresee a big problem with weaning her completely, but I am not in a hurry for that. I am, however, ecstatic to no longer have to be physically present every night for her bedtime. Since she never took to the bottle, and since nursing was such an established part of her bedtime routine, if I had a night time event (book club, date night, etc) it could not start until she was in bed. It was the same with Addie when she was a baby. I reminded myself that it was just a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of things and that my girls were getting breast milk which was wonderful for them and I was bonding with them. But I did get sick of that constraint and I am looking forward to a babysitter coming at like 5:30 instead of 7!

So that did not explain my distaste for the word. The process is fine. The word itself makes me think of farms and cows. I just wish there were a different word for the process. Weaning describes the act perfectly, but I wish there were a happier word for it. Wean: deprive, estrange, alienate, alien, disaffect. 
Those words are all much worse and make me feel like a bad mom. I am depriving my child of something (milk), how cruel of me. How can I deprive a child as cute as this?

Sleep

Addie has been sleeping-in the past 2 weeks or so. I am not sure if it is due to the weather or her body growing or her body still fighting a cold or what. This morning she was still sleeping at 7:30 when I snapped this picture. This is amazing when I remember that she was the infant that required serious sleep training to teach her that it was not morning until 6am. We thought she would be an early riser all her life.

This change is good to remind myself of when I think about Etta's sleep. We have actually had some glorious nights lately where she only makes a few noises during the night (that I hear but Matt of course does not). Mixed in there are still some nights where she cries/fusses/screams for an hour and a half or so. But these seem to be getting slightly less frequent. I look forward to when the bad nights are few and far between.

Here are some pictures of what Etta can look like when she's  fussy

 Don't worry, she was happy again soon -she loves bathtime!

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas

I had Matt pull the Christmas boxes from the attic this week. My reasoning was that I needed to know what wrapping paper I had and what I needed to buy since I am going to buy my paper online through Sally Foster to support the girls co-op.

I am so glad we pulled the boxes out because there is so much fun stuff for the girls to explore and play with, and they only have about a month to do that before it will be the new year & we will pack up the Christmas box again.

Here are some of the things the girls discovered:

-books, books & more books. Some of these tell the Christmas story so are great for acting out with the Nativity set. Others have paper pages so must be kept out of Etta's reach. One has no words, only pictures. But their favorite has an easy-to-push button with a Santa-like voice saying "Merry Christmas". I'm reminding myself to be thankful that I do not need to hear that all year, only for about a month.

-a Little People Nativity set

-an Advent calendar shaped like a Christmas tree

-a reindeer (I had to convince Addie that it was a reindeer not a bear or something) When I told her about Rudolph, she said "like at the Drs office". I vaguely remember, but she clearly remembers, a stuffed animal at the Drs office with a nose that glows.

-Christmas cd's (now of course I have these copied over to Media Center so I could play them year round if I wanted, but cd's cases look like books and beg to be opened)

-jingle bells (speaking of which, I have not heard them for 24 hours or more, I wonder where Addie stashed them to keep them away from Etta). These are not technically jingle bells, they are bells you are supposed to wear when hiking to keep bears away. But I don't think Matt would eve agree to wear them hiking & the girls think they are a great Christmas necklace. Last year Addie wore a fuzzy white faux fur coat and the jingle bells to church and it was pretty dang cute.

-an angel nightlight that changes colors, thus illuminating Addie's room in a way that I would find totally distracting if I were trying to sleep in there

There is now eggnog and cranberries in our fridge. Snow is on the forecast for Seattle. Hooray for the holidays!

Free is a very good price!

I wanted to give you all (all 6 or so of you who regularly read my blog!) a disclaimer ahead of time: within the next few days I am going to do an absolutely shameless promotion of Shutterfly.

I was alerted to a deal where if you blog about their products you get 50 free holiday photo cards. If it were a company I had never heard of, or one I had a poor experience with, I would not even consider doing this. But Matt & & I have been pleased with all the products we have ordered through them. So everything you read will be true, it will just be a more extensive product plug than I would normally do. So let me know if you read it and feel like I am selling out :)

Pictures from Addies first field trip

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Addie's class went on a field trip.
Here are some pictures of her & her classmates at Swansons.

I think this is maybe Addie's "looking & listening" face
This is me pre-braces. My smile looks different these days :)

Brace Face

I avoided that lovely nickname during high school only to inflict it on myself at the age of 30. I am not posting a picture of this development. Partly because I do not want everyone seeing an up-close of my teeth. Also because smiling currently hurts since the braces seem to get stuck on my cheeks. They used a cheek retractor when they were putting them on today & I felt like the Joker from Batman or something. Like it was a permanent scary smile.

Needless to say for the next few days my diet is not going to be exactly balanced and my nutrition is going to come primarily through a straw and spoon.

Addie is curious about the changes in my eating & the new list of "no" foods (raw carrots, nuts, popcorn, etc). Etta just wants to grab them out of my mouth. They probably look like jewelry to her. She loves grabbing at necklaces & earrings, why not the shiny things inside mouths too?!

Halloween

We were at my parents house over Halloween weekend so did not get to do the Greenwood businesses trick-or-treat. But we got back Sunday afternoon & were hoping we would have some trick or treaters come to our door. We told Addie all about how they would knock & be wearing costumes &amp. She was very excited & helped put the candy in the bowl. Then she waited. And danced. And waited. And asked about every 5 minutes why people had not shown up yet. We got a total of 2 knocks this year (each group had about 5 poeple in it) and only one of those knocks was while Addie was awake. What a disappointment. She still got a few treats and is not really old enough to be bummed about not going door-to-door herself. Still, hopefully next year will be more fun.

Welcome to the world baby Lauren!

Lauren Brielle Hinchliff

born on Nov 3 to my sister Cheryl 

joins her big sister Aubree