merry christmas

This morning, Alden has enough gifts to dwarf this little tree. In return, he would like to give you the gift of laughter, in the form of this audio clip. Merry Christmas and (belated) Happy Hanukkah. love, alden and crew.

Audio clip here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRAMOV1nlrQ

grandma lois!

This year's holidays, Alden has been given the gift of three weeks of a Lois visit. He is getting to show Grandma the sweeter aspects of life in Seattle -- some of these aspects are restricted by his lame parents -- fortunately, Grandma knows how to kick it. These aspects include finding pictures of cats online, stirring food (see above) and eating second helpings of frozen yogurt. Grandma Lois is the bomb.

bookworm

We have recently been finding Alden cramming himself into odd corners with a stack full of books -- channeling his grandfathers, perhaps.

skype

aunt jen

This entry is a bit delayed, but we enjoyed a great week with Aunt Jen up from Eugene. We showed her excellent seattle hospitality -- we planned a big birthday celebration -- only to be snowed in -- how about some reheated pasta? That night, we sent her back in the snow to her unheated rental room around the corner - dont worry, we let her take a blanket. Despite all that - Jen was an unflappable joy to have around, giving Alden librarian-quality readings on the hour, and (below) assisting Elizabeth through her Apple fritter production (or whatver kind of apple pastry it was.)

flower pot

A quick video which highlights the benefits of Seattle's damp winters - from a toddler's perspective. To summarize, Alden is standing on a wagon in rain boots pulling dirt out of a flower pot. For the record, Elizabeth was not involved in the parenting of this event.

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuAI-x2-GjA

springfield

An awesome week in Springfield - hosted by Grandpa (whispered "pop pop" reverantly by Alden for unknown reasons) and Grama K. More stories and photos than are fit to print here. As a summary, Alden was generally spoiled by his grandparents and their cozy home -- hands in yogurt and jello and dirt and dog mouths, legos and action figures from my youth, big carpeted hallways used to chase dogs and be chased by his parents, a new trampoline with cousin Max, new books and stuffed animals with Great-Grandma K, endless drawers and sinks and closets and toilet paper rolls to disorganize (unrestricted!), a Pixar movie on a big screen TV, gentle skin scratching with Gramma (labeled "toes" by alden), and, of course, 7 unrestricted mornings of sleeping in for his parents. Im out of breath. Thanks mom and dad, for the great week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are all a little too tired to write anything tonight (see below), but we have happy, fully bellies...

snow!

A rare November snow in Seattle during a Thanksgiving visit from beloved Aunt Jen. In fact, these come from Jen's camera. Alden spent the day in between the warm living room dancing with Jen and eating squash, and out in the front yard, with 14 layers of clothing. What he lost in mobility, he gained in frequent falls to the ground to taste and re-taste the snow. In other news from Jen's visit, he has learned two new words -- "pig" and "pancake", sometimes the two get confused.

bassinet

we pulled out the bassinet to lend to bob and ali, who are expecting their baby around the holidays. It was a good way of putting alden's growth to scale . . .

cookie jar

This video highlights some of the current conflicts in Alden's life.

Conflict 1: walking vs. falling

Conflict 2: letting go of the spoon for the use of his left hand vs. never letting go of the spoon EVER.

Also check out the (barely audible) "hi" to end the film.

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY-8hoFmPZ4

hiking

April, Molly and Harper talked us into a quick hike in the Cascades -- Elizabeth and I both skipped meetings for this one -- they are bad influences, that family. Alden got a big armpit swing from mom in his pjs - well documented by April.

silly dance

Alden somewhere came up with the concept of a Silly Dance. This is pretty much how it goes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJv14dD9HgY

tunneling

A video from our nanny sara - we love her!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7RbaaEmjiU

The Bluest Eye

I took these two photos more than a year apart from each other, but we just discovered their similarity...

Stepping Stool

Carl has done it again -- over the course of the weekend, he designed, planned, and hand-built this beautiful two-step stool for Alden. It was an immediate hit, as it enabled Alden (finally!) to see what has been going on in the kitchen sink all this time. At first he practiced standing, sitting, and climbing (sometimes backwards) on it, but eventually the pure fun of "washing dishes" began.

yard work

We tried this one year ago - and we've become a much more functional team. The wagon (below) is Alden's property, in case there was any question. Warm fall day - and everyone gets outside in this town. . .