Snow Days

                                                

Right off the bat, I would like to apologize

 for the my act of blog neglect.

It is actually in your best interests that I have not 

been posting because being snowed in for over a week 

does not lend itself to interesting blog material.

Yup, you heard right, we have been snowed in.

Under normal circumstances, a foot or two of snow would not

slow life's pace for very long, but it does in Portland

a.k.a.

 "The city that has yet to discover the snow plow."

Can you see the road in this picture?

Me neither.

So, with not much to do except play in the snow

or sit inside and talk about playing in the snow,

we decided to explore the winter wonderland.

It didn't take long before Casey remembered his "snow skate"

in the garage.

 We made a little path in the snow in the front of the house

and began testing our skills.

I was not the best

but I did have good form.

After a long, cold session of snow skating,

we headed back to the warmth of the kitchen to make more

Christmas cookies.

I have literally become a cookie-production factory 

since the first snow began to fall,

churning out batch after batch,

making my mother proud (a certified cookie master)

and producing enough saturated fats for an army

(or at least all of Casey's coworkers).

But I can't take all the credit.

I have had help.

Here is Alaina doing her best Betty Crocker:

 Orin is almost a pro Snickerdoodle flattener.
Other cooking activities he enjoys are slightly less useful,

but equally picture-worthy.

The dogs have been having a good time during 

the snow day streak as well.

We took them all to the elementary school yesterday

and let them romp through the drifts.

Atlas even learned how to go down the big slide with Casey.

Well, that's pretty much the snow week recap, 

time to move on to some baby news:

First, Orin had his first encounter with spinach and potato mush.

As you can see in this picture, Orin loves eating

as long as he has full control over the spoon.

If he gets the orientation of the spoon wrong (a frequent occurrence)

he just sucks the splattered food off the front 

of his bib at the end of the meal.

Hey, whatever works, right?

Second, he has pretty much mastered sitting up on his own

although he still tips occasionally so I normally surround him

with something soft... his clean diapers in this case.

He has also gotten a lot better at army crawling

and has made it a habit of finding things 

that I have forgotten to baby-proof.

It has certainly made life interesting.

And, last but not least,

did I mention it is somebody's birthday today?

Seven months!