Happy 2nd Birthday, Sweet Leah!

We can hardly believe that Leah is already 2 years old! Look how much she's grown!

Leah on her actual birth day.

Leah on her 1st birthday!

And, a series of pictures of Leah on her 2nd birthday in Seattle.

Blowing out the two candles on her snowman birthday cake.

Leah's big cousin Maria decorating her cake. Nice work, Maria!

To celebrate Leah's birthday, we visited the Pacific Science Center with her west coast cousins! The Science Center had lots of really cool exhibits, but we focused on the Butterfly House area.

Monica, Anja, and Leah sitting on a giant caterpillar!

Playing in and around a huge inflatable caterpillar.

Watching some butterflies with Jack.

To see many more pictures of our Seattle adventures, click here.

Christmas in Seattle

Despite our trip being delayed, we had a lovely visit with Erik's side of the family in Seattle over Christmas. Here are just a few images.

Kramer family Christmas dinner (celebrated on the 27th)

Leah with her Great Nana

All the girl cousins in matching PJ's

Leah, on the eve of her 2nd birthday, getting a kick out of her mom's reaction to balloons in her face!

There are too many images of our trip to post - if you'd like to see more, click here.

Pre-Christmas Miscellanea

Our first snow of the year - just a dusting, but exciting none-the-less!

Leah's very first haircut - just a trim of about an inch in the back (we're trying to grow it out to all one length, but Leah's fondness of "clips" and "ponies" varies by the minute!)

Since we traveled to Seattle this year for Christmas, we celebrated a small family Christmas the weekend before we left. Sadly, the week prior, both Leah and Erik were home sick with a virus. Leah was hit really hard - she was out of day care for a week and a half with a fever and then numerous, hideous sores both inside and outside her mouth. Through some sort of miracle, my mom was able to find a reasonably priced flight up from Florida - I honestly don't know what we would have done without her help. The extra bonus was that we got to celebrate our early Christmas with her!

Our little tree.

Leah enjoying some of her new gifts (a stroller for baby and a harmonica)

Last year's visit with Santa was tearful, but Leah actually sat on Santa's lap. This year, Leah talked and talked like a very brave girl - "Leah sittin' Santa's lap" and "Leah say ho, ho, ho Santa." Even while waiting, she gave no indication of her real plans. However, when the moment arrived, she held on to me with a death grip, and wouldn't even turn around to sit in my lap next to Santa for a photo. So, this is our year 2 photo. I have a feeling it will be a few years before she's brave enough to 'walk the talk.'

Here's a picture of our house on the morning we were suppose to leave for Seattle! We flew out three days later. To give PWM some credit, they were landing and taking off as usual on this particular day - it was a variety of other New England airports that caused our delays, combined with booked holiday flights.

Edible Orniments for Animals

We enjoyed hanging out with the Plummers at Wolfe's Neck Farm in early December. We got to listen to a great kids nature story, create natural ornaments for animals to eat (from dried fruit, pine cones, soynut butter, and seeds), and then go for a walk to hang them in the woods. It was a really fun and creative activity! And, we always love seeing Payson and her mom and dad!

Looking up at Matt hanging some "ornaments" up high.

Here are some attempts at Christmas card photos - they came out well... but neither one made the final cut!