It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

We start every morning around here with opening a door on Millie's Advent calendar. Yummy chocolate behind each day's door...it's difficult to stop at just one. Only 4 more days until Christmas Eve and we can open our presents! Millie also had fun climbing around in the Christmas lights at the annual Christmas tree lighting festival in downtown Snoqualmie. We felt very festive riding a horse drawn carriage singing Christmas songs. (no photos of that event, Mike's fingers were frozen at that point.)

The next weekend we headed over to Keith and Scott's Christmas tree farm to find and cut our very own Christmas tree. The weather was still pretty mild and we found a nice Frazer for the corner of our living room.

Millie got into the spirit right away and helped us hang the ornaments on the tree. We listened to x-mas music and the sound of Millie saying, "MILLIE, TRY... I TRY!!!!"

During the week Millie and I baked sugar cookies with our neighbor and her two year old son. They were so good and did not last very long! Then Millie painted and decorated her very own Christmas tree ornaments. Millie loves to paint (any activity that involves lots of mess!)

Mike bought me these wonderful winter boots. They came just in time! A few days later, the Seattle area got snow. The schools were closed for 3 days! We got about 5 inches, but since this area does not get snow very often, they lack the equipment and money to remove the snow and ice. None of the secondary roads are plowed, sanded or salted. Since the weather is only in the teens or low 20's, nothing has melted and the roads are treacherous! Here we are days later and another winter storm is predicted. This time with up to 90 mph winds!

We are surrounded by mountains, but live in the valley, so we couldn't find any hills walking distance to go sledding down, but Millie loved being pulled up and down the road on her new sled.

Deli cat even enjoyed the snow! We plan to stay warm in front of the woodstove the rest of this evening and will see what tonight's storm has in store for us. Mike's son is staying with us and is supposed to fly out of Seattle to the east coast tomorrow at 6 am, but that may not be possible. Stay warm and if it is warm near you, enjoy!