Many of you know (intimately) that Portland experienced what the local media called "Arctic Blast 2008" over the past two weeks. You've seen the photos here and on TV. While we are SOOOOO glad that the rain is back and the snow is melting (slowly), we had some wonderful times, including a long, cozy Christmas Day with Deanna, Willy and Thom and Steph. Dalia had such a good time opening gifts (all day because Grammy and Pops bought her so much stuff). She was totally overstimulated by the end of the day and had a meltdown before bed, but otherwise enjoyed it all as much as we did. Sorry we didn't send out a Christmas greeting this year. We are somehow incapable of sending paper out anymore and our hard drive had to be replaced so we didn't get all our email addresses re-entered. Perhaps by spring we can send out another update. In the meantime, we thought we'd share some of the highlights of the week.
Grand total of snow accumulation was 14 inches. It was obviously too cold outside (here she is saying "no" to the chair she usually loves to climb), so we went inside and learned how to do downward dog and eat really yummy bad for you food. We believe we've both eaten about two sticks of butter this holiday season.
Dalia is at the stage (well, maybe not all babies do this) where she climbs everything and loved climbing on top of boxes as much as she liked what was inside of them. She treats any "platform" like a box or book or whatever she can climb up on like a stage and does a little dance every time. 
This is a video of her opening her first gift of the day:
It looks like she was a little overwhelmed at this point, and we still had about 10 packages to go.
Oh man, you gotta love the smile these days!
Reading with Pops before bedtime is her favorite thing to do now when he is over.
Even the cats were tired. Did you remember we had cats? 
Her new gift from Mom and Dad is this cool IKEA table and chairs. Unfortunately she's already fallen out of it about a dozen times. We'll give it a week and see what happens. It's better than the dining room table chairs she's been constantly climbing this past week. She's already enjoyed her afternoon snack, coloring and pretending to eat her fake wood breakfast in bed eggs and bacon from Thom and Steph at the table. She is very proud of herself, which makes us reluctant just to take it back until she is bigger.
Did anyone else in P-town see the sunset the other night? Dalia was out doing her new favorite thing - walking up and down the street and into anyone's driveway we'll let her.
So the other day I came home from teaching a yoga class around Dalia's naptime. I came in the back door but quickly noticed that her bedroom door was open yet it was silent in here - a phenomenon that never happens when she is awake. I walked into the living room and found this:
Robots not pictured, but they were both given and received as a belated birthday celebration for little Amelia who calls Dalia "beebee dalia" just like everyone else (such an interesting phenomenon - will she be baby dalia forever?). What a treat to visit with these two and a half (Zeke is getting bigger everyday, but there's still room for two little girls on Jen's lap. Unfortunately, Dalia coughed and sneezed on them for an hour with what we discovered later on was the start of a horrible cold.
Grand total of snow accumulation was 14 inches. It was obviously too cold outside (here she is saying "no" to the chair she usually loves to climb), so we went inside and learned how to do downward dog and eat really yummy bad for you food. We believe we've both eaten about two sticks of butter this holiday season.
It looks like she was a little overwhelmed at this point, and we still had about 10 packages to go.
Reading with Pops before bedtime is her favorite thing to do now when he is over.
Even the cats were tired. Did you remember we had cats? 
Her new gift from Mom and Dad is this cool IKEA table and chairs. Unfortunately she's already fallen out of it about a dozen times. We'll give it a week and see what happens. It's better than the dining room table chairs she's been constantly climbing this past week. She's already enjoyed her afternoon snack, coloring and pretending to eat her fake wood breakfast in bed eggs and bacon from Thom and Steph at the table. She is very proud of herself, which makes us reluctant just to take it back until she is bigger.
