Seattle Winter, some fun to be had.

Sometimes I feel like Seattle winters are the worst. You don't get much sun, and this year it has been extra cold and had lots o' snow. Lots of snow for us is 2 weeks straight (that never happens) over Christmas and some random snow days where we get snow for 2 days and then in another couple of days it melts. But still. Anyway, we have actually had a lot of fun this winter. Here are some of the things we have been doing.

The day after Christmas we braved the snow and went to the zoo with the Farmers!
It was a lot of fun and we never checked out the inside exhibits so well.

Scottie and Hyrum feeding the birds.

Jimmy and Eli feeding the birds.

Cade hatching out of a dinosaur egg.

Scottie and Cade enjoying the zoomasium.
Notice how wet Scottie's pants are. He didn't care that it was snowing out, he still wanted to splash in any puddles and to fall down in snowdrifts. He had a blast.

New Years eve with the Travis Magelsen family and some ward friends.
We had some live accordion entertainment from Hyrum.

Scottie enjoying the sparkling cider. We rang in the New Year with the kids at 9:30pm.
They even set the clocks forward...devious Melissa.

Karissa gave Hyrum and I a day of babysitting for Christmas.
We decided to use it with a day of snow-shoeing. We had a blast!

My sister Shannon and I took our kids to the Children's Museum.
Here is Scottie and Cade being firemen.

Scottie driving the tractor.


Downstairs in the museum they had a "workshop" where you could build stuff.
We had a blast building towers and here is our igloo that we built around the kids.
Their favorite part was busting out of it when we would build it around them.

Anyway, we have had a pretty decent winter so far. 2 more months to go.

Magelsen Christmas 2008

Let it Snow!

Monroe has been hit with more snow than I have seen in a LONG time! All week long we have had dustings of snow. Last night we were hit big. Last night I thought, "you never know how long we keep snow so let's play!"

Here is Scottie and I with our snowman.

Then here is the view out our window this morning. It is 5pm and it is still snowing. We now have more than a foot! Having lived in Boston, we know this is nothing amazing but in the Seattle area, it is Grand! Scottie LOVED it last night with all of the snowball throwing and such, but today it is too deep for him to walk in so he didn't like it so much.

Now if we can just get Karissa here safely. We are headed out now to the airport and are hoping to make it safely. Monroe is not known for their excellent snowplowing, wish us luck!

Congratulations Melyn!

This past weekend Hyrum gave me the weekend off to go to Utah for Melyn's wedding. Melyn is a dear friend that I met in Boston. She was one of my roommates when I got engaged to Hyrum. She met her match, Kyler, through crazy circumstances and now is off to Jerusalem where he works for the state department. We will miss her like crazy. As a side note, Hyrum and Melyn always joked about being twins. They are nearly the same height, (Hyrum always is sure to point out that he has one inch on her 6'3" frame), they have about the same shoe size, and they are both extremely slim and good looking (I would say). So she is like part of the fam.

Melyn and Kyler coming out of the temple. What a good looking couple huh?

One of the best parts of the wedding was seeing old friends. Here is Kriss Jacobsen and Jodaddy. Thanks for letting me bunk with you Jodi.
Here are my old roomies. Lisa, Jodi, Melyn, and I. We were just missing JaNeece.

Thanks for the fun tall girls! Your wee one.

Another great part of the weekend which unfortunately I didn't document with photos was seeing my parents as set apart missionaries in the MTC with their name tags and everything. My two sisters live in Provo, Utah, and we got to hang out with Mom and Dad for part of the weekend. They are spiritual powerhouses. I know they are going to do a great job in Ireland. We had fun swapping missionary stories, and hanging out. Karissa was kind enough to share her loft bedroom with me for one night, and Michelle, Bennett, and Karissa even took me out to The Malt Shoppe, my old favorite. Thanks for the fun guys. I can't wait for Christmas Karissa.

Halloween

Here are a few pictures from our Halloween celebrations this year.

Scottie dressed up in his Chinese costume we bought in Beijing. You can't tell too well from this picture but his hat was a little Chinese skull cap (it was a little big) with a black pigtail hanging down. Too bad he wouldn't keep it on too long.

Hyrum and I attended a costume Halloween party where he was a tree and I was a tree hugger.

He makes a good looking tree huh.

Scottie and Daddy at the ward "trunk or treat." Daddy is wearing Scottie's hat.

Happy Birthday to Us!

October is a month of craziness for my family. As a kid I LOVED October because not only was it my birthday, it was also the birthday of two of my sisters and my Dad, plus Halloween. That means that every couple of days we got to have cake or some sort of goody, and then we got to eat Halloween treats, what could be better. The only down-fall as a kid was that my Irish twin, Shannon, and I always had to share our birthday party, but since we were so close in age and most of our friends were friends with both of us, it really did make sense. So now, to keep up with tradition, I had my first son on October 27th.

This was a big year for me, I turned 30, GASP! I always thought that was so old when I was a kid (my mom had me, the 4th child, when she was 30 years old). Now I think I am pretty young still. After all, I only have one child, and my husband is still in school, that should give me some sort of youthful air right? :)

So for the celebrations this year Hyrum took me out for a night on the town to dinner and a movie, I honestly cannot remember the last time I went to the theater to see a movie, it has been ages, so it was fun. My awesome fam also made me feel special during the day by coming over and celebrating with me. Thanks guys!

Being a two year old, Scottie still doesn't quite grasp the concept of his birthday. He does however grasp the concept of a fun day with ALL the attention he wants. We started the day out with some Curious George on PBS and then a walk in the fall air afterwhich he and I spent at least an hour jumping in piles of leaves. Then to make it even better, his cousins Cade, Eli, and Eric came over and he got to ride his bike outside and then jump in piles of leaves for at least another hour more. He topped it off with a fun family night with Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa. Could life get any better?

Here are some pictures to show the fun:

At our big group family birthday party for 3 aunts, one grandpa, and 2 cousins, we had bobbing for apples, pumpkin painting, and donuts on a string. That was a real popular one.

Scottie and Cade playing in the leaves on his birthday.

At our birthday family home evening.

I hope they call me on a mission

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday was one of those fall days that make you love Washington. We decided to take advantage of it by going to the pumpkin patch with some of Scottie's cousins.













There were heaps and heaps of beautiful pumpkins. Here is Scottie with his cousin Eric. They are birthday buddies, both born on October 27th, just 4 years apart.









There was lots of room to run around and the kids loved seeing the tractors pulling around riders in the fields.











Cade and Scottie.















Scottie in the corn fields.

















Happy Fall everybody.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens... Since Scottie will be turning two this month I thought I would post a little about the boy. These are a few of his favorite things.


He Loves riding bikes. We bought him a little trike but his favorite is this pink and purple number we borrowed from the Schmidts. I think because it is easiest for him to pedal. He can really cruise these days.






He loves his Grandmas and Grandpas. This summer he got to live a few weeks with both his Anderson grandparents and Magelsen ones and he adores all of them. Here is a cute one of he and Grandpa Jim.











In Shanghai, he developed an obsession for all sorts of vehicles. Here he is with one of his favorites a "lo-lo-lo-lo" (motorcycle), I hope he never learns to say that the correct way.









He loves to go for a ride in the "har".














The hottub is a favorite past time. Here he is with his buddy Anza and his cousin Eli in the background.










Grandma Colleen's house has a trampoline, can life get much better than that?












Hours each day are spent lining up his "hars" and his "choo choo rains." Very very fun.












Yummy, fall apples, string cheese, bread, popsicles, you know, the basics.














With all of this and Mommy and Daddy, life is pretty dang good huh guys?

Mariners Game

We had a double date with Grandma Dorothy and Bill last Friday. They are a fun double date. They are big Mariners fans and they adore Scottie. Plus, Grandma shared her blanket with me. Thanks Aunt Chris for the awesome tickets.



Scottie and Mommy in a rare non-red eye shot. We had tickets right behind home plate so Scottie loved saying hi to Ichiro and other Mariners as they came up to bat. He also loved it when balls would fly back into the net and seem like they would hit us.







Scottie and Daddy cheering on the Mariners, the highlight was they won! Lots of homeruns = fun game.










Grandma and Bill looking fine. Thanks for the fun Grandma. These are the perks of living in Seattle close to family.