christmas for Amalia

Amalia was really excited for Christmas the year. The packages have been coming in and today she got to open them. Upon opening each one she would say 'thats so cute'. She was really excited. We then went on a hike to the cascades. It was cold but sunny and Amalia got to wear her new 'ski' outfit. We did about 2 miles and she hiked ~1.5miles. This afternoon and evening she got to video/talk with her family on skype and had a good time seeing them all. She had a great day.

You didn't know angels wore crowns made of campagnolo track chainrings???

Trying on her knew fancy socks from Grandparents Belden:
Test driving her new turtle puzzle from Grandparents Belden:
Opening her present of kid's cookbooks from Uncle David:
Learning about spiders from books from Grandparents Moore:
Playing with her Diego puppet from the Koepke's:
Test driving her new Dora sleeping bag from the Koepke's:
It was cold on the hike but Amalia enjoyed it:
Mostly she hiked on her own but I carried her for a bit:
Enjoying a banana bread snack:
All bundled up:
But then she insisted she was too warm so removed her coat:

Christmas music

A couple of classics:

Run DMC


Family guy:

Amalia's first mile race

Today was the Frosty 5K and 1 mile fun run. I have been telling Amalia all week that she was going to race so she was really excited. She likes to say that she is 'really, really, REALLY fast!'So we went to the race. We decided to stick with the 1 mile race and she was in the 12 and under group... way under in her case as a 2 year old. There were 3 other kids, a brother and sister around 6 and 8 and another little girl who was 3. Lisa came along and took pics. Overall Amalia did great! She ran the first 0.6 miles almost without stopping. This included running by a playground (I thought we were going to have to stop and play on the slide). I had to carry her a bit on the uphill on the way back. As you can see she sprinted through the finish for a strong 3rd place and a ribbon! I think our time was 11:46. Outstanding performance.

Stretching it out before the start:

Warming up:

Its go time!

Starting slow to finish fast:

The 3 year old starts to fade and hears Amalia's footsteps:

Sprinting through the finish!