"I love winter!"

After a long, warm (by Alaska standards) fall, 

winter graced us with her presence the night before last with our first official snowfall.

The girls could not wait to get outside and play in the snow first thing in the morning.

Kenadie immediately began making snow angels, while exclaiming every few minutes, "I love winter!!!"

Lila pretty much just toddled around eating the snow, then insisted on taking off her gloves to eat the snow. 

Two guesses as to how well that went over.

She was inside crying about her cold fingers within 2 minutes.  

Later in the afternoon Kenadie went sledding over at my parents' property while I kept Lila inside using fruit snacks as a bribe (there are only so many times in a day that you can spend 20 minutes getting your kids' snow gear on when you know they'll only last outside for 5 minutes). 

This was my view from my parents' living room late in the afternoon.

The crazy thing is that these iphone photos don't do justice to how brilliantly pink and lavender the mountains and clouds were.  

Alaska may have long, dark winters, but our shorter days are so often brilliantly sunny with amazing sunrises and sunsets.  

After spending time living in states where it is cloudy and gloomy for the majority of the winter, this really isn't so bad. 

Welcome, winter, and all the great things you bring:

hot cocoa

service projects

beautiful white mountains

down comforters

Thanksgiving

Christmas

the northern lights

family coming together

and a new baby. :)