Snow anyone?

There have been a few things that we've been meaning to buy, but we just didn't get around to it until Wednesday.  After Creed's birthday party, we made the realization that there was one thing he really really would have loved above all else that we neglected to get.  We could have left it at that, but I had an old gift certificate so we headed to Barnes and Noble and after examining a lot of trains, we came home with this one.

Yellow of course.  He got a few Thomas the Train themed gifts, but he doesn't actually own any of the trains and really wanted one.  He doesn't really watch the show, but boy does he love that yellow train.  He's been sleeping with it during his naps.  It even HAD to go to Ikea with us when we met up with Lisa and Tyler Wednesday night.  We thought we were only picking up a roll of drawing paper, but how could we leave without this?
We spent much of last summer sitting on tacky camping chairs on our porch so at the end of the summer I tried to find some outdoor furniture on clearance, but everything I found was either really ugly or too expensive (and most were both).  Ikea has a lot of great, affordable outdoor furniture this year so it was tough to decide in the few minutes we had before they closed.  

Too bad we woke up to snow the next day!
Don't worry, our new rocking chairs were still put to good use  . . . as a train table. (I thought a train table was unnecessary and we don't really have space or money for one, but Creed hardly plays with that track at all when it is on the ground because he has to crawl and scoot around it and can't reach across it to move his train.  I guess we will have to figure something more permanent out)
It's practically impossible to have the winter blues when you have a new train, and the latest Scaredy Squirrel arrives on your porch (thank you whoever gave Larry that Amazon gift certificate!)
And it's not too cold to go on a walk
and you move your slide inside and dry it off so you can slide and watch Olivia at the same time.

Add on to that about an hour of painting with Creed on our new roll of paper and we had a perfectly cozy day.