Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

We rotate our NYE food, fun, and fanfare. Some years we do pizza. Some years we go out to eat. Some years we make food. This year we made food with an Asian flair. The photo features teriyaki beef, chicken curry, and rice. There are also some lil' smokies sausages because I associate them with New Years'. We rented a movie and watched it since it is hard to do too much with small children.  Tomorrow, we are going to a new Year's Day party with some people Brian and I had a class with over the summer. One of the curiosities about this university is that there is a lot of social drinking at all levels, not just the crazy undergrads. For instance, at the end of this semester, my professor took our class to a bar and paid for drinks during the time we would have had class. We also went to a party for my new supervisor at her house and they had to look around for several minutes to find water for us. While we were drinking it, about seven people tried to take it and get...

We got up this morning just after 11 a.m. Both Brian and I woke up around 7 and I went downstairs to start getting food ready and when I was done Brian was asleep again so I went back to bed too. So 11 was when we started the Christmas fanfare. Hannah is toilet training and so she was not quite ready to open presents, as you will see in the video.     She eventually got into the spirit and tried to open every present. We let her help open even the ones that weren't hers. When she had a pile and started playing we let her stop. Here is our Christmas feast. I made citrus roast beef in the crock pot. It has lemon, orange, onion, cilantro and parsley. It had a very good subtle flavor. We also had Yukon gold potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade cranberry chutney, salad, homemade rolls, lemon pie, and pumpkin cake. Hannah and I made the cake and pie together the day before. These pretty plates were on sale at Kohl's. I kept going to visit them so Brian i...

There is a store called Bargain Depot near our house and I saw a sign that said Santa was there. So we stopped by. We weren't sure if she would like him, but they were fast friends.  

Here is the original. Through the miracle of cropping, you can't see how I am poised to catch her, but here is our shelf elf.

Holiday preparations are in full swing at the Rice house. We decorated our tree after Thanksgiving. Hannah helped by handing us the ornaments. We hung foam ornaments at the bottom of the tree because they get picked off the tree and packed around the house. This same ornament bandit likes to hide under the tree. I must confess that I participated centrally or peripherally in events on several occasions that led to a fallen tree, so I have it coming. We won't be putting the gifts under either, to keep Hannah from exploding with anticipation. I love presents and I used to count them and shake them in advance of Christmas, so I have that coming too.   Hannah has also been busy teaching her toy kitten to play the piano. She is a very encouraging teacher even though the kitty often plays the wrong notes. Their favorite songs to sing are Deck the Halls and the Jingle Bells. Creative liberties on the tunes are often taken. I get up at 6 or 7 a.m. to do my homework so that I can...

When we moved here my oven quit working almost immediately so we when out to find something inexpensive to replace it with and the cheapest thing was an open box induction oven. It was supposed to be thousands of dollars because induction technology is expensive, but you have to learn to cook differently because the food heats very quickly. We ended up getting it for a few hundred dollars because it had been bought and returned three times. What I really like about it is that it is safer to let Hannah cook with me. The food gets hot but the oven doesn't--not hot enough to burn anyway and the burners only heat the food too. The pans don't get very hot and the burner kicks off if they sense something other an stainless steel. So anyway, I think its funny that they advertise induction on television by saying that it boils water in 90 seconds (which is cool, but you have to get used to cooking under those conditions) when they should be saying that it is safer and uses al...

I went to Boston the for the 2014 conference of the National Council of Teachers of English. I spoke in a session called Learning with and from Families. My paper was about work that I had done when I was still a teacher in Springville. I wrote the proposal to go to the conference when I had just moved to Lawrence and we were homeless.  I remember sitting in the dim lit temporary housing while Hannah slept trying to feel a sense of normalcy when I opened my email and saw Last Call for NCTE proposals and I cracked one out and uploaded it 10 minutes before the deadline. When I found I was going in May, I was so excited. It gave me a good memory from what was a really hard time in our transition to Lawrence.  Map of historic Boston sights.  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow home.  Orchard House. Emerson home. I spoke at the conference and did some touring. I went to see the sights of Boston and then headed over to Cambridge and toured Harvard Yard and the Henry ...

I finally managed to get Hannah to the doctor for her two year old appointment. Brian likes to come to her appointments and I like him to come too so that he can hold her while she gets her shots. This last time she only had two, but she has been subjected to as many as six in one visit before. So anyway, it is hard to find a time when a doctor's office is open that Brian and I are both available since we have mostly offset our schedules so she doesn't need a babysitter except for one evening a week. Her stats are as follows:  Height: 34 inches (53rd percentile) Weight: 25 pounds (27th percentile) Head Circumference: 18.5 inches (35th percentile). Way to grow, Hannah!

The day after her party, Hannah used a chair to climb up on the stove and steal an extra birthday cupcake. She took this selfie with my phone.  I took this of Hannah with the missionaries in our ward. We signed up to feed them. We had to pick them up and Hannah fell asleep in the car. She woke up to visitors. She likes them now and even greets them at church, but here she looks skeptical. 

Hannah's first Halloween she was only a few days old so I sat on the couch with her and Brian gave away candy to kids so I wouldn't have to go to the door. Last year, we all had the stomach flu,  so I hobbled through the ward's trunk or treat wanting to die. This year my friend Stefinee came to Kansas to confer with a colleague about a book they are writing and she spent part of Halloween with us. We had a roast chicken dinner with bread and salad and then I dressed Hannah in her pumpkin costume and we all went out. At first, Hannah was afraid of people but then she started getting candy. It wasn't too log before she started running around screaming "hurry mommy hurry .... candy!' Towards the end she wanted me to pick her up and we went to the last three houses with me carrying her. Then we dropped off Stefinee where she was staying. When we got home, Hannah was asleep, but she woke up when we took her out of the car. We watched the Garfield Halloween and the ...

Hannah's birthday was today and we through her a little party. The guests made favors of Halloween Houses and stick puppets and then we sang Happy Birthday, ate a light snack of roll sandwiches, chips, cheese, and crackers, and had cupcakes. I made a little cake for Hannah to blow a candle out of but she ate a cupcake at the party just like everyone else. Everything went really smoothly and I was so glad that so many of my friends could come and bring their beautiful children and that my sister would deign to drive 8.5 hours for the occasion. Hannah is truly loved.  Here is Hannah at almost the exact minute of her birthday.  Here are her cousins, dressed to save the world.  And of course, their super mama.  This boy liked the witch hat garland.  Cody held down the fort with the new baby during the shindig.  This boy was worried his mama was gonna leave him at a new place. When she stayed, he was fine.  These kids made cut...

Hannah is taking to her toddler bed just fine. She does still play at nap time, but now when she is tired she can go to sleep on a bed instead of on a beanbag chair because she can't get back in her crib. But yes, she still prefers to drink from a bottle.