Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

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 ...