Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

This year we stayed in Kansas for Christmas again. On Monday and Tuesday before the break my friend's little girl came over to play. She arrived at 7:30 a.m. and was there until after 5 both days, so she and Hannah wore each other out having a good time.  Christmas Eve we bought pizza, sang carols, watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, and then opened about 3 presents each. Brian let Hannah help wrap my gifts and I love how she wrote on my presents so I would know that they were from her.    After we opened some presents and cleaned up the house, we left Santa some Oreo cookies and some fruit snacks and then we wrote him a letter. Hannah was adamant that since we didn't have a chimney he was going to have to come through the back yard and come in the door from the patio. We set out the cookies and got ready to go upstairs and then she STOLE one of Santa's cookies for herself. He forgave her though and stopped anyway. Here is the letter we ...

We are ready for Christmas. Hannah helped me decorate this year. She also helped me make gingerbread cookies where she rolled the dough herself. The tree is up and trimmed. We went with a real one this year. They are so much cheaper in Kansas than they were in Utah, which we find odd. This beauty is 8' tall and sturdy enough for more of our ornaments then the artificial one we used to have was. New presents keep appearing from family every day. Hannah finds them, counts them, and sorts them, just like I taught her. The stockings are hung by the chimney with care. Brian and I are the snow people and Hannah is the little bear.

I presented at the Literacy Research Conference in Florida this past week. We all went. I mostly did conference activities but Brian and Hannah had a good time on the beach and in the pool. I did spend some time building a sandcastle with Hannah in the late afternoon on the last day of the conference. The weather was great: 80 degrees. Some light rain in the evening but nothing that spoiled the trip. We flew two, 2-hour flights. One to Atlanta and the other to Ft. Lauderdale. We took the same way back, but in reverse. We rented a car and drove it across the Florida peninsula through Alligator Alley and the Seminole Reservation. There were these great signs with panthers on them that were like the deer watch signs that I am used to. They were offset yellow squares with the outline of a cat. It's always hard to make a trip right at the end of the semester and right before the holidays, but we did alright. Here are some pictures from our lone hour all together on the beach. ...