December 2010 Recap

December 2010
Hailey and I had a few adventures I thought I would include.

Hailey turned one year old on December 2! She enjoyed opening presents, but was easily distracted by the toy inside the gift, so we helped her along by hiding the toy after she opened the gift. I made her a caterpillar birthday cake.

Hailey opening presents.

Hailey and her cake. Yum!

Caterpillar Cake

Bake a chocolate cake in a Bundt pan. Cool cake, then cut in half. Use the half for the main body, and cut the second half into half again. Use one for the head and one for the tail. Frost and decorate.

 

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She can take her necklaces on and off all by herself.

 

Christmas Prep

Hailey and I took a trip to Maceys (grocery store) to take a picture with Santa. Hailey was relaxed and excited to see other kids while in line, but as soon as I turned to hand her to Santa she got the most frightened look on her face and screamed. I have never seen such an expression before, or since. Santa was very understanding, so we took a picture with Hailey on my lap and me on Santa’s lap.

As Bruce finished the semester of school, I prepared the house for our extended absence by deep cleaning. When he finished finals, we prepared the house, pack most of our clothes and any personal belongings we would need over the next 4 months and drove to Colorado. We spent a few weeks in Colorado. We visited my family for Christmas and saw Ben & Michelle's family for a few days. The trip was relaxing, productive, and enjoyable.

Christmas in Colorado
Bruce and I did some work in the downstairs bathroom: ceiling patch, texture the walls, and painted. I recovered the kitchen chairs with cute fabric and plastic for easy clean up. I was teased about the plastic until someone tried to wipe their hands of the chair, and found plastic preventing and effective wipe. Turns out you need plastic to protect fabric even when the children are all teenagers. :) We repainted the kitchen to match the chairs and made plans to decorate it with a saying written in vinyl. Laurel (my sister-in-law who we live with while we are in TX) helped me write and cut out the saying.
We enjoyed a trip to the newly renovated Chilson Recreation Center. When I was growing up my parents would wake all the kids up and take them to the pool at 6 AM on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so it was fun to see the brand new layout and additions. Hailey enjoyed being in the water and especially having cousins around!
Christmas morning was as crazy and overwhelming, as usual, and it was great to celebrate with so much family! I'm most excited to use the card table fort that Grandma Waite made, and to use my Cricut to do some serious scrapbooking.
A day or two after Christmas we went to Denver to see Ben and Michelle. Scott and Lisa were also visiting, so we were able to send Scott & Lisa with some of our presents, enjoy more time with more family, and go roller skating, .
Back to Loveland to visit my family. It's been too long now, so I don't remember what we did for the days we stayed, but I'm sure we enjoyed it. :)
Then back to Ben & Michelle's for church the morning we drove to TX. The drive went very well. Hailey slept for long stretches of time, and was cheerful when she was awake. We stopped somewhere in TX for the night, and drove the next day to get to Katy, TX, a suburb of Houston.

Quiet Book

Cover.

The polka dots were hand quilted with felt as the batting. There are 2 handles (the green fabric to the right of the book) The letters were cut with a Cricut machine and appliquéd on. 

 

The Barn

Finger puppets were made using felt bodies (sew the ears before you sew the body), a button nose, and seed bead eyes. Left to right the animals are a sheep, a cow, a duck, and a pig.

 

 

Braiding

The face is all sewn to the page. The hair is secured at the top of the head, but free-flowing down the face. It can be braided, or fixed with bows, etc.

 

 

Clock

The numbers were embroidered on the face of the clock, and the foam hand were added (secured with a brad) before the face was sewn to the page. Hailey just ripped the hand off, so I’m looking for something studier than craft foam. Any suggestions?

 

Mailbox

I reinforced the mailbox by sewing two pieces of felt together. The flag is felt, and secured with a brad. The mailbox is a pocket, so you can place “mail” in it. The lid can open and close (secured with velcro).

 

Overalls

I sewed an old pair of overalls to the page. Perfect for practicing buckling. I’d like to add a belt around the waist to practice another kind of buckling.

 

Cell Phone

The numbers are attached to the phone by snaps. Numbers were hand embroidered, and felt is two layers thick for stability. The “screen” is clear vinyl which allows you to put a photo of the child in the slot.

 

Velcro Shapes

Small shape is sewn to the page. Velcro is on top the smaller shape and allows the larger shape to be secured to the smaller shape for practice with shapes and matching.

 

Flower Buttons

Each colored button coordinates with a colored flower. The button is fastened to the page, and the flower is completely detachable. Child can match the button and flower color, or just practice buttoning.

 

Potato Head

Mrs. Potato head clothes include a purse, hat, pink heels, and red lips. Mr. Potato head had a hat, natural mouth, and yellow shoes. All potato accessories can be stored in pouch on the lover half of the potato.

 

Mom’s Purse.

A flower button secures the flap. A treat, or activity can be stored in the purse.

Day 1 in Houston, TX

After 2 days of driving, we arrived in Houston on January 3rd, 2011. The first full day in Houston we visited some sights.

Picnic
We drove downtown to see the Ernst and Young office and explore a little. We had a picnic lunch at a park across the street from the E&Y office and then walked around. Bruce showed me the E&Y building and we walked in some sky walks. Many of the buildings downtown are connected with sky walks which allows you to travel building-to-building without going outside. I would enjoy the walk outside this time of year, but rumor has it that in the summer months it's too hot to go out.

At a fountain in the park downtown.

Hailey climbing up the steps on the playground downtown.

Underground Passages
Bruce had heard of some underground passages, but had never been in them, so we tried to find them. After a fruitless search we asked an elevator companion how to access the underground tunnel. (We were in the E&Y parking garage which is reserved for really important people so Bruce was worried that the "elevator man" would be an E&Y Partner and he would see him the next day at orientation. That would be embarrassing.) Our elevator mate appeared slightly amused by my child-like excitement and kindly gave us directions from our building to the We followed his instructions, but took one shortcut and were unable to locate an access point to the supposed underground tunnels. We circled the exterior of a building, rode the elevator some more, and were running out of time on the parking meter when I asked a doorman. He kindly directed us into the neighboring building and down the escalator, and sure enough, by following his directions we arrived in the TUNNELS! It was really cool. Like a city undergound... or at least like a mall food court, or airport terminal shopping arena. I thought it was really cool, so I'm sure I had my "This is so cool! Can you believe this" face, which Bruce teases me about. :)

Zoo
We left the tunnels and hurried to the car to before our parking meter expired (parking meters take credit cards now. Cool, huh?). Then we drove a few minutes to the zoo. Bruce found that the Houston Zoo does a free day the 2nd Tuesday of every month after 1PM, and since we happened to be tourists on the 2nd Tuesday of the month it worked out just perfect for us to go to the zoo. It wasn't too crowded and was a whole new cultural experience (let's just say it's not Provo). We enjoyed the animals and Hailey loved the seals.

The camera batteries were dead (Always buy brand name batteries. We just bought these cheap batteries while we were downtown and we could hardly get the camera on because there was not enough juice in the batteries)

Home
We headed home to Kevin & Laurel's house, our temporary home, and called it a night.

Hailey's First Birthday

Hailey turned 1!

We hosted the grandparents for cake, ice cream, and presents at our apartment. Hailey didn't like ripping presents open, but she loved having new toys and really loved cake!

Hailey opening presents

Hailey playing with her presents

Caterpillar cake

Cake!

Master Menu

Master Menu

Back in June I attended an enrichment meeting and learned about this really cool way to plan meals. It's called a "Master Menu," and the concept is that you create 28 day (or 4 weeks) of meals and every month you repeat the menu. It sounds repetitive, but you only eat each meal 12 times every year- not that often!

Themed Meals

The Master Menu idea gets even better because you organize the meals so that they are intuitive, by assigning each day a theme. For example, Monday is "Beef", Tuesday is "Breakfast", Wednesday is "Mexican", etc. So each Monday you might not remember what you are making, but you know it's beef, so you can anticipate how long it will take to make, and after a few months you do have it memorized because the first Monday of every month is always the same meal.

Side Dishes

The final way to simplify meal preparation is to assign side dishes. If you are general then you have more flexibility and can still have variety without much additional thought or planning. For example, every night we have Mexican food we have corn and rice. Some nights we will have creamed corn, some nights corn on the cob, some nights canned corn, etc.; similar story with rice, some nights Spanish rice, some nights we will have rice in burritos, some nights we will have rice and beans, but I know that I need enough rice and enough corn on the shelf that I can serve it once a week. That makes food storage easier too!

My Master Menu

I like variety, so I've created an 8 week master menu. Here's what mine looks like:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Theme	Beef	Breakfast	Mexican	Italian	Chicken	Other
Side	Potatoes Fruit Salad	Juice	Corn Green Bean	Garlic Bread Pink Stuff Salad	Rolls Apple Carrot	Peas Peaches
1	Hamburger	French Toast	Taco Ring	Lasagna	Yogurt Chicken	Lettuce Wrap
2	Steak	Omelets, Cinnamon Rolls	Tacos	Calzones	Chicken Parmesan	Chicken Croquette
3	BBQ Beef	Waffles	Beef Enchiladas	Chicken Alfredo	Orange Chicken	German Pancakes
4	Kabobs	Breakfast Burritos	Chicken Enchiladas	Stromboli	Moroccan Chicken	Pork Chops
5	Meatloaf	Breakfast Casserole	Fajitas	Spaghetti	Cordon Bleu	Ravioli
6	Café Rio	Pancakes	Nachos/ Taco Salad	Spaghetti Pie	Sweet & Sour, Rice	BBQ Ribs
7	Meatball Sandwich	Crepes	Mexican Pizza	Pizza	Chicken Monterey	Brazilian Dinner
8	Sloppy Joe	Quiche	Chimmichanga	Stuffed Shells	Teriyaki	Big Salad

Life happens and  we don’t always stick to the menu, but when it’s time to shop for the week or time to cook dinner, I know what’s on the menu, and I know that we have the ingredients to make what’s on the menu. I also know that when there is a great sale on spaghetti sauce, I should buy enough for at least 8 meals every menu cycle. The master menu has really simplified my meal prep. Another technique that has simplified meal preparation is using homemade mixes.

Mixes

I have recently started using the Make-A-Mix Cookery book to make my own mix, to further simplify meal preparation. The book lists some “master mixes” which are usually dry ingredients that you mix n a large volume and then store. You make the mix whenever you have time, store them, and when you are ready to make a dish, you add a few additional ingredients to the master mix. It’s all the convenience of a store-bought mix without the extra cost.

I love to have a variety of foods, but it’s not worth all the mess of measuring cups and spoons just to have biscuits for breakfast, or to have rolls for dinner. With mixes, I make a mess when I make the master mix, but when I am ready to make biscuits, I just measure the mix and add water, or to make rolls, measure the mix, add a few other ingredients, and I’m ready to bake.

Future Plans

Internship
Bruce interviewed in Houston, TX with Deloitte about 2 weeks ago, and just returned from a interview with Ernst & Young in Houston. Both have offered him an internship in January. He had not decided which offer he will accept, but we do know that we will be in Houston from January until March or April. We will live with Bruce brother’s family while we are on internship. About 90% of internships lead to a job, so it’s likely we will have a job offer following the internship.

Life
Hailey continues to grow. She’s really mastered walking. Sometimes I’ll be outside working on a project, turn around, and have to go hunting for Hailey. A few times she have even made it to the house in front of our complex, which is too close to the road for my comfort. She has also started to form some preferences, which she vocalizes. Today when I told her not to play in the toilet and took her out of the bathroom, she arched her back and cried- a little tantrum. She’s cute and we love that she can interact with us.
We’re done mowing, so I’ve just been a stay at home mom. I thought I might get bored, but I’ve found plenty to do so far.

Play Group
We go to playgroup with some other moms and kids in the ward a few times a week. We always have an activity which is funny because most of our kids are too young to do more than toddle around and steal toy from one another. We have had finger painting, a leaf walk to collect leaves and then rub them, Cheerio necklaces (Hailey loved that one. I made the necklace she ate it. Other kids had a necklace, she ate it, too.), mummy hot dogs (for Halloween), and will have hot cocoa this week. I really enjoy the time to chat with other moms and it’s good for Hailey to have the social outing.

She loves going for walks and climbing the stairs!

Every Thursday we go to toddler story time at the public library. Hailey LOVES that. Sometimes she can sit through the whole story time, but usually she wanders around watching other kids and looking at books. A few days ago Bruce and I were in the kitchen when Bruce noticed Hailey in the living room. She was sitting on the floor reading a book all by herself. It was a Kodak moment.

Thanks for the bows, Sarah! We have so much fun choosing which bow to put in her hair (she doesn't like the ponytail, but doesn't mind the bow).

Home Projects
When we are not socializing Hailey, I’ve completed a few projects at home. I made a new cover for Hailey’s high chair and will make a second one, as well as a plastic cover. I made a hooded towel for a friend’s baby shower. I put a plastic cover on the scooter seat so it will be dry (well, mostly dry once you brush the snow off). I put plastic on the windows. We don’t have double panes and have found the srink-wrap window plastic really helps insulate the apartment. I’ve also read a few books and have a stack from the library to work through, and this week I will start some family history work.
School and Work
School continues to be demanding for Bruce, but his boss has found a replacement for him and this will be his last week of work.

Halloween

Hailey was a duck for Halloween. The costume was so cute, but the soles of her feet were fabric, so she slipped every time she was on a smooth surface. We had a ward party in the gym at the church, so she slipped regularly. We had a good laugh but in the end had mercy and took it off. They broke a piñata at the ward party and let the kids (all 8 that are in our ward) get candy. Hailey picked up as many suckers as she could carry, but dropped them all when she finally got one open. We didn’t go trick-or-treating, so the ward party was the extent of our festivities.

Bruce dressing Hailey in her duck costume (above). Hailey walking in her costume (below).