Happy Holidays!

We have been busy with holidays, final exams, work, and on-going house renovations and I feel like there is quite a bit of catching up to do here on our blog.

We are moving Astrid and Ramona into a different bedroom that has more windows. We talked to Ramona about the move and she requested that their new bedroom be "sparkly princess pink." I told her that we were planning on painting it yellow. So, she said, "Can it be princess yellow?" Of course!

I am proud to announce that Astrid is going to bed so much easier now. We decided to "train" her to go to sleep on her own, rather than holding her until she was asleep and then putting her into bed. And it worked!

We have been reading Ramona "The Wizard of Oz" at bed time. It's her first big kid book, with only a picture on every other page and lots of words, and chapters. She seems to be enjoying it. I had never read "The Wizard of Oz", only seen the movie, and there are some differences. For example, Dorothy's shoes are not red, they are silver. Nevertheless, Ramona will wear nothing but her red sparkly shoes that Mumsey gave her.

Andrew and I have been daydreaming lately about moving to Hanover, New Hampshire. There is an ornithologist there at Dartmouth that studies the effects of global warming on migratory songbirds, which is exactly what Andrew would like to study if he enters a PhD program. The state of New Hampshire is also a great place to study and practice as a midwife legally and socially. I think about 25% of pregnant women give birth with a midwife there and homebirth midwifes have a lot of freedom in their practice. So, we've been daydreaming, even though we would be very sad to leave the close proximity to my family. Guess we'll just have to see where the wind blows us. In the mean time we'll be here in Johnson City for another year and a half while Andrew finishes his graduate degree.

Andrew finished his finals about a week ago with straight A's and is now on break through the second week of January. So, he's been spending lots of time with the kids, feeding the ducks, baking cookies, swimming, taking walks, and going to get treats at the store. I'll have to admit, he seems to get so much more done than I do when I am home all day with the kids. I get home from work at 730pm and he has the kids asleep, dinner made, the house clean, errands run, a batch of homemade cookies, and stories of what fun things the kids did that day.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family here at our house and had a wonderful time.

My sister and parents spent the night, we played at our favorite park, ate a little roasted chicken and some other yummy food, watched a very cool documentary on Andy Goldsworthy called Rivers and Tides, and just enjoyed hanging out together.

Ramona made this artwork titled "I Am Thankful".

Here's a little close up of "At the playground with Grandpa sliding down the twisty slide"
and "strawberry ice cream" and "jumping on the couch"
We will be spending Christmas in Fenelton, PA with Andrew's family out in the country. Ramona loves getting together with her cousins and has been talking about this visit for months. I think there may even be a surprise visit from Santa Claus and Mrs.Claus when we're there! Andrew and I have been looking forward to this visit, too, and can't wait to see all of his family and celebrate the holidays with them.

I hope that all of you are have safe and happy holidays with your loved ones!

Happy Birthday, Ramona!

Ramona turned 4 years old on December 6th. She is sure that everything about her is larger now, even her teeth. She had four friends over for a dress-up birthday party. There were, of course, presents, cake, games, and lots of running around and laughing. That night Ramona got to stay up late and get all dressed up to see a ballet performance of "A Christmas Carol" with her Mumsey (my mom) and me. I think it was a wonderful birthday!

Late November Snow

Waking up to snow is so peaceful and lovely. We were in the midst of falling leaves and now they are all raked away and snow is in their place. It happens so quickly...just as I'm finding this peaceful and lovely and (and sometimes maddening) time of life with our children is passing so quickly. Astrid began walking yesterday and Ramona is turning 4 years old in a couple of weeks. She still asks us to carry her and we complain, but we love having her so close, her head on our shoulder and cheek.

Here are some images from our week of hiking, baking, and greeting the snow and here's the link to a song by Ferron that I love, called Girl on a Road.

In the Kitchen

The cool weather makes me want to cook and bake and eat. Tonight Ramona and I started making Buttermilk and Currant Whole Wheat Bread...yum! Ramona says, "Can I help you dough it?" This means "knead it." She loves to knead and eat the dough. Tonight I told her to stop eating it. She says, "Why? Are there rotten eggs in it?" What she meant was, "Are there raw eggs in it?" Andrew said that it sounded like a Southern specialty..."Rotten Egg Bread".





Andrew and I have started having "dates" every week or two. The kids stay home with a babysitter or go to a friends house, while we spend a few hours doing whatever we want. This afternoon we went to Barnes and Nobles (Johnson City doesn't have an independent book store or we would have gone there instead) for our date. I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but for two book lovers it is. I was so pleased to discover a book on Indian food, Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent, by two of my favorite cookbook authors, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. They have the coolest job as food anthropologists and cookbook authors ... traveling around the world with their two kids studying, eating, and photographing food and the people who make it. I have two of their books, Seductions of Rice: A Cookbook and Home Baking: The Artful Mix of Flour and Traditions from Around the World.

We have been passing around an upper respiratory infection for the past 2 or 3 weeks! So, I missed my two night shifts at work this week...and stayed home cooking Indian food, sewing curtains, reading "Arthur's First Sleepover" and "Madeline's Christmas" over and over, baking bread, making birthday party invitations, and drinking hot ginger and sage tea. I'm happy to say that the food was all delicious. The Indian recipes are from the River Cottage Family Cookbook, the bread recipe is from Bread Alone, and the tea is from the Kripalu Cookbook. The fireplace was, of course, blazing all through this ... and today we got the gas bill. FYI, the gas fireplace insert uses a lot of gas. I did discover that placing bread to rise near the fireplace works really well if you have a cool house like us. You just need to keep the towels covering the bread moist so that the dough does not dry out.

Andrew is happy that his grant proposal was accepted. He now has money to buy a GPS and some other supplies for his bird research and to pay for gas. He has decided to do his research near Johnson City on Roan Mountain and Unaka Mountain. I plan to tag along for much of this "research" with the kids...what a great excuse to go hiking and camping this spring and summer!

I have just started to volunteer with the Johnson City Downtown Clinic, which serves the uninsured and patients with Medicaid. I will be working primarily with the Hispanic prenatal patients. I hope to improve my Spanish, gain more experience with prenatal care, and try to start a doula program. I keep mulling over the pros and cons of returning to school for Nurse Midwifery and I hope that volunteering here will help me in that decision.

Astrid is going on 1 year and 1 month and is really trying to walk and talk, but can do neither yet. Andrew thinks she's a budding birder...hard to tell. She does love eating, drawing, and putting things into and out of containers. Ramona likes to yell "Stop it!" when we tell her not do something naughty. Her favorite games are chase and hide and seek, especially when it's time to get dressed, leave the house, eat dinner, or any other timely event. She has become quite the little radio hog, listening to primarily Billy Jonas about 3 times a day, and complaining loudly if we turn it off to listen to our music. I am happy to say that she's a big fan of Gillian Welch's One Little Song, Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay, the Grateful Dead's Ripple, Old Crow Medicine Show's Wagon Wheel, Cat Steven's the Wind , and Leo Kottke's Corrina, Corrina.

I have become fascinated with the McKenzie River area of Canada and want to visit there this summer...before it has been changed for the worse by our quest for oil. On that note, Ramona, Astrid, and I took our first trip on the Johnson City Public Bus this week. It was clean, cheap fare, and the driver was so nice. We'll definitely be utilizing it more often. I encourage all of you to try out your city's public bus...it's fun!

Here are some photos of the past couple of weeks.

At the Park

Visting with Mumsey and Grandpa in Asheville

Birthday Invitations

Outdoor Plexiglass Painting

The Chalkboard

Apple Picking with Friends

A Fireplace

A warm, bright fire brings so much to a living space. I have just discovered how wonderful our gas insert fireplace can be. It provides heat and flickering orange flames. All we have to do is turn a little knob...it just seems too easy. So, does anyone know about the environmental and health effects of these gas inserts. Do they use excess amounts of gas or give off detrimental fumes? Is it okay that I have it on most mornings and evenings for a total of about 6 hours per day? There are (soapstone?) logs in the fireplace and tile on the hearth that seem to absorb and retain the heat. Above the flames is a partially closed shutter. I think it is broken and doesn't completely close. This was another question to anyone who may know...do we need to have an open chimney with a gas insert or does this just waste heat?
Before I realized how much I like this gas insert, I had planned to install an old cast iron wood burning stove of my father's. It was in my house as a child and seemed to provide a good deal of heat, not require too much wood, and had a little window where you can see the fire burning. Any thoughts on this style of woodstove.
Thanks!

Outside in the Autumn

Andrew and I love Autumn. We have been spending as much time as we can outside during this beautiful time of year. I have to admit that Ramona is a bit of a homebody and will usually choose to lounge about in the house over playing outside (much to my dismay.) We were lucky enough to get tickets for the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF) for a full weekend of music, art, and outdoor play. This festival takes place just outside of Asheville, NC at a large piece of land with a lake surrounded by mountains and features international musicians and artists from around the world. Here are just a few glimpses of what it was like:



Andrew took a week-long trip with his school to study birds in the Outer Banks on the northeast coast of North Carolina.

One day they took a boat 60 miles out to the Gulf Stream where he saw flying fish, dolphins, and several bird species he had never seen before. He caught some large mahi mahi that he ate for dinner that same night. Here's a little frog he spotted on a hike there.
This weekend Andrew, Ramona, Astrid, and I hiked part of the Appalachian Trail near Johnson City...so, so beautiful!
Tomorrow is Astrid's First Birthday!

Sunny Days, Rainy Days

Sunny Days...

Hiking in the Unaka mountains, building snail houses, collecting leaves, acorns and berries, playing in the sprinkler, gardening, jumping rope, biking, the Apple Festival, freeze tag, dinner outside with friends










Rainy Days...

Homemade hot chocolate and popcorn, a big pile of books, puddle jumping, dress-up, splitpea soup and warm bread, bubble baths, naps, dance parties, visiting the library, candlelight