For the Record

Alice was cute as a newborn as evidenced by the montage below.

Care to retract your statement, James? :)
Let the record show that, yes, Kaylee was also a cute newborn.*

*Just not as cute as Alice, of course. :)

(She's) A Big Kid Now!

For the first time ever, Alice went poop on the potty! We're a long way from being done with diapers, but at least we're heading in that direction!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Alice all of a sudden is deathly afraid of the vacuum cleaner. It's quite amusing actually to see her get all excited by it until it comes towards her.

2. The storage unit looks more like an aisle at Babies R Us. Can you tell I'm sentimental lately?

3. Crock pots are fabulous! I'm on a kick right now and I can't get over how good this dish we had last week was. And it's pretty darn good for you too!

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts - FROZEN
1 c Salsa
1/2 can cream of mushroom soup - low fat
1/2 bag reduced sodium taco seasoning
1/3 c water
dollop of low fat sour cream

Add chicken to a cold pot and sprinkle with taco seasoning. Pour salsa, soup, and water on top. Cook on low for 8 hours (or high for 4-5). Remove chicken from sauce and mix in the sour cream. Return the chicken to the sauce and serve over rice.

OMG was this amazing! The chicken came out SO tender and juicy that I'm going to do pulled chicken BBQ for sandwiches this week, and at some point I'm going to attempt to do Mom's cream chicken in the crock pot too. MMMM.

4. She has a new favorite book this week, "The Monster At the End of This Book". The kid's got great taste. She's been carrying it with her everywhere and I must get her "reading" it on video.

5. Alice has spiders living in her bed, or at least that's what my MIL thinks. She has five suspicious bumps on her leg that we have been watching very closely. My MIL thinks that since no one had been using the twin bed until recently little critters have set up shop and gorged on baby flesh while we were sleeping. Hopefully the Lysol and bug spray in the room will take care of that.

6. We have to watch Alice carefully around trashcans now. I won't go into detail as I know Matt will start dry heaving just reading this. Of course Matt dry heaves at just about anything.

7. Matt was finally able to pass down a prized possession of his this week, a rocking horse his godparents made for him when he was little. And thanks to Uncle Fred who fixed it up she can actually ride it now.

8. Matt is doing really good on the diet. Me, not so much.

9. Alice is $20 richer than we thought she was. I've kept every card we've received since Alice was born and this week I thought it was time I went through and weeded them out. Good thing I actually read them all because I found a $20 bill in one!

10. Rach would be proud, I'm finally reading the Harry Potter books. I'm almost done with book 1 and I have 2 and 3 ready to go after that.


I hope all is well with the rest of you!

It's All Too Much For One Week

First it was the sleeping in a twin bed (which by the way is going very smoothly), then it was the eating like a big girl, then it was the packing up of old baby clothes/items for a date with the storage unit. And now the crib has been taken down, ready to be used again when the next baby comes along. Man that room looks SO bare with out it. The only proof that a baby was ever here are the pictures we have and the memories of my little girl when she could fit in the crook of my arm.

You've grown up so fast, little one.

My Next Post

And it's not even a month later! Shocking, I know. I'm going to attempt to keep up with things if for no one else than for a certain brother of mine who is half way around the world (sorry guys, it took James leaving for India to get my butt in gear).

I just wanted to let you all know she slept all night in the regular bed! No guarders, no safety floor mattress, NADA! I'm so incredibly proud of her. She did wake up this morning a bit disoriented and scared, but that will take time to get used to. I'm so excited to think that the crib will be going into storage very soon!

Hopefully she continues to go well, and maybe I'll be able to sneak a pic of her sleeping like a big girl soon.

Ten on Tuesday

Maggie had the idea that Mike and I should start posting ten things that happened this week on Tuesdays for fun. Not sure I can keep this up, but I'm going to try.

-Alice is a little fishy! Aside from when she was a baby and the lake, Alice had never really been in the water and this week so far she's played in Grandma's pool and the pool across the street from us. She did well with keeping her head out of the water while we weren't holding on to her (she had on water wings), kicking, and sticking her face in the water.

-Alice now knows all of her letters by sight and can name them. We haven't yet worked on getting them in order though. In fact I've hardly worked on them with her at all. I swear she knows all her letters because she watches Sesame Street nearly every day (hey, I told you before this kid has one vice, Sesame Street). I thought letters would be too hard for her at this age, but one day she just started bringing blocks to me and saying a letter and wouldn't you know it 90% of the time she was right.

-Alice's new favorite book is one called "Counting Kisses" by Karen Katz. She runs and grabs the book exclaiming "baby! baby!" She'll sit and have me read it and on every page she has to kiss the baby just like in the book.

-I was inspired by Kaylee's independence when it comes to eating and decided to let Alice try eating the more messier items with a utensil. She's doing incredibly well and now loves to feed herself yogurt, chili, and cottage cheese.

-She's officially off the paci! She hasn't really used one in a while, but last week when she was sick I gave in a few times and let her have it at nap time. They are now safely stored away in case of emergency, but I'd be willing to be they are gone for good.

-Matt and I realized this week that we need to nip the swearing in the bud. She's repeated a few choice words here and there so it's definitely time to clean things up a bit.

-It really hasn't hit me yet that James really is a world away.

-The highchair is officially retired as well. After seeing how well she eats at the table on vacation, we decided it was time to put the chair away and opt to eat at the table together.

-I think of James every time we open that Richard Scarry word book as the title page has a giant moose on it. The other day Alice started putting her hands to her head like uncle James does every time he says moose. I know he'd be proud (got to get that on video)!

-I saved the best for last, as of tonight Alice is in a regular bed! I can hardly believe it actually. It wasn't planned, but when I was getting her ready for bed she kept mentioning that the crib was a bed and that the guest bed was a bed. So for the heck of it I asked her if she wanted to sleep in the big bed and her eyes lit up and she said yes. We had to ask Daddy to make sure he was ok with the idea, and of course he couldn't even fathom that she might be ready for it at 21 months. I knew I'd be the one up with her anyway, so we gave it a go. So far the only peep I've heard from her was when I tried to sneak in and take a pic. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!

Best Vacation EVER - Part III

I almost forgot my favorite picture of the whole lot.
This one is getting enlarged and put on our bedroom wall for sure!

Best Vacation EVER - Part II

One of the best parts about vacation was just siting around and enjoying each other's company. Although this picture brings to mind the word boredom than family bonding.

Of course the girls's favorite pastime was cleaning the house. I can't say that Alice gets that trait from me and I'm willing to bet that Kaylee doesn't get that from Mike either. Us Rice kids have never been known for our tidiness.


They also both enjoyed cooking with Grandma, this is something I will gladly lay claim to (although I apparently don't know how to cook for 11 people).

Kaylee enjoying her word book that I'm sure she got from the same relative Alice got hers from. I JUST this week discovered that we have the same one (gah, with all the books we have it got lost). It can't be a coincidence, and I'm sorry for my poor memory to whomever got it for Alice.

I'm SO unbelievably glad that Maggie was able to come. I think we all enjoyed having her around even if she did make me slather lotion on her skin. I didn't want to get the hose again, so I gave in.

Alice is obsessed with facial hair at the moment (no "Becky has a beard" jokes from the peanut gallery, mmkay? :) ) as her favorite book is pat the bunny (and her favorite page is the daddy page). She went from lovingly hugging James, to thoughtfully stroking his beard.

Double Trouble. These girls were definitely up to something.

Awww, look at that family portrait! Tori and Ryan both appear to have a bit of Asian in them, while the Rice boys look like they could be related to Popeye.

Best Vacation EVER - Part I

You've all read the blog posts about vacation from Mike and Maggie so the slacker that I am is going to be bringing you randomness from our time at the lake house. It truly was the best vacation I've ever taken, and Matt wasn't even there for most of it.

Maybe THAT'S why I loved it so much. ;)

The water was too cold for Ryan, so he spent most of his beach time working on his burn, I mean tan.

He finally grew a pair and jumped in.

Like everyone else, Alice adored the beach. It couldn't have been a more perfect spot!

She enjoyed filling buckets with water and dumping them.

She enjoyed being in the water, so long as we didn't leave her in for long as it was TOO COLD for her little body.

And she even enjoyed sleeping at the beach. Boy was she tuckered this day - it's a rare occasion when Alice falls asleep on someone!

Tori loved the beach a little too much.

As did Rae.

I think James enjoyed the beach, but it was sometimes hard to tell as he often broke away to skip stones and think about all the wonderful people he'd be leaving behind. Or maybe he was just trying to get as far away from Maggie as he possibly could. Maybe SHE'S the reason he left for India. Hmmmmm...

Or maybe he just needed a sunset and a pretty girl to share his time with.

Makes me wish I was back there right now...

More To Come

Vacation is over, James is gone (and safe), and things are getting back to normal around here. My back had been killing me from sitting in our back seat for so long on our last full day in MI (should have moved the seats up, eh) and once that started to feel better we all came down with a bug. I'm guessing a touch of food poisoning as we never seem to all get sick on the exact same day, but who knows for sure. We're all doing better, although Alice's diapers haven't improved much, her sunny disposition is back though.

She and I were looking through vacation photos yesterday and she would yell out the names of people and get all excited. Every time she'd get to Kaylee though she'd say in a whiny tone "my kaaaaay!" The look on her face was enough to drive me to tears. She misses you, little one - and auntie does too.

More vacation pics to come, and I just had to mention this is one of Mike's. :)

FYI

I think Matt and I are going to look into getting Skype while James is in India. Matt's Aunt uses it to talk to her kids who live overseas and she used it when they were globe trotting for 10 months a few years back and they have nothing but good things to say about it. Just thought I'd share in case anyone else was interested in calling James cheaply (may be worth it to get James an account too as it is free to call from one Skype user to another).

Hope You're Safe and Sound

We miss you already.

Yeah, So It's Been Forever

Thought I'd at least pop in and show a few teaser photos before I update fully as it's way past my bedtime right now. If you're lucky I'll log on again tomorrow and do a big update after we come home from 4th of July festivities. I don't make promises I can't keep though. Anyway, here are a few pics from my most recent trip home to see the fam. Can't wait to see you all in Michigan very soon!!