In preparation for decorating our Christmas tree, I made a big pan of cornbread in my cast-iron skillet and some black-eyed peas, cooked with Rotel and bacon for flavoring. There may be better food in the world than this, but I don't want to know what it is.

Editor Alert: Check your spelling, people, because my former editor, David Stevens, has decided to join the December Photo Project via his blog with the Clovis News Journal, Falling With Style. David has already taken some excellent photos that make me feel all nostalgic for Eastern New Mexico, or maybe just small towns in general. Welcome, David!

Kate loves her bath at night, so much that I suspect she is now intentionally smearing food in her hair during dinner to ensure that I don't decide she is clean enough to skip it for a night. Part of the reason she loves it is because she has made a game out of making me chase her down once I start getting the tub ready. As soon as the water turns on, the game starts. I grab her, usually get one piece of her clothing half-way off, and then she wriggles free and runs away laughing. Then I grab her again and get maybe one sock off her body before she's off again. It's actually really fun, but not the most convenient thing. So I take don't feel so bad about shaping her hair into soapy devil horns and then posting naked baby photos of her on the Internet.

The weather in Albuquerque is cold right now, but sunny, and in the middle of the day, it's really quite nice outside. So Kate and I have been taking walks, and finally visited a little park near our house that I had noticed had baby swings. And wow, we should have done that a long time ago. She loved it. And, even better, was worn out when it was nap time. Thank you, park swings.

In our aquarium here in Albuquerque, they have these ceramic dolphins suspended over a walkway, and because they look like they are flying away, and because I am a nerd, they never fail to remind me of So Long and Thanks for All the Fish from the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (I tried to link to the song from the movie version of Hitchiker's, but YouTube was being weird. If you've never seen it, do yourself a favor and go find it. Right after you buy the books.)

I also sort of always want to point out to someone in the aquarium administration department that there aren't actually any dolphins in the aquarium, and that by hanging these up on the ceiling, they are just calling attention to the unfortunate lack of dolphins that people would not notice otherwise. But that would probably be a more complicated conversation than anyone at the aquarium wants to have. With me, I mean.

This is the closest thing you are likely to get to a Christmas card from us, and it's all because I lack the Martha Stewart gene. I love getting people's Christmas cards, and I even used to write the Christmas letter for the Rice family. The writing part I could totally get into. But I lack the ability to do the part where you orchestrate a photo in which you are all simultaneously not blinking or talking or just plain looking weird and then take that photo to be printed with a nice Christmas border. Looking back on it from my new vantage point as a parent of just one small child, it strikes me as miraculous that our family of seven was ever able to take a passable Christmas photo. Hats off to my mom for doing it ever year, much less having the energy after the photo shoot to actually mail the darned things. But unless someone can come do all that part for me, the non-writing work part, you'll all just have to read about us here, on the blog, where I spill my guts on a daily basis regardless of the season. Maybe the fact that you get so much more information here can make up for the lack of a physical card. On the other hand, I don't imagine it would work out too well if you tried to hang your laptop on your refrigerator with a magnet alongside the Christmas cards of all the organized people you know. Yeah. I definitely do not advise that.

Photo credit to Erika at My Little Garden, our good friend, Lily's mom, and fellow December Photo Project blogger.

This is a photo I took of Kate in her jammies examining the ornaments on our tree. It's cute, but what I want you to notice is the backpack she's wearing. We bought it at Target the other day, and given her current love of accessorizing, Kate is wearing it around like it's the hottest thing in toddler fashion. But what she doesn't know is that it's not just a backpack. Out of a little pocket in the back comes a reeaaaallly long tail that serves as ... a leash. (Evil parent laugh.) Here's why we went out and bought a leash for our baby: Since the last time we traveled by airplane, Kate has learned to walk, and while she's not up to top speed yet, I have a feeling she's going to be a little hard to keep up with in the multiple airport terminals we will occupy along with everyone else in America and their mamas come December 20. Thus, the leash, so that she can never get more than two feet away from us. I am sure we'll get some weird looks. I don't think walking your kid on a leash gets you onto the cover of any parenting magazines. But I don't care. I am going to have bigger problems. Like keeping Dan from running up and down those giant moving walkways in Denver.

Yesterday I made a big batch of my best chocolate chip cookies to take around the neighborhood for Christmas gifts. I don't really know anyone in my neighborhood. People seem to keep to themselves a pretty good bit here, and we weren't exactly the best about making a point to get to know people either when we first moved in. Then we weren't so new in the neighborhood anymore, and after you've been waving at someone from your driveway for six months, it feels awkward to say "Sorry, what is your name exactly?" Life got busy, what with baby-having and all, and here we are, two years after we moved in and I still don't know my neighbors that much better than I ever have.

So, figuring that Christmas is perhaps the one time of year when you can knock on people's doors without seeming like a vacuum cleaner salesman, and since I am now armed with a totally cute baby who makes a great conversation-starter, I made some cookies, loaded Kate up in her stroller and went around to spread Christmas greetings and chocolate this afternoon. Kate was not happy about the part of the plan where we would give away most of the cookies. Dan, on the other hand, took a bunch to give away at work and then made me swear that by the time he got home they would all be out of our house, because he can't eat one without eating a half-dozen or so. I am not trying to brag, but these are some good cookies.

It's weird to walk around a suburban neighborhood in the middle of the day. Almost no one is home, and the people who do answer the door are clearly very suspicious about why you are there. But I just left the cookies with a little pre-prepared note when no one was home, and the couple of people I did talk to were nice once they realized I was not trying to sell them Amway products or something. In recent weeks, I have met one of our neighbors who was out and about one morning when Kate and I went on a walk. Her name is Donna and she drives a schoolbus and lives a few doors down with two of her sisters. Another sister of theirs lives in the house directly behind them, so apparently it's a close family. And when Donna got my cookies after she came home from work, she came over and we talked about baking and she said she's going to bring us some cake soon. So I think the whole thing was a success. You can't beat exchanging chocolate for more chocolate. Below is the cookie recipe, in case you are looking for a good one.

Haley's Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Makes approximately 60 cookies)

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
2 and 1/2 cups blended oatmeal (measure it first, then run it through a food processor or blender to a fine powder, a little coarser than flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
12 ounces chocolate chips

Cream butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl combine flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and baking soda, blending together well. Add dry ingredients gradually. Add chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 375. The tricky part about these cookies is that they are actually at their best if they look somewhat underdone when they come out of the oven, because as they cool, they set, but at first, they just seem like a gooey mess. For my oven, the perfect baking time is 10 minutes, but experiment and see what works for you. I generally let them sit for a couple of minutes on the cookie sheet and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool, which is where they will set so that they have a good chewy texture. Enjoy!

We went in for Kate's 15-month checkup today. (Vital stats for the grandmothers: She's 30 and 3/4 inches long and now weighs 19.2 pounds, up almost 2 pounds since her last visit.) She showed off her walking skills by refusing to sit on the table while we waited for the doctor. So since she needed to be mostly undressed for the exam, I put her shoes, her big winter coat and her ever-important hairbow on her and let her explore the room. I guess they don't make those little robes that tie in the back in baby sizes. Of course, the whole point of hospital gowns is that most adults don't want to walk around in public semi-nude. This, I am learning, is not a big problem in the toddler community. Or at least not with my toddler.

Since we turned Kate's car seat to face forward, she has been enjoying her new ability to see just what I am doing up there in the front seat. This, needless to say, has made life more complicated for me, because she can see and demand all the things she wants, like my i-Pod, my Burt's Bees lip balm (she is obsessed with holding it and pretending that she is putting it on her lips) and, as you can see from this photo, my cell phone. Some times I just go ahead and give her the cell phone. And then some times, as happened right after I took this photo, I get a phone call from my mother saying "Did you call me a minute ago? Because I answered my phone and heard the radio, and Kate saying dadadadada, and then the line went dead."

So if you're in my cell phone contact list and we've baby-dialed you in the last couple of weeks, forgive us. And call back. We probably want to talk to you anyway. Or at least Kate does.

Kate takes a nap in the afternoon, anywhere from an hour-and-a-half to two hours long. That's the time I use to pick up around the house, start getting things ready for dinner, make sure the laundry isn't piling up to the heights of Mount Everest, and housewifely things like that. On short nap days, I'm lucky to get the most critical of those things done, which is OK. But on really good days, the days when Kate tags an extra few minutes on to the end of her nap, I fill that time with black type on white pages, a good cup of tea, and a book. Today was one of those days, and I spent a few minutes in France, following the adventures of a certain sharp-tongued epic hero. It was only ten minutes, but it was so glorious and refreshing. I have always been a reader, but at this point in my life, when so little of my time is my own, reading is like a little pact I have with myself: A promise that given the opportunity, I will still sit and let someone tell me a story.

We are in the process of trying to catch Kate on video doing her version of the Chicken Dance. For whatever reason, she has always loved it when we sing it to her and do the hand motions. (Probably she loves it because of how ridiculous we look doing the Chicken Dance, now that I think about it.) But every time we try to get it on tape, she stops doing it. In the meantime, this picture was taken today while Kate did the clapping part of the dance while sitting in the kitchen having some goldfish crackers for a snack. I realize that I could have just said "Here's a photo of Kate clapping," because she does spend a good bit of time every day clapping for no apparent reason, like she's applauding herself, or the dishwasher, or the Christmas tree. But since there was a point to the clapping this time, I thought I'd mention it in the interest of fairness. She's going to have enough to hold against me one day when she looks back on these posts. On the other hand, I'm not sure it's going to be any less embarrassing for her one day to read about how she used to do a ridiculous novelty party song dance on demand. Sorry, baby.

Tonight we gave Kate her big Christmas gift from us, a miniature digital keyboard. Since we'll be leaving town in a few days and it can't come with us, we thought we'd let her get a few days in playing with it. I make it sound like this was a well-thought-out decision, but actually, the thing wasn't in the house for 10 minutes before we decided amongst ourselves that it would be way more fun to let her open it and watch her play with it than it would be to wait. We're probably going to need to get better at keeping secrets if we're going to survive Christmases as the parents of older children. Still, it was worth it, because I kind of needed some immediate payoff after what I went through to get the thing. Today, friends, I made my first Christmas season trip down the toy aisle at Target, and it really didn't go well. First of all, I started at the whole wrong end of the department and ended up working my way from the older kids toys down to baby toys, which took forever. Rookie mistake. But along the way I got more than an education in what passes for a children's toy these days. For instance is it just me or do Bratz dolls look kind of slutty? Because that was the first word that came to mind, and that aisle was so busy I was afraid I would be assaulted if I so much as set foot in it, not that I wanted to. All in all, I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached toddler and infant toys, where I meant to be all along, and was once again in familiar territory. I think I can safely predict that I will be doing a lot of shopping for Kate online in the future. From some place that sells dolls that come with actual clothes.

The good news is that Kate really likes her keyboard and I really like the volume control button. So everyone is happy.

On a completely different note: Since perhaps some of the people doing this project know a thing or two about photography, I have to say I am really frustrated with my Canon Powershot right now, and I am wondering if anyone has any tips for me. Overall, it's a good camera, but its single greatest weakness in my opinion is that it takes terrible pictures in low light. If you are shooting in anything less than natural daylight and there is even the slightest bit of motion, the whole picture becomes a blur. Meanwhile the flash is so strong that photos look like they were taken in the headlights of an oncoming truck if you use it. Since it's getting dark early now, and the light inside our house isn't the best, I feel like 80 percent of my photos aren't turning out. So do any Powershot owners (or anyone else for that matter) have any tips for me on settings I could adjust to help with this? I know the camera gives me the option of custom setting a lot of its features, but I haven't spent enough time learning what they mean to really make any good decisions for myself. I just want to benefit from your hard-earned knowledge. Isn't the Internet convenient?

Today we got our first real snow of the year, or at least the first snow that stuck in our neighborhood. It started coming down about the time Kate got up from her morning nap, and the whole time I fed her lunch she would turn to one window in our kitchen and point and then turn to the other window and point again. Then as soon as I let her down from her high chair, she scurried off to find Dangles the Monkey, and brought him to the window so he could see, too. Because he's never seen snow either, you know.

I love this picture because it shows Kate holding the monkey's tail ... that is her favorite part to hold onto. When she is going to bed, she moves her hand around until she finds the tail and then she grabs it, wraps her arms around the rest of the monkey, and goes to sleep.

By the time Dan got home, the snow was really starting to stick, and the little tree in our front yard we call the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree was looking very picturesque. We don't get enough snow here for it to be annoying, and coming from a place where it almost never snowed when I was growing up, I still kind of get excited about our first good snow of the year. I'm sure my ability to stay indoors, drink warm beverages and not actually get out and deal with the snow contributes to my warm fuzzy feeling about it. Kate on the other hand seemed most impressed when Dan took her outside and let her touch the snow. I'm sure in a few years I will be experiencing the snow in a more direct way, since I doubt four year olds like to sip warm tea and read a book when it snows.

This photo of Kate sitting quietly on Dan's lap while he surfs the Internet elicits two emotions in me: The first is love. I mean, how cute are they, with their eyebrows furrowed in the same way, like they are really concentrating on the article they are reading? But, I will admit, the second emotion is jealousy, because Kate would never ever ever sit that still in my lap while I tried to get something done on the laptop. When I'm holding her, she hits so many keys that she actually activates keyboard shortcuts I never knew existed. The laptop is constantly shutting down or deleting my work or displaying its options in a foreign language because she's hit just the right combination of buttons to force me to stop what I am doing and give her my full attention. But when daddy's home, it's enough for her just to sit in his lap. It's so unfair. And so sweet at the same time.

Recently, Kate has gotten really interested in learning how to eat with a spoon. This is good, since at least it will come in handy in her life as an adult, unlike some of her other skills, such as the ability to hear a dog bark from a mile away and then go "woof! woof!" But eating by herself does make meals take a lot longer. Part of what is holding her up at this point is her insistence that she be given not one, but two spoons. I guess even that would be fine if she only tried to put one of them in her mouth at a time. Or if she put the right end of that one spoon in her mouth. But, as you can see, that is not what's happening a lot of the time.

At least she is persistent. Here she is trying to eat her goldfish crackers with a spoon.

But tonight when we had spaghetti for dinner, she abandoned her utensils and went for the classic slurp. Much quicker.

She made me chase her down for this picture, too. But at least she shared her sippy cup with me once I caught her.

Today has been all about packing, packing, realizing we would need a bigger suitcase, and going out and buying one so we can do more packing. We leave tomorrow for our two-week Texas and Mississippi Epic Christmas Journey. Kate, as you can see, is stoked.

Tomorrow might be a day without a photo since we're on the road. I promise you two on Sunday to make up for it.

I realize that I promised you all a photo yesterday, but I have a really good excuse: I was stranded in Denver. Remember when I mentioned that we would be leaving on our Epic Christmas Adventure, and how it was supposed to take us to Texas and Mississippi? And remember how I did not say we would be going to Colorado? Well United Airlines did not get that memo. Overall, I think we should be thankful we weren't on this flight, the one that was all over the news and went on its aborted takeoff run shortly before we landed in Denver. We were totally safe. We just missed our connection in Denver because of a flight delay leaving Albuquerque. We would have preferred to stay in our own home in Albuquerque and leave in the morning, but all the flights the next day were full, so off we went to Denver, secure in the knowledge that once we were stuck there, United might be able to get us a flight out the next day and would probably put us up in a hotel for the night, since it was their fault and all. Remember in youth group when you would do that stupid trust exercise thing where you close your eyes and fall backward into the arms of your friend, who catches you? The airline industry works on that same concept, except that about 50 percent of the time, you just sail right past those waiting arms and need ten stitches in the back of your head.

So to make a long and painful story a bit shorter, we flew one hour north to Denver so we could devote the next 18 hours to standing in exceedingly long lines to sort out hotel arrangements, shuttle arrangements, finding our luggage and then riding in the aforementioned shuttle to the aforementioned hotel, where we got a few hours of restless sleep and then got up at the crack of dawn to ride the shuttle back to the airport, and stand in a holiday ticketing line that made the previous night's line look like an inch worm as compared to a python. Because we were rebooked to another airline and therefore technically considered a new ticket as of that morning, we got to do the Extra Special Security Screening Dance, where they pull you aside, shine flashlights up your nose and dig through all your belongings. Then we went to the gate, where we were promptly informed that our flight was delayed. So now to the pictures.

Here is Kate, on her teddy bear leash, trying to unpack Dan's backpack. The thing is that she also tried to unpack the luggage of every one else in the terminal, and take their cell phones and Blackberries and snacks. It's a good thing she makes up for this appalling lack of understanding of personal space by being pretty cute.

As expected, we spent a lot of time walking around the airport. Given our delays, this turned out to mean approximately 8 hours of walking time. Here is Kate pulling the leash taut as she lunges for one of the dozen or so escalators she fell in love with in Denver.

And here is a video of Kate watching Signing Time while we waited for our final plane to arrive at the gate. This photo sums up why my husband is my hero. It was his idea to bring the DVDs, which turned out to be a total lifesaver. More importantly, Dan stood in all the lines, wrangled with all the airline agents, stood in the half-hour line for the shuttle in the freezing cold in Denver while Kate and I waited inside, woke me up with Starbucks coffee from the hotel lobby, got Kate up and dressed and fed her breakfast while I got a much-needed shower, went and got food for several meals we ate in the airport, and just generally handled the whole situation so that I did not have to. I have traveled a lot with Kate by myself, and that is usually fine, but I really think that if this had been one of those times, I would have just sat down on the floor and cried at several points. So a big round of applause for Dan the Man.

Finally, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, more than 24 hours after we left our house in Albuquerque, we arrived in San Antonio, into the welcoming arms of Dan's family. It was a nice moment, totally worth traveling for. Of course, if you have traveled very much at all, you know what we found when we went down to baggage five minutes later: The airline industry, as one last holiday present to me, lost my suitcase. To give them credit, they did return it last night, ringing the doorbell at about 1 in the morning, and waking up the entire household when we set off the security system alarm while fumbling around half asleep to answer the door. I think this is the airline industry's version of Christmas caroling.

All in all, we are very relieved to be in San Antonio in one piece, with all of our luggage, starting out on a fun time with family. And to be out of Denver.

In the last couple of days, Kate has met one of her aunts for the first time, and we've all met the two newest members of our family. It's been exciting. Here are pictures:

Here is Kate chilling with her aunt Dinah, who met Kate for the first time on Sunday. Dinah is quickly moving up Kate's List of Favorite Aunts because of her willingness to give Kate free access to her cell phone and sunglasses. Also, she watched Baby Signing Time with Kate and took her to run errands at the bank and the grocery store this afternoon. So yeah, Aunt Dinah is the coolest. Other aunts be warned.

Today, we met these guys, Chi and Jeremiah, the new sons of Dan's sister Hannah, pictured here, and her husband Josh. Kate is super-excited about having cousins close to her age. And I am now Aunt Haley! I've never been Aunt Haley before! (Chi is on the right; Jeremiah is on the left.)

More baby cuteness with Jeremiah.

And Chi hanging out with his grandad. As you can see, it's busy around here. So I'm off to play with the babies. Hope you're doing something just as fun this evening.

A few images from an afternoon walk we took with the Kate and Chi, who are 15 months and 18 months old, respectively. They bear watching. But they are pretty cute. Here's Kate heading down the sidewalk, chatting on Aunt Dinah's cell phone, chaperoned by her daddy.

Chi does his own walking.

There were a few near-collisions between the cousins.

Chi being swung by Aunt Dinah and Grammy. This was a popular activity during the walk.

Eventually, inevitably, Kate had to be rescued from the street by Dan. See how grateful she looks?

I would give this walk a Chaos Rating of about 5 on a scale of 10. I am expecting tomorrow morning's opening of gifts to be about a 15. Pictures to come. Merry Christmas Eve, y'all!

We'll probably have more pictures to come, but here are two images from our big Christmas celebration today. As predicted, the Chaos Rating was pretty high. But a good time was had by all, and Kate has so much loot we're probably going to have to rent a U-haul to get it all to Mississippi. Where she'll get more loot. Then I don't know what I'll do.

In her stocking, Kate got a pearl bead necklace, which she has been wearing for most of the day. She's well on her way to being high-maintenance.

One of the highlights of spending our first Christmas with a kid who is at least old enough to participate in all the goings-on was getting to observe Kate's style of gift-opening. It involves pulling all of the tissue out of a bag, clapping for herself for accomplishing this feat, and then wandering off to find another bag to unpack without registering the fact that there is a gift at the bottom of all that paper.

The other great thing was that I got to talk to my brother Ryan, who is in Iraq right now. I realized at the end of our talk that it was 1 a.m. where he was when he called. I felt bad about that, but it was so good to hear his voice. We miss him a lot.

So here is the family at the end of a long day of celebrating. Kate still has her necklace on, you'll see. Now she's in bed and Dan and I are probably about 20 minutes away from lapsing into a post-Christmas coma. I hope you all had a wonderful day. Thus ends the December Photo Project. Many thanks to Rebecca for organizing and hosting this. I've had a lot of fun, and I hope you have, too.