Mae's First Christmas

As promised, I'm writing a post with no politics, and a bunch of pictures of Mae. We went to my parent's house in Price for Christmas. Becca was going to go down on Monday, but the snow was too bad, so we ended up going down together on Tuesday. We didn't do much, just watched Mae play with her cousins, uncles, aunt and grandparents. Mae had a busy Christmas morning. I'm pretty sure she had more gifts than anyone else, just as it should be. She opened about half of her presents on the 25th and was getting a little overwhelmed. Since her cousins were coming the next day and opening presents on the 26th, we saved the rest of her presents for the next day. The first picture here is of her playing a toddler piano that her aunt and uncle gave to her.



Mae sort of got the idea of opening presents. As you may have noticed from previous posts, Mae likes ripping and eating paper. She helped unwrap a few of her presents, but was more interested in wrapping paper, but was a little disappointed that she couldn't eat it. I'll have to try and find some edible wrapping paper for her birthday.













Mae's uncle Mark gave her some really great presents. This picture is of her playing with one of them. Despite the deer in the headlights look from the camera flash, she really enjoyed the present.









I've noticed that Mae often enjoys watching other kids play with toys almost as much as playing with them herself. She had a ball watching everyone unwrap presents on Christmas morning. There was just so much to look at and play with.











Mae was so excited about the 72-hour kit that we received from Becca's parents. She thought it made a great drum!








It all proved to be too much excitement for Mae. Luckily grandma Burghardt didn't mind snuggling her to sleep. Mae had so much fun being with her relatives for a few days. She was so happy while we were there. She was just laughing about anything and everything. When she woke up this morning she was really, really grumpy. I think that she was sad to leave grandma and granpa's house. Luckily she now has a bunch of new toys to keep her entertained. Well, I hope you all had a merry Christmas, and will have a happy new-year.

Snow storms and politics

Hey everybody, so its been a while since we have posted, but hopefully we'll be posting some more pictures of Mae (and Becca and I if anyone cares) this weekend. I've been busy trying to survive finals, which I think I did. Now I get to enjoy my break by finishing some research and trying to crank out most of a journal article before school starts again... merry Christmass eh? Fortunately I like what I'm doing, so don't feel too bad for me. Becca and I were had tickets to the Messiah tonight, but unfortunately they canceled it due to the snow. Bummer. Since we already had a baby-sitter lined up (first time!!!) we just rode Trax down to Village Inn for some pie and hot chocolate.

Before I finish this up, I wanted to leave another little political rant. Ever since I was on the debate team in high school I have been interested in politics, philosophy and economics. Over the last several years I've been making an effort to understand the American history that I was never taught in school. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I had fine history teachers, but I've since become convinced that history is more about ideas and less about events, which is all that I remember being taught. I think that it is impossible to fully appreciate the American revolution without understanding the philosophies of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau (yes a Frenchman) ... etc. I also think that you cannot understand the Great Depression and New Deal without understanding Keynsian economic theory. I recently came across a great article ( here) about the New Deal and its effect on the Great Depression. Definitely not what I was taught in high school history class. It kind of upsets me that I was always taught that the the New Deal is what saved us from the Great Depression. It was always taught as an authoritative fact, when in fact it is one of several competing views, and certainly not the one with the most evidence to back it up. As I think back to history class now, the thing that strikes me the most is that EVERYTHING was taught as an authoritative fact. Everything had a single certain explanation. There were no competing views presented. Now as I read history for sources other than a high school text book, I see that there are very, very few absolute facts in history. As my institute teacher Brother Petersen likes to say, "history is mush," by which he means that it is really murky, with few real clear facts and explanations.

Why does this all matter? Generations of American such as myself were taught authoritatively that FDR saved us from the Great Depression with the New Deal. Largely because of this there is now widespread support for a new "New Deal." Before we all go rushing to the government to fix all of our economic woes we would do well to revisit and study what happened last time the government tried to do such a thing. Please do read the article I linked above. I'm not saying you have to agree with it, but I think you should at least be informed about it. Anyways, sorry for hijacking my family blog to rant about politics. You just came here to see cute pictures of Mae, and instead you are getting economics lectures. I guess that is the price you must pay to see pictures of such a sweet little girl.