Kid Conversation- Toad's first!

Toad had his first kid conversation a couple weeks ago!  He doesn't say much, yet, and will very distinctly say something and then never say it again (like he pointed right at some cheese and said, "cheese" very clearly, one time) but this one is a regular and it is so cute!

So, Toad really likes shoes.  He likes to have me put his on.  He likes to put on mine.  The other day, he slipped on a pair of mine, while already wearing his own!!

When Toad wants to go outside (which is more often than I do), he brings me my boots.  On this particular occasion, though, he not only brought them to me but said,

"Boop"

doesn't that just make you want to squish him?!  love. that. boy.

Kid Conversation

So, Hazel has been wanting to use the potty for months.  MONTHS.  She will decide to go sit on the toilet herself.  I'll get up the gumption to put her on at set intervals for a couple of days... but she just holds it really long- which is mostly awesome, except the accidents are bigger messes and it's harder to catch her accidentally going when you do put her on.  So, yeah, I've decided not to push and let it happen naturally.  (aaand I really don't have time to potty train her.  How do other homeschooling moms do it?!)

ANYWAY, Wednesday night, when I had to put my kids to bed alone (again), and I was super super tired and was planning to go to bed as soon as they went to bed, Hazel decides she wants to sit on the potty like her big sister.

me: No, pleeeeaasse!! I just got you all ready in your diaper and jammies!
Peach: I'll help her mom!  [Hazel], I will always help you use the potty.  And if I'm being mean to you, [The Frog] will do it.

glad she's got her bases covered.

I left to go get some floss so I could do something productive while waiting for her and amazingly, I hear from the other room, "She did it!!! She did it!!!!"

Hazel's reaction was sooo funny - you could see the excitement tighten through her body and she all out screamed!  (it was an excited scream)

I should have known a watched pot never boils...

Hazel-speaks

Hazel has been talking really well since we moved to New York, and I just realized today that I haven't been documenting her speech very well... (oh wait.  I haven't been documenting anything....) which really doesn't matter, except The Frog loves it when I tell him the funny ways he used to say things, and I know I'm not going to remember if I don't write some of them down.

When I started trying to write this post, I couldn't think of anything she says incorrectly because, in my mind, she has been completely fluent in English since she was 2.  After trying harder to pay more attention, I realized how wrong I was... Really, I've just become fluent in toddler and I hardly notice it now.  So here are some of my Hazel-speak favorites:

mish-a-low = marshmallow
hippo. pawmus = hippopotamus
mato = tomato
atten = pretend
can I do game? = can I either use a kid app or send jibberish texts to your friends?
duff = stuff
seeyol = cereal  (this is often one of the first things I hear from her every day.  "mama, I wan some seeyol. pweeeeez.")
poon = spoon
pah-koo = sparkles
packpack = backpack
pwentzo = pretzel
pah-koles = sparkles
peshel = special
pie-yip = pirate (and when she's being a pie-yip, she walks around saying "aw" instead of "arrrr")

I will probably add more as I notice them...

Also, Hazel has learned to be emphatic when she is especially adamant about something she is saying- her favorite being to scrunch up her face and emphatically say "NOTHING!!"
As in
me: Do you want to nap in your big girl bed or your crib?
Hazel: NOTHING!!

She also knows that zero is nothing, and is pleased to tell you when she notices an "O" or a "0".

Also, I'm amazed to say that she already recognizes all the letters in the alphabet (at least the capitals) and I swear I didn't teach her a thing.  She is also the one most excited about homeschooling - probably because she wants to do whatever her siblings are doing.  Even though we didn't start anything with the others until they turned 3, we have a mini routine we do with her to keep her happy - which is how I discovered she already knows the alphabet!

Jay's mom gave Hazel a baby Cinderella last Summer, and back then she called it "baby Lala".  She now can say "Cinella" but we still call the baby "Lala".  She decided to get another one with some Valentine's money from Nanie and so now she has a "baby Lala" and a "baby Wawa" (Aurora) which I constantly confuse with what babies refer to for "water" and she's always getting mad at me about the misunderstanding.

Hazel is 18 Months!

I can't believe it!  My babiest baby is 1.5 years old!  I really have not been as good about documenting anything lately, and I feel particularly bad about how little I've gushed over Hazel (especially since I've been able to appreciate the baby-stage so much more this time.  I guess 3rd time's the charm) on this blog.  She is so so SO cute!  I just can't get over it!  I can see why she gets manhandled so much - nobody can get enough of the cuteness!  If only some of us could figure out how to be a bit more gentle...

She is adored by her siblings (and her parents!) and every night when we say what we're grateful for before family prayer, it's unusual if someone doesn't say "Hazel" or "Hazel's cuteness" or something like that.  The love is mutual.  She really looks up to her siblings and knows when she's not being allowed to do something they are.  She is the monkeyest of them all (meaning she copies what she sees everyone do) and she was pretty proud of herself when she was able to get up on this step stool by herself.

 She can often be seen climbing up on it, just because she can, no matter where it is placed, only to realize there is nothing to do up there and she can't get down.  It's about enjoying the journey, right?

Though she has abandoned crawling at this point, she is still prone to randomly losing her balance and toppling over.  As much as I hate to see her cry, it is so cute! You can tell that head is just soo heavy for her!

She loves peek-a-boo (which I usually call "Where's Hazel") and she loves getting chased by me crawling after her with an evil laugh and pounding my hands into the ground or stomping my feet if I'm walking, to sound more intimidating.  As soon as I start stomping or look at her with tickle-fingers, she'll grin and turn the opposite direction.  She can't really run, but it's clear she's trying to go faster because she gets more hobbley.  It's soo cute.  And she giggles hysterically when you find her in her hiding spot or finally catch her!

She's been much quicker to try "grown-up things" like using silverware (though not in this picture) and spending time with a crayon making marks on the paper compared to her older siblings.  (The Frog never enjoyed coloring until about 4.5 and Peach still doesn't like it at 3.5)  I'm hoping this means she'll like school.

She's the least picky eater.  Although Peach used to eat anything also, and now she's my pickiest by far!

She is starting to get into the "into everything" stage.  Somehow it's more cute and less annoying this time around...

The other day, I came into the kitchen and she had managed to get our homemade play dough out of a ziplock baggie and was rolling it out on the floor with our mini rolling pin.

She has requested to sit on the toilet a couple of times in the last month or so, but has yet to produce anything.  If she wants to potty-train herself, that would be fine with me... and the sooner the better :)

She's starting to find her favorite "stash" places - spots where she leaves random things.  All my kids do this.  Is that normal?
As soon as she sees me with the camera, she gives me a great big smile. (and then wants to see the picture after.)

 As you can see, she is rarely in a photo alone when her siblings are around.  They know I take pictures of things I like and want to remember and so they all want to jump in whenever one of them is being focused on.

She has a few words up her sleeves these days, besides mama & dada:
bookh (very hard "k" sound) = book.  She thinks she loves reading books, but rarely lets me actually read them all the way through.
mokhe = milk or water, although I got her to say "wah wah" for water the other day!
moe mokhe = more milk
knock = knock or door.  she enjoys closing open doors and telling you she's doing it.
uh-oh = uh-oh.  This was one of her firsts.  She uses it anytime she needs help with anything.
bye bye = bye.  of course with a wave :)
beebee = baby - she loves baby dolls
dakh = the frog's real name and if he hurts her, she lets me know...
neck = neck.  She seems to really like words that end with a "k".
I = hi.  She almost always walks into a room and repeats it, very casually, a few times to greet you
no = no
yah = yes (usually with a very deliberate head nod)
shhhhh = shhhh, as in, be quiet
la = light and she loves flipping the light switches
buh = belly.  Usually she points at it while mentioning it. I often catch her peering at her belly button.
no + pointing at her or my nose = nose.
dada = her own name, which gets confusing because it sounds just like what she calls Jay.
I'm trying to get her to make the "f" sound to help her differentiate her name, but whenever she tries, she's really just blowing air.  It's very cute!

She's definitely in the vocab learning stage where she points and gets you to tell her what it is and tries her best to copy what you say.  It's hard to believe that in 6 months time, Peach was basically fluent, and that could be my Hazel too.

 She loves brushing her teeth, especially with mom's electric toothbrush. Hopefully that will keep up through the braces years...
She is very good at giving hugs and kisses.  Especially kisses (blown ones or regular slobbery ones :D) and the kids love 'em as much as I do.  Her kisses are very loud and lip-smacky :)
She LOVES to help, and is surprisingly good at anticipating what I might need.  She is happy to throw away garbage, put clothes in the hamper (dirty or clean), help me empty the dishwasher and even pick up toys!!  I know she didn't pick those up from watching her siblings.... ahem.  She insists on having her own rag to wipe things down when I'm cleaning the bathrooms.  I love it and hope it's not just a phase.

Why The Frog wanted to wear his swimsuit in the bath?  You got me...

She loves baths and especially doing anything where she gets included by her siblings, which happens more and more lately.  Her siblings always ask if she can help put them to bed (which means she sits on them and pokes at their faces or bum bounces on them while I sing a song) and then usually immediately ask if they can help put her to bed next (which means they sing a song to her in her pack-n-play)

She is still sleeping in my closet, but can now reach the doors and push them open when she's awake, though doesn't always do it.

Jay, The Frog and I usually have little arguments about who gets to get her out of her crib after her nap.

I'm sad I don't have very many pictures of her (compared to her siblings anyway.  she still has volumes more than I have of myself at her age...), and vow to get better about that.  I'm going to miss these sweet times.

We just all love her to bits and it makes me feel super special that I'm the one she wants to hold her all the time.  As inconvenient as it may be at times, I still relish being able to hold her so much- and you should check out my biceps :D

Phone Pics Roundup

I hardly ever sync my phone and so this is my semi-annual cell phone pics recap post.  Probably I should break it up into more than one post but....

 The Frog wanted to be Ironman for Halloween and wore that costume day and night until Halloween, and by then he had actually outgrown it...  he was given Iron Patriot (aka War Machine) from his cousin for Christmas and now he wears that one and Peach will wear this one.

 The Frog has me take pictures of works he is especially proud of

 I ate this.  Ever been to Black Sheep Cafe in downtown Provo?  soooo good and unique!

 Peach is really getting the hang of the glider bike.  Unfortunately, she's almost too tall for it already!!

 Another work of art The Frog wanted to be remembered before we cleaned up.

 Peach's work of art.  no, she's not naked... just wearing her favorite outfit. :)

 Peach's work of Lego construction.

 The Frog was very excited about all these color coordinated spaceships he made.  He even made up some kind of game with them that Peach could play with him.

 The corn maze in Pumpkinland.  Believe it or not, out of about 12 shots, this was the best one...

I went to "Music and the Spoken Word" at the Mormon Tabernacle with my youth group one Sunday morning.

The Frog donning his Halloween spider hat he made at preschool.  It was taped to our front door after that...

The Frog had his first dentist appointment where he would actually sit in the chair and let them clean his teeth!!  He's actually been asking regularly when he will get to go back!!  They give little kids cool sunglasses to wear so they don't get splashed in the eyes :)

One of many leaf raking days...

Peach finally allowed me to put piggies in her hair!  Aren't they adorable!!  She'll ask for them about once a week now and has actually left them in all day more than once! love it!

Hazel had her first haircut in November.

Bye bye mullet!

A day at Thanksgiving Points Dinosaur Museum.  Hazel is finally old enough to dig for bones!

One day our neighbors cat followed us home...

Thank goodness they have cats we can borrow so I don't have to get any ;)

Sitting on Santa's lap at our church Christmas party.  The Frog knows he's not real and declined the invitation.  (mom, if I just stand next to him, can I still get the candycane?)

I got this picture texted to me one day while Peach was at our neighbor-swap preschool.  They are Kangaroos hopping around, finding Ks to put in their "pouches"

I know what you're thinking...  I thought it was a bum at first too... Those stripey knees are Peach's and I guess she thought this shot warranted 12 pics on my phone one day...

And that's it!  now wasn't that fun?

McCarthy Visit!

I wish I would get back on the picture bandwagon...  I'm now remembering how if I want to get one good picture, I need to take 50.  (or maybe just get some skills...) and that completely didn't happen while Jay's family was in town.  

When you're holding a baby with grabby-hands, taking pictures is rather difficult.

Jay's little sister K did a report in school about the Anasazi, and she knew there were some in Utah (I didn't...) and wanted us to make a special trip to see where they lived.  My mother-in-law found a couple of places in Utah we could go- the Anasazi State Park Museum and the Fremont Indian State Park.  I called a guy at the latter to ask about each of them and he said the former was a small outdoor exhibit and the latter was a large indoor museum with a kids' area and a nearby short "hike" with a view of petroglyphs.  

We opted for the second, because it sounded better for our young kids and it was only 2 hours away, vs. almost 4 hours.

It ended up being really cool, and a totally doable day-trip for the kids (surprisingly... I'm not usually so brave to travel that far with them) BUT I somehow didn't realize, until I got there, that the Fremont Indians are NOT Anasazi.  (duh) However, a lot of commentary throughout the museum would compare the Fremont to the Anasazi, so I guess we did learn a bit about both afterall.

 In the kids section, they had a hut mimicking the kind of huts they lived in for kids to play in, with some activities much like their daily activities - weaving for one.  They also had microscopes set up with a lot of pottery, arrowhead, and other samples to look at.

 There was a huge window with a beautiful view of some rocks with petroglyphs on them, but you could also just walk outside and look at them fairly close-up.  The desk had a free guide you could take that would give you more information based on some numbers they had on the (.25 mile) trail.

 I didn't check my camera settings on this next one, so it's way over exposed, but you can kind of see people crawling down into a replica of what their underground huts looked like.  There was also a granary.

 All in all, it was very cool, and worth the $6 per car and 2 hour drive each way.  It also helped that the place was completely empty, until we were about to leave, and so I wasn't worried about my kids disturbing other people.

We ate lots of good food - including convincing the McCarthy's to deviate from their usual Chinese-food-on-New-Years' tradition by introducing K to the wonders of sushi.  (turns out, she's not a fan)  It's funny, they were surprised that we didn't have to order our food in the afternoon.  Apparently, Chinese food on New Years' Eve is a "thing" back East, so you have to plan ahead, or get your food closer to midnight.

 We celebrated the "New Year" at about 6:30 so our kids could go to bed on time. :)  K helped me get the supplies and she thought Silly String was an essential part of the holiday, much to my chagrin and the kids' delight.  ;)

K and I got to spend that entire day shopping together.  It was very fun and made me realize how long it's been since I've been shopping, girls only, without the kids.

K also was begging to go try out the ropes course at Provo Beach Resort, and so I said I'd go with her.

 It's hard to get a sense of what it's like, but you're either 2 or 3 stories up, trying to balance across various obstacles- the whole time being harnased.

 It was pretty fun and not really that scary, except when I tried to walk across things without using my hands-  then, all of a sudden my heart would race and I'd realize how high up I was.

 The kids had to, of course, ride the $1 carousel.  This was Hazel's first time on one.  I couldn't really see her face to tell if she enjoyed it, but she wasn't crying so....

 Peach, on the other hand, LOVED IT and begged for more.

We went swimming a couple of times and not pictured here is our second swimming session cut short because Jay was showing me his "dolphin" and swam across the entire pool underwater, with his eyes closed.  (that last part I didn't know until...)  And he swam straight into the cement side of the pool.  Despite urging from myself and his mom, Jay sided with his dad (also a doctor-phobe) and opted to not get stitches because the idea of spending 8 hours in an emergency room on a Saturday didn't sound fun.  I secured it pretty well with 2 butterfly bandages and he didn't touch it for the whole week he was out of town.  Now there is just a mark... we shall see if it scars or not.

Peach jumping in!

mmmm. chlorine...

As I briefly mentioned a couple of posts ago, we got to spend a couple of extra days with his family because their flight was cancelled due to a major snowstorm in Boston.  As annoying as it is to have a change of plans like that, we were all glad, especially the kids, for a bit more time with Nanie and Gampie :)

Will someone please please remind me to get a group shot of everyone next time we're together?!!

thanks :)

Hazel Turned 1?!!

How did that happen?  For me, things have been so different with baby #3.  Every baby moment has been cherished and mourned, mourned because it lasts only a short time...  There is no doubt that this first year has felt faster than the first year of my first two.

She has done this on other occasions, but never so adamantly- the morning of her 1st birthday, she very pointedly refused to let me feed her oatmeal.  Not because she suddenly decided she doesn't enjoy it, but rather because she somehow knew this day was a milestone and she should now be old enough to rise above my services.  So, after my 5th or 6th struggle to remove the now slimy spoon from her monkey grip, I relented and started plopping it into what I hoped would be manageable heaps on her tray.  After I had finished eating, I could tell she finally realized that oatmeal is a bit of a challenge, when eaten sans spoon, and so I thought I would give it another try with the spoon.  Alas, she was not ready to give in so easily and took the spoon from me.  Luckily, we have a near infinite supply and I grabbed another.  She confiscated that with her free, slimy hand.  Seeing my opportunity, I have it one final shot, and she let me scoop the goop into her mouth.

How could I forget the "3rd-spoon's-the-charm" trick?

I'm feeling a bit guilty, it's obvious that the 3rd child is already getting less of a special treatment...  in iPhoto, I have smart photos of my favorite photos of the kids for each year.  The Frog has 326 photos, Peach has 243 and Hazel has 161.  The Frog had a massive pile of gifts for his 1st birthday, and I gave Hazel a couple of books (one of which hasn't arrived yet..) and 2 pairs of shoes.  I will say, though, The Frog only got a banana bread muffin w/ cream cheese frosting for his birthday (he had no sugar at ALL until his first birthday!) Whereas, I gave Hazel an extra big smash cake so we wouldn't be forced into eating cake all week.  (I feel like I still haven't recovered from our 3 birthdays in a row about a month ago.)

The cake, however was kind of pathetic.  I've decided to try and get rid of some of the boxed cakes I have around, and thought I'd do the cake mix+sour cream+instant pudding one (have you seen that? Makes the cake so moist!) but then when I went to the pantry, I sadly discovered that I only had pistachio pudding (for my St. Patrick's day cake...).  Well, I used it and it was kinda weird to have a green cake with chocolate frosting...

But I hope she knows we love her so much and are so grateful for the little ball of sunshine that she is!  I can't go anywhere without people commenting about how cute she is and getting a smile from her.

hasn't figured out blowing.  never fear, the siblings took care of it!

almost forgot to get a pic with our 1st birthday hat!

 We stripped her down before dessert, but she totally didn't need it!  She looked really quite clean afterward.

 And my mom thought we might even be able to salvage some of her cake!  (i didn't though... ew.)

 At first, we Hazel had absolutely no interest in her gifts, until her siblings started unwrapping them for her.  She caught on pretty quickly after that (and it was hard to get the siblings to stop "helping").

 I was really surprised by all the fighting that ensued over playing with baby toys...  I think I may start doing presents before dinner in the future.  Maybe at breakfast?  Just sometime not so close to bedtime.

Happy birthday Hazel!!  We sure love you!

PS THANK YOU for finally sleeping all night- your first night as a 1-year old!