Rachel & Kids Come for a Visit

Also on the 26th, Rachel and her kids arrived from Utah. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but I love that since Hazel's birthday is the day after Christmas, Rachel and her family have been here every year to celebrate, including the year she was born. I can never really describe how much I love hanging out with my sisters. It doesn't matter how infrequently we talk or see each other, our roots go beyond our time here on this earth, and I can feel it when I spend time with them. Rachel was here for about a week and we ate out every chance we got. Sometimes the food was better than others, but always the company was great.

The after party. We are a book obsessed family, in case this picture doesn't make that obvious.

Casey Anne reading a book to most of the kids.

While Clara reads by herself. I love how social she is, but also that she is totally and completely fine hanging out by herself.

Lunch at Joe's BBQ.

Dinner at Gallo Blanco. The salmon was good, but the roasted vegetables were incredible. I think about them all the time.

Cousins flocking around Aunt Lilly.

I asked Annie if she could help me get Hazel to smile so she walked over to Hazel and tried her hardest to pull those cheeks out enough to get a smile on her face.

Lunch at Backyard Tacos (for the second time).

Lunch at Zupas on New Year's Eve Day. My dad saves all his change and then takes us all out to lunch when a bunch of us are together. Lunch for 20 people? That's a lot of change.

Playing in the cultural hall at a church.

Obviously only 1/4 of these children are trained to obey my voice. :)

Little twins.

For New Year's Eve we started the night at my parent's. Oh wait, first, Rachel made me dinner. She made us Superfood Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette. It was delicious. Okay, back to my mom's. Things got a little out of control with the push-up contest. 

 

We then took our party to Debbie's house.

They had fireworks.

And my all-time favorite: sparklers.

 

Clara still wasn't feeling super great, so about 10:30pm, we headed home. Oh yeah, it was also FREEZING and the fireworks made Hazel cry (so Aunt Angela saved her and took her inside). Jason was also sick and stayed at my mom's to watch sports and had already gone home. It was the first year I remember not caring if I was up until Midnight. I think the sicknesses over the holidays just wore me out. I am excited for a new year. I love the refreshing thoughts that come with the start of a new year.

Earlier that week, Clara and Lucas began planning a tea party. We decided New Year's Day would be the best day to have it, so that's what we did. It was absolutely darling to watch these kids plan and prepare for it. They took it super serious. They handmade invitations and handed them to all their cousins and even a few friends we ran into when we were out to lunch. Then, Rachel and I helped them make butterfly and flower sandwiches, apple slices with bear cores, bunny cucumbers and chick cheese. Please take a minute to look at Lucas' menu. First word: pampkakes. He wanted pancakes so bad. 

 

Dinner at Cantina Laredo

On Rachel's last day, we hiked up "our mountain". I think it's known as Spook Hill to everyone else, but it's close to our old house, so Clara has always called it our mountain. Rachel let Lucas wear his PJ's, so I let Clara. How's that for responsible parenting, just do what everyone else does? It wouldn't have been too bad except that Clara's pants were a good four inches too short. But no one cared. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we had a nice little hike.

 

It was a bit windy up the mountain (I always feel a little silly calling it a mountain because it's more like a hill or a knoll) and Hazel wanted to be held the entire time. I think I had some extra energy from who knows where because I hiked most of the way up with her (Rachel saved me at the end) and hiked down with her. Good thing she's light.

 

Lucas has mastered photo-bombing.

After the hike, Angela, Rachel, Margo and I went to Windsor for lunch. Sometimes you just need a burger, right? It was huge and delicious and the perfect way to spend our last day with Rachel (until next time).

I don't think I've ever not been able to get Margo to smile. She loves me so much. Unless I'm babysitting.

Rachel said: I'm going to remember how I feel right now.

 

And then, she left.

Hazel Turns 2

Hazel turned two on December 26th. She was sick on her birthday, but we celebrated anyway. We had our family dinner at Angela and Clint's that night and we sung to Hazel (and Angela and Clara) with dessert.

Two year olds are fun. Hazel loves to be a little stinker, and smiles and laughs when she is. However, when I'm patient/calm enough to give her two options and I'm not emotionally charged, she usually makes the good choice instead of choosing time out. It is so hard for me to sit back and let her make her choices. I imagine this will become immensely more difficult when she's a teenager. If you tell her to share, she doesn't always. If you tell her it makes people feel happy and it's nice and walk away, she'll do it. She's also started to notice these things without any prompting from us and I love seeing her notice someone that wants something and sharing. She thinks telling me she's happy will get her out of taking a nap or going to bed and when I tell her no, she quickly says just what she wants over and over instead of asking for it. For example, she begins with, "Mommy, banana please." If I tell her no, she'll ask again, I tell her no again and in a demanding voice she sternly says, "banana!" After everything I say. She loves to color, loves to wear shoes, still loves to destroy things (although she's getting better at helping me clean up) and loves to strut around the house. Her little walk alone makes me smile daily. She waddles, she puffs out her chest and walks around like she owns us. She eats well, sleeps well and is just all around a little ball, or string bean rather, of joy. 

She ate her cupcake from Clara's birthday in about 15 seconds.

Here are some of the funny things I've recorded Hazel doing/saying in the last few months.

Every morning for months she'd say, "Bitiful mow-neen!" I think she started this in the summer and I think it came from me singing, "Oh, what a beautiful morning!" at the top of my lungs (thanks, Dad).

For a while, she kept saying, "Fight-choo!" (fight you). This comes from reading The Grouchy Ladybug book.

Whenever I ask, "Where are you?" She says, "Hiding!"

She also says things that I don't have to look far to know where it came from...
"Minute, coming"
"Hurry, hurry" while breathing heavily, almost panting

She used to be the master of one word sentences: Walk. Inside. About two months ago, she moved on to full sentences.

The day after my birthday she came up to me and said: "Happy bir-day mama, cha, cha." (Clara always sings cha, cha, cha with Happy Birthday)

Mid-November, she started bounding/hopping and then running. It was scary since she's not so stable but it sure looks cute.

She says, "Stop it." whenever anyone is bothering her. A few weeks ago Jason was doing something obnoxious and I told him to stop and he wouldn't. So I said, "Jason, stop it." He still didn't stop and Hazel said, "Daddy, stop it." He kept doing it to get a reaction and Hazel said, "Jason, stop it!"

Two of her favorite words: no! and mine!

She's now grown out of this, but several months ago she would pull my hair or smack me and instantly hug me and/or rub it. Speaking of hair, she's recently become obsessed with brushing everyone else's hair - possibly because she doesn't have any of her own? :)

Also in November, she took up blaming James for everything that went missing. That lasted a week or two and then she started answering me with "front yard" if I ever wondered where something was.

Again in November, she saw me laying on the chair and said, "Momma sleeping tired night-night." That was her longest sentence at that point.

She has the funniest faces and presses her lips together and gets up in my face and stares at me. It makes me laugh so hard. She sucks her thumb to fall asleep, but only if she has her blankie with her. Since it's so minimal, I haven't cared enough to do anything about it. When I check on her at night, she's not sucking it so I'm not too worried. Almost every single time we are in the car, she switches her shoes from the correct feet to the wrong feet. Usually I don't switch them back because I know she will just do it again. She loves to sing and breaks out in song in the car, at church, while she's eating or anywhere else she feels like it. The best part about it is she has great pitch and rhythm. She loves reactions and when people laugh at her, she'll repeat whatever it was she did to make others laugh. Then she'll give you her smug little smirk with her lips tight together.

Hazel has such a great personality. She's pretty easy going most of the time, but definitely has her opinions. I love being her mother and we have absolutely loved having her in our home the last two years.

Christmas Eve & Christmas 2012

Christmas Eve day was spent cleaning. I wanted the house to be completely organized for Christmas morning. It didn't happen. Not even close. But we made a little progress and considering how our month had been going, I was happy with it. We had dinner at our house and fancied it up with Martinelli's. That always does the trick. It doesn't matter how dinner turns out, if there is Martinelli's, everyone is happy.

After dinner the girls got a bath and then they got to open their Christmas PJ's. 

Clara got slippers. She's been wanting them for years, but I could never find any her size until this year. The look on Hazel's face when she saw Clara's slippers made me feeler smaller as a mother than anything I can remember. They had the same pj's, but Clara got slippers and Hazel didn't. Every 30 seconds, Hazel's eyes would lock on the slippers and she'd zone out for several seconds. It was really sad and really, really funny all at once.

The girls put their jammies on and we headed to my parent's.

First we rode around in the back of my dad's truck and looked at lights in my parent's neighborhood. That didn't last long because it was so cold.

Then we had cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate and opened gifts from Lilly and my parent's. Oh, and my dad told us a story. He didn't tell Wally, I missed that one. But it's okay because a.) Ryan recorded it last year and b.) he told a pretty awesome story about one of his relatives that sacrificed his safety to save a small child from a fire (he was a fireman).

We went home, put the kids to bed and did the few things we had to do.

Clara woke up early and snuck in our room. We made her hang out with us until about 7:30am when Hazel woke up. If you recall, I had the bright idea of going to Disneyland for a Christmas/birthday surprise. It all seemed like a good idea until three days before Christmas. I realized the girls only had two gifts to open, one of which they would open on Christmas Eve (their pj's). I made them photo books from Disneyland, but hadn't ordered them on time so they wouldn't have those. I totally panicked. Fortunately, Jason bought each of them a gift (he does it every year, all by himself, and I love it), they had a gift for each other and they had gifts from family. It worked out just fine and they loved what they got. Hazel's main attraction: play cupcakes. She says, "Happy Birthday" every time she sees them.

Clara's main attraction: a loom for knitting/crocheting.

Hazel also got her very own chapstick in her stocking and it was eaten by the end of the day.

And I couldn't help but take a picture of Jason's wrapping job. At least he wrapped it, right?

I love the Christmas season. I love the extra family time and the generous and peaceful spirit that seems to be stronger than usual. I'm always a little bummed when it's over knowing I have to wait a whole year for it to happen again. But then I realize all the fun things I have to look forward to throughout the year and I get over it.