Hazel-isms

Hazel is a hilarious kid. Here are some funny things she said lately.

While sitting on the potty, she told Dad, "Sometimes bees give you honey, and sometimes they don't because they don't have any hands."

When Mom picked her up from school Wednesday: "I put a rock in my nose and it made me sneeze." This was followed by a huge grin.

We saw a tow truck one day. When it passed us, she asked Mom, "What happened to the foot truck?"

We have a book that talks about night monkeys. The other day she asked Mom when we'll see the morning monkeys.

No hippies allowed

Before

Lately, Dad has been giving me a hard time about my hair because it was getting pretty long. He said I am turning into a hippie, which Mom and I really liked. In fact, from time to time I suddenly yelled, "I am turning into a hippie," yelling "hippie" in a high pitched voice. It made Mom laugh and Dad roll his eyes every time.

Anyway, when I came home from school Tuesday, Mom and I finally conceded and cut my hair. At least it will make my hair easier to wash, plus I am cute no matter what.

After

From crawling to sitting

Last Saturday morning, Feb. 4, Mom was watching Turner crawl around and noticed that he has been trying to figure out how to go from crawling to sitting for a long time.

That afternoon, she noticed he suddenly figured it out. He seems pretty psyched about it because now he can crawl to the toys he likes and sit up and really play with them.

He also started eating Cheerios and broccoli and joined our smoothie club this week.

Good job, Turner!

A visit from Oma

Two weekends ago, we had a visitor from Boston -- Oma! We hadn't seen her in a while, so it was nice she could come.

As soon as Oma got here Friday afternoon, she wanted to take us to the toy store so we could each choose a toy. I decided to replace my broken toy vacuum, which was really bothering me. Hazel picked a toy drum, which came with a harmonica she really likes. Ever since we saw a jazz band playing at my school, Hazel has told us she wants to play the drums when she grows up, so she is super excited to not have to wait that long. Turner got some plug covers, which we hope will keep him safe and out of trouble. Obviously, he did not have much say in this decision.

The next day Mom, Oma, Hazel, Turner and I hopped in the car, headed for Waco. Our destination was the zoo! We saw lots of fun animals. I especially liked the bald eagles and Hazel enjoyed the giraffes. Turner was just happy to be outside. After the zoo, we stopped at Jimmy Johns for a late lunch. Mom loves that place but the last time she'd been there was when I was in her tummy, and we found that I really love turkey sandwiches. I also thought it was funny to read all the signs on the wall to Mom and Oma, including one that said, "Don't forget your pickle" and another, "No hippies allowed." The day was a lot of fun.

Sunday was our last day with Oma because she left before we even woke up Monday morning. We took it easier that day and just went over to our park. It was nice, as always. That evening, Dad took Hazel and me to a dinner at a neighbor's house while Mom and Turner took Oma out to dinner at a yummy nearby Mediterranean buffet.  Our neighbors had a big party for a bunch of the neighborhood kids - it was really fun.  They had a ton of fun toys for us to play with.  I put together a jigsaw puzzle of a school bus, and Hazel played with a bunch of trains.  It was a good time.

One fun thing about visitors is we eat a lot of yummy food while they are here. This time we had Taco Cabana, Terra Burger, and Freebirds. We didn't have time for Rudy's, so Oma had to pick some up Sunday night to take home with her!

It was nice seeing Oma and we hope she can come again soon!

Welcome to Austin, Grandma!

Last week was my half birthday, and I celebrated by starting the day nice and early so I could appear on the morning news at my school.

When students have birthdays, they get to choose a book from the library that is dedicated to them and they get to check the book out before anyone else. Since my birthday is in the summer, I got to do this on my half birthday. I chose Earth Day: An Alphabet Book and we're really enjoying it.

Every morning, students at my school deliver the day's announcements over tv screens in each classroom. Part of this program is the birthday book kids. So last Tuesday, I lined up with the others and they asked me my name, when is my birthday (when I turn five and six) and what I want to be when I grow up (astronaut). Turner's voice made an appearance, because he and Mom were in the room in case I needed them (I didn't, but it was reassuring to have them there). Dad and Hazel watched from the library. Mom and Dad were really impressed that students put this whole thing together themselves, with just an advisor overseeing it all.

When I woke up Friday morning, I was happy to see we had a visitor in our guest room -- Grandma! She came for a quick long weekend trip. We spent a lot of time showing her around our new place.

I really prepared for Grandma's visit. My teachers told Mom it was all I talked about for two weeks beforehand and I made a list of things I wanted to do with Grandma. I wanted to take her to the Apple store, make a pineapple upside down cake and lemon blueberry muffins, and show her my toy vacuum, beads and magnets.  We did all those things except the muffins, which Mom and I took care of this afternoon.

We also took lots of nice trips to the park and really enjoyed waking Grandma up in the morning, having Grandma snuggle us, read us lots of nice books and play some fun games she brought us. We also liked all the star cookies she brought for us, going to the fun restaurants she took us to, and hearing stories of Grandpa; Aunt Lauren and Uncle Ryan; Uncle Daniel; Aunt Amy and cousin Mianna; Gigi; and Grandma's big dog Bruiser. We hope Grandma comes back again soon! 

Turner had to go to the doctor while Grandma was here because he wasn't feeling well. Turns out his problem was four new teeth coming in! Also, we learned that he's up to 20 pounds now.

For photos of our visit with Grandma, click here.

Happy 2012!

Happy New Year! We hope you found a fun way to spend New Year's Eve.  We sure did!

One of our all-time favorite books is Irving and Muktuk: Two Bad Bears.  It is about a little town called Yellowtooth that celebrates every new year with a blueberry muffin festival. This year Mom and Dad helped us have our own blueberry muffin festival, just like Yellowtooth!

Mom made some yummy blueberry muffins. We had a muffin parade. We even had root beer (Dad's note: okay, it was sparkling apple juice). The craziest part was that Irving and Muktuk, the two bad bears from the book, kept trying to steal our muffins.

They kept appearing around the house, sometimes wearing disguises (we thought Elton John had broken into our home at one point) trying to get the muffins. Whenever we spotted them, we would take them to our bear jail, but they kept managing to escape.  Fortunately, through our vigilance, we prevented them from getting any of our blueberry muffins.

Irving and Muktuk

It was just like the book and lots of fun!

 

Tooting my horn

Turner didn't make it to New Year's Eve. He didn't take a nap that afternoon so he went to bed early. Instead of partying with us, he sat down with Mom for a New Year's photo op.

Turner is nine months old and very cute

To see photos of our New Year's fun and good times we've had at the playground lately, click here!

Holiday Road Trip Part 2

After a pretty tough couple of travel days, we were sure happy to see our cousins Ellie and Nathan and their parents, Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve.  They came outside to greet us, and then had tons and tons of toys for us to play with.  While the grown-ups helped unload the car and get ready for dinner, we all played with the toys and got to know our cousins.  Aunt Mindy made a delicious Hanukkah latke dinner and we lit the candles together and all opened some fun presents.  We were so excited it was hard to get to sleep.  Mom and Dad didn't seem to have much trouble falling asleep though.

The next morning, Uncle Steve made us some of his famous waffles for breakfast.  We played outside in their yard for a while.  We also Skyped with Aunt Staci and Uncle Daryl who live in North Carolina.  That's when I told Aunt Staci why we were in Arizona; we were there to celebrate Hanukkah.

Since it was Christmas Day, there wasn't a lot open.  In the afternoon, we went to Reid park and played on a playground. Mom and I walked around a large pond where we saw lots of birds. I told her what kinds of birds they were and Mom took a bunch of pictures of me with them. A nice lady gave me some tortillas to feed the ducks, which really made me laugh.  Mom remembers feeding ducks bread when she was a little girl; apparently, we use tortillas in the southwest.

Meanwhile, Dad played chase with Ellie and Uncle Steve made Nate and Hazel laugh a lot.  For dinner, we went to a Chinese restaurant.  Turns out, although we were on our best behavior, bringing five little kids to a busy restaurant isn't the greatest idea in the world.  Still, it was a fantastic day in Tucson.

Turner and I were a little under the weather on this trip, and this time, it was Ellie's turn to get sick.  Aunt Mindy stayed home with Ellie on Monday, while Uncle Steve, Nate, Mom, Dad, Hazel, Turner, and I all went to the Tucson Zoo.  We saw lots of great animals there - elephants, giraffes, a zebra, a rhino, monkeys, and even some peacocks who weren't officially part of the zoo but have taken up residence there.

Turner wanted to join the monkeys

Thanks to Uncle Steve who served as our unofficial zoo tour guide.  After the zoo, Uncle Steve took Nate home, and we did some driving around Tucson.  We drove to one of Mom's favorite places - Trader Joe's, which we don't have n Austin.  We grabbed a late lunch at In and Out Burger, which we also don't have in Austin and Dad really likes. We drove up a huge mountain at the edge of town and saw some really great cacti.  Mom took lots of pictures and lamented the fact that the one thing she left at home in the interest of lightening our load was her camera lenses.  We also drove around the University of Arizona campus.  It was a decent looking campus, though Dad muttered something about still being bitter regarding the 1997 NCAA basketball championship.  Monday night we had another great dinner, lit the Hanukkah candles, and opened presents.


On Tuesday, Ellie and Nate went to school, Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve went to work, and we were on our own again.  This time, we went to the Tucson Children's Museum.  It was pretty fun and their staff was really welcoming.  In the first room they had a firetruck and a motorcycle that you could ride on.  The next rooms had a Lego table where I spent a lot of time building things.  They also had a neat room where you could write with light pens on the walls.  Hazel did that for a pretty long time, then she went over to another room to draw on chalkboards.  The last room we went in had fruit and vegetables you could pick from trees, shopping carts, and a kitchen with blenders.  I made Mom and Dad some smoothies.  It was a fun time, and after driving around a bit, we headed back home for a Tamale dinner with our cousins.

All of us kids got along so well during our visit. Hazel followed Ellie around a lot, and loved playing with Nate. I spent a lot of time talking with Ellie too. Mom and Dad thought it was really great watching us all interact.  

We were very sad to leave Tucson, but it was time to go home Wednesday.  Our drive back was not nearly as eventful as our drive there.  We stopped to find out what "The Thing?" is and later, Mom and Dad pulled over at an out-of-the-way gas station, and a bunch of bees got into our car.  After that, we just decided to go home, so we did the whole drive in one day.  We got in before midnight - all of us kids slept for the last four hours of the drive.

Thanks to our cousins for hosting us on such a fun trip!

Click here to see our photos!