Melmo thirsty

Hazel was so sweet to share her milk with Elmo ("melmo") this afternoon.

Another funny...

For the second week in a row, it is quite obvious to us that the author of the For Better or for Worse strip, Lynn Johnston, has extensive experience with a toddler!

When I saw this comic yesterday, I had the thought, "at least Hazel knows to color on paper." Hmm. I wonder if Hazel saw this comic as well, and was given some new ideas....

Hazel has understood what "uh oh" means for quite some time, but this "uh oh" was likely her biggest to date. I KNOW bigger will come...and for now I find it funny. So I share...

Uh Oh!

At least she is starting to understand the concept of CLEAN! This video is short, but her eager "cleaning" continued on for a good five minutes. I think a little more elbow grease is needed...but her effort was much appreciated. You can actually see in the middle where she was able to reach - it is CLEAN!

Bella, a pink skirt, and Hazel

Hazel had so much fun with this pink skirt - she thought to be a hat - this morning. Bella is so tolerant of her and humored her with a game of peek-a-boo.

Hazel managed to get the skirt on her head and cracked us up by going around and around in circles.

Hazel tried so hard to get her "hat" on Bella. Amazed that Bella tolerated all this!

Peek-a-boo with Bella

Shopping HIGH

Today began lazy however quickly turned memorable as Matt began to clean out his closet! It was high time. When Matt moved in, we noted that he sure had a lot of pants. Well, today he modeled them ALL, and an hour later we had FILLED a large garbage sack! No more high-waters for Matt! We then took his sack and a few of our own to Goodwill.

Matt did such a great job of weeding through the chaos in his closet that we decided to add some more back in…so we took him to Old Navy. It was his first visit, and I do believe it was memorable.

Well, maybe not for the 12 year old boy, but it was for ME! They were having a SALE!!

A BIG SALE!

I am still coming down from my shopping HIGH. I had to blog about it, capture this moment so in the future I can look back and relive the fantastic afternoon we had at Old Navy.

Not only Matt scored, but Beau, Hazel and even little ol’ me.

All the clearance was an additional 50% off. Yes, you heard me right, an ADDITIONAL 50% off. I am such a sucker for a sale. That was obvious today.

Matt ended up getting four handsome shirts, a pair of pants, and a hip warm jacket.
Beau scored the biggest with four shirts, and FIVE pairs of pants (jeans and slacks both).
Hazel came away with an adorable new dress (see below), a new skirt, and two tops.
Oh, and I got two tops.

Now for the really exciting part and the part of this post where you realize I may have a problem. I came home, cut all the tags off everything and opened up Excel on the computer. I then poured through the tags and compiled two columns, one with the original (pre-clearance) price of the items, and then the other column with the price we paid.

Ready?

$489.50 – Full price of all 21 items
$88.69 – Price we paid today!

Oh, and I need to hurry up and post my fabulous news as the sale continues tomorrow – and tomorrow ONLY. Now, hurry up all of you and go get a shopping HIGH of your own.

More coloring

This video is a good representation of Hazel's past week. Every afternoon, I would bring this coloring contraption (an empty flat box full of computer paper) out to the living room and she would settle in, wiggling her bum in all the paper until she found the perfect coloring position. Then she would just color, color, color!! The three crayons she has are the primary colors, red, blue and green. She is working on learning her colors too! :) She favors the green of course, being that she is a little Duck!

Hazel's 16 month old attention span is quite short for most things, but when it comes to coloring, she really surprises us by how she can keep herself entertained. Such a big girl.

First Kid's Meal

Matt was on a visit this weekend, so we took the opportunity to have a quaint family dinner at our neighborhood...

I brought the camera as we were set on getting Hazel her very first Kid's Meal! She was quite delighted with the coloring book and crayons and got a few masterpieces done during our dinner.

She LOVED the pickles from daddy's burger

Then there was the grilled cheese!

A Sunday Funny!

Grandma and Grandpa Garner bought Hazel this toy for Christmas. I saw this comic yesterday in the paper and had to share...as Hazel is just learning to really make NOISE with it. She was supposed to be sleeping last night, but instead was walking circles around our living room "popping" away!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Here is Hazel in action yesterday.

Oh, and her other favorite thing to do on Sunday is to spread the paper ALL over the floor and walk over it again and again and again. Here she combines this fun activity with her popcorn popper!

Dinner guests

We had our friends Femeke, Clemens and their son Andrin over for dinner tonight. We ate well and then had a fabulous decadent chocolate cake courtesy of Femeke. Yum! We don't have dinner guests often, but tonight reminded us that we should!!

Here are a few photos from our night...

Andrin looking sleepy, and perfectly adorable in the sweater his Mami made for him.

We were pleasantly surprised to see Hazel warm up to Femeke. Lately she has been quite skeptical of most people. Here she is looking at Femeke's "pretty."
(Hazel calls all kinds of jewelry "pretty.")

Clemens was making Hazel smile here. She quite liked his infectious laughs!

Andrin deep in thought listening to his daddy.

Hazel continues to enjoy Clemens' silliness...as did we all!

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Earlier today, Hazel was my little "helper" with the laundry.

Fresh from a nap with wonderful nap hair.

Discovery.

That is what life from Hazel's perspective seems to be all about. We love it! Beau and I are discovering right along with her it seems.

So much fun to see her wheels turning...and turning...and turning.

Here she is with Beau's flashlight, she didn't seem to mind that bright light in her eyes....

How does this thing work?

Baby Mateo and his big brother

Hazel and I went by Sarah and Andre's home yesterday afternoon! What fun we both had spending time with the boys...Andre and baby Mateo.

Hazel doesn't seem to mind when I hold a baby, however...once that baby is out of her mommy's arms she suddenly appears and wants some cuddling of her own. I can handle that.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of 4 month old Mateo and his big brother Andre. Such cute BOYS!

Mateo looks quite kissable!

Such a happy boy!

Brothers

Don't mess with my little brother!! Andre is such tough stuff!

This camera...

is wonderful. I don't have the digital DELAY any more! Halleluiah! What a difference to be able to snap photos quickly. Given that Hazel moves quicker than both Beau and I these days (only Bella our dog seems to still be swifter), it is invaluable to have a camera that will catch her in those fleeting moments.

Love it.

Oh, and my baby is gone. Hazel truly is a girl now. She has this personality that is just bursting out of her and boy does she ever have her own AGENDA. A little scary? Yes! Those wheels in her head are spinning so fast. What next Hazel? Enjoying this time for sure. Love having a toddler to keep me BUSY.

Play Ball! Hazel was so excited to play with the big basketball. Sure Matt fired a wild shot and she got knocked in the noggin...but she recovered quickly and made nice again with the basketball. These pictures were snapped shortly after the noggin knockin!

Oh NO!!

Our Walmart is sold out of the brown Gwen boots I blogged about last week. I shouldn't have restrained myself, and instead, gone ahead and bought another pair.

If any of you who I know and are reading this (you know who you are - those who have my phone number most likely) and you happen to run into your neighborhood Walmart in the near future, could you peek in the children's shoe department and see if they might happen to have a size 6 or above in these darling baby girl Gwen boots?

I know this is quite a silly request. But I still find myself making it...

I will pay you back for any expense...I am just so bummed that I waited too long. I can't find them online either. The brand is Faded Glory. I read online that they aren't making shoes anymore. Bummer.....

Happy Birthday Macey!

Today Hazel's friend Macey turned THREE! We had so much fun at her birthday party this afternoon. It was at an indoor gymnastics type place called Bounce. There were tons of trampolines, hanging bars, thick SOFT mats to fall on, springboards, swings...and so much more. Hazel loved it and so did all the other party goers.

Happy #3 Macey!