there have been some really bad days lately

the kids just whine and fight and scream and cry and make mess after mess after mess. i can't get anything done because they need more juice or more snacks or another movie or another book. i can't go anywhere because i haven't had a chance to shower or do laundry. lucy's climbing on the table, pushing buttons on the tv, stealing hazel's crackers, throwing her juice/toy/binky, splashing in the toilet, pulling books off the shelf, playing with my phone, or pulling hazel's hair. hazel is whining for some more 'hmmmmm...what do we wike?', jumping off the couch, pushing lucy down, shutting lucy in a room, stealing binkies, yelling for 'more orangemelons [marshmallows]', refusing to stay in bed for a nap, hitting me, stealing gum, spilling juice or chocolate milk, or picking paint off the walls. it's tiring for me and, thank heavens, it wears them out too:

on the bad days, i've started going in their room after they fall asleep. there is nothing more soothing to my soul then my babies sleeping:they are just too precious for words. all of the frustration and anger melt away:and as i listen to hazel snore, i wonder, "how did she fall asleep like this?":and "lucy, are you comfortable with your feet hanging out of the crib and the sun in your eyes?":anyway, i thought that this would be an appropriate post to begin the tour of our new-ish apartment. starting with the girls' room: here we are looking through the door from the hallway. below is the toy corner. this room is smaller than their last one, so to make all of the furniture fit, i had to stand their toy shelf up:and here is hazel's bed. the white on the far right is part of the closet door which spans most of the wall: *in case you're shocked by the cleanliness of their room, let me note that grant had taken the girls to the park and i, in my confusion at having a moment to myself, decided to clean up their toys. this room will never look like that again because 30 seconds after they came home, it was back to where it was before i spent my free time straightening it up.*

recent-ness

here are some of the little things we've been doing. a couple of weeks ago, hazel got into a kick where she would ask for watermelon all.of.the.time. finally i folded:

was she pleased? yes:lucy wasn't quite as certain:

i guess i should have shown her which part to eat. next up: another new hazel trick. when we were in utah, grandma introduced hazel to the circle sandwich and since we've been home i've been picking more up. sometimes hazel makes a big mess and her hands get covered in pb&j. she came up with a way to drink out of her cup without making it dirty:pretty clever, eh? on my birthday, lucy became a 'four-eyes":

and now to introduce our new park:
it's part of our apartment complex (outside of our side, so we have to cross a small road). it nice and new and small enough for my little bald monkey:

but big enough for hazel to have fun too:

for those who wanted to know how my birthday was, it was very nice. i woke up to a present hunt. grant (before he left for school) hid each of my pressies with clues on each leading to the next. once i found them all, hazel and lucy helped me open them. i got a series of books that i had wanted, he's so good. grant came home right after his class and let me take a nap. while i was sleeping, he made me a chocolate cake. . .from scratch! i know! hazel helped me blow out the candles:

the one in the middle gave us a bit of trouble, but eventually we got to dig in:

finally, hazel's aspirations:she's saying, 'boom boom boom!' and listening to elmo's heart.

the other week at the bus stop

a teenage girl told me that 'micheal' (i.e. jackson) wants (n.b. present tense) us to find a cure for cancer. she claimed to be a medium and was for her part going to give her tuition money to st jude's.

i spy. . .

. . . a fish:

an addendum

i was remiss in my 3rd utah vacation post. on tuesday, august 18th, grant hiked up to his old hut with his dad. grant didn't take the camera but luckily his dad did:

grant built this between the 'g' mountain and timpanogos, with his friends, jared (my brother), jd, jeff and spencer. they used to sleep up there, even after a mountain lion came a-calling one night. it's been abandoned for around 10 years. i think grant was really excited to unearth the treasures. he's always talking about digging up mummies and papyrus. he and his dad didn't find anything quite that exciting. after wading around all of the stinging nettle, they found the old tin that held their supplies, i.e. duct tape, gloves, little debbie cakes, silverware, a hatchet:

this is their stove, complete with a chimney:

grant searching for 'treasures':

grant's dad holding a tin cup:

i was also remiss in posting this picture:

grant took it while we were battling for our lives at the alligator park. he's very proud of it.

happy anniversary?

i can hardly believe that it has been a whole year since ike passed through. it was an. . . .experience, one that does not need repeating, especially since our new apartment has electric appliances, not gas. that would mean no stove top birthday cake, no warm showers, no hot meals. . . it's kind of funny reading over my 'hurricane' posts. i'm optimistic and pessimistic in turns. hazel was more affected than i would have thought possible for a not-quite-2-year-old, she still says, 'yay! power!' when she notices the refrigerator clicking on.

the toad park

our new neighborhood park is a bit further away than the one at our last apartment, but it has toads!

last week i took the kids there one evening. while we were running around on the grass, we discovered that there were toads emerging from just about every drain pipe in the cement wall that surrounds the play structure.

hazel was super excited but kept her distance at first. lucy, on the other hand, was immediately in pursuit. she would approach each drain pipe, crouch down for a better look, and then reach out a finger to touch the toads. she chuckled as they hopped away.

we went back this week and snapped some live action shots.

***no toads were hurt during these visits***

a creepy-crawly post

i'm still not sure how grant managed to talk me into it, but yesterday we went to brazos bend state park. it's where you go to see the 'gators, hence my reluctance. the whole drive down, images of every alligator vs. some poor wildebeest or something flashed through my mind. when we got there, grant got a map and just asked where the best place for kids was. he was told that some baby alligators had hatched recently and that we could go pet them. so we did:there were about a half dozen of them in the tank. a sign said that they had collected all but 12 eggs from the mothers nest [i wonder who has that job and if they still have all their limbs] and that 30+ baby alligators had hatched in the middle of august. hazel was lucky enough to be able to touch a corn snake [yes, i say this with as much sarcasm as i can muster]:

it does have very pretty scales, but it would look better to me as a purse or a pair of pumps. shhh, don't tell peta. another ranger pulled out this bird [i don't remember what it is, maybe a falcon? grant would know]:

we didn't get to pet her. she probably would have pecked anyone who got too close. after we all bonded with the animals, we wandered around the nature center where they had some fun exhibits:

once outside, we decided to go to the path that was suggested for seeing the most/biggest alligators [!?].

this sign was not making this park in any way inviting. i couldn't believe that they would just let people walk around where alligators hang out. and i really couldn't believe i was there with my little girls.

this is elm lake. we took the trail that loops around it and sure enough, about a quarter of a mile round, we saw this:

i'll admit it was pretty cool seeing an alligator from this close with no fence or glass wall stopping it from pulling us into a death-roll. but i didn't pose by it, that was grant's job:

hazel was unfazed by the beasts, probably thanks to the crocodile in peter pan. she dazzled the alligators with her strength:

and i felt safer.

safer than this bird at least. this is a picture of alligator #2. it was the most mobile. we got to see it swim up close to the bird and i half expected the bird to fly away, but it just stood there, cool as a cucumber. eventually the alligator decided it was too big and it swam away:

here comes 'gator #3:

can you see him? here's a closer look:

we found this one by following the sound of children crying. seriously. apparently a family was watching it and it snapped something up [the grandpa thought it was a turtle]. anyway it understandably freaked out a couple of little girls. the alligator was pleased with it's self:

[sadly, on our way back, i saw some punk kids throwing rocks at this one. i got so mad. not because i thought they would actually hit it, but because i couldn't believe anyone would be stupid enough to tick off a wild alligator. i would have said something to them but there were adults with them (and i'm kind of a wimp when it comes to confrontations) so i settled for the meanest glare i could produce. i don't think they noticed/cared]. at this point we came up to a fork in the trail. there was a water station [and it was ice cold water!]. and since it was a very humid 98 degree day, we stopped for a drink:

we then headed along the trail that was supposed to lead us to alligators lying in the shade. instead we found this:

at first, i tried to just ignore the huge, super nasty spider, but then i noticed it wasn't alone:

dozens of these huge, super nasty spiders had spun their webs between trees and bushes. i kept my head down and tried to keep going, but then i saw one dangling from a branch. that was when i turned the stroller around and booked it out of there. at the time, i think i would have honestly taken on a 'gator than continued along that part of the trail. grant kept the camera and took the pictures while i waited with the girls by the lesser of the two evils. when grant finally came back [he was seriously gone long enough that i thought the spiders had ganged up and eaten him] we headed back to the car. by this time, the paranoia had left me enough to make me feel ok about letting lucy out of the stroller to stretch her legs [i still carried her past the alligators i knew about. what can i say? i'm a mom and we're crazy. it could just be me, though]:

once we made it back to the car with our limbs intact, we headed over to the gift shop to let hazel pick out souvenirs. she picked a stuffed spider for her [go figure] and a stuffed bee for lucy. as i was about to pay for them she noticed something:

"mommy, wook! can i have the teeny-tiny baby awigator? pwease!" she said that sentence in a little high-pitched squeaky voice, so how could i resist?