fwee!

3 has been a prominent number the last couple of weeks [not in the number of pictures in this post. be warned, it's a long one]. on the 3rd, grant turned 30 [heeheehee! i teased him a lot. 27 doesn't feel so old when i think of him]. i think he had a good day. i tried to make it nice. he got to sleep in until 9 am rather than get up with hazel at 7, when she crawled into bed with us. we went to memorial park and ran. i made this cake from bakerella's website. i made it just like the recipe, but instead of putting more chocolate between the layers of the cake, i put whipped cream in there to take off some of the chocolate-peanut-buttery edge. yes, those are peanut butter cups all around the edges. luckily, our friends, matt and amanda came over to help eat it.
and of course, hazel helped with the candles:

[notice grant's birthday badge? i made him wear it, just when we were inside though, because i'm nice like that] lucy took it all in from her corner:

then yesterday, my little hazel-bug turned 3! i wrote all about the preparations for her party on my crafty/cooking blog. there were lots of delicious cupcakes:

hazel's cake was kind of slopped together, if you can't tell:

i decorated with balloons and streamers that we picked up at the grocery store. [hazel had a blast running down each isle with half a dozen balloons tied to her wrist. eventually, after bumping the balloons into a few people(luckily they all thought she was cute), she learned to squeal, 'excuse me!' as she barreled past.]

grant and i posed with the birthday girl before the party started:

hazel wasn't excited at all:she kept making silly faces when i asked her to smile for pictures:

here's the food, cupcakes, fruit and dip with the tinkerbell plates hazel picked out [she picked spiderman plates first, but we talked her out of them]:

here's hazel the ham modeling the napkins and lucy finishing up dinner in the background:

then the fellow partiers arrived. hazel kept calling them her 'new friends', even though she's known them all for at least a year:

from left to right: amanda, matt, kandice, kelsy and brad. we all sang while hazel critiqued: she blew out her candles (because my camera is lame and old, i didn't get a blowing-out-the-candles picture, sigh). then, finally! it was time to dig in. hazel had been asking for her 'specioo cupcakes' all day:

and she liked them:lucy enjoyed her's too: next, presents. hazel went round asking for help. she stopped at kelsy:

and daddy:

then kandice helped her model her new clothes:

yes, that is the cutest poncho ever, complete with matching headband. then it was brad's turn to help with the presents:

she recieved many wonderful gifts; toy story action figures [when she opened those, she said, 'my buzz! my woody!'], several pairs of pants, her poncho, movies [backyardigans, pinocchio, and toy story 1 & 2 (we ordered them too late so she doesn't have them yet, but soon)], cards from nanny, granddad & co., great nanny & granddad, grandma and mommy, dad & lucy, a jesse the cowgirl costume for halloween (on it's way too) and we can't forget her stroller and baby.

there she is playing with her new toys and telling grandma all about her birthday. i hope she enjoyed it. we love having her. she is so smart and precious.

playgroup: a love story

last wednesday at playgroup, hazel decided to take the car for a spin:but soon she realized something was missing:

that's better. safety first, everyone: [enter love interest from stage left], 'hey. i like your helmet':'what? this old thing? want to try it on? it's messing up my hair.': 'yeah, thanks! hey, do you want to ride bikes together?' 'yes, please!':

'well, thanks for the helmet. i'll call you in 14 years or so.' 'farewell, dear one!':

the end. playgroup was lots of fun. we met at old braeswood park. people have been donating their old toys to the park, hence the cars, bikes, helmet, etc. lucy had a blast. so many things to climb on!:

hazel, when she wasn't being hit on, was fascinated with the many toys. she also saw something that she really loves:what was it? take a look:

here's a close-up:lucy climbed to her hearts content: so did hazel:

there was so much to play with and so many new friends to make:

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: