tomfoolery

waaaaay back in november, i finally got the delivery notification to a book i'd pre-ordered.  sadly, because i've lost too many brain cells during my two prenancies, i sent it to our old address.  panic ensued.  i was terrified that i wouldn't be able to claim it at the post office without the attempted delivery slip that would have been left in the lock box that once was ours. i spent the weekend on the verge of tears (no, i never over-react).  grant continued to reassure me that i'd be able to give the postal workers my name and the delivery number and pick it up monday.  so monday morning came, i was able to walk into our old post office and pick up my package, no problem (other than the usual unfriendly, one worker to 30 customers).  the reason i'm sharing this: since we were so close, we decided to visit our favorite old park.  the girls were excited and immediately ran to play.  hazel galloped away from the big scary dog:

and lucy let the static show that she really does have hair:

not too many days later, i got distracted watching lucy watch a movie:

then she noticed that i was paying attention:

so she  got up and stood right in front of the tv:

when i finally got her to move away again, she needed comfort:

isn't her nose so cute?  fast forward to last week when we were decorating the christmas tree.  while i cut papers and hazel spread glittery glue everywhere, lucy sat coloring in her highchair:

(please disregard the nastiness of the cover.) as you can see she was more interested in playing with her binky.  but note the colors..... after a little while, hazel ran out of glue and we let her and lucy go play in their room.  by the time we realized they were being too quiet the damage was done:

this is not the first time hazel has colored on the floor, it's the third.  her color of choice is red and we have yet to get any of it out of the carpet. you can see pen marks on the crib from a previous time.  because i'm a stupendous mother, hazel still got her very own paper chain to play with (so did lucy but apparently i didn't take any pictures of her wearing it like a feather boa):

another new thing for the girls is trying to touch the camera when we take pictures of them:

a few days after the carpet coloring incident, grant decided to make a topper for the tree:

hazel used her special scissors to cut the edges of some paper:

no, she really isn't left handed but she sure is dainty.  lucy again sat in her [nasty] highchair and made silly faces:

would y'all like to see what happens when i let grant get hazel ready to go outside on a cold evening to check the mail?  are you sure? it ain't pretty.........okay, don't say i didn't warn you:

sigh.  at least it was dark outside.  the other morning we had some more apple theivery:

could you be annoyed at that little face? yeah, neither could we.  here's what my floor looks like just about everyday:

complements of lucy.  a little bit later, hazel came by pretending to be a puppy and hoovered them up.  i was grateful. and finally, it's not a whisk, it's a flute:

or maybe some sort of percussion instrument:

"thank ya, thank ya very much!"

bucket-head

lucy is 17 months and a week old and crazy smart to boot.  she's starting to talk more, but only a few words are understandable.  her most common words are, "wow", "okay" and "go".  she constantly comes up to me with something she's taken, i.e. my cell phone, the remote, keys, etc. she'll hand it to me and say, "de go." (there you go).  she will ask if i'm "okay?" she kisses e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g with a big "mwah!"  you know she wants a kiss when she comes at you with a "mmmmmmmm". she gives us lots of hugs, but doesn't really like to cuddle.  she gets sad if hazel is in trouble and is happy to give her hugs and kisses, even right after hazel has pushed her or stolen her toy.  she's always very excited when grant comes home and she'll run to hug his legs.  she is a super fast runner and a fairly coordinated one.  she's very independent.  when we leave our apartment, lucy wants to walk down the stairs herself (though she doesn't refuse to hold our hand), the one time she didn't fuss about being carried down was when it was snowing last friday and the railing was freezing cold.  lately she has learned the art of tantrum throwing.  she, very dramatically, flops to the ground and sometimes she'll cry other times it's just a short "uuuugh!"  she still has a very shrill scream that she saves for special occasions, like church or naptime.  her hair is finally coming in thicker.  i don't think she could really be considered bald anymore.  it's about the same light brown, dark blonde color as hazel's so far.  and as you can see from the picture above: she likes to put buckets on her head.

p-widdy-dub-diddy

saturday was a momentous day.  i got to meet the pioneer woman!   i picked up my friend amanda, [on time, i might add (perhaps even a tad early). shock, i know] and we headed up north.  we waited in line for book signing tickets:

and then took our seats:

we weren't excited to be there at all.  an hour and a half or so later:

there she is!  she answered a few questions and is just as funny in person as on her blog.  then it was time to start the signing.  there were probably five or six hundred people there [though i never got a really good look at the crowd, so i'm not sure], luckily there was a system.  everyone had their tickets and there were maybe 15 or 20 colors of these tickets.  so they called up one or two colors at a time.  sadly, pink was somewhere in the middle so about 4 hours later [give or take] we were in line!  finally, it was amanda's turn:

that's when i started shaking and sweating.  then it was my turn.  i'd like to say that i was really witty and clever, but that would be a big lie.  i was completely tongue-tied.  you can see in my posture how shy and uncomfortable i felt:

ree was super nice and when i told her i was shaking she said, "are you? that's ok, i'm sweating."  it was totally worth the 6+ hours we waited and i'd do it again [with the hopes that i'd actually be able to say something cooler than, "i'm really shaking right now."  uh duh.] 

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas. . .

inside [i went crazy with the paper chains]:

we made paper chains for christmas decorations growing up and my mom would always use every color.  so that's was i did. and we like it. a lot.

hazel exclaimed, when she saw me hanging the chain up, "oh, mommy! that's just perfect! do you wuv it?" made all that time cutting and stapling worth it.

see, lots of paper chains.

and out [remember last year?]:

houston seems to know how much i love snow. [it's still going strong. hazel's demanding to build a snowman when daddy gets home.  here's hoping...]

signs of the season

while grant was gone, the girls and i all caught colds.  hazel started it and passed it to me.  lucy seemed to be immune to it at first but then she got it worse than either of us.  i took some pictures of the kids a couple days after thanksgiving (when i realized that i didn't take any pictures of people during dinner).  here they are enjoying a snack of marshmallows and animal crackers:

this is hazel's new favorite seat.  she turns it so that she can watch tv. it's as close as she can get without being told to back up.  here's a close up of lucy's face:

look at those sad little puffy eyes!  poor thing.  she looks much better now.  her happy personality wasn't too marred by the sickness.  she was ham enough to run around with two binkies in her mouth.  this was the best picture i got:

anyway, on a different note, we got our christmas tree last night.  i had grand plans and was super excited to have a real live (well, not really alive, but you know what i mean) tree, but grant talked me out of it (i'm really just happy to have a tree to put up.  we didn't do any decorations last year since we went to utah for most of december).  so we got a nice, small artifical one from target.  it was love at first sight for hazel:

she kept talking about her "chwistmas twee".  she helped grant open the box:

and that's about as helpful as she got:

so grant put it together by himself while hazel played in the box and i took pictures:

hazel is over the moon to have her very own ("but woocy can share with me") christmas tree:

when i got lucy out of her crib this morning, i put the lights on for the full effect.  sure enough, she pointed at the lights and said, "wow!" and then some gibberish, ending with "okay?"  both the girls have been pretty good about not touching it too much. we'll be decorating tonight or as soon as we are able to make the decorations.  in a fit of saintliness, i gave our old tree and all our decorations to my brother and sister-in-law when we moved to houston.  i know, what was i thinking?!?  i'd better be their favorite sibling, seriously.  i am, right?  mark? alicia? right?? loved that tree.....but i am excited that this new one takes up less space and will be easier to decorate.  and like i said earlier, i'm just glad to have one.

the first thanksgiving...

...that i cooked anyway.  since i'm so proud of myself for making our fancy dinner and since it all tasted so good (well, except for the peas, but those are never yummy), i'm going to blog about it.  i picked up a small turkey and thanks to the pioneer woman i figured out how to roast it.  i used her brine recipe:

luckily, my turkey didn't come with legs or wings (note to self: read the packaging so there is no confusion about missing half the turkey) so it fit into a gallon ziplock bag.  it roasted beautifully, was so moist and yummy.

   

i made  pw's cranberry sauce as well and it was also delish.

there was also some of my creamy jalapeno dip.  so good.  then there were the usual: stove top stuffing, peas (only there for lucy), frozen rolls with this seasoning:

and pioneer woman's roasted garlic and new potatoes (with chicken broth instead of the wine).  finally, for dessert, i made mini pumpkin cheesecakes:

don't mind the misplaced dollop, i forgot to stop squeezing the pastry bag...  we had a great thanksgiving even though the girls and i were sick, and we didn't have any family here.  we did have a good friend, thanks for coming kandice. we hope you all had a nice holiday too.