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I have been seriously "frustrated" with Hazel lately. She is going through a......well, a rough patch.

So I thought I would type some of the cute things that she has been saying/doing this week. Maybe that will make me feel a little better about her.

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This morning she rolled over in bed and said in her sweet little first-thing-in-the-morning voice "Mommy, is this tomorrow?"

I said "Yes." And she said "YAY! I love tomorrow."

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While playing with Owen she all of a sudden grabbed my desk calendar and, talking in a robotic voice, said "I am an alien. I stole your scriptures."

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On Sunday she was sitting in my lap and whispered in my ear "You make my heart super happy."

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Today she named her favorite stuffed puppy Kyle. She has her new cousin on the brain a lot lately. She talked to her Aunt Paige on the phone and said "Did you see baby Kyle yet? He came out of Aunt Meredithses belly already."

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I can't think of anymore right now....but this helped a little. :) And here's a super-random (not to mention old) picture that I just saw that made me laugh. I don't know if it has already made an appearance on my blog before, but it cheered me up, and that's what this post is all about.






I almost forgot! Hazel pulled this plastic tub onto her "nest" at nap time and made a little bed in it. That's where she wanted to take her nap. The only way I could convince her not to was to finally pick it up and dump her out of it. And the only reason I didn't let her is because I was afraid she would roll over and hit her head on the side of the tub, thus cutting MY nap short.

How Nintendo brings us all together

Owen: "Climb up that ladder!"

Hazel: "AAUUUGH! Stop killing me!"

Owen: "Press A! Press A!"

Hazel: "I AM pressing A! It's not doing anything!"

Owen: "I won!"

Hazel: "Mooooommmmm! He's not letting me win!"

Me: "Turn it off."

And there you have it! We managed to all interact and bond this morning.

Chapter One

Since the day that Carly the cat discovered Max the fish, she has spent all her waking hours watching and waiting....hoping against all odds- odds that her tiny little cat brain can not comprehend- that Max will soon break through that glass and finally be within reach of her anxious paws.

*Disclaimer: This counter is on the other side of the kitchen from the one we use for food prep. The ONLY reason I permit this to happen.

Up for discussion....

Why is it that almost every time I walk into the locker room at the gym, I am forced to see nudity? In the past, I have complained that it always seemed to be the women in their 80's that liked to walk around in the locker room air-drying after their water aerobics class. And these women sit their BARE rear-ends on the benches that other people set their belongings on. I have personally witnessed a poor, oblivious girl walking in and throwing her gym bag and towel down and a recently bare-bum occupied bench.

Somehow I convinced myself that wrinkled, sagging nudity is worse than the regular kind. But then I walked in there today to see a semi-young person walking around nude....and I realized that it's pretty much innapropriate for any age or body type. I mean...this lady was obviously proud of her body (especially her unquestionably fake breasts), but why did she feel the need to show US?! Why would she think a bunch of stay-at-home moms have any desire to see her NAKED?! I just don't get it. And frankly, it disgusts me.

Yesterday, I took Hazel to the new children's museum with some friends. We stayed for 4 hours to make sure we got our money's worth! This place was so much fun. Hazel could have stayed all day. And I could have spent all day ogling the art work. They had used recylables in the most creative ways to decorate. It was really impressive- I will have to take pics next time. Once again, I didn't have my camera, so you will have to suffer through some more pics from my phone. These are worse because we were indoors, and those girls didn't stand still for a second!

The girls LOVED the grocery store. It was SO realistic. They just couldn't get enough.

Brookie acted as cashier while Hazel cranked the belt to send her the groceries. Unfortunately, Gracie, Paige and Hazel didn't want to wait in line, and therefore they all probably looked in their bags when they got home and thought "Hey! I didn't buy that! And where is my oatmeal?"

Right next door was a huge kitchen (every little girl's dream) where you could make a pizza and decorate it with all sorts of "toppings." They loved making pizza after pizza and serving it to us. Us moms got very full.

Hazel serving a fresh, hot pizza to Ruth.

Dropping balls onto the ball ramp/maze and watching them roll down

In the noodle maze

There were little reading stations in every room, and Gracie and Paige actually took advantage of one!

All the girls loved painting this house. Gracie went crazy with her brush and managed to cover herself (and Paige) with pink paint. Hazel, on the other hand, painted for about 2 minutes and then realized that she was getting paint on herself and wanted to quit. Just as she was trying to take off her smock, she accidentally hit herself in the forehead with her brush and got reeeaaaallly mad. I wish I had a picture of the look on her face when she yelled to me "It's NOT funny!"

After all that fun, we managed to muster up a little extra energy so we could join Owen's class for his Valentine's party. It was really cute to watch them all acting embarassed as they read their valentines.

What is this face?

At one point, I was talking to Owen's friend Jack. He was telling me that he was about to have a baby sister. I said "Really? I didn't know your mom was pregnant!" and Owen got a really concerned look on his face and said "Did your mom get married yet?" HA! At least he knows the proper order of things.

And still I love him....

Five minutes ago (at 11:00 pm), my husband pulled a new dress shirt from it's packaging, turned to me, held it up and asked,

"What time do you need to get up tomorrow to iron this?"

Oh, how he makes me laugh!

Buyer Beware...

This post is not going to be funny, and is not fun for me to write, but I feel the need to use myself as an example for all you mothers out there.

Last night I went shopping with my kids. I left the store at 8:00pm and walked to the car with the two kids and several packages. As I was digging for my keys in the dark parking lot, a young man walked by us and made eye contact with me, but kept walking. I got an uneasy feeling, but chose to ignore it. The kids were whining because it was so chilly outside, so I put them in the car, started it, and turned the heat on. Then I decided to take the cart back up to the store. I didn't think this was a big deal since I was parked in the very closest parking spot to the store. I had Owen sit in the front seat and told him to lock the doors and not unlock them until I got back.

As I walked back up to the store, I saw the same guy sitting on the wall in front of the store. As soon as I reached the door to put the cart inside, he stood up and put his hood over his head and started for my car. I turned to follow him, thinking he couldn't possibly REALLY be headed for my car, but playing it "safe" either way. When I realized he was indeed going straight for my car, I sped up and started yelling at him. He walked right up to the driver's door (where my son's face was on the other side of the window) and pulled on the handle a couple of times. When he realized it was locked, he just walked off in the other direction like it was no big deal. This whole time, I was screaming at him (while dialing 911) and said "What the hell are you doing?! Were you just going to drive off with my kids in the car?!" to which he replied "My bad" and then flipped me off.

That's right. He said "My bad" about attempted car theft and kidnapping. I am so angry. There are people out there who treat these serious crimes as no big deal, and they are just waiting for someone like me to be careless. I am sharing this experience because I know there are so many moms out there who do the same thing I did (in one form or another). I, for one, will never again feel guilty about leaving my shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. Do not leave your kids unattended for even a second. Who knows what could have happened? Maybe he just wanted something as simple as my purse, but the ideas of what could have happened....what I could have lost...are tearing me up. I can't stop thinking about it, and I have a feeling I will be shaken up for a while.

I was able to give an extremely accurate description, since I had been so close to him and walked by him twice, but the police never found him. The kids are fine. Owen was definitely scared last night and kept saying "That guy was trying to take us," but I think he has pretty much forgotten about it this morning. Thankfully, I think Hazel was pretty oblivious the whole time.

I told Owen how proud I was of him for obeying and keeping the door locked and that I was so glad he was safe. Maybe, if nothing else, this will be an experience that will teach me and my kids about the dangers that are out there, and they will heed my warnings a little more carefully.

Night Running...

...deserves a quiet night. I love R.E.M. I need to put some on my ipod so I can sing that while I run.

So- running at night is my new obsession. I LOVE it. You would think it would be more motivating to be at the gym and have people around me (you know...I would run longer because people were watching me!), but I have discovered that I can go forever at night. It's dark, and quiet and cool. Just me and my music. Oh my gosh. It feels so great. And then I sleep SO much better after a run and a hot shower. Heaven. Maybe if I can keep it up, I will actually start losing some of that weight that is making me so depressed!

As for other random ramblings, I took the kids to McDonald's tonight so that I wouldn't have to cook for or entertain them. It was quite nice. They filled up on nuggets and fries and apple dippers and then played on the slides for an hour while I read a book. Hazel said "This is my best life ever."

Mine too, dear....mine too.

And when she plays with her harmonica, she calls it her Lukeledian.

Musical in the making...

Hazel loves to sing. She sings about everything she does all day long....as if her life is just one big musical. I love it. Here she is playing with her princesses and creating her own little princess musical. I was trying to hide around the corner, so I didn't get much of it.

Half-n-half

Just in case everyone read that wrong, she does NOT sleep in our bed. She has her own little bed in the corner of our room that she quietly sneaks into in the middle of the night. Much less disturbing than the old routine of carrying her back to bed over and over in the middle of the night while she screams and cries and hits me. I am hoping to somehow correlate new bedtime rules with the 4th birthday. I need an elaborate plan.....

On another note. Hazel has started doing something lately that cracks me up. She discovered these little white rocks that can write and I told her they are called chalk rocks. She looked at it for a while and thought about that and then said with excitement, "Half chalk, half rock!"

Now everything that has two words (or two syllables for that matter) becomes one of Hazel's famous half-n-halfs.

(library) "Half lie, half berry!"

(doritos) "Half duh, half ritos!"

(building) "Half bill, half ding!"

Some of them turn out pretty hilarious, but I can't think of any of the funny ones right now.

Sleeping booty

Hazel has sleeping issues. She has for about a year now. In fact, per our pediatrician's instructions, she now sleeps in our room every night. She has her own little bed (the "nest") in our room. However, I insist that she falls asleep in her own room in her own bed. I am hoping that if I can at least enforce that rule, she will eventually grow out of it.

Anyway- it is a HUGE struggle to get her to sleep each night. Owen lays his head on his pillow and is asleep about a minute later. Hazel, on the other hand, takes a good hour. Usually this hour is filled with yelling and repeatedly getting out of bed and crying and asking for a million different things. I have learned that if I let her take a toy or a book to bed with her, she is more likely to stay in bed. She still takes about an hour to fall asleep, but at least she is staying in her stinking bed, right?! So- the other night, I walked in to check on her....make sure she was finally asleep....and this is how I found her.

I scooped them all out so she wouldn't roll on top of them, and she had at least 30 toys in there with her (some buried like a pirate's treasure under the pillows). Whatever makes her go to sleep.