These pictures were taken about two weeks ago when we were able to take advantage of an unusually warm day by heading to the park. We took along Hazel’s favorite toy, her butterfly ball.

She had fun looking for airplanes (this park is near the Newport News airport, so lots of take offs and landings can be spotted on a good day).

Kicking the ball is a big favorite…

and so is pretend “catch”

Hazel was very generous and shared her ball with this little girl, who kept running off with Hazel’s ball and not coming back… good thing Hazey was a good sport!

We played on the slide

Spotted more airplanes

and climbed around…

This girl loves to be outside! We spent the entire day today out in the back yard, digging in the dirt, drawing on Hazel’s new easel (a $1 bargain box steal!!) and generally enjoying the sunshine. Fortunately we are supposed to have another warm and sunny day tomorrow, which we are hoping to make the most of!

I’ll end this post with a few of my favorite pictures of Hazel relaxing with Papa on a lazy weekend morning…

We painted her walls a few weeks ago as we were waiting to schedule the carpet install- we wanted to get all of the messy work out of the way before the new carpet was laid. I say “we” painted, and what I should really say is that Jered painted and I occasionally peaked in to see the awesome pink progress. Once the walls were done and the carpet was installed we were ready to move Hazel’s things into her new space. The main item that was moved was her new big girl bed. Hazel is no longer in her crib and is now sleeping in a beautiful cherry wood toddler bed. The transition to the new bed was a breeze- we’ve even taken to calling it the magic bed, as bedtime fiascos have all but stopped. She can easily climb into and out of her new bed, but out favorite thing about it is that it has double rails so that she won’t fall out. Our girl is a wild sleeper, she moves around her bed all night long, and when we gave her old crib (which also converts into a toddler bed) a try without the rails she fell out of bed all the time, even when she had a single rail up to keep her contained. Once she’d fall out of bed she’d get woken up enough to want to go explore her room or she would get confused/scared and want to be tucked back in- the new bed allows her to climb in and out of bed when she’s awake, but has enough of a rail where she won’t fall out when she does her nocturnal breakdancing.

Did I mention she loves her new room? She talks about it constantly “Hazel’s Roooooom” “New room” “Big Bed” and “Butterfly Tree” are all we hear about these days. Butterfly tree, you ask? Well, there aren’t actually any butterflies on the tree that we put on the wall behind her bed, but she thinks the cherry blossoms look like butterflies, so it is now called the butterfly tree. Sometimes it is also called the happy birthday tree. We don’t know why either, but we go with it- her happy birthday butterfly tree makes her very happy, indeed.

Now that we have the computer set up to automatically upload our photos from iPhoto I’m hoping I’ll be posting more often- I’ll post a few pictures from Hazel’s room tonight and post another update with more recent photos of her room (the ones below were taken earlier this week before we finished moving everything in and hanging pictures/shelves etc. I also have some great pictures from a trip to the park on one of the warmer days we enjoyed this week. I’ll leave you with a few shots of Hazel’s new bed/butterfly tree, the pink walls and a preview of the fantastic day at the park and other shenanigans. Hope everyone enjoyed the last day of February- can’t believe March will be here tomorrow- time flies!

Hazel riding her rocking horse in her new room…

Hazel’s bright pink wall with flower lights half-installed (updates to come later this week)

The butterfly/happy birthday tree (this thing took forever to put up, but by golly it’s gorgeous and it was so worth it!)

And now for a few teasers… more to come tomorrow

yup, that’s a mr. potato head, and he goes everywhere she goes…

What the heck, mom? Why am I wearing this bow?

Be still my heart…

and finally… this is what happens when Hazel dresses herself (note the purse worn as a necklace and the lack of clothes)

And Finally… After we came in to warm up… This is how Hazel felt about coming back inside:

I’ll start by posting some pictures from our morning venture into the white stuff (since these pictures were taken we’ve gotten an additional 4-5 inches!). After the snow pictures I’ll post some pictures from earlier this month and the one shot we got of our Christmas tree before all the presents got opened. We’ve lost our plug n’ play card reader so uploading pictures isn’t as simple as it has been. That’s my excuse for not posting very often! I’ll also try and scan in the big ultrasound pictures of baby duo later this weekend (since we’re snowed in and have nowhere to go!)- all is going very well with our little bun in the oven and we got a very thorough ultrasound last week (and a TON of great ultrasound pictures!).

(Having a little trouble getting the snow pictures to upload, will post more of those later)

Tickling her reflection in the oven…

An upset little Christmas Elf running away from her Aunt Sarah

Christmas Morning 2009 from esther benoit on Vimeo.

We spend the entire day opening presents (it took us until almost 5 pm to get through them all, but we took it slow and enjoyed the day). Hazel got a kitchen and shopping cart that occupied her most of the day, and have occupied her ever since! Everyone was so generous and we were truly thankful to be able to spend the holiday with family- it was a fantastic Christmas.

Duo seems to be doing well- we had a quick OB appointment on the 17th of December where we heard duo’s heartbeat for the first time (153 bpm, loud and clear!). I’ve been feeling much better and have just recently started to feel the baby move around in there. I’m also finally starting to show just a little bit, which is always nice. It seems like the second half of the pregnancy goes much quicker than the first- and with as fast as this first half has flown by, we’ll have this next baby before we know it! I am almost 20 weeks along (19 weeks and a few days) and we are scheduled for our big ultrasound on the 19th of January, following a routine appointment on the 18th. We are not going to find out if we are having a boy or a girl as we enjoyed the surprise with Hazel. The naming process has begun, and we’ve got a few names we really like for both a boy or a girl- more on that in a future post.
I’ll leave you today with a few videos, starting way back in October- I had a few on the camera that I never uploaded and I thought they would be fun to put up here.
Hope everyone has had a great start to 2010- looking forward to all the new things this year will bring!

At the pumpkin patch from esther benoit on Vimeo.

More October fun from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Shopping in Mama’s shoes from esther benoit on Vimeo.

These last two involve our new learning tower- a contraption that allows Hazel to safely help in the kitchen (we had one too many standing on chair accidents for our liking and decided this was worth the investment!)

Making Dessert from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Licking the Beaters from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel loves playing with playdoh and making “doh pancakes”, snakes and balls.

She also loves to draw- and tells us all about the airplanes and moons that she makes.

Between crayons and playdoh she can be occupied for hours (great for rainy afternoons)

Hazel has also taken a liking to watching Sesame Street, particularly the Elmo segment of the show. Our very active little girl will even sit down for a full 15-20 minutes with a snack. This is a big deal for us as she is usually always on the go- constantly moving. And of course, monkey is her constant companion. We are, in fact, at this very moment watching the Elmo Christmas special on ABC. Later tonight we’re headed to Williamsburg to watch the Grand Illumination and Christmas Fireworks- Hazel is going to love it!

Did I mention she loves popcorn?

She’s also crazy about smoothies- we put all sort of healthy things in there, even peas and spinach, and she’s none the wiser!

Some afternoons Hazel and I have a little snack together while we watch Oprah. She loves the clapping.

In the mornings Hazel usually has some warm tea with her breakfast, and she’s gotten really good at feeding herself with her spoon- and drinking from a big girl mug.

After breakfast it’s off to the races for us- Hazel goes for a ride on her giraffe (standing up, of course)

Some time with Mr. Potato Head…

Inspecting the Light Saber Potato Masher

Deciding it’s better used as a phone…

She’s growing up so fast!

Even without the costume, she’s a silly little monkey.

Where’s my candy mom?

It was a nice warm night, complete with a bright shining moon. Hazel loves the moon. LOVES it. She was so tickled that the moon was out last night and that she got to stay out past dark in the neighborhood. Once she got the hang of saying trick or treat and putting pieces of candy in her pumpkin bucket she was pretty much hooked on Halloween. This morning she enjoyed eating way more gummi bears and M&Ms than she probably should have. Thankfully, Halloween was yesterday and not today- we’ve had a very cold, rainy day today, the complete opposite of yesterday. We spent the day today building blanket forts, coloring and playing with play doh.

I haven’t uploaded photos in a very long time so I thought i’d use the rest of this post to post some of the pictures from the last month or so.

A very very happy (if not a bit blurry) Hazel making rice krispie treats.

Reading one of her favorite books- Feely Bugs

I need my face washed!!

Playing Piano!

Check out my awesome hat

Baby Yoga/Monkey Snuggling

She loves to spray herself in the face with this water bottle. Strange…

Lunch with Monkey

Oh mom…

Please, no more pictures…

So relaxing…

And finally, tonight at bathtime Hazel got her first bubble mohawk

Look- an airplane!!!

This one is just my size!

Smells like… pumpkin?

In other exciting news, Hazel is talking up a storm- she has a new found love for monster noises, Cookie Monster in particular. She doesn’t actually watch Sesame Street, but has a few books that we read to her using our best monster voices. In true toddler fashion she has taken to mimicking everything we do, including talking like Cookie Monster- absolutely adorable! In addition, Hazel has made best friends with a stuffed monkey- monkey goes everywhere with Hazel, and tears ensue when he accidentally gets thrown overboard when she’s jumping around in bed (another favorite activity). Our girl is so full of energy and curiosity and loves to play and explore all day long. She loves being outside, around animals, with other kids- the more activity, the better!
Her sense of humor is rapidly developing- she is such a little ham. We recently learned that chickens say “mmmm” (surprisingly they say the same thing as blueberries and icecream) and that monsters say “Yum Yum Yum” I’ll try to capture it on video, but she’s a hard one to video lately- too fast to keep up with and too interested in watching the videos on the camera to actually let me record any new ones.

Well, that’s a pretty big update for now. We’ll scan in the ultrasound pictures this weekend and post them on here. So far, duo looks just like Hazel did at this stage- a little blurb on an otherwise black and white print, but we know all is well when the first thing the doctor says at the sight of little duo is, “My goodness, look at that HEART!”
We couldn’t be more excited.

Hazel has been mastering a few new skills this month, one of which is quite comical and usually very very messy. She is learning to feed herself with a spoon- she has gotten very good at eating oatmeal with a spoon and is moving on to other more tricky foods (loading up a spoon is harder than one might think!). Hazel is also talking up a storm. Some of her new words this month include Mango (which sounds an awful lot like Mang GO!!!!! when she says it), Apple, Plum, Banana, Duck, Clayton, Cookie, Pleeeeaaassssee, Bed, Nap, Sleep, Monkey, Big Girl and my favorite UP! She says “up” constantly because she wants to be up with all the big folks. She loves to be set up on the counter while I cook or clean up after dinner, and she likes to be UP high so she can look around the room and reach things on the counter. Tricky tricky girl!

In addition to the new words and eating with a spoon Hazel is also getting her molars. And haven’t we been hearing about it!?! This is by far the worst experience she’s had with teeth- Orajel and baby tylenol every night, frozen mango and banana, cold wet wash cloths and popsicles during the day. I can’t wait until the last molar is through!

I have pictures to post, but haven’t uploaded them yet. I do, however, have some videos ready to go, so I’ll leave you with those today. Enjoy!

Swing Swing! from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Hazel’s View from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Untitled from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Eating with her Spoon from esther benoit on Vimeo.