Going on Two!

Did a pre-two photo shoot as Hazel was clean, dressed nice and she let me do her hair! Hazel is about 26 pounds, 34 inches tall, talking lots, try new words all the time, loves to help and in general still a very sweet girl. 

Hazel and her fishies aka "blub blubs"

Hazel being a goof, and rather proud of herself for standing on the fire truck.

Not sure if this is an age or hereditary thing, bum dropping on the floor... but apparently it's fun.

Not much can beat quality time with Daddy!

A video of Hazel and Jared just playing together for a while, Hazel says a few words as well, including her name closer to the end. 

Little Lefty

So love the enthusiasm and chatter as she colours!

Potty training has been going well enough that I got Hazel some underwear, she wears them in the house, but is still diapered for sleeping and outings.

That afternoon Hazel didn't nap, and she asked very nicely for a "Choo choo" aka Thomas show, and then fell asleep on the couch during the show. Which is a first for her. 

After coffee break we picked up some parts for Daddy's bike, they had this strider bike out which Hazel played on most the time we were there! (Shhhhh, I already found one for her birthday😊)

Ended up coming home much past nap time... looked back to find Hazel had fallen asleep mid bite 😅

 Hazel and Nova exploring the hills. 

Today I learned that Hazel is quite comfortable following Nova anywhere in the back yard, even to the very back corner. Love the little bright pink coat!

Hazel also love running down the hills, the first few time she fell at the bottom, but it must have not scared her to much as she did it quite on purpose this time....

When I wasn't following Hazel around the yard I managed to set up some poles for my beans, and tires for my potatoes. Looking forward to starting some seeds soon! 

So enjoyed our backyard that day. Really starting to see the benefits we were hoping for with lots of room to play, Nova and Hazel playing nicely and Hazel interacting with the kittens as well. Looking forward to spending lots of time out here! 

Trying New Things

After taking a breather from the March rush and Easter program. I was inspired to add a bit of variety to my bread making and made a few bagels out of my bread dough. They turned out a little odd shaped, but quite yummy and definitely better then buns! I actually had quite a bit of fun making them and watching them boil! It was a very pleasant surprise, and they were soooo worth it! Batch one turned out a little lobsided and slightly overbaked, but yummy enough that I wanted to make them again.

This one turned out pretty perfect!

Round two, a little more evenly shaped, and not overbaked. Not the most beautiful bagels out there, but they are sooo yummy! So far they have been a welcome addition to breakfast.😋

 On a slightly different note, I have been half heartedly potty training Hazel off and on for about 6 months already, but about a week or so ago, Hazel peed right through her diaper, so that officially started our real potty training phase! We started with the goal of 1 success a day, and are already moving on to 2 successes, and tempted to push the goal to 3! Wish me luck... and patience 😊

Melt down, Meows, and a Moose

Three weeks of sunshine!!! We have all been soaking it up, and the snow has been rapidly disappearing. Every day there has been a little bit more grass and even more driveway. In effort to try and keep the water under control as our backyard doesn't drain very well, we found a big puddle that currently seems to be a low spot in the yard and pumped it out to the ditch. 

Later Jared half buried a bucket that he drilled a bunch of holes into which allowed the hose side of the pump to stay below the water line. The idea is that we can turn it on for an hour or so at a time and get a good amount of water to the ditch and hopefully have less of a swamp in the backyard. 

With the snow melting, we also found the boat back and Jared is already toying with ideas of how to possibly fix it. 

Lots of animals have also started waking up and coming out with the coming of spring such as a cougar (which a few in our neighborhood have seen and heard😬), deer, bears, moose and mice. To deal with the mice Jared picked up a few kittens, which have been quite cute and fun the last few days, as well as a steep learning curve. 

The black one is Pirate, one of his eyes must have gotten scratched so it was closed when we first got him, but it's getting better already.

The grey one is Bolt, because the marking on his face and nose made me think of a lightening bolt. Unfortunately the first grey one we got was too curious 😥

The video below is Hazel's first time seeing the kittens, so far she likes them, is excited to go see them and handles them pretty well. Though she has learned a few times that their claws are pretty sharp so she is starting to get a bit leery. 

Today I got the very amazing experience of seeing a moose quite up close! It was a bit scary at first, but once it kept walking on it was sooo amazing! I was walking to the wood shed to get some firewood, I thought I heard something, but I excused it as my footsteps echo or something, but once I got to the woodshed I saw something moving through the gaps in the wood. Suddenly nervous I grabbed Hazel and looked up to see a moose (I think a yearling) standing by my maple tree! We stared at each other for a while and then the moose moved on and walked over the fence! 😅 My phone was in the house so I don't have any pictures to share, but it was quite the experience!!!!