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!!!!

Spring, Slides and Sunshine!

It's been a busy month with traveling,  house/kid sitting and guests so spring came up quite suddenly! I got early spring and conveniently missed the last winter cold snap in PG with my trip down to the valley in March. We came home to lots of snow, but clear blue sky's and mid day temperatures around 7 degrees which was quite enjoyable weather to come home too! 

With all the sunshine our deck started thawing out and is a wonderful spot to hang out and soak up the sun! Knowing that it will still be a while till the snow is gone and we can play nicely in the lawn, we got a little play set for Hazel that can be on the deck for a bit. 

It felt so good to get the deck clean and set up! Hazel has loved the play set so far and it has been soooo nice to watch her learn, play, climb and slide! 

This video captured so much! Hazel's play time on the slide and Hazel and Nova playing nicely together. Nova is really coming around and its so good to see her being so gentle with Hazel. Hazel even tried using Nova as a chair once 😂and Nova just got up a walked away! 

Hazel also got new favorite inside toy(s), "blub blubs" aka Fish 🐠. The new inside and outside toys have been a very good distraction from the "missing" extended family and busyness that she got use to over the last three weeks. 

It been quite neat going along with her love of fish, we have coloured fish, watched fish videos, cut out paper fish to play with, and the fascination still hasn't faded! After we picked the fish up from the toy store she got to play with them on the way home and happily sang a "blub blub" song the whole way, which Jared and I both thoroughly enjoyed. By the time we got home Hazel had picked out a daddy fish (the black and yellow one with blue strips), a mommy fish (the orange and yellow one with black strips) and her favorite (the bright green one); so far Mommy and Daddy have always been given to same ones 😁. 

I must say that we have both really been enjoying Hazel the last few days, but that also means that I have been taking less pictures and videos and just enjoying the moment. 

A Snowy Sunday

 Such a nice smooth blanket of snow! This was our second good dump of snow in a week or so, I know it doesn't look deep from here, but when we went for a walk in the afternoon it was thigh to waist deep. 

Not much left of the fence! 😅

I so love the snow on all the trees! It took quite a bit of effort to make a new path as all that was left of our trail was a little half foot indent. Thankfully the snow was not as deep in the forested area as in our open back yard, so the going was a little easier. 

We have gotten into the nice habit of hanging out in a little clearing at the back of the property for a bit as it ends up being the middle of our walk, Hazel loves to come out and attempt to make and throw snowballs and Jared keeps Nova running through all the trees with whatever snow or snowballs he can make up. 

Looked up at the sky to see it was beautifully framed by snowy evergreens. 💜

Hazel wasn't ready to go inside by the time we got back, so we hung out and played on the driveway for a bit so she could actually walk around in snow. 

Hazel loves snow! Especially when it's not too cold and windy. For perspective we were somewhere around -9 today.

(Video Below)

According to Jared snow makes a great lawn chair!

Spent the evening cutting, gluing and recutting out the letters that the kids had all colored for the banner of our Easter Concert theme. Really enjoyed having a simple project to keep me busy and trying to think of other simple projects like this that I could do.