Birthday tradition

One of our family's birthday traditions is to have relighting candles on your birthday cake. So this is me trying to keep up with the relighting candles. I think that Nate didn't even start filming until half way through blowing them out.

Also, Nate bought me the best birthday cake. It was a yellow cake with very chocolatey frosting from a bakery downtown called "The Sweetish Bakery". Very yummy!!!

Go West!

Aspen's 5th grade presented a musical called "Go West". It is the story of the westward expansion of America. Aspen was a pioneer woman and had 2 speaking parts. I know it looks like she isn't having fun, but she was just hot under the lights I think. She talked about this for 3 weeks. She did a great job.

Missing the beach

Fun with Legos

Was showing Isaac some Escher drawings online, and ran across this. Totally awesome.

http://www.gravestmor.com/wp/archives/2005/12/12/lego-escher/

I gotta go

While we were at the beach last week, Hazel suddenly decided to figure out potty training. She would announce that she had to go at the most inopportune times and in places that had no facilities (like the beach, or in the car). And then she really wanted to wear underwear. So we encouraged her as much as possible and she is doing pretty good, except when there is something better to do like watch a movie or play in the sand. But, for the most part, this has been a pretty easy process. She's even dry during naps and at night! I still have half a bag of diapers. I guess I'll be donating those to someone! I'm convinced that waiting until 3 or later makes it easier to potty train. Otherwise, I'm the one who is trained.

Anway, here's to an extra $60 a month in my budget!!!

Cake

Hazel had a great birthday. This year I couldn't think what to get her (as the youngest of 4 I think we already have every toy she could ever want!), so I just took her to ToysRUs and let her pick her own. And she picked great things: Toy food that doubles as learning numbers (cookies to count), colors (ice cream scoops), and fractions (pizza slices)! In only 5 minutes at the store! She enjoyed playing with the toy food she chose (as did the other kids when they saw it). But she never got around to a nap and halfway through dinner she was nearly asleep in my lap. So we brought out the cake to wake her up. (That's why she looks a bit unimpressed in the first picture.) But a little sugar in her system woke her right up and she thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the party...until the sugar crash and overtiredness hit and then she fell apart. But she fell right to sleep as soon as she quit crying. I think she had a good birthday overall.

Always Be My Baby

Today Hazel is 3. I can't believe how fast 3 years has gone by. We started this blog when she was born. Her entire life has been blogged! Hazel is my baby and always will be. She goes with me everywhere and I feel like she is growing up way too fast. I guess that happens when the next siblings are 6, 8 and 10 years older. She's got to keep up. But she will always be my baby.

One day old
One year old 2 years old

Last week, just before three years.