Happy Birthday Hazel! Happy Birthday Eliza!

Happy 4th Birthday Hazel!

Happy 2nd Birthday Eliza! 

Hazel and Eliza celebrated their birthdays last Monday. I cannot believe they're getting so old!! For their party the girls agreed upon a "Fancy Nancy Birthday Dress-Up" theme. Okay, I may have pushed them a bit to the idea because A)we had a princess tea party last year, and B) I love that Fancy Nancy's style doesn't involve any matching or planning - just grabbing every fancy thing in the house and throwing it all together. Just what the pregnant, tired mamma needed! But really they were very excited about it!

We had family and a few friends over to the house for cake and some snacks, played outside, opened gifts, and had a blast.

Hazel's one request for the party - a Fancy Nancy club house. Thanks Daddy for making one!

Olivia, Miles, Eliza, and Hazel. Sadly Thomas and James got sick and couldn't make it. 

Present time! So I had decided months ago I wanted to make the girls dress ups for their birthday. They live in them about half the day and the costume ones are so poorly made all our dress ups are just falling apart. So I got ambitious and sewed each of them two dresses. It was a lot of work but I'm so pleased with how they turned out! 

Cinderella and Aurora for Hazel. 

Minnie Mouse and Rapunzel for Eliza. 

Hazel was thrilled when she opened hers! The one thing she told us she wanted was a new Cinderella dress. She also got a Cinderella doll to go with it.

Eliza saw hers and immediately had to try them on. She was literally out of her other dress before we could stop her! She loves them! 

Another huge hit was these crocheted crowns from my cousin's wife Megan. She had an AMAZING talent. Every year she makes hand makes the girls something and every year they LOVE it!

Eliza LOVED her stroller from Mom and Dad and her Barbie from Gram Holly (my mom's twin sister). She sleeps with the Barbie and if the crown falls off she's saying "Where my Ba-bee cow-en!"

We ended the party with yummy cake. The girls went back and forth so many times over what they wanted on their cakes. Shockingly Hazel didn't end up with a princess cake! 

Hazel's Butterfly Cake.

Eliza's Princess Cake. 

The party was a definite success - a simple, sweet celebration that our two leading ladies loved. What I thought was so cute was how for now they love sharing a birthday. To them, having a birthday with your sister is the best thing ever. We'll see how long it lasts.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, smart, sweet girls! 

You may have heard...

This picture made it's way on to Facebook a few weeks ago, but I'm just now getting it up on the blog. Baby number 3 will join our family in January! We are excited to welcome another sweet little one in to our home. Hazel is really looking forward to the baby. She pats my tummy and give it kisses all the time. She has even told me that she is going to practice being a big sister. "I was one with Eliza, but it's been a long time so I need to practice." I love how excited she is for the baby. Eliza is pretty much indifferent to the whole thing. Or she's in denial that she'll no longer be the baby!

I started noticing my belly growing much earlier this time around. I was seriously convinced I was having twins! But the first ultrasound confirms there is only one baby - whew! Speaking of twins, I have the craziest dreams while I'm pregnant but I must share one that tops them all. I dreamed that it was twins and they ended up being a few weeks early. Baby A was born on December 31st and Baby B was born January 1st.  So we had Hazel and Eliza with the same birthday and twins with not only different birthdays but born in different years!! Because it was such a cool story we were on the Today show!  I woke up so excited because I've always secretly wanted to be on the today show. Haha! Like I said CRAZY dreams.

Things have been going as smoothly as can be expected in the first trimester. Thankfully I don't get sick (though I've been much more nauseous with this one than the girls) but I am so tired I don't get much done. With the girls I would sleep like 10 hours a night and be fine during the day, but with this one I've had a hard time sleeping so I've been really lethargic and had a "foggy" brain all the time. Can't wait until I have the energy to do more than bare minimum cleaning! Whether it's from lack of sleep or just a different symptom I've also been a lot more moody this time around. Maybe it's a boy? Regardless, we're excited!

Six Years!

Yesterday we had a wonderful, relaxing day in celebration of our six year anniversary. My parents took the girls for us and we enjoyed: breakfast, a hike to the Y, the temple, a late lunch, shopping with my birthday gift cards, and then a relaxing movie at home. My parent agreed to take the girls on the condition that they got to sleep over and go to church with them (Sure!). So I also got to enjoy sleeping until 8:30 this morning and an uninterrupted block of church. It was a perfect weekend! 

I'm so blessed to be married to this man! He really is a great one! 

Potty Trained (Well Mostly)...

Eliza is mostly potty trained and has been for almost a month now! I'm so proud of her for learning at not quite two! It all started when Hazel was so excited about the Princess panties the Easter bunny brought her. Eliza of course wants to be exactly like Hazel and so she wanted panties too. Well we gave it a try and she just wasn't ready. A few weeks later she was begging for panties again so we tried again. This time she would just hold it and hold it forever. So we put it on hold again. Repeat this step one more time a few weeks later.

At that point we were done and just decided she's have to wait until the end of the summer or so. Until one day she woke up insisting that she wear panties. I told her she had to pee in the potty and if she did she could have them. Wouldn't you know it, she walked right in the bathroom and went! From there she's been pretty much trained!

She still struggles with number two (which is why I say mostly trained) and can't sleep for even a short amount of time without accidents. But still we're thrilled with our big girl. It's almost bitter sweet because now she really doesn't have any baby left in her. Way to go big girl Eliza! We're proud of you!

Backyard Camping

There was one summer when I was about 8 or 9 where I slept in the backyard with my sweet dog Layla almost every night. I have the best memories of backyard camping.

So for our first camping adventure of the summer we set up the tent in the backyard. The girls were so excited and LOVED it! Of course camping soon turned in to them playing princesses with the tent as their castle. That's pretty much the norm around here though.

What camping trip is complete without smores? I love how Hazel managed to get them all over her face.

Here they are right before bed. It took them FOREVER to fall asleep. It wasn't until I actually took Eliza inside and put her in her crib for a few minutes then brought her back out that they finally calmed down. But the fun memories were worth the less than great night of sleep.

One last thing - notice Hazel's cute haircut? She asked me to cut it so she wouldn't look like Rapunzel because that's NOT her favorite princess. I think it suits her and it must feel great for summer!

The Zoo with Cristy!

While we lived in Colorado our dear friend Cristy used to take Hazel to the zoo. They went probably 3 or 4 times in the months after Eliza was born. Not only was it a huge help to me but Hazel loved every minute of it. She still talks about how she wants to go to the zoo with Cristy.

Well last week that's exactly what we did. Cristy was in town babysitting her sweet grandson Porter for the week so we packed up the three kids and spent the morning at the zoo. It was Eliza's first time.

All three kiddos ready to go!

Hazel's favorite - the giraffes!

"Cheese!"

Eliza's favorite - the elephants!

It was such a great day! I didn't get any picture of us with Cristy though. Thanks Cristy for joining us at the zoo. For Hazel the zoo will never be the same without Cristy!

Amber and Michael's Wedding

In our family there are a lot of Michaels. I have two uncle Mikes, my cousin is married to a Michael and then there is mine Michael. Well my other cousin Amber married another Michael last month in the Oquirrah Mountain temple. Between my mom and her twin sister they have 4 daughters - 3 of the 4 are married to men named Michael! Welcome to the family Michael Saint-Laurent!

The sealing was beautiful. I always love attending living sealings and seeing the joy in the eyes of everyone in the room. It was also a very special day for our family because it was the first time all 5 of us were in the temple together since we were sealed.

Eliza was being such a sunggler that day and was loving having her picture taken...

She looks so big in this picture!

Hazel on the other hand was having too much fun socializing with all the family and didn't want to take the time for pictures.

The girls with "the aunties" minus Holly and Lindy

My cute parents!

My Greatest Blessings

Yesterday I'm spent Mother's Day home from church with a sick little Eliza. I barely got to sit down to eat dinner because she was so upset and walked to go on a walk. And yet there is nothing I would rather be doing. I love my girls and I feel so blessed to be a mom. Here's some of what the two cuties are up to theses days...

Eliza grows up so much every day. She's strong willed just like Hazel and it shows through in how she plays. Currently she is obsessed with the chicken leg and ice cream cone from the play food. Why those two? I have no idea. But she loves them and wants to carry them everywhere. If they drop or get misplaced she says things like "Drop it my i-ceeam!" or "My chick-ee my chick-ee!" She loves them!

One chicken for each hand!

Eliza and I have a fun game right now. She will say "no" then just smile at me. I say "yes" and she answer back with a longer, louder "no!". We go back and forth. Sometime she throws in a "noooooooooooooooo!" After a while we switch to nodding, then to sign, then back to talking. Haha I probably shouldn't encourage this behavior but it is so stinking sweet!

Rockin' it! (with the ice cream of course)

Tonight I caught Eliza standing on the decorative cut-out at the end of her crib, gripping with her toes and not holding on. To add to the stunt she signed "monkey" and said "oo-oo-ah-ah!" I told Michael we seriously need to start looking for a bunk bed so we can move her out of the crib. Climbing is not her only night craziness, she has taken to stripping off her pajamas and often her diaper. One night she had me in tears of laughter when I walked in to find she had taken off her pants and diaper then put on the tutu from her teddy bear. Such a cute little stinker!

Then there's Hazel. Lately everything in our house turns in to a game of mommy and baby. Often she will be the mommy. At first I was the grandma and Eliza the baby but I refused to play this way:) So now I'm the big sister. She walks around all day calling me "honey". She cooks us soup (water in a cup), kisses boo-boos and puts the baby to sleep (aka puts Eliza in a laundry basket and covers her with a blanket). When she mommy to me and Eliza she's playing mommy in some form - the monkey mommy, the mermaid mommy, mommy to Rafi, etc.

Modeling for grandpa. 

A few weeks ago her Sunbeams teacher came up to me after church to tell me about what she said during the lesson. They were learning about animals and how Heavenly Father made animals to help give us food. She was asking them things like "Where do eggs come from? Right chickens! And where does milk come from? Cows that's right. Does anyone know where hamburgers come from?" At this point Hazel blurted out "In-n-Out!" Of course she made her daddy so proud with that one!

My favorite Hazel sayings lately include: "Primary was awful today!" (she didn't get to sit next to her friend Thomas - such a sad day), "I'm going to learn to wear pants today. (Five minutes later) See I did it, I wore pants!"

"See I did it!"

I love these girls! What a wonderful gift it is to be a mother. It's hard and exhausting and tons of work. But it's such a wonderful gift!