Visiting Cousins

My sister and her family are moving back to Boise from Sandpoint, ID.  Hazel and I flew up to help babysit for a few days while my sister and her husband flew down to Boise to look for a house to rent.  The weather was still really cold up there, so we were in the house most of the time, but one day we went out and took some pictures.  

I didn't bring a rain jacket or boots for Hazel, and all of her pants happened to be dirty when they wanted to go outside.  Luckily they had extra boots and a jacket, and they put some of John's sweatpants on her. As crazy as her outfit looks, she had a good time with the kids.  Hazel loved having four playmates all the time, even though they were all older than her.  Now that they are moving closer, we can hopefully see them a lot more often! 

Bishop Family Photos

My friend, Tabitha, asked me to take her family's photos, because they were coming into town from California for a wedding.  I've only taken pictures of little kids, so posing a large group was new to me.  It's was kind of an ugly time, because everything was brown, so we decided to go to downtown Provo for the pictures.  I had a fun time, and I think the pictures turned out well.  Here are a few from the shoot.

Valentine's Day

Hazel loves to dress up, especially in her pink pettiskirt.  She puts it on everyday over her regular clothes.  I love girly outfits and bows, so it's great we're having another baby girl.  My due date is July 26th, and we're super excited!

The Photographer

Brendan used his headlamp the other night for something and left it out, and Hazel got a hold of it.  I just thought she liked it because she knew it was a light.  Today I found her with it again around her neck.  I was reading a book not really paying attention and looked over to see her lay down her doll and act like she was taking a picture of it.  She even pressed the button on the top and made a noise.  It's funny to see what she comes up with everyday.  

Hazel's Dance Moves

Hazel likes to dance, but she also loves to look at herself in the mirror.  We have photo booth on our computer where she can see herself as it films, and she loves it.  I couldn't stop laughing on the first video because it looks like she is trying to follow a workout video or something with her arms.  I like in the second video how she starts to twirl but doesn't want to stop looking at herself.  The chair she is on is a spinning chair so she has to try and keep her balance too.  You probably won't think these are as funny as I did, but that's probably because she's my child.

Favorite Toy

For Christmas, we had a custom built kitchen made for Hazel.  I had seen this cute kitchen on a blog and loved it.  It had do-it-yourself instructions, so Brendan and I were going to build it ourselves.  We kind of ran out of time, and Brendan's dad suggested we have their cabinet builder build it.  It was nice because we  just showed him a few pictures of how we wanted it to look and gave him our own dimensions.  I wanted it be a little taller than most kitchens, so older kids could use it too.  Brendan painted it, and we put the handles, knobs, sink, faucet, and burners on ourselves.  I finally got around to sewing the curtain and hand towel this past week.  I received a sewing machine for Christmas, and this was my first project.  I liked how this kitchen had rounded edges and shelves on the end, and I liked the color and knobs of this kitchen from Blue Eyed Yonder who makes and sells them in her etsy shop.  If you go to this site you can see lots of other cute kitchens.

Hazel plays with this all day long.  It's funny to see her mimic me.  I watched her pretend to wash her hands in the sink and then dry her hands off.  Instead of using the hand towel, she just wipes them on the curtain.  Just today I saw her sticking her play food and pans in the oven and shutting the door and then she would sit and watch the food through the glass.  It's funny because that's what Brendan usually does with her when we put something like cookies in the oven.  They will sit with the oven light on and watch them bake.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few weeks ago I was looking for a new chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I found this recipe on a blog.  I love how big they are, and they are soft and chewy.  The recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips, but I only put in 1 1/2 cups and that is plenty.  This last time I made them I didn't have any semi sweet chocolate chips, so I used extra dark 63% cacao and they are delicious if you love chocolate.  Try them out!

Just for Fun

For Christmas Brendan bought me some new photography stuff that I finally tried out.  I mainly like to use natural light, but there isn't much sunlight these days, so Brendan bought me some supplemental lights to use with natural light.  We started a little late and didn't have much natural light at all, so not much turned out, butI Hazel still looked cute!

Snow Fun

A few days after Christmas, we headed up the canyon with Brendan's family to stay at their cabin for a few days.  There wasn't very much snow the first day, but when we woke up the next morning it was a winter wonderland.  We had fun sledding and snowmobiling with Hazel.

New Callings

Brendan and I finished out our calling on the activities committee with our ward Christmas party.  We had a nice catered dinner with some entertainment, and Santa even showed up.  We did have a few problems with the food being late, and some stereo equipment breaking, but it turned out well in the end.

Brendan has been an Elder's Quorum teacher for a while, but he was just given a second calling as the 11 year old scout leader.  My new calling is gospel doctrine teacher.  Talk about stressful, especially when I have religion professors in my ward.  We have two gospel doctrine classes and some of the other teachers include a professor and temple sealer, a former stake president, and the Bishop's wife who is a lawyer and gives very good lessons.  Hopefully I can measure up.