Morro Bay 2012

 If you had peeked into my Freshman apartment at BYU back in 2000, you never would have thought that my roommate Emily and I would ever be friends.  I don't think we started to get along until March!  But those last two months of the year were a serious bonding blitz for our apartment that left me with plenty of wonderful memories and several dear-to-my-heart friends I'm still in touch with. 

When Emily moved to Southern California a few months ago, we planned a meet-in-the-middle weekend.  We joined up in beautiful Morro Bay with our husbands and kids this past weekend.

Honestly, the part I was most excited for was the Hazel/Amaryllis merge.  Both girls have massive imaginations and I had a feeling they would be fast friends.  (They were giggling together within 30 seconds.)

 (Amaryllis kissing Hazel out of a sleeping spell)

We stayed at a gorgeous, big house so we'd have room to hang out after the kids went to bed.  I'm still reeling from all the space - how do I survive in 1200 square feet?  It was lovely to spread out.  Jack was head over heels for the balcony.  He spent mounds of time out there pointing at the boats. 

We strolled the main drag, peeking into shops and sampling delicious pastries from the bakery, visited the teensy aquarium, and played at the local playground.  Emily took this photo.  I love Morro Rock in the background, and sweetie Jack pointing at something that interested him. 

 After naps we spent the afternoon at Spooner's Cove, climbing big rocks, collecting medium-sized rocks, and throwing little rocks in the water.  

 

Jake (Emily's husband) and Todd took Hazel up to the top of this enormous rock at the beach.  Todd said she was right on the edge of the cliff until she got sprayed by sea foam.  That girl is just about fearless.

 I love this family photo! 

 The next day we attended what may be THE LAMEST parade I have ever attended.  I am really bummed that we spent our time on it, actually, because we ended up not having time to check out the kite festival that was going on and I bet it was really cool.  But, maybe not?  Judging from the parade, maybe I was crediting this little town able to put on more of a party than it could.  (I'm telling myself that to try not to feel bad we missed it.)

The highlight of the day was throwing everyone into canoes to play on the water a bit. 

 

We were able to get up close and personal with these bad boys.  They spend all day sunning in the middle of the bay.  They barked a bit at us, but when a handful of sailboats went past, they all arched up as tall as they could get and really made a ruckus.  It was awesome.  

We took our canoes across the bay and played for a while in the sand dunes.  There was a fairly tall drop-off, maybe eight feet or so, and first thing when we got there, Todd said, "Hazel, you should run and jump," and off she went, not a seconds' hesitation.  Slam, into the sand halfway down, and she ran the rest of the way, balance intact.  I am so impressed with her courage.  (Surprised, no.  Todd is quite a daredevil himself, after all.  But definitely impressed.) 

Emily took this photo as well.  She's got a gift for photography.  Check her out here. 

 After canoeing, we snagged some lunch, then it was check-out time at the house and up we packed into the car for the drive home.  We had a great time. 

Hazel Achieved a Big Goal

 Hazel responds very well to rewards and sticker charts, so a couple of months ago, we whipped one up to help her stop sucking her thumb.  She has been busting her tail trying to kick her bad habit and has been very on-board with the whole process.  This weekend, she placed her final sticker on the chart and earned her grand finale reward.  We are very proud of her!  (This doesn't mean she never sucks her thumb, though, just that her chart is full, so don't judge if you see it pop in.  We still let her suck her thumb when she's in bed, and she has a hard time keeping it out when she's stressed or really tired.) 

If she lasted from morning to lunch without sucking her thumb, she could put a sticker on the chart.  If she lasted from lunch to bedtime, she earned another sticker.  Each time she completed a row of 10, she got a treat of her choice (a sucker or M&Ms).  And once the chart was full, we could go to the bakery at the grocery store and order a fancy cake.  This was a big deal to her, because she's long admired the cakes on display and always wants to look at them when we shop there.  (They have princess cakes, Tinkerbell, SpongeBob, Dora, etc. all in a display case and a book full of other options to glance through, too.) 

So on Friday we went to Lucky's and placed our order.  She turned page after page in the book until she came to the super-pink Barbie cake, and then was very definite that that was the one she wanted.  It was a very loooong, hard wait til Monday when the cake was ready to be picked up. 

We got it at lunchtime on Monday.  Everyone at the store asked if it was her birthday, and Hazel very proudly explained that it was for not sucking her thumb, and that she filled up her entire sticker chart, and that we were going to have cake for Family Home Evening treat!!!  Then she spent the whole afternoon admiring the cake and counting down the hours.  She gave me an enormous hug and when I kissed her on the cheek, she turned my face toward hers, straight on, and gave me a loooooong smooch on the lips!  Then she said, "I am in love with you, Mommy.  I want to marry you."  She was that happy! 

We had some friends over to share the cake with us Monday night, and when that didn't finish off even half of the cake, I decided to take it to the park the next day.  The moms with young children in my church congregation meet at a different area park every Tuesday morning, and today just happened to be the park next to us, so it was super easy to bring the cake over and tell everyone to eat up!  They finished it off, but the best part was all the additional acknowledgment Hazel received for her hard work.  She was bursting with pride from all the attention, and I'm hoping that'll hold her over and help her stick to her guns now that the reward chart is full. 

Santa Cruz Sillies

Todd and I had a great date night on Saturday. We drove down to Santa Cruz for dinner to check out a fun restaurant Todd heard about from a coworker. It's called Bocce's Cellar and has an actual bocce ball court for you to play on while you eat. Todd even looked up the official rules and made us play by them. We've got a bocce set and love to play with it at the park, but it was a whole different ball game on the court! Todd kicked my trash. (Surprise, surprise.)

I've been needing a swim skirt and thought we might find one there, since it's a beach town and all, so we headed into downtown to peek into a few stores. As we were looking for a place to park, we spotted quite a gem strolling down the lane. I kinda panicked about getting a picture, chasing her down from the opposite side of the street. I was so afraid she'd get away. But fear not - here she is!What in the world? I know, right? And then, bam, right after that, here comes this lady, long dreadlocks, pushing her dog in a bike stroller:And then across the street, there was this band playing music, so we stopped to listen and it turned into this massive people-watching expedition. (They're playing marimbas from Zimbabwee. It was a visual and an auditory feast. You should have seen the dancing in the crowd!)I kept my phone poised and ready and stole snapshots on the sly every couple of minutes. Santa Cruz is a landmine.

Baggy purple pants and purple hat to match:
Lovely white socks peeking out of the shoes. (And she was a great dancer, too.)
If only I could pull this one off. It looks so comfy:
Amazing mohawk, tight cut-off jean shorts, leather jacket. Welcome back, 1986!
I don't even know where to begin:
All of a sudden this monstrosity comes barreling down the street, and Todd was totally like, "Ang, run out there and get a good picture!" so I totally did. And what I saw made me laugh so hard I cried. Truly.
The guy driving this thing had muppets or stuffed animals or something sitting right up in the front of the truck with him. And they were dancing to the music!
Such as fun, fun date. PS I got bangs. The jury's still out on them. I think they look cute when my hair's pulled back, but not when it's all down, and they're hard to get used to, having the hair in my face and all.

Easter

Easter was super low-key this year. It was Saturday afternoon before we thought to color eggs. I didn't make a special holiday dinner. We went to our ward's egg hunt at a mini-golf course and that's all the egg hunting we did - no hidden baskets at home. Kind of sad. But I was working really hard to teach Hazel about the Jesus aspects of Easter and didn't feel like distracting her with the rest of it all. Maybe next year we'll get back into the fun of it all. We made Resurrection Rolls for breakfast on Sunday and I loved how as Hazel helped me make them, she was tangibly thinking about Jesus' body going in the tomb, and then no longer being there. I do think we were successful in having a spiritual Easter.

Hazel's first time mini-golfing. It was pretty awkward.

Cutie-pie Jack

Music Jack, Music Jack, Humming in the Water

I have suspected for a long time that Jack is musical. As a chubber, he'd kick his foot along with the beat of whatever music was playing. When he could sit up, he'd play drums and actually sound like he had some timing going on. He fell seriously in love with my mom's piano when we were there at Christmas time. He leads the music at church. But what he did today really cinched it - the kid's got talent.

Jack, Hazel and I were sitting around the table eating lunch. Between bites, Hazel and I were singing different variations of "Slippery Fish," such as,
"Ham sandwich
Ham sandwich
Chewing in the water.

Ham sandwich
Ham sandwich
Chewing in the water.

Gulp, gulp.
Oh no!
It's been eaten by a....

Sip of milk
Sip of milk
Drinking in the water..."

Yes, very clever, I know. We're silly like that. It went on for a while. (Side note: Somehow Hazel didn't really manage to eat much. Hmm...)

And here's the cool part. Jack was humming the first three notes! ON KEY!!! He did it every time we sang them. He did it again 15 minutes later when I was laying him down for a nap and was totally not singing that to him anymore. What the genius?

Is he too young for piano lessons? ;) Seriously though, I'm pretty excited but I don't know what to do with it because I'm kind of run-of-the-mill musically myself. But something must be done. Because the talent definitely is there.

The Parts of My Life I Take Pictures Of

I just downloaded a whole slew of photos from my fabulous new iPhone and realized I have lots of blog fodder and not much time. Here's a quick sampling of the Bonner household as of late:

Jack's a one-napper now, so we've got plenty of time to run errands and play outside. It is heavenly! Every time we're in the garage Jack begs for his (Hazel's old) bike, so I try to let him have some time on it almost every day. Hazel's happy to ride up and down our road on her balance bike while Jack manages to travel only a dozen feet or so, and then when Hazel's ready to really move, I pop Jack in the stroller and we head over to one of the handful of parks nearby.


A couple weekends ago Todd was home on a Saturday for the first time in weeks (between drill, scout camp, and being on call at work he's been gone a lot). We kicked off the day at the local farmer's market, listening to live music and snagging some fresh fish to bake for dinner. Then we went to the library for a while and noticed something was going on out on the green behind the library. After we snagged some books, we went over to investigate. It was an Arbor Day celebration, complete with face painting, lawn games, and free hot dogs. Hazel made a pine cone bird feeder and Jack happily spun in circles, dancing to the live music. The next day was a perfect Sunday. We had church in the morning, took naps when we got home, had our home teachers over for a visit, made cookies, and ended the day with a hike up at Rancho San Antonio. Welcome back, Daylight Savings Time! I love you!!!


Hazel's gymnastics class ended and she's now trying out Princess Pre-Ballet. She is thrilled to wear her leotard and see her bff Nova in class. It's been nice to see her branch out in her dance moves to more than just spinning in circles. (At least, she holds her arms over her head now!) I'm not sure ballet is her true calling - gymnastics was a more natural fit to her interests. But I'm excited to have her try a bunch of different classes out before we try to specialize in anything. I'm planning on soccer and swimming for the summer...
Todd's parents gave us an enormous movie-theater popcorn popper for Christmas. We finally broke that huge beast out of its box on Friday and had a movie and popcorn party before we put the kids to bed. It was fun and made our house smell like a theater for sure, but it couldn't touch the flavor of Todd's Amish blue stove-top popcorn. Only time will tell how often we actually use the thing. I think we're popcorn snobs.
Hazel has completely dropped her nap and we have successfully transitioned to a quiet time that lasts one and a half to two hours during Jack's nap. She hangs out on my bed and I give her a few different activities to play with each day. She always gets a few books to look at, and a few other things to spend her time on, like Mr. Potato Head, a clipboard of blank paper and some crayons, magnetic dress-up dolls, pasta stringing... I've been scouring Pinterest looking for more ideas to keep it fresh so she continues to enjoy it. It has amazed me how much more rested she is after quiet time than when she just plays all day without a break. She has done a fantastic job of not melting down during the pre-dinner hour like she was before when she'd not nap. Hallelujah! (It's quiet time right now. Hazel's singing to herself, and just broke out of song to shout "Off with her head!" twice. She is always playing make-believe. Constantly.)

What do your preschoolers like to play with quietly and independently?

Kid Update

Hazel has a fascination with words. Her ears are magnets for new vocabulary and fun phrases. She's already a major chatterbox, and then how she throws in all sorts of unexpected words is just too funny.

One night at dinner, Hazel saw that I was almost finished eating and said, "Dude, you are goin' to town!"

Earlier that day, she had asked me to put a bunch of clips in her hair, and after the fourth or fifth one, she started calling out, "We are really goin' to town here!" "Why are we goin' to town on my hair?" "Woah, we are totally goin' to town with these clips!"

Every morning before Todd leaves for work, we all say, "Cheerio!" I tried to change it to "adios" or something else one day, and Hazel insisted that Todd not leave until I had said "cheerio."

One day we were at the park and she was pretending a section of trees were some dark woods. She said, "It's a little scary. Come with me and comfort me."

The other day she wanted some privacy in the bathroom, and as I took my leave, she insisted that I "leave the door open just a smidge."

She loves words like terrible, mischief, nibble, and fascinating. I notice her speaking in terms she heard in Berenstein Bears books, like "Dear me, no!' and starting sentences with "Say." I just think it's the most adorable thing ever.

In other Hazel news, she has been taking a gymnastics class and is a super star at spider walks (precurser to handstands), bear walking, and forward rolls. Her favorite part of class is jumping on the trampoline. The class is a good outlet for her energy and channels her impressive strength and balance. She talks non-stop through the whole thing, and the teachers are constantly calling her name to get her to remember to keep moving (as the line of kids waiting behind her backs up!) She's a bit of a daydreamer, turns out. We went to Happy Hollow a week ago (a local amusement park/zoo for little kids) and we saw that Hazel's just barely tall enough to ride the roller coaster all by herself. She wanted to give it a go, and I was thrilled, since that would mean she could ride it when we don't go with a friend who can watch Jack while I ride with her. I was so proud of her. She felt so big and excited and she totally held her arms in the air as it climbed its first hill. Maybe we desensitized her at Disneyland??? Whatever the reason, she was totally brave and LOVED going on her own. Make the picture bigger so you can see the fantastic look on her face!Jack got his first haircut today. Crazy that he and Hazel got their first haircuts within months of each other. He was hitting the point where his hair looked more feminine and/or rockstar mullet than I would like. So I got out the buzzers and popped a no. 8 on. That's all there was to it. Super easy.

Before:After:

Jack's turning into a bit of a menace. He doesn't really choke anymore, but he still sticks non-food items in his mouth all the time. Then he'll walk towards me, already shaking his head and saying, "uh, uh," as he spits said item out. He waits until I'm watching before dropping food onto the floor when he's in his highchair. Again with the "uh, uh."

If the bathroom door is open, he makes a beeline for the toilet every time. And today's unfortunate accomplishment is that he figured out how to lift both bathroom's toilet lids. Yes, he likes to go fishing. It's going to be harder to manage this bad habit now that he can lift the lid. I hate hearing the lid open, followed by his happy swish, swish. He loves it so much. It's so disgusting.

Jack's started to love having books read to him. He'll grab one out of the book basket, carry it over to me, and climb right onto my lap. He rarely makes it through til the end of the book (even board books) but I'm happy that he's beginning to love books and reading. His current absolute favorite toy is a quart-size ziplock bag of Littlest Pet Shop pieces. He brings it to me several times a day so I can open the bag and he can get all the pieces out. Yesterday I had to put all the smallest pieces inside a snack-size bag inside the big bag because I got tired of taking them out of his mouth. He loves the little animals. When I hold up the cat, he leans in for three or four kisses.

Disneyland

We went to Disneyland last week with Todd's sister Missy's family and his parents. Todd hadn't been since he was a teen, and it was my very first time ever. There is far too much I could say about it, which is why I've been home for five days and still haven't posted. It's highlights today, or nothing, so here goes.

Loved:

* the characters! There were plenty of them around, and we usually didn't have to wait long in line to meet them. I swear Hazel thought they were the real deal. Her hugs for them all were so sincere. We met Tigger and Winnie the Pooh, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Tinkerbell, Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother, Aladdin and Jasmine, Rapunzel, Ariel, Aurora, Mulon, and Belle. We bumped into Cinderella four different times! * the parade our last night. We got a great character sweep, seeing everyone we hadn't found already, so Hazel walked away satisfied that she'd also seen Peter Pan and Captain Hook, Tiana, and Snow White. I don't think she would have felt complete otherwise, as she'd been "keeping her eyes peeled" for those guys the whole time we were there.

*Tower of Terror. Nothing like free-falling twenty stories or whatever it was. Got my heart pounding. It was probably the only ride that gave me a rush. Poor Hazel. I think she was too young for that. She was sitting next to me. There I was, body off the seat, before I realized Hazel was totally mid-air as well, and probably freaked out. But I loved it!*Autopia, Go Go Gadget Coaster, Ariel's Undersea Adventure, Silly Swings, Peter Pan's Flight, Dumbo - those were probably Hazel's favorite rides.

*spending time with family. Hazel and Jack both seemed totally happy to be with everyone we came with. I feel like we really strengthened bonds and made memories with them, and we had a ton more fun than we would have if we had gone alone.* pineapple soft-serve ice cream outside the Tiki Room. Delish!

* the Hotel Disney swimming pool we played at our last morning before driving home. We found out Hazel and Jack both love water slides!

Unimpressed by:

* most of the rides. I suppose I had this idea that Disneyland is the end-all for amusement parks, but most of the rides were just eh. Lots of sitting and looking at recreated movie scenes. The perfect customer would be six years old and familiar with every movie featured on the rides.
Hated:

* the noise! All the rides were way too loud, and there was music being piped in throughout the entire park, so there was nowhere to go to have some peace and quiet. I got a migraine. :(

* the crowds! It was serious low-season and I was still feeling claustrophobia. There were way too many people there. And it boggled my mind how we'd get on rides with no line, but we had to walk for five minutes from the entrance to the actual ride just getting through space dedicated to ride lines! Mark my words, I will NEVER go in the summer!Overall, I don't think you'll ever be able to classify me and Todd as major Disneyland fans, but it was a blast and everyone had a good time. We're glad we went, if only to give Hazel a place where she could wear her dress-ups all day long and fit right in!

Yarn Wreath

I've had the hardest time finding some way I like to dress up this yarn wreath I started. I was just playing around with it a couple of days ago and made it up into a Valentine's Day wreath with a boa of Hazel's and some scrapbook paper. So that'll dress up the door for a couple of weeks, but after that, it's back to the drawing board. It might wind up under my bed. We'll see.
Also, I think my front door is not awesome for wreath hanging. All that address-label/huge doorbell box business really detracts from the overall balance of it. Ug. Wreaths on pinterest are always hung on gorgeous front doors. Where's mine? Oh well. Work with what you've got.

A Chocolate Morning

Today is the kind of day chocolate was made for. Too bad I made a vow to go ten days without dessert or candy, 'cause I could sure use some right now.

Hazel was just a super whiner all morning. She wanted me to do everything for her right now. She wanted me to make her eggs, set up her play house, and read her a book all at the same time. It frustrated me to no end that while I was working on something she asked me to do, she was yelling at me for not doing something else she wanted right then. I finally had to threaten to take away every single one of her dress-ups if she didn't stop yelling at me. Luckily for the both of us, we've made it to nap time without having to resort to that.

We made it to the grocery store, where I had the kids in one of those enormous two-seater, pretend-you're-driving-a-car shopping carts, and it's snack time and so it's not completely terrible that Hazel and Jack are both loudly grunting for crackers every fifteen feet or so. But it still annoyed me. Hazel told me I had the "gimmies" because I was putting so much stuff in the cart. Thank you, dear, but that's not exactly what the Bearenstein Bears were trying to say.

Back in the parking lot, I got Hazel out and told her to hop in her carseat. Then I took Jack out and started to load him in. Hazel started whining that she couldn't get her door shut. I looked over and saw an elderly man (veteran, we were at the military commissary) sitting in his car. He couldn't get out until Hazel's door was shut. So I left Jack unbuckled and bounded over there to help Hazel shut her door, which I thought was just open so wide she didn't have the strength to swing it shut. Not quite. It was lodged against the man's car. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I loosened it and saw two lovely paint stripes on his car door. I was panicked and stressed and v-e-r-y close to bursting into tears as I hurried back to Jack to buckle him in before he climbed out and fell on the pavement or something. Mentally, I geared up to get yelled at and swap insurance information.

The man stepped out - I was still on the other side of the car with Jack - and I said, "I am so, so sorry." He reached over, touched the marks, said, "Aw, it'll just wipe off," and walked into the grocery store. Nothing more. I was floored. I walked back over to buckle Hazel in and could see that it was not just paint marks; there was a dent in his door. I took in how new and expensive his car looked. I took a few steps backward to look at his bumper. Yep, a Lexus. That was a miracle. For reals, a miracle. Right then and there, I bowed my head and said a prayer of gratitude for that man's mercy. Then I found a scrap of paper in my purse and wrote him a thank you note.

I can't remember the last time I felt so overwhelmed with gratitude for something someone has done for me. Tears were coursing over my cheeks the whole drive home. I just couldn't pull it together. I almost pulled over to wait it out. That could have been so bad. I can't believe he just let it go. That man is an angel to me.