Mommy's little Face-biter

Hazen is biting. I'm not sure WHY, but it kind of seems like he does it when he's really excited or happy. However, this is a crappy habit. It also hurts and leaves marks. It also causes us to exclaim expletives, which doesn't go over well in church. What to do??

Hazen is also a carbo-vore. His new favorite food is pasta in meat sauce. The other night, he ate over a cup and a half of it. It was something amazing. Hazen also knows how to get into everything. Everything. Seriously. Everything. He's such a stinker, but he's so much fun, I'm crazy about him. I am, however, seriously exhausted. Today, Jason said, "Hazen, you are so cute and fun! How are we ever supposed to have another one?" I'm glad he FINALLY shares some of my sentiments. I've been saying for ages that Hazen is too perfect, and that we can't possibly match it. :o) Editors Note: He's not REALLY perfect, in fact, I invite anyone to take him off my hands from 4:15-6:00pm. He's kind of a nightmare then. We're both sick of each other by that time.


The other day, I left the room for 2 minutes. 2 MINUTES!! When I returned, he was playing with chemicals, and had unrolled an entire roll of paper towels. Waste not, want not me rolled it all back up. It's slightly homeless. Please don't ask for a paper towel if you're at my house in the next week or so, thanks.

Happy Birthday Dear Jason!!

Jason's birthday was on Sunday! I'm married to an old man- he's 28 now. Actually, I think it's kind of hot that my hubby is older than me. Jason had to work all day Sunday (6 to 6), but when he got home, he was greeted by a totally rocking party!

Emily and Andy, Jason and Aubrey, Richard and Jessica, and us were all in attendance. For dinner, Jason specifically requested Chili Burgers. Gross. He is so cute, each year, I give him a choice of ANYTHING he wants for dinner, and without fail, he chooses total man food. Love that man.


Enter the cake. I don't know what it is about me and Jason's birthday cake (every year), but we don't get along very well. At all. This year, I thought I'd make little delightful cupcakes. It would be perfect, everyone would be happy. When we went upstairs, they were acceptable. There were some technical difficulties prior, but they stood up ok, they still looked like cupcakes. When Aubrey and I came downstairs to fetch the "cake" it was a different story. It looked like someone had tossed them across the room, and then played catch with the cake platter. Needless to say, we had a good laugh.

This was pre-service. WHAT HAPPENED???

Doin' it, Osmond Style.

On Friday, we were lucky enough to get tickets to the Mo Tab's Pioneer Day Celebration with the Osmond family. My friend from Nauvoo, Cami, plays violin for the Symphony at Temple Square (I know, cool, right??), and she had extra tickets to the concert. I jumped the second I found out, and she was nice enough to let us have 4 tickets!! We took my mom and dad, and headed over to the conference center for the big night.

First, we listened to some gorgeous music from the Mo Tab (did you know it's one of my life goals to be in it one day? That's another post for another day.) I could listen to them all day. Cue the Osmonds.

My brother-in-law, Brad, nicknamed the Conference Center the "Supernacle" when it was being built. Well, Brad, Supernacle it was! The announcer comes on "And now(nownownow) Presenting(entingentingenting)......THE OSMONDS!!!! The crowd goes wild, the disco lights pan crazily over the Tab, and Orchestra, ya know, the Prophet. Did you catch that? THE PROPHET!! THERE WERE DISCO LIGHTS AND SCREAMING AROUND THE PROPHET. The crowd is screaming, cheering, there are basically people out with lighters waving their arms. It was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen.

The concert was really good, and we enjoyed ourselves, and Marie looked great. I'll tell you though, that Donny- he sure was worth the hype!

The boy who could do no wrong

I dare you to tell me different.

Grandma and Grandpa Lee go on a Mission

Jason's parents were here staying with us for a few days before they left on their 18 month mission to the Paraguay Ascencion Mission. They will be working in the temple, and we know that they will have a great time! Hazen had a lot of fun picking on his poor Grandpa Lee by ripping out his arm hair and biting him. We all know it's all in good fun and love.

HAL's Birthday Celebration (1 of 3)

I know, I know, the birthday isn't for another 2 weeks, but Jason's parents were in town before they left on their mission, so we decided to have a mini-celebration since they wouldn't see him for 18 months.

Jason made the cake, and did everything, kind of because I want to wait until his actual birthday to play the full part of doting mother- this was a fun chance for Jason to do this for Hazen's birthday.


As per Melendez/now Hazen tradition, Hazen had to TAKE A BITE of his cake!! It was like that commercial where the dog gets fed the peanut butter- classic.



Lastly, we let him go to town on a piece of his own. He didn't QUITE know how he felt about it at first, but then the whole cake idea really grew on him. What a darling boy!!

Raindrops on Roses....

Right now, Hazen has a lot of favorites, and a few not so favorites.

Foods:

Hazen loves, loves, loves Cottage Cheese, Muenster Cheese, Chicken Nuggets, Lucky Charms, minus the Lucky, extra on the Charms, and Ritz Crackers (still).

He's been stressing me out, because he's gone through quite the picky streak, but as long as I can get MOST of the basic food groups in his little body, then I feel ok about it.

Room:

Hazen loves to crawl all the way back to the play room. He will play there for hours. I've made pretty much sure that there are no dangerous objects back there, so I'll leave him and get some chores done around the house, and he's as happy as can be. We do need to get a Nylon strap to secure one of the bookshelves to the wall, but as soon as I do that, then I'll feel much more comfortable with him being back there. He also loves the bathroom. Not to play in the toilet, but so that he can pull himself up on the shower, and knock anything within reach down. I'd think that it would get boring, but he seems to be just fine with things. He also loves our room. He tries to get anything off of my makeup table, which drives me nuts, but if I turn on the blow-dryer, it will scare him away.

People:

Aunt Heather, Abbie, Grandma, and other Jason. He loves most everyone, but when he sees these people from MILES away, he goes crazy. In a recent text message with other Jason's wife, Aubrey, I asked her, should we bring Hazen, or leave him at home? She responded with, "Whatever's fine. Your kid can entertain mine." (Meaning Jason). We feel so lucky to have so many people surrounding us that love Hazen so much!

Toys:

All things he shouldn't have. He's already broken two cell phones. One was mine, which I was still using. He caused it to stop ringing, and occasionally turn off out of nowhere. That was annoying. He also caused Jason's old phone's screen to stop working. That makes looking up contacts really difficult. The biggest casualty? When we're out and he's being fussy, giving him my keys is a surefire way to make him happy again. He broke my unlocker, and I am devastated. As a result, my car is NEVER locked. Please don't steal it, but if you choose to, I promise you it won't be a challenge.

Dislikes:

Blow-dryers, Vacuums, and the Food Processor. I was making Pesto tonight (yes, with Basil grown from our garden to accompany the squash and zucchini from our garden I served it with over pasta), and he about lost it from the Food Processor. It wasn't even that loud!! Having his diaper changed- especially if I won't let him play with his area. He just has WAY too many other things he'd rather be doing than laying down getting changed!

Hazen continues to be so much fun, and we are crazy about him! He's such a good little boy, and is my little puppy dog who follows me around wherever I go. I would have no other companion!! I love when we're driving in the car, he looks in my rear-view mirror and talks to me until I change the view so I can see him; then he laughs and laughs. What a little angel!

Seriously, So Blessed

My friend, Aubrey told me about seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com

I'm pretty sure it's a joke, because there is no way someone can REALLY be like that, you know? Anyway, last night, we went to dinner at Tucano's, and Aubrey was telling me about how the girl will post pictures of her and friends at dinner with the caption "This is us at dinner. We took this picture for no particular reason other than to prove that we went somewhere"

Enter my camera last night! So, I feel kind of stupid by posting this, but I'm just here to show you all that we do other things than sit at home and fawn over Hazen. Don't get me wrong, we do plenty of that, too, but we sure have a lot of fun!

Tucano's was really good last night. Minus the fact that we all got raw Garlic Sirloin. That was strange. Hazen ate a ton of food, and we did a lot of planning for our trip to Southern California. Stay tuned for the world's closest quarters vacation, coming in late September!!

Uh, oh Hazen!

Hazen's almost a year old. So, he's getting to the point when he kind of KNOWS which things he's not especially supposed to get into, i.e, Mommy's purse. My favorite part about this stage? The "I got caught" face. Whenever I catch him playing with my lip gloss from my purse, kind of gasp in, and say, Uh, oh Hazen!

This is his response. It's freaking hilarious.

A Letter to my Mother: By Hazen Lee

Dear Mama,

I'm sorry I almost scared the crap out of you the other day.

Remember how you like to leave the door open when Daddy goes outside to grill, because it's easier than risking him dropping your steak on the carpet? Well, all those times when I've been looking innocently up the stairs, I've been formulating a plan. Guess what it was??




I'm sorry that when you heard me babbling, and you came to check on your darling baby, that you saw me on the 4th stair up. That must have been scary. Guess what though? I learned how to climb stairs!! Aren't you excited??

I promise that I will continue to scare you now and again, just to make sure you're on your toes. Love you, Mama.

Love,

Your little Darling.

Hazen's Songs

Ever since Hazen was a little baby, I've loved changing the words to popular songs. Some of his favorites include "You are My Sunshine", "How Much is the Doggy in the Window", "Where is Hazen". Since this is a blog for posterities sake, I want to remember Hazen's personalized songs.

You Are My Sunshine

You are my Hazen, My Perfect Hazen
I love you more than, You'll ever know
You make me happy, you make me smile
My love for you just continues to grow

How Much is the Doggy


How much is my Hazen in the Crib?
The one with the cute little face
How much is my Hazen in the Crib?
I want to take him to my place!!

Where is Hazen?

Where's my Hazen? Where's my Hazen?
There he is! There he is!
You're my little boy, you bring me so much joy
Yes it's true, I love you!

I think there are more, but I can't remember them off the top off my head. I'll edit as I remember!

A Visit With Brandi

Yesterday, I met up with Brandi for lunch and some good visiting back at our house. This is only the second (but first REAL) time I had met Brandi. Isn't Blogland wonderful? You can make so many friends! It's always a little exciting/scary/awkward/fun when you actually meet up with them in real life.

The best part of the entire get together? Watching Hazen be a pest to poor, sweet, Nicci. They are both only children- she just turned two, and he's 11 months. He would follow her around, trying to play with her shoes, or other toys she was playing with, and she was so thrown off by this kid trying to steal her stuff! It was so funny, because sometimes when he plays with Cousins, he gets scared, but this time, he would crawl after her as she was running away, and try to grab onto her special blanket, and she would run to Brandi, with this total look of concern in her eyes. She is such a smart, adorable little girl!!

Hopefully next time Brandi's up here, we can meet each other's spouses, because our kids are already good friends!!!

Unplugged

So, I've been making a concerted effort to try to not be such a slave to the computer. And phone. And TV. Because I am. I feel like it's turning me into a crappy mom, because sometimes, it's way more fun to see what's on my google reader than get on the floor or go down the hall and play with Hazen. That makes me sad, because he's so much fun. Sometimes, when I go to bed, I realize that I might have spent more time on the computer or talking to a friend on the phone than I did ACTUALLY being present with him, when he's in the same room as me, almost the entire day. That's sad. So, if you notice a lack of blogging, that's why. I'm trying to be more "unplugged". I'm trying to have a cleaner house. I'm trying to make sure that I go to the gym, and then, come home and shower instead of checking Facebook. Ya know? I have such a darling family- I would hate to waste them!

Riddle me this...

What's the deal with C-Sections?? It seems like there are many people who subscribe to the school of thought that if you had to get your baby sliced out, it was horrible, terrible, and God must not love you. Yes, you have been cut in half, which is a pain, but I can tell you one thing- I didn't hold the fear of all things holy every time I had to pee after a C-Section. I'm ok with that.

Who of you reads C-Jane? If you do, then you might remember this. She had struggled with infertility for years, and finally had her baby boy, "The Chief", a month or so ago. I so vividly remember one of her blogging friends making a comment (in reference to the fact that she ended up NOT being able to have a home birth after all...ughhh...)

"In my opinion, as long as it's not a c-section, it's a huge success. Glad everything went well. "

Double UGggggghhhhhh. Seriously? Is it because I come from a family with a sister who has had 3 C-Sections that I don't think it's that big of a deal? Folks...it's not. I'm sorry, but I think the thought of having my area TORN up to my ears is a lot scarier than being cut open and then sewed up again.

I'm just sayin'.

Happy 4th of July!!

The 4th of July was really low-key, to be honest. Jason worked until 6 pm at the Prison, so I hung out with HAL for the morning and day, as per usual. When Jason got home, we went over to Heather's house for a few minutes, and then picked up some KFC to take to the fireworks. My mom was a star, and took Hazen, because there is no doubt that he would not have handled all of the noise well. He's slightly sensitive to noise, and something as loud as fireworks would not have gone over well!



We met up with Emily, who had placed our blankets earlier in the afternoon. It was a nice change from San Ramon, where you have to park 40 hours away, and you're fighting with everyone and their dogs to get a good seat. We literally were no more than 100 yards away from the site that they set the fireworks off from! We had KFC and ate it on our picnic blanket. The bright KFC associate forgot to give us utensils, so we had to rip up boxes to eat our cole slaw and potatoes. It was overcast and there was a slight wind, which was a really nice departure from the sweltering heat we've been having.



When it finally got dark, all was dark, and then suddenly, we saw a line of firefighters walk up wearing their new turnouts, and the crowd went wild. Even though Jason wasn't up there this year (he came home from work instead of going to fireworks training, that jerk wife of his...), I couldn't be prouder of him. He has those turnouts. He works there, too. What a stud.
The Fireworks were awesome! We were so close, and we were dodging debris the whole time! So much fun!.