Hazen's October Artwork

Mealtime with Hazen

One part of my day that is always fun and cute is mealtime with Hazen. Sometimes we have to be a little inventive to get him to eat a good dinner. Other times, he can outeat even Jason! Some of the tricks that we have are old ones, you know, "Eat all of your dinner, and you can have some Ice Cream for dessert." Sometimes we'll have a picnic in the living room, which means we get to watch "Funny Show" (Wipeout), while we have dinner. He really likes that one. Hazen's love language is crap....erm....stuffed animals, and he has a new favorite about ever day. The other morning, I was trying to feed him breakfast before getting him off to school, and he was going SO SLOW because he wanted to play with "Fuppy" (Stuffed Dog given to him by Joanna Stephens in Danville that he is still OBSESSED with....random). So, I had this genius idea! Get Fuppy a bowl of cereal, too, and see if he'll eat as long as Fuppy is occupied. Totally worked. Also, the kid is a little intense about messes, so I've learned that if I put a paper towel under his eating area so it mops it up, he is way less apt to stop eating every 12 seconds saying, "Oops Mommy, I spilled. You fix it and clean it up?" My personal favorite these days, however, is a special trick that I have NO CLUE where I came up with, but it only works if I do it. After he proclaims that he's done, Hazen is sent over to Mom, who checks his tummy to see if "Tummy's Full". I do a few squeezes of his stomach, and whatever "Tummy" says, homeboy complies with. If tummy says that he needs 7 more bites of dinner, then Hazen dutifully eats 7 more BIG bites of dinner. If tummy says. Wow, bud! You've eaten a great dinner! Tummy says that you can have a cookie if you'd like, then Hazen will eat his cookie. I try to vary it and really not take advantage of this little trick, so say he's eaten a decent amount of food, Tummy will say he needs 3 more bites of food, but I make sure instead of it being rice, for example, he's getting protein or veggies. This week Tummy has learned that he loves Polenta and Curry. (Not together, gross........) I'm so grateful that Hazen is a relatively good eater (when he wants to be), and that I get to keep on mixing it up as a Mom. That's what makes this parenting thing fun, right?

My 36 Hours in Seattle!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love Seattle? Because I do. A LOT. My wonderful, amazing friend (and former Med/Surg teacher), Jill, has an amazing job that allows her to travel a lot. Since she's traveling so much, she's gained a lot of frequent flying, so when she invited me to tag along to be her chauffeur for a quick trip to Seattle, I jumped at the chance! We were going to try to check out nursing schools in Seattle to see if we could get Hurst in the doors. It was a last minute trip, and we didn't quite know what to expect, but it was a ton of fun! One of the best parts of the trip? ASHLEY!! I've been so lucky to see Ashley four times this year, which is amazing for us, but still not near enough. After Jill and I got our work done on Monday, we met up with Ashley, and picked Doug up from work to head over to The Crab Pot on the Pier. WHAT A FEAST! I'm a huge fan of seafood in general, but having such delicious, fresh seafood is basically the best thing in the world! Ashley, Doug and I shared a meal that consisted of Mussels, Clams, Crab legs, shrimp, potatoes and corn. The waiter came and spread butcher paper on the table, and then dumped a GINORMOUS bowl of food on the table. We were even given wooden mallets to crack the crab legs open. So much fun!


When Jill and I weren't trying to find our way around the city, we were spending time with Bennett, who is delicious. Literally, look at that little boy. I nearly cried because I can't live closer to him. So, instead, I spent a good 45 minutes snuggling his little neck and giving him kisses and blowing raspberries all over him and letting him suck on my fingers. Pretty pathetic substitute though, I think. Man I love that baby. Jill and I were hopefully able to get some work done. If nothing else, I really enjoyed my 36 hours with great friends. I'm a lucky chick!

The Dirty Dash

So, a few months ago, I was apparently smoking crack, because I decided that I wanted to do a 10k through the mud. Oh yeah, running up a mountain. Jason and I signed up to run in the Dirty Dash, which was Utah's first mud run. There were about 7 teams of 5 people from Crossfit that were running it too, which made for quite the adventure! I had never run 6 miles at one time, let alone do it in the mud at 6,000 ft. It was a challenge to say the least! We ran it the weekend after graduation, so there was definitely a lot going on in our lives at the time!

My team was composed of Brenda, my sister in law, Lina and Heather, two sisters from the gym (who are AWESOME!), and Jenn from the gym, who has become a really close friends. I must say, I had such amazing teammates, because the race got off to a rough start for me. I've been having some problems with my lower back cramping up, and starting off running straight up a mountain really made the spasms bad! One of the interesting things about this race was that there were obstacles spread roughly every mile. Some of these obstacles included running and jumping over haybales, jumping over walls in mud pits, a gigantic slip and slide, and slopping through a marsh that smelled like rotting fish. It was by far one of the most unique things I've ever done! At about mile 4, I fell in a hole, and really hurt my foot, and I'm still having a hard time with that, but I'm glad that I was able to finish.

I've heard that there will be another race in May that will only be a 5k, which I will definitely sign up to do. The 10k was a little much for this non-runner, but it was an adventure, to say the least!

Hazen's September Artwork

I feel guilty even as I write this, but I am shocked at the amount of paper that gets sent home with Hazen from Preschool. I decided instead of becoming a victim to all of the crap...erm, masterpieces, I would take pictures of the things that Hazen makes, and then they can be forever memorialized in the blog book. What's funny is the faces that Hazen makes when we're taking these pictures. You would think that we were beating him.....or telling him that his works of art were being thrown away moments after the picture was being taken. Enjoy!