Snow Day Part II

January 30th, 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

And Finally… After we came in to warm up… This is how Hazel felt about coming back inside:
Snow Storm 2010

Snow Day!!

January 30th, 2010

For those of you who live in colder climates, I’m sure this post isn’t very exciting, but bear with me- we are excited about the first major snow here in Virginia in over 5 years. Yes, you read correctly- we have not had more than 6 inches of snow in over 5 years. It just doesn’t snow here, with the ocean and all the rivers surrounding us, it is difficult to have just the right conditions for snow- but today, we have SNOW and plenty of it!

I’ll start by posting some pictures from our morning venture into the white stuff (since these pictures were taken we’ve gotten an additional 4-5 inches!). After the snow pictures I’ll post some pictures from earlier this month and the one shot we got of our Christmas tree before all the presents got opened. We’ve lost our plug n’ play card reader so uploading pictures isn’t as simple as it has been. That’s my excuse for not posting very often! I’ll also try and scan in the big ultrasound pictures of baby duo later this weekend (since we’re snowed in and have nowhere to go!)- all is going very well with our little bun in the oven and we got a very thorough ultrasound last week (and a TON of great ultrasound pictures!).
Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010

Snow Storm 2010
(Having a little trouble getting the snow pictures to upload, will post more of those later)

DSC_0062

DSC_0068

DSC_0049

DSC_0056

Tickling her reflection in the oven…
DSC_0034

DSC_0031

DSC_0047

DSC_0061

DSC_0103

DSC_0109

DSC_0117

DSC_0131

DSC_0141

DSC_0162

DSC_0071

DSC_0087

An upset little Christmas Elf running away from her Aunt Sarah
DSC_0018

DSC_0005

DSC_0002

DSC_0170

DSC_0187

DSC_0192

DSC_0204

DSC_0210

Happy New Year!

January 4th, 2010

It’s been a while since I last posted, and it seems that I’m posting much less frequently than I used to. I have a list of excuses for not posting, but I won’t bore you with them- most involve chasing Hazel around and keeping on top of things here at home! Since I last posted, almost a month ago, we’ve had quite a bit of fun.
Christmas this year was celebrated with a full house of out of town family- Grammy and Grampy, Uncle Preston and Great Grammy, Aunt Sarah, Uncle Andrew, and all the usual suspects who hang out here in Yorktown. We had so much fun spending time with everyone that we only took about 5 pictures over the entire holiday! (shame on us!).
Of course this was the best Christmas ever- Hazel absolutely loved the Christmas tree, seeing all of the neighborhood houses all lit up for the holidays, and our trips to the Celebration in Lights and Busch Garden’s Christmas Town. She learned to say Christmas Tree, Snowman and Merry Christmas before it was all over, too!
Christmas morning was so much fun- Hazel slept in until almost 8 am, and then came downstairs to a full house and the most presents I’ve ever seen under a tree in my life!
Here is a quick video of Hazel inspecting “under” the tree on Christmas morning:

Christmas Morning 2009 from esther benoit on Vimeo.

We spend the entire day opening presents (it took us until almost 5 pm to get through them all, but we took it slow and enjoyed the day). Hazel got a kitchen and shopping cart that occupied her most of the day, and have occupied her ever since! Everyone was so generous and we were truly thankful to be able to spend the holiday with family- it was a fantastic Christmas.

Duo seems to be doing well- we had a quick OB appointment on the 17th of December where we heard duo’s heartbeat for the first time (153 bpm, loud and clear!). I’ve been feeling much better and have just recently started to feel the baby move around in there. I’m also finally starting to show just a little bit, which is always nice. It seems like the second half of the pregnancy goes much quicker than the first- and with as fast as this first half has flown by, we’ll have this next baby before we know it! I am almost 20 weeks along (19 weeks and a few days) and we are scheduled for our big ultrasound on the 19th of January, following a routine appointment on the 18th. We are not going to find out if we are having a boy or a girl as we enjoyed the surprise with Hazel. The naming process has begun, and we’ve got a few names we really like for both a boy or a girl- more on that in a future post.
I’ll leave you today with a few videos, starting way back in October- I had a few on the camera that I never uploaded and I thought they would be fun to put up here.
Hope everyone has had a great start to 2010- looking forward to all the new things this year will bring!

At the pumpkin patch from esther benoit on Vimeo.

More October fun from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Shopping in Mama’s shoes from esther benoit on Vimeo.

These last two involve our new learning tower- a contraption that allows Hazel to safely help in the kitchen (we had one too many standing on chair accidents for our liking and decided this was worth the investment!)

Making Dessert from esther benoit on Vimeo.

Licking the Beaters from esther benoit on Vimeo.