As if you haven’t heard enough whining from me this month: SERIOUSLY. Is it EVER going to stop looking like this outside???

I didn’t realize until I moved away how weird WV winters really are. In Toronto it would snow and snow and snow and then the sun would come out and the sky would be blue and there would be beautiful white sparkly snow all over the ground. And, okay, some horrible, gritty black street snow, and lots of slush and ice that the city was horrible at treating, but lots of white. White and blue. Here winter is just gray. Gray. Gray. Gray.

I’ve had to be hyper-productive to keep myself from going (literally, finally, please let this end soon) insane. I’ve cooked, puttered around working on various projects and organizational things, played A LOT and read books A LOT (mine and Hazel’s.) I made a batch of earrings last night and today I spent at least two hours photographing them, vintage jewelry to sell, and November craft show leftovers that were still waiting patiently. I have about half an hour of photographing left to do tomorrow and I’ll be totally caught up until I make more projects, which I am NOT allowed to do until I finish the Etsy to-do list I made on new year’s eve. It’s huge. I’m making good progress, I think.

Hazel’s pretending is still developing rapidly, as is her vocabulary – I wonder if it would be going so well if we weren’t suck in the house playing all the time? She can identify her eyes, ears, nose, lips, chin, tongue, teeth, tummy, hands, feet, hair… maybe other things I’m not thinking of at the moment. When she gets her hands on a piece of paper and a writing utensil, she thrusts it at you demanding that you write “HEESHA!!” (her name). She also pointed to a couple of babies in a magazine and a baby photo of Cana yesterday and exclaimed “Heesha!” She kisses her reflection in the oven door, licks the fridge quite frequently, spends lots of time tending to Paisley and picking up pieces of dog food, which she diligently returns to the dog food bowl. She still loves books above all other things in life. She can do stickers now, which opens up a whole new toddler crafting world. I never would have thought to give her stickers at 16 months old, but my mom gave her some this week and she caught on very quickly. She loves to have her teeth brushed. She loves to give and get kisses. If you pick up an animal from her little people ark set and ask her to find the other one of the pair, she can dig around and find it in a few seconds. She is a smartypants. She’s getting a little finicky about food, or her appetite is changing or something. She used to eat anything all the time and just kind of taper off with her meals, picking at her food forever. Now she reaches a very sudden point in a meal and is DONE, and will sometimes refuse foods that she loved earlier in the day. The only things I can say with 100% certainty that she WILL eat right now at any given moment in the day: apple juice, smoothies, grapes, and condiments. There is nothing that she has refused twice in a row (her several week long egg aversion has ended), so that’s a comfort. In general she will still eat any food, maybe just not at 5:37 p.m. on Thursday.

Her new word today was ‘ippo… the ‘ippos in her ark set have little red buhds perched on their backs and she loves to kiss them. Those little people animals have gotten more playtime than I ever would have expected, which might make them the best yard sale purchase ever. She got the barn for her birthday and is now into opening and closing all of the doors, putting animals inside and parking the vehicles inside. How is she old enough to put animals in a barn instead of just chew on their faces???

Hazel-made cards.

Angie’s recipe – tofu bites in the making. Coated in tamari & then rolled in wheat germ / sesame seeds / breadcrumbs and baked…. yummmm.

She really does love her smoothies.

Listening: Ryan Adams
(I am) Reading: The No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers
(Hazel is) Reading: Itsy Bitsy Spider
Working on: lots and lots