Walking

Hazel's first steps were January 5th, but didn't start walking as a main mode of transportation until February 3rd.  Here she is showing off some of her skills at a school near our house.

And check out this artsy picture I got of Justin and Hazel.

Parental Mistakes

I am sure that there will be lots of mistakes we make as parents.  How we taught Hazel the sign for "All done" is our biggie right now.

Notice all her veggies on the floor.

We taught her the sign when she would eat all the food off her tray.  So now she thinks that her tray has to be empty before she can tell us she is all done.  Whoops!

A taste of Spring

 We had a much needed break for all this cold weather a few weeks ago.  Our friends, Jason and Melissa, invited us to a little cook out a near by park on the James River.  So we happily loaded up and headed over.  What we weren't expecting was the wind.  Holy Cow the Wind!!  We all quickly cooked our hot dogs while trying to keep the kids warm.  We decided to head back to our place to cook S'mores and hang out to avoid being blown away.

Alden, eating his first S'more.

I don't know about you, but I think he liked it.

Justin, Alden, Jason, and Melissa, and Rachel munching away.

It's time like this that we are really going to miss when we leave Williamsburg.  We have some great peps up here we get to call our friends.

Lovey

When Hazel was a baby she hated her car seat, and frankly still doesn't care for it much.  A wise friend of mine, Chris, suggested a thing called a "Lovey".  A lovey is kind of like a security blanket, but can be anything that brings comfort and security so we thought we would give it a try so that she would feel more secure in the car.  We had decided to use her burp clothes as a lovey (since she also spit up all the time) for convenience purposes.  And it helped that we owned like 15 of them.

They are the love of her life!  We had to start keeping one tied to her crib rail, because she started throwing them out of her bed, but then would just stand up and cry until we would come in and put them back in her bed.  So by having it tied, we always know that she has one available no matter what.

Not only do we have several white cotton burp clothes, but in Hazel's eyes anything white and cotton count as a lovey.  In these pictures for example one hand has an actually lovey and the other is a dirty onesie.  Socks are another thing that she loves to carry around.  She is easy to please.

Valentine's Day

This year for Valentine's day we just enjoyed a nice and quiet dinner at home cooked by my sweet heart (he has actually cooked dinner for me 3 times this week, I love that man!!)

My Valentine's

I made us heart shaped rice crispy treats for dessert

Hazel sharing hers with me.  I love that even babies feel the

 need to open there mouth while feeding someone else.

Hazel showing her love by sporting her only "Daddy's Girl" dresses.

Excema

 When Hazel was about 10 months old we took her to the doctor with this weird looking rash on her back.  I suspected that it might be Excema, but wanted to be sure.  The doctor gave us some tips (1/2 part lotion and 1/2 part Vaseline, morning and night and not to bath her but every other day) on how to keep it under control and then also prescribed some Hydrocortisone for when it would flare up really bad.

Really Bad: Before

                                                                    Much Better: After

We are starting to notice flare ups happen more often after baths, so pour Miss Hazel only gets about 3 a week.  Sickness is also another time when it gets bad.  With a little PBS she tolerates the morning and night treatments like a champ in our efforts to keep it from looking like the above before.  I just feel so bad for her.

What a cutie!

The other day while Hazel was taking a bath she decided that she needed to go #2.  Justin being the quick daddy that he is noticed and immediately put her on the potty where she took care of business.  Unfortunately, she must not have been done when we put her back in the tub, because before we knew it we had a floater.  So back out of the tub we go.  I found this super cute robe that we had gotten from our friend Melissa for a baby shower gift.  We let her run around the house while I scrubbed the tub and toys so that we could finish bathing her.  I think that it might be a little small, but dang it she is so cute in it.

Food Storage!

My mom just spent 2 weeks up in Virginia with me.  She had told me before coming that she wanted a project to do while she was here.  And oh boy did I come up with a project.  Justin and I have been talking about wanting to have a year supply of food on hand in case of an emergency.  Our church has taught us for years.  When we got married we used some of our wedding money to get some basic items, but most of it were things that we normally cooked with, but not enough to make a whole meal.  So while mom was here our goal was to come up with a year supply of food so that we could be more prepared for this unpredictable world we live in.

This post will hopefully serve two purposes.  1. Remind myself of things to do better in the future. 2. Help others learn from my experience.

Step 1 - Come up with meals that don't involve perishable foods.  

We did 10 dinners, 5 desserts, 4 breakfasts, 4 snacks, and 2 lunches.  The tricky part for me was finding a variety of flavors.  There is only so much you can do with rice, beans, canned tomatoes, etc.  We tried all the recipes first to make sure that we liked it, because our plan is to live off of this, so we would be eating the same meals over and over again.  Some are better then others, but all doable none the less.

Next time I will find recipes that have fewer and cheaper ingredients and will start now collecting new recipes to try in the future.

Step 2 - Price what food costs.

Actually this should maybe be step 1 in the future, that way you know what food are less expensive and plan your meals around that.  We went to Costco, Wal-Mart, and the churches cannery.  We established which place was the cheapest to shop.  For the most part Costco was by far the cheapest way to go with the exception of the cannery, which only sells a few staple items.  

Step 3 - Compile a grocery list.

We made copies of the recipes and put them all in sheet protectors so that would all be in one place.  Then we decided how many times we would be cooking that recipe in the next 6 months.  (Somewhere along the line we were overwhelmed with the year supply and decreased it to 6 months.  Best idea ever!!)  We then took each ingredient and multiplied it by how many times we would be making it so that we knew how much of each thing we would need to buy.  Then we decided if it was worth it to buy it in bulk or if it was a small enough amount then we would just get it at Wal-Mart.  

Step 4 - Start shopping

We managed to do all the shopping in two days.  On Friday we went to Costco.  I had to buy a membership which obviously added to the cost and time of the trip, but all in all we did it in 2 hours, with Hazel in tow.  My girl is some kind of trouper and was great the whole time.  She did consume about 50 lbs of goldfish, but it was worth it.  I was on a budget so we wrote down everything that went in the cart so that I knew if I needed to cut some things out for the moment, which I did have to do.  I only ended up buying a couple sets of tuna and canned chicken, because they were the most expensive things, so next month I will go back and get some more until we have enough stored up.  On Saturday, we went to the cannery and Wal-Mart while Justin stayed home with Hazel.  We finally got home around 3 and had the food all put away by about 5.  

Other steps we had to do.

- Find a place to put all the food.  Mom is some kind of magician, because she managed to fit almost our entire hall closet (which was a lot of stuff) into Hazel's much smaller closet which freed up a lot of space in the hall which is where the food is now.

- Get a shelf to put it on.  We ended up making our own shelf made out of sender (sp?) blocks and plywood.  It only cost us about $40.  

- We also got a lot of household items to.  Laundry detergent, shampoos, cleaning supplies, etc.

Here is a break down of what we spent to give you an idea of what it will cost.

Costco - $422.26 (we signed up for a credit card with cash back points which took $25 off the bill)

Costco Membership - $100.  Regular memberships only cost $50, but again this had some good rewards so we went for it.

Walmart - $123.15

Cannery - $106.00 (we opted to just by the bulk bags and store them in 5 gallon buckets to save some extra money.  Food doesn't last as long in buckets, but we are planning on living off of this so we don't need it to last 30 years in #10 cans.)

Shelf Materials - $42.86

Total Spent: $769.  I can easily spend over $350 each month so this is a big savings for us for 6 months of food!

Okay so our plan is to now use this food to keep me out of the grocery store!!  We are planning on making a lot of things here at home.  I have started making our own bread, cereal, granola bars, etc..  It feels really good!!!

Here is what our food storage closet looks like.

  

We are so happy to be able to follow a living prophet's counsel by getting a start on our food storage.  It is also nice not to have to come up with what to have for dinner for the next 6 months!

She does resemble me!

Since my mom has been in town we are starting to notice that Hazel does in fact have some Shaw in her.  These are a few pictures that my mom had brought up with her of me when I was Hazel's age now.  

This is a picture of me in a yellow dress that my Granny had made for me.  I pulled it out and put it on Hazel.  It was really short on her, but it was fun to play dress up. 

 Nancy Elizabeth Shaw 1 yr old

Hazel Shaw Sorrell 13 months

Shaw Family Christmas - Part 4 or 5 (Lost count)

Okay well here it is February and I am just now getting around to finishing our Christmas blogs.  I guess the saying "better late then never" applies here.

While in Middleburg we were able to get together with my Dad's side of the family.  When we were kids it was a small Christmas at Grandmother and Granddaddy's house, but boy has it grown.  We went from 5 cousins to about 18 if I counted correctly.  The younger boys had a dance party.  There was a lot of energy at mom's house which probably came from all the delicious food and the 7 young boys.


Hazel later joined in on some rough housing.  She was crawling all over Hayden and Riley and thought it was hilarious.  Cousins are the BEST!!



In my opinion the highlight of the week was a spontaneous arm wrestling tournament.  I have never laughed so hard in my life.  There were bets being made on who we thought the winner would be.  The big winner of the night was Laurel.  She is one strong cookie.

Dad vs. Chris

Chris vs. Laurel

Justin vs. Isaac

Becky vs. Nancy



Hazel with her new bowl and spoon from Granny

Dad sporting his new snuggie and hat.  My dad is so cute!

Meet Avery

Since we have been back from Christmas break I have been watching a baby here at our house. Her name is Avery. She is 4 months old and just as sweet as can be. Hazel just loves her too and is very good about sharing her toys with her. We are trying hard to teach Hazel to only touch her tummy in an effort to keep Avery's face safe.

I am one lucky girl to spend my days with these cute girls. They keep me on my toes all day.