Hazel Bazel

Oh Hazel...where to start! we are enjoying our girl so much! she has gone from toddler to "girl" pretty fast and keeps up with all her kindergarten friends quite well. what a smart little cookie she is! we contemplate putting her in kinder a year early. but daily we go back and forth. pros and cons to both sides. her heart is sweet as she "sees" when others need help or a little extra smile or even just to stand beside them when someone is hurting. she loves to help her dad shave. she is in the kitchen a lot making whatever someone is cooking up. if it comes to cleaning...sometimes she is up for it...and sometimes not. we will catch her talking to herself as she is 'pretending' and the funny thing is, is that she pretends her name is sally...and that is one of the names i was when i was growing up! how does that happen? paul always says in a brotherly tone, 'YOU are talking to yourself AGAIN!' she often times is riding with me in the car and she will want to do something like 'go to damar'...the playplace here in town...and i will say 'no, not today' and she will say "it's ok mom"...and i think...WOW! we have come a long way from her days of throwing fits! hazel loves her family and can't wait for them to come home from school. but while she waits, she likes to carry ian around and laugh at his new actions for the day. she giggles at almost anything he does. we all do! ha! she really loves long hair at the moment. even though she doesn't like to keep it really nice yet, she likes to primp herself infront of the mirror and making sure there are no bumps when she does do her hair. she loves all the primping: nails, toes, chapstick (putting it on and eating it), perfume, powder, lipstick, the whole works...we remember she is young when we hear her say things like this story:

we went to our helper's house to visit them one day and they showed us how they were digging a well in their kitchen area. (by hand) and i would say it's PRETTY deep. we were all surprised to see a big deep hole in the kitchen (but the kitchen is really just a bamboo room in the back of the house with dirt floor) ok...so that was impressive to her i guess because the next day she was telling a couple of friends of mine "our helper has a 'whale' at her house. it's in the ground. i don't know how she knew it was down there!" and at the time i was thinking 'oh funny' and laughed but the more i think about it...the funnier it is to me! her thinking there is an actual whale down there...that will give water...ha! i still havent' told her "reality"...i like the idea too much!

hazel goes to pre-school two days a week for 2 hours. (this way i can go to my anti-human trafficking meetings) she likes that she gets to be big as well. there she plays with 2 american boys her age. this is really the only venue she has to play with her own age. it's good because she also learns indonesian. she also has ballet every wednesday afternoon. and enjoys it but i don't think any one of the girls in the class takes it too seriously...they are too social yet :D and then besides that, she has her own social life with friends coming to play and her going to play. her life is pretty good! we love her much and enjoy the presence of her in our family. i believe these days are going too fast! I am loving the idea of having her around for a long time...she is genuinely fun!