Hazel hit the 18 month mark about a week ago – one and a half years already…amazing. We brought her to the doctor today for her 18 month checkup and she’s doing great – the growth charts tell us that she’s tall (93rd percentile), skinny (35th percentile), and has a big head (85th percentile) – what a combo! She’s still a light eater, but seems to be eating enough to keep growing and keep herself running all around causing trouble, making messes, and having fun.

She’s still not talking too much – at least not with real words, but she seems to understand a lot of what we say – both in English and Korean. She has definitely learned how to say ‘no’, it isn’t afraid to use that word when we try to feed her something she doesn’t like or try to do something she isn’t excited about. She’s also changed the way that she plays – now she’s playing pretend quite a bit…filling up ‘water’ in her toy kitchen to give us, feeding all of her stuffed animals and us with make believe food, and pushing her stuffed animals around in her stroller and her toy car. Her other favorite thing is to slip her feet into my shoes and try to walk around the house in them…something she is surprisingly good at.

Since I haven’t posted anything in a couple months, here’s a quick pass of some photos and some of the things that have kept us busy lately…

Meemaw visits

My mom visited us for a couple days and Hazel had such a great time with her…

LA Trip

We made yet another trip to LA, though this time we went for a reason other than gorging on Korean food – my mom and Duncan were in LA for a few days so we decided to join as well. We had a great time at Mona, my mom’s high school buddy, and her husband Barry’s house…though somehow we managed to not get a photo of Mona or Barry! Hazel had an awesome time playing with their 3 dogs and wasn’t the least bit afraid:

On this Hazel finally warmed up to Duncan – here she is romping around on the bed in their hotel room:

Halloween

Hazel was a bumble bee for Halloween…wearing a great costume my mom brought us from Connecticut…also seen above in one of the dog photos where she was practicing for Halloween!

Thanksgiving

Yenari worked on Thanksgiving and Hazel and I had a wonderful time celebrating with Jeff and Sarah in Oakland. We followed that up a few days later with a full-on Thanksgiving meal at the Button’s house two days after Thanksgiving. Katie and Russ brought out their kids’ old train set which Hazel had a great time playing with:

and that’s it!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Two weekends ago we made a trip to the aquarium in Monterey – we weren’t sure whether Hazel would love it, not pay attention at all, or hate it. Almost immediately she started copying us and others around pointing at the fish and saying ‘whoaaaaaaa, whoaaaaa’ in a reminiscent of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. She had a great time…here are some photos:

Disneyland

This past weekend we made a trip with Yenari’s aunt and uncle to LA first (where we ate a bunch of Korean food) and then to our primary destination, Disneyland. This was another one where we weren’t sure whether she’d like it or not…she ended up kind of ambivalent about it, having fun sometimes but being bored others – but she didn’t meltdown and we had fun at least . Here we are, just arriving at the park:

Luckily there are enough tame rides at Disneyland that Hazel was able to join in on the fun. While waiting on the line for the Dumbo ride Hazel pulled out the oooooing and awwwwwing that she learned at the Aquarium as all the Dumbos flew by. One we got on she seemed fairly entertained, continuing her oooooing and awwwing soundtrack. Here she is:

One of her favorite rides was It’s a Small World where you ride on a meandering boat while little dolls from around the world sing “It’s a small world afterall” over and over and over. Hazel was dancing away to the music and having fun – she’s a big dancer these days, she starts bopping up and down, side to side, whenever music comes on – from children’s music to Nirvana or Alice in Chains. She was so comfortable on the ride that she transitioned quickly from dancing having a great time to being totally passed out.

We also went Mickey’s House so that we could get a photo of Hazel with Mickey Mouse. On the way there Hazel and Yenari were thrown in jail, but luckily Hazel pulled the bars apart and they were able to escape:

Once in Mickey’s house we ended up on a massive line waiting for the photo…quite deceiving since his house looked tiny. After waiting for at least a half hour or maybe even an hour we made it to Mickey…Hazel was in a good mood, but that changed the second she was standing next to Mickey…when the waterworks began. Apparently stranger anxiety is just as applicable to stranger mice as it is to stranger people. Here she is with Mickey:

After a long weekend driving, in LA, and at Disneyland we headed home. Hazel wasn’t nearly as cooperative as she had been on the way down to LA so we had to use our magic weapon in silencing her cries and wiping away here tears: showing her Pororo videos on YouTube on our phones…repeatedly until we got home. It was a fun trip – thanks to Yenari’s aunt and uncle for sharing the fun with us!

The weekend after we got back from the wedding we kept the momentum going by traveling to LA for a 4 day trip to see Yenari’s father who traveled from Korea for a business trip. Yenari’s father was quite busy with work, but we were still able to spend quite a bit of time with him. We met him at the airport on Sunday and spent just about the whole day with him.

Yenari’s father probably spent half his time with us watching Hazel while we ate – I wonder if he even had a chance to eat anything the whole time. We had a terrific Korean BBQ dinner at Chung Dam Korean BBQ and a reprise of the awesome spicy crab soup we’ve had on our last few trips to LA at Ondal 2.

Here’s a short video of Hazel ‘walking’ with her grandfather and Yenari:

Hazel walking with some help from Mom and Grandpa from Greg Neustaetter on Vimeo.

We had a great time seeing Yenari’s father again – Hazel definitely remembered him from our Korea trip and quickly rekindled her friendship with him. One of the things that Hazel started doing while we were in LA and that she’s continued doing every….few seconds, is to ask for things. She does this by putting her hands together:

She does this whenever she wants anything – food, toys, us, dogs, and even when she sees other kids out in public. It is totally cute but grows a little old when it happens every ten seconds or so. What doesn’t grow old is her bowing when she gets what she was asking for. Yenari taught her this when she was teaching her to ask for things, ‘Chusayo’ in Korean. Here’s a quick video of Hazel asking for something and bowing once she gets it:

The rest of the month was definitely more low-key…no more traveling for us, but we’ve still been busy trying to keep up with Hazel. Here are a couple other photos from the rest of the month: