Quick trip to Montana... long post about it.

We took a quick 4-day trip to Montana last weekend, so Hazel could play with Aunt Trudy. (Thanks for all the playing!) We drove 10.5 hours one way and 11 the other, and Hazel did great! Okay, so we did buy a portable DVD player, just in case she needed the extra entertainment, but she only watched about an hour each way. The rest of the time she read books, listened to music, played with her lovely talking mirror and singing Princess book, and listened to her McDonald's chipmunks talk. Yes, Hazel is the proud owner of all 6 chipmunks. She loves to push the buttons on two chipmunks at the same time, so you can't understand what either one is saying. Then she'll push the buttons in rapid succession, so you can only hear the first syllable over and over and over and over... you get the idea. They are the cutest McDonald's toys we've seen so far - scary to think about how many plastic toys we'll collect in the next many years.
This first picture sums up one theme of the trip - Hazel's aversion to loud noises. Our first stop on the trip unfortunately set the tone for the weekend. After changing her diaper, she was roaming around the public bathroom and walked under the automatic hand dryer... starting it, of course. She shot across the room to the door, screaming all the way and wouldn't stop crying for the longest time. I'm sure she got an awful scare, but I'll admit I thought it was pretty hilarious. Then the radiators were banging in her room at Grandma's house (we haven't stayed there in the winter before), so she had a traumatic first night until we moved her to another room where we could turn the thermostat off. The next morning she decided that the bubbling of the coffee pot was too loud - what? And then the crackling and popping of a fireplace at a restaurant cut short our enjoyable dinner out. Even after the flames had died down, and the noise had abated, she couldn't be convinced to take her hands off her ears. Sigh... I'm glad she's careful with her hearing; now to figure out how to convince her that the noise is over.
Lots of fun books to read there - plenty of Dr. Seuss and The Berenstein Bears. Good stuff!

Lots of fun toys too... a great train set, big Legos for building train stations, a honey factory and princesses (she was more of a princess monster) and Aunt Trudy's Playskool Holiday Inn.

We bought Hazel a dollhouse accessory kit while there - it included a mop and bucket, vacuum cleaner, washer, dryer, laundry hamper, iron and ironing board (Hazel pronounces it "irun"), and sewing machine with table and stool. Hazel had more fun cleaning the motel and having Aunt Trudy sew and iron the little clothes I cut out of paper. That was one spic and span motel.

Daddy found some Tinker Toys in the basement, and Hazel made a lollipop garden - all her own idea. We've been calling lollipops 'lovely pops' - I misunderstood how she was pronouncing them, but thought the name was so cute I kept it.