Wordless Wednesday -- A Little Help From A Big Sister

Olivia is almost five months old. We have just, in the last few days, started her on baby cereal. This child eats! With the other two it took a few exposures before they were really willing to eat a decent amount of baby cereal, not Olivia.

Well Natalie was very intrigued to see "her baby" sitting in the high chair and eating cereal. She wanted to help - so, I got her a baby doll, a bowl and a spoon. She seemed content feeding her baby as I was feeding Olivia. Content until I had to get up and turn my back for a second that is....

Don't worry -- Olivia didn't REALLY mind! =)

Do you have a Wordless/Wordfull Wednesday that you would like to share? Please feel free to comment and/or link up below!

~ Natalie ~

It is hard to believe how fast time flies. Natalie, my middle daughter, turned two on the 3rd. She is two! It is still hard to wrap my head around. :)
No matter how much we want her to stay our little baby forever, she is growing up.
In the last couple of weeks Natalie's vocabulary has skyrocketed! I have read about and heard of that happening, but didn't experience the same thing with Emily - so I had no clue. For the longest time Natalie only said about 15-20 words, and now it seems like she doesn't stop talking --- 95% of which is understandable! It almost makes me wonder if she's been practicing! ha ha
Last Sunday was Natalie's first time out of the nursery at church. She was in the 2-3 year old classroom and she loved it! For the next couple of months Emily and Natalie will be in class together...I sure hope they behave :)

Here are a couple of pictures from Natalie's birthday dinner:

Birthday Cake -- Of course I got to the bakery when it was closed, so I improvised on her name! Good thing I had some licorice around! lol

She was captivated by the candle!!!

She's a crazy teether!

Today Natalie decided that she was going to chew on my finger, and I let her. I know, what was I thinking?
Well, I certainly was NOT thinking that she was going to have molars on the top. Not the whole molar, but there is a sharp piece of tooth sticking out on both sides of her mouth. I mean, really...she doesn't even have her two front teeth on the top. Natalie is a crazy teether!
I am thinking about taking her to the dentist just to make sure that her teeth are healthy, in spite of the sparatic order in which they show up!!!

Did your kids have any interesting teething "adventures"?

Wordless Wednesday: A little drink - lol!!

She is such a little sneaky girl!!
Don't worry - it is sparkling cider, apple-cranberry! She really liked it - lol!!

Hope you all had a great Christmas too!!

Natalie's Big Girl Bed - WOW, time flies!!

Natalie turned one year old in September, and now she is in a big girl bed. With Emily, there was no toddler bed until well after her 2nd birthday. But with all the drama involved with Natalie's crib, we decided to just make the switch.
So over the past like week and a half, you have heard me talk about the Stork craft crib recall and my irritation about their lack of responsibility. We heard that the fix for the crib made is a stationary side. I am short. There, I said it. But I have a really hard time getting Natalie into the crib when the side is up, it is just too high for someone who is almost 5'2". Glad we made the switch because Natalie loves having a bed like her sisters!

Wordless Wednesday - HELP, I'm stuck!

Natalie is in the stage where climbing is fun - on everything. She was climbing up the chairs, onto the table, to get at the candy corn, so we started pushing the chairs in all the way, all the time. This is what we get now:

If you have a Wordless Wednesday post, leave me a link, and I will check it out!

Disney Store's Dressed Rehersal

Yesterday, the Disney Store had a "dressed rehearsal" (costume party) for all the little princesses, buzz lightyears, nemos, and more. It was fun! We are not going to go trick-or-treating on Halloween, so this was my girls' time to play in their costumes.

Emily is Princess Belle from Beauty and The Beast. Isn't she adorable? The whole time we were in the mall she picked her dress up in front of her and held it out "like the princesses do."

Natalie was dressed up as a mermaid, no it was not Ariel from The Little Mermaid, but she was adorable. Her mermaid costume actually came from Bambini Bliss.

We had a great time, and Emily loved going to "her princess party!"

What are your Halloween plans? Who's dressing up as who?

Natalie's Birthday Party

Ok, so Natalie turned 1 on 9/3 and we had her party on 9/6. I totally spaced the fact that it was Labor Day weekend - go figure! Anyways here are some pictures from her party! It was great fun. Without going into a TON of detail, we had a Winnie the Pooh 1st Birthday theme. We had some family and friends over for a spaghetti and salad dinner and cake. It was great fun, here are some pictures.


Uncle Roger, Aunt Barbie and Allie

Grandma Michele (Grandma Shelly)

Dave

Me trying to open a baby doll and Natalie and Emily looking at me wondering how hard it could really be ;)

Andreu, Tiffany, Rich, Savannah, and Cody

Natalie getting cozy with Nana Joanie

BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!

Grandma Debbie, Grammy Pammy, and Natalie

The Barbie cake and Natalie's princess cake

Yes, I really did make that many cakes for my daughter's first birthday...don't ask!!!

Tyler and Erika

Natalie enjoying her cake

Zack (the hubby) giving me his version of "THE look" ...it didn't work, the guys still came in and sang happy birthday then ;)

This might have been Natalie's favorite thing to play with - go figure.

Emily being a cutie and tring to get a balloon

Things that bring a smile to my face...

Last night when we were eating dinner Zack and Emily were talking, I am really not too sure about what, but when I zoned into their conversation it went something like this:
Emily: Why is it like that Daddy?
Zack: Well baby, I guess you can ask Jesus when you see him.
At this point, I am wondering if I missed some really deep conversation or what...
Emily: Did you get us tickets to see him Dada?
Zack: Honey, you don't need to get tickets too see God, Jesus already bought your ticket a long time ago.
A few seconds went by...
Emily: STOP EATING GUYS...we need to say another prayer. She waited (not so) patiently for us to finish the bites we had, close our eyes, bow our heads, and "make our hands for a prayer"
Emily: Dear God, thank you for Jesus buying us tickets to see you. Amen

I love how freely she talks to God and her child-like faith!!!




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This morning, Zack had gone to help Joan get moved, so I didn't really "fix" breakfast. We had some vanilla yogurt and a piece of banana-zucchini bread and a glass of milk. MMM...yummy! Anyways, Emily tends to be a slow eater, so Natalie had already finished her breakfast and was out of the high-chair at this point...I am washing a few dishes and I hear Emily start to cry while pleading with Natalie to "Give it back, it's mine" When I finally see what is going on, Natalie had been standing, watching Emily eat for a minute (at her little princess table) and had taken an opportunity to grab Emily's yogurt and RUN. I mean RUN!!
Natalie just started walking within the last month, but believe me - that girl can go fast! She had both hands holding this little bowl of yogurt and all I saw was this little diaper clad girl RUNNING away laughing.



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These events bring a smile to my face and make my heart happy, I hope that you smiled too!

Time flies and babies grow!

Thursday (9/3) Natalie turned a year old! Can you believe it, I have a hard time grasping this one. And the really crazy thing is that she is doing so much! She walks, "talks", she has such a personality. When Emily was one, she was crawling and babbling and seemed like a baby still - Natalie, not so much! She has seen Emily, and for a while her cousin Andreu, walking around and talking ALL the time - and she didn't want to be left out, so she caught on rather quickly!
Now days her and Emily are always playing/doing/getting into something together, when I am lucky enough to watch them without them knowing it, it seems almost like two toddlers playing. I treasure this time when both Emily and Natalie are growing and learning so much! I am so incredibly blessed to be able to stay home and raise my children!
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

Natalie - Almost 1!!!

 
It is hard to believe that this picture was taken nearly a year ago. This was when Natalie was only 2 days old and we were getting ready to leave the hospital...
So much has happened sinse then - she cooed, then smiled, then rolled over, learned the army crawl and then to crawl regularly. We went from having a stationary infant, to a baby who had the determination to get where she wanted to go via rolling, crawling, or a combonation of the two. Natalie has started taking a few steps here and there and says a handful of words - mama, dada, hi, bye, bad-bad (Emily tells that to Tiny Man), and hey. She is learning so much and is such a wonderful little person!
She will be 1 year old on the 3rd of September. It is unbelievable how fast time flies! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful, happy little girl and are looking forward to celebrating her first year of life!!!

WOW!! She is getting big!

Zack is gone hunting now. Hopefully he will return with some venison!!!
OK, so I was getting a little off topic there for a second. Zack is gone and in the middle of the night Natalie woke up. So rather than putting her back to sleep and then back in her bed (which I only do about 50% of the time anyway) I decided to just bring her in bed with me sinse I had it all to myself anyway. Well, this morning when she started moving around I said, "C'mon Emily stop kicking me." I then heard this sweet little voice cooing at me - probably chastising me in baby language for calling her Emily - and I open my eyes to see Natalie. It was kind of sad, in that moment I realized that there was nothing I could do, Natalie was growing up and getting big. Why, why, why can't she just stay my little bitty baby?

My family!!!

This is an older picture of us - it was taken Thanksgiving 2008. After everyone else had left, we were still at my mom's house and we decided to take a few pictures. In this picture, Emily was almost 2 (literally days away) and Natalie was about 2 1/2 months old...I wont tell you how old Zack and I were!








From day one, Emily has always loved to hold her baby sister. Back in these days it was much easier for her because Natalie didn't move around to much - nowadays it is a comical sight!








I will post newer pictures when I am able to find the box in the garage that has my camera. Hopefully, that will be really soon - I miss taking pictures, it is one of my passions!