Weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's

Natalie spent the night for the second time at grandma and grandpa's this past weekend. This time the request came from grandma and grandpa!

Natalie and I met Grandma in Jacksonville where we found the mother-load of a garage sale! There were the nicest, cutest outfits ever there! This lady really knew how to keep outfits together and nice. I think she literally purchased a new item for her ONE child every day! We joked that we need to become this lady's friend so she will continue to pass on such clothes as her daughter continues to grow!

Natalie, Grandma and I first went to see her Great Grandma in Rushville. Natalie had a great ride. She went between laughing at herself to sleeping the whole time. Once we were there, unfortunately it did take her a minute to warm up to her great grandma since it had been almost two months since she saw her. Thankfully it didn't take too long though. Her great grandma got her a cute doll that moves and sings. Natalie loved it! While at grandma's, Natalie had two firsts! She gave her first kiss! I am very happy (much to grandma's dismay) that the first kiss was mine. Grandma quickly got her own though! The second thing she did for the first time is kind of hard to explain. Her grandma and I had been lightly tapping our fingers on her mouth to make Natalie make Indian sounds. Suddenly on Saturday, she discovered that she could use her own hand (the back of it) and move her hand over her mouth to make the same noise! She was quite tickled with her discovery!
Natalie stayed with Grandma and Grandpa that night. It sounded like she had a perfect visit- throughly enjoyed by everyone! Even I was able to relax and enjoy my evening more than last time! Joel and I laughed at the thought of just making this a routine! However, after talking to my mom tonight- they are both still recovering, so I am not sure they would really be up for that! On Sunday, Natalie got to enjoy a church service with her parents and grandparents (all while entertaining everyone sitting around us as well with all of her giggles and smiles) It was a great, busy weekend for Nattie!

Natalie has her first "school" pictures tomorrow. I still can't decide what to have her wear! I have too many options thanks to fabulous grandmas!!!

Natalie will be celebrating her 8 month birthday this week!! Time continues to fly! I can't wait to take our monthly update picture! We think that she has had another growth spurt with her height. It will be interesting to see if we are right!

Can We Get a Round of Applause??

Yesterday, Natalie clapped for the first time! And now she is a clapping fool! It is so cute to see her finally figure out how to put her hands together and make noise. This weekend has actually been a very musical weekend. Natalie got her first musical instrument. It is a little piano/xylophone toy. She loves it as well. (I need to get a picture of both of these things, but alas, I currently do not. Actually, the only pictures I have this evening are of Natalie after a bath and Natalie with me after getting my new glasses. I will post more later.
Tomorrow is the first day of school (with students) so our summer is officially over. Natalie has been such a joy this summer and I am so glad that I am blessed enough to have the time that I did. (Of course if someone would like to pay me to stay at home with my little girl, I wouldn't object either!)
This evening Natalie also really began adding consonants to her babbling- lots of B and D sounds (Grandma (my mom) thinks it is strange that I make such observations about her babbling (about vowels and consonants) I guess that shows that I am a teacher!
This week Natalie has also added having lunch to her day. So currently, she is having 2 tablespoons of cereal with a 1/2 tub (stage 2) fruit for breakfast, 1/2 tub veggies for lunch; and 1/2 tub of fruit and 1/2 tub of veggies for supper with 3-4 bottles per day. She enjoys her puffs more now. She actually "chews" them, which is quite cute. She still loves her sippy cups, yet I still am not sure how much water she is actually drinking.
I can't believe she is getting close to 8 months old!!! Time is flying!!!

Another Update

Natalie continues to be the love of our lives!!! Her latest milestone is getting really good at standing up. Natalie can stand as long as you are giving her some support. This happened rather quickly. It seemed like one day she really was not interested in putting weight on her legs, then she suddenly was doing it like a pro! She still hasn't made any further developments in crawling. Maybe she will go straight to walking!
I moved her exosaucer to the tallest setting. She now loves to jump in the exosaucer, which is quite loud and violent looking- but it puts a great smile on her face.
She has perfected how to do raspberries and gets quite tickled at herself when she does it.
We had another unfortunate milestone today. She had developed a rash that was spreading, so I took her to the doctor. She has hand,foot, and mouth disease. Which sounds a million times worse than it is. It is a viral illness that is highly contagious (the doctor said that almost all kids get it at some point), with really no treatment or complications for/with it. So essentially it is just like a cold, except has more visible signs. She has the rash in her mouth as well, which seems like it may be causing her a bit of discomfort when she eats, but other than that, she has been acting completely normal. It should be completely gone within a week.
I am including some pictures of Natalie playing with her new favorite toy- the fisher price ring stacking toy; hanging out with her best friend, Pumba; and a picture of Natalie with her Uncle Nathan at his graduation (she seems quite impressed with the degree!)

7 months old!!

I truly can't believe Natalie is seven months old now... it's one of those weird time warps where it seems like yesterday that she was born, and on the other hand, it feels like a lot longer than seven months ago that we were in the hospital waiting for her arrival.

Here is the monthly "growing" shot... We decided to start a new one every six months as it would become too wieldy otherwise. I'm also including some "outtakes" that Nickie took of Nattie sitting on the chair (you can see we were reconsidering the laying-down-in-the-crib format).

One last thing- especially for Grandma Harris and Aunt Karen, since they have been clamoring for it...a photo showing her at one week old and now both with her dolly. So here you go...!

Oh....My.....Goodness!!!

Ok, this may be the cutest blog to date! A couple of months ago, my mom found these really fancy beautiful dresses for Natalie, predicting the sizes would work around Christmas time. Well, as we all know, Natalie is ahead of her age as far as growth is concerned, so as I was putting away another round of clothes, I came across these dresses and realized that I should check the sizes again. Yep, they would fit right now! Well, it saddened me greatly to think that she would never wear them, so I decided that we would at least play dress up and get some photos. And these are the amazing shots. I still cannot get over the one where she put her hands behind her head. That was totally on her own without any posing what-so-ever. I still cannot get over that one. And the one where she is standing (with help of course) makes her look so old, I almost want to cry!!! We hope you enjoy these shots as much as we do!