Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Natalie!
Last night Joel and I read her the Christmas story from her First Children's Bible before she went to sleep. When it was actually time for her to go to sleep, she fought it quite a bit. I told her that if she didn't go to sleep, then Santa couldn't come. She immediatel said, "uh oh!" and fell asleep! We then staged the picture of her with her stocking.
Natalie opened her Santa presents this morning. We do not have pics of this, because we have video. Her attention span was quite humorous. She got a Cabbage Patch doll, the Little People's House, and the Leap Frog Learning Table. She spent approximately one minute with each new toy before she crawled away, grabbed her favorite book, said "booha (her version of book)", and wanted us to read it to her for the millionth time. Very funny.
We then went to Grandma and Grandpa's house. She loved the sippy cup that she got that had her name on it. She immediately began trying to use it, even though there was nothing in it. She also loved her doll that is really interactive (identifies her ears, eyes, mouth, tummy, and toes when you have her point to them). She got a precious moment dolly, a Winnie the Pooh scrubbie, and she also got plenty of little people to go in her new house. Natalie loved every moment of it!
Merry Christmas everyone!!!

Santa!

Nickie and I took Natalie to see Santa Claus today! He was actually in the mall, here in Springfield! We couldn't believe it either! Apparently, he likes to visit all the towns he can before Christmas, and Natalie was lucky enough to meet him, sit on his lap and have her photo taken with him! Sadly, Santa is apparently a capitalist, as his elves made us pay for the experience, but...I guess Santa has to bankroll his annual Christmas operation somehow!

Photos!

We've gotten a bit lazy with posting photos here, so hopefully this little "photo dump" will make up for that a bit. Natalie is really enjoying walking with the help of her little shopping cart, and is also enjoying playing in and around her mini-slide thing (the name of which I'm obviously having trouble remembering).

Poor lil Girl

Well, once again we are late with the monthly picture. Natalie has been sick pretty much this entire past week. It started as just a little cold, but it continued to get worse and worse. She has a nose that drips like a faucet and a cough that gets severe at night. Her worst days were Thursday and Friday. She started not wanting to eat (on top of feeling bad) I decided to take her in to express care on Friday after work to see if it was something worse than a cold. We had to wait forever there (one of the doctors went home due to a sick child herself) and poor Natalie had to have a chest x-ray. They put her in this very strange plastic contraption that held her upright tightly with her arms above her head. I almost cried as much as she was at that point because she was already feeling miserable and then she was scared and confused on top of it, so she was crying so hard and looking at me so pitifully. She was diagnosed with bronchitis and thrush (the trush is probably why she wasn't wanting to eat). Of course I get home and read that both are viral and just have to run their course, so the trip to express care was just an expensive lil adventure.
Natalie was a bit better yesterday, but she is still not herself and she is napping quite a long time. I am attaching a picture of where she is at right now. I can't say that I mind. :)