Happy New Year (and a Very Overdue Update)

Happy 2010! It has been way too long since we have given a general update. I debated on whether to wait until her birthday and give a massive update then, but I thought we could focus on her birthday events if I did an update now.
Natalie has changed so much, even just within the past couple of weeks. She has become stronger when she walks. She still has to hold onto your hands/fingers, but she is getting closer and closer to being able to do it on her own. She can now stand by herself for a minute or two before she gets nervous and wobbles. In the past couple of days she has begun to let go on her own (before we would have to stand her up and let go to have her try). She is also starting to attempt to walk while holding onto tables and such to get around. She doesn't get far, but she tries.
She had her second ear infection and she had a rough go with a severe diaper rash that was caused by the antibiotics she was on for her bronchitis. The doctor said that she will probably be prone to that happening each time she is put on an antibiotic, which is good to know so we can be prepared.
We have begun to have Natalie try more and more "real" food. She loves cherrios, any kind of bread, cheese, noodles, and she is willing to eat anything if Mommy and Daddy are eating it. The other night I had her eat small bits of my pizza and she was so excited to be eating with us! We are making the transition to milk instead of formula. Currently she is drinking half formula/half milk. She has done great with that so far, and I don't think it will be much longer before we are fully on milk, Soon I will begin trying to slowly wean her off her bottles.
Natalie got three top teeth (her two incisors and her right front tooth) all in a week's worth of time this past month. Her left front tooth just broke through this week, so she suddenly is up to 6 teeth!
We think that suddenly a switch went on in Natalie's mind this week. She went from not saying much (not really even babbling much) to have full "conversations" almost constantly! She suddenly puts inflection in her voice and you can truly see that she is trying to communicate. She now says book and she loves saying bye. Sometimes she sounds like she is trying to imitate what we are saying, but there aren't many other words that she says completely on her own. She recognizes many words though and reacts. She continues to sign milk and she has begun to sign eat. I am still not sure if she is signing all done or if she is just moving her arms around.
She loves having Joel or I sneak uo on the other person with her and "scare" them. Her sense of humor continues to develop and we have so much fun laughing together.
Natalie loves a couple of her books now. She does not want to read all of her books, but she has two books that she likes to read over and over and over. One of them is called Dog- It has a bunch of photographs of dogs and some textures and movement that she likes. The other book has farm animals in it and some textures as well. Her last favorite is Moo, Baa, La La La. She will pick those books up and hold them up, say book and want you to read them to her several times in a row.
I am going to refrain from any reflections on Natalie turning a year in this blog and save that for later.