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. :)

Oh Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree!

Another video! Joel and I have never had a Christmas tree. (ok, technically, we had a little 2 ft fiber optic tree, but never an actual tree that could hold decorations or have presents underneath) At first, I thought that we would still hold out on getting a tree until next year when Christmas had a bigger meaning to Natalie. But then I got to thinking and got sentimental thinking about Natalie's first Christmas. I want it to be perfect and filled with awesome memories and photographs. So, since I am a huge Black Friday shopper, I decided to look for a deal on a Christmas tree. Of course I found one!
It is a simple 6 foot tree- nothing fancy about it, but it is cute and has charm. We set it up on Friday. We then took Natalie out of the room, turned off all of the lights, turned on the video camera, and waited to capture the moment.
I will forever cherish the sparkle in her eye and the sense of wonder and awe across her face. May this be the first of many wonderful holiday memories!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are so thankful for our little Natalie! We had a great day at Grandma and Grandpa's celebrating the day. Grandma made an amazing meal that Natalie actually got to be a part of! Natalie had mashed potatoes, a bit of sweet potatoes, a bit of a roll, pieces of a noodle, and a taste of cranberry sauce! She loved all of it, but she especially loved her taste of butter cake and her taste of ice cream! Here are a few videos. Two of them are meal themed and the other is just a cute one of her with her Grandpa and her new Snoopy dog that Grandpa gave to her.

Ten Months ...No Picture...

Ok, so we have been terrible...we are over a week late on a ten month picture. There are several things that have caused this to happen. One of them is we are not sure if we will be able to continue doing the monthly pictures like we have been because Natalie hates being laid down unless she is already asleep. We can barely keep her still enough during diaper changes, so asking her to lay down next to her doll with a post-it on her, was just gong over the top for her. We do have some outtakes that we will need to put on here, but I don't have them on my computer right now.
I think every day becomes my new favorite day with Natalie. She continues to develop such an awesome personality and she just loves to laugh. She now pulls herself up within seconds and almost flawlessly. She loves to walk around while you hold her hands. She rarely stays in one spot longer than a few minutes, so we def. get our exercise while playing!
We had a new first this week. I got a call from day care on Monday saying that I needed to come get her due to diarrhea. I was really worried at first, but this has been the easiest virus to deal with. She has been the happiest and most active little thing. She just has a lot of bad diapers! So I took off the rest of Monday and most of Tuesday to watch her. Today was Veteran's Day, so we had today together with Grandma Harris as well. I have been extra spoiled by all of this time with my little girl!!! She just brings so much joy to me and anyone that she encounters.
We think that she is getting more teeth. She is pulling on her ears a lot (Dr. rechecked her ears today and said that they looked perfect) and she wants to chew on everything! Maybe a top tooth will come in soon. Her two bottom teeth show more now and it looks so cute!!
Natalie now can wave goodbye, make kissing noises, and we think she may be trying to say Pumba (just comes out -Ba) on top of saying mama a lot and dada. She loves babbling all of the time!
We will try to get some pictures up asap. Grandpa Harris and Grandma Judy are coming this weekend, so we will post some pictures of them with Natalie as well!