On Thursday, we took Natalie for her 6 month check-up. (About 2 weeks late, but life is busy!) She weighed 18.4 lbs and was 28 inches long. The doctor said that her weight was average for a 6 month old and that her height was off the chart. Joe was excited because he's been praying since I got pregnant that she'd be tall. No other important info, really... just that she's healthy and on track with all the developmental milestones. This is the first visit we've had since she's been able to sit up so when I sat her on the exam table she had a ball with the paper liner. She kicked like crazy to make it crinkle. Then she realized it would tear when she pulled on it. By the time the doctor got in there, Natalie was sitting in a pile of shredded paper. I don't think the doctor liked the mess, but she was having so much fun that I couldn't make her stop. She had to get 4 shots, but she hardly cried at all. She really just cries about being held down more than anything.
After we left the doctor, we went over to Brookwood Village to walk around the shops. Joe and I both love it over there and Natalie has fun riding around in her stroller. We stopped at Five Guys, Burgers & Fries for lunch. If you've never eaten at one and you want the best burger of your life, you have to go. For you guys in Florida, they have one in Lakeland, and several in Tampa and Orlando. They have a website too... fiveguys.com I'm telling you, you've never eaten a burger this good!
Last thing..... as I type this, Nat is playing on the floor. I think she's about 2 minutes away from figuring out how to crawl (instead of just getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth)... anyway, I'm gonna go play with her and I'll definitely post again if she masters the crawling!
Friday, April 25
6 (and a half) Month Checkup
Posted by Rachel at 10:02 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, April 16
#1 FAN
We had a little spur of the moment photo shoot today. These are for you Jason, as promised. Go Tigers!
Posted by Rachel at 6:10 PM 2 comments
Saturday, April 12
Surprise!
Joe's birthday is April 18, but last night we gave him a surprise party a little early. There's no better way to surprise someone than to give them a party on a day that's nowhere near their actual birthday.
Posted by Rachel at 3:27 PM 1 comments
Thursday, April 10
All By Myself...
Natalie has been sitting up with my help for a couple of weeks now. But until yesterday, when I'd let go of her she'd only sit for about 20-30 seconds before she'd fall over. But yesterday when I let go of her, she stayed up and played for about 5 minutes before she fell over. And she did it again this morning. She loved getting to play with her toys sitting up instead of lying down. Oh, and on a sidenote... notice the cute bunny slippers!
Posted by Rachel at 10:35 AM 2 comments
Wednesday, April 9
Pics for Pop-Pop
Joe's Dad told us that he wanted to see more pictures of his granddaughter, so these are for you, Pop-Pop! We love you!!
Posted by Rachel at 9:21 PM 0 comments
Great Grandparents are Cool!
Natalie and I got tired of being at home this afternoon, so I put her in the stroller and we took a little walk down to see my grandparents (Natalie's great-grandparents!) She loves going down there because my grandmother plays with her in the floor and she gets to see their dog, Eli.
Posted by Rachel at 8:45 PM 0 comments
Saturday, April 5
midnight madness
Disclaimer: The story you are about to read is completely true. Believe me, I couldn't make up something this good. Oh, and you should know that my parents are out of town this week. Here goes...
Last night, after a day of running from tornados, Joe and I had dinner, put Natalie to bed, and got into our pjs to relax and watch a little tv. Around 11:00 pm, I noticed that the dogs outside were barking like crazy... so much so that it was distracting me from the show we were watching. So Joe opened the front doors, looked outside, and said "it looks like there's something moving around out there." I told him that it was probably a cat or another dog or something and not to worry about it, but 5 minutes later when the barking still hadn't stopped, Joe got a flashlight and went outside. He came back about a minute later and said, "Um, we have a situation." I went out to see what was going on and saw that two of our mules and one of the horses had gotten out of the pasture and were walking around in the front yard.
I called Leigh & Kev and Adam to come help us get them put back up and then ran back in the house to grab some shoes, another flashlight, and Natalie's baby monitor. I was in the house maybe 2 minutes, but that was long enough for the 2 mules to get scared (I guess of Joe) and run at top speed down the driveway and then on down the road. Right after that, Adam got here and he and Joe went driving down the road looking for the mules.... leaving me here, armed with a flashlight and a baby monitor, to make sure that the horse still grazing in the front yard didn't decide to go down the drive too. Leigh and Kevin pulled up soon after and Leigh got out to help me while Kevin went down the road to help Joe and Adam with the round up.
Leigh ran to the barn to grab a rope while I kept watch on the horse in the yard. After mild persuasion by a bucket of feed, we were able to get the rope on the horse. Just as we were about to take it to the barn, we heard the mules running (at full speed!) back up the road towards the house. Thinking that the boys had succeeded and all this was about to be over, Leigh and I started towards the barn with the horse. (A little sidenote: While putting the horse away, Leigh ran into the electric fence. I don't think it was turned on, but she got tripped up, and fell and busted her lip.) About 10 seconds later, the two mules run up to our drive... and then right past it. They turned and went up the neighbor's drive and kept going behind the neighbor's house and onto their porch.
Since it was around 11:30 pm by this time, Kevin rang the neighbor's doorbell (waking him up, of course) to let him know why there were 2 vehicles in his driveway and 3 men and 2 mules on his back porch. At this point the story gets a little fuzzy since Leigh and I were still watching from across the street, but from what I've been told, here's how it went down at the neighbor's house.
While the mules were on the porch, Adam was able to get a rope around one of them, but before he could start leading it back home, the other mule got scared and started running towards Adam. This scared the mule he was holding on to and it also started to run... Adam, refusing to let go of the rope, was running along with them (all this, remember, is in the neighbor's back yard) until they ran him into a wall and he had to let go. The mules took off into the woods, but luckily, the neighbor jumped on his four-wheeler and chased after them.
Now, there are 4 men in 2 trucks and 1 four-wheeler chasing 2 mules up and down our road and it's getting close to midnight.
Finally, they catch the small mule and the big one follows as they lead her up the driveway. Kev and the neighbor (yeah, I still don't know his name) put the small mule in the barn, but the other mule is now running in circles all around our house. I stood in the driveway with a flashlight trying to keep it from going back onto the road and Leigh, Kevin, Joe and Adam chased it around our yard for another 10 minutes or so until it finally ran into the barn. By the time it was all done, we'd spent over an hour trying to get those crazy animals back where they belonged.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Adam's vehicle got stuck in our muddy yard during the chase. So after the animals were put away, we had to get his truck out of the yard.
Joe and I were both muddy and sweaty and tired. By the time we'd had showers and got in bed, it was 1:15 am. I looked at Joe and said "Wow, that was an adventure." and his response to me was "Well, I guess I'm the only man in Alabama who's ever worn blue silk pajama pants to chase mules."
I wish I had some pictures to post of this one, but it was dark and raining, and I think I'd have had a few angry people on my hands if I'd started taking pictures instead of helping with the round up.
Posted by Rachel at 1:21 PM 4 comments
1/2
I can't believe that Natalie is already 6 months old - half a year - that's crazy! In my family we like to celebrate 1/2 birthdays. It works like this: I get a party on my birthday (Nov. 20) then I get a half party (with half a cake) six months later on May 20, my half birthday. So there was much debate this week about whether we would celebrate Natalie's first 1/2 birthday. We decided that her first party should be a big celebration and that it should be when she turns one. So the half birthday celebrations will start next April when she's one and a half. But, I did sing her "Happy Half Birthday" this morning when she woke up.
Posted by Rachel at 12:33 PM 0 comments