Catching up...

I have neglected the blog for a few months, but hopefully that's about to change. There's no way to blog about everything that's been going on, so here are a few highlights to get you caught up. I promise not to get this far behind again.

Natalie on the potty. Notice that she is looking at the "Geek-o Money" that she is so obesssed with.

She told me during her bath the other night that she wanted to wear this "hat." Silly girl!

She loves her hair to be fixed in "piggies." I'll fix it for her and she'll say "Mama, I gorgeous!"

* I have a job! I'm so excited about getting back to teaching after 2 years off. I'll be teaching 9/10 grade Language Arts and Yearbook at SCHS. It's going to be strange going back to teach at the high school I graduated from, but I'm excited about it.

* Natalie is talking in complete sentences, knows about 10 colors and 2 letters (B and Z... she thinks the Q is an egg), she loves singing "I See the Moon" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and makes me sing them both every night before bed. On most nights, she wants to go outside and say goodnight to the moon before bedtime. She loves books, especially books about animals. She can name almost any animal you show her... even the weird ones like skunk, possum, hippo, etc. Her favorite animals right now are goats and cows. She picked out her own pjs from the store for the first time the other day... Dora the Explorer ones... and she's insisted on sleeping in the every night since. She LOVES coloring. We usually color 2 or 3 times a day. And, she is obsessed with the Geico money with eyes logo. She wants me to draw it for her all the time, she goes through my magazines looking for Geico ads so she can see the money, and the other day we got some junk mail from Geico so I let her open it and she got so excited about the paper with the "geek-o" money that she had to sleep with the paper that night. And, finally, we're in the first stages of potty training. My baby is getting so big!!!

Happy Birthday MomMom

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM-MOM!

This is Natalie having an ice cream cone to celebrate your special day. Hope it was great.
We love you!

It was a "big sunglasses" kind of day.

Art

New PJs

While getting Natalie dressed for bed a few nights ago, I realized that all (because I tried several pair) her pjs were suddenly too small. I guess she hit a growth spurt, because all of a sudden nothing is long enough. Her poor little legs and feet were all crunched up, so we rummaged around and found something for her to sleep in, and the next morning, Nat and I went on a hunt for some new, bigger pjs. We found some cute ones at Children's Place. It's THE only place where I could find her size (24months) in long sleeved, footie pajamas - which is a must since she refuses to sleep under any covers. I snapped this picture right before I put her to bed.

A Day With Nana & Toot

Natalie spent today with Nana and Toot (her great-grandparents). She always has a great time anytime she visits, but today was full of outdoor adventures. Here are a few of them.

Swinging with Toot

Riding with Toot on the lawn mower

Swinging with Nana

Playing on Toot's tractor

She also went on a Nature Walk with Nana where they picked flowers and looked at a stream.

Natalie Loves the Nursery!

Natalie loves playing in the nursery at church almost as much as she loves Ashley, her favorite nursery worker. Natalie got to play with Ashley this week and Ashley took these cute pictures of her while they played.

My little model. She does this pose all the time - camera or not.



I LOVE this pic. As you can see, here's the "natalie pose" again.



Just another one of my silly girl.



She loves sitting in the "Big Chair" and she can get in and out all by herself.




Thanks Ashley for the adorable pictures. Natalie sure does love you!

Classic Natalie

Jumpin' Jax

On Tuesday, we met some friends at Jumpin' Jax for a little play time. Natalie had a blast bouncing around with Eli. We've been taking her to Jumpin' Jax or Pump It Up since late summer, but she's just now getting big enough to get in and out of all the inflatables by herself. She was so cute trying to get in and out of them. It took a lot of hard work, but she didn't want any help - which was ok with me. Thanks to Mrs. Jill for snapping a few pics while we played. It wasn't an easy job, since Natalie isn't still for a second. But, she managed to get a few good shots anyway.

Stopping for a quick snack

SNOW!

Even though it didn't last long, we had fun getting out in the little snow storm we had today. I wanted Natalie to get to experience it actually snowing, so during the hardest part of it, I bundled her up and we went outside. We walked out into the yard and as soon as the snow hit her, she just stopped and stood there. It was really coming down hard, and she was so cute standing there blinking the snowflakes from her lashes. Eventually she started walking around, but she still seemed very confused by the whole thing. I tried to teach her how to catch snowflakes on her tongue and how to throw a snowball, but she wasn't very good at either. I'm not sure she enjoyed the snow, but I enjoyed seeing her in it.

. . . To Be Loved

How sweet it is! Happy Valentine's Day! As you can see, Natalie loved her gift from Joe. She was soooo excited when she woke up this morning and Daddy had this huge teddy bear waiting for her. She has loved on it all day. She also got a few "play" bracelets from Mama that she's had fun wearing around the house today.

Thank you to Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop for the cutie pie outfit from BabyGap and to Mammie and Papa for the little pink bear.

Joe gave me two of the sweetest cards and is taking me to the Melting Pot for dinner... but that dinner will be on another night, because we both hate to go out for dinner on Valentine's Day - the restaurants always seem extra cheesy on that night.

For his Vday, Joe got a precious homemade card from Natalie and breakfast in bed from me (complete with heart shaped toast).

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love love!

World of Wheels Weekend

This weekend Joe and I enjoyed one of his Christmas presents from my parents - 2 tickets to the World of Wheels car show and a night at the Sheraton. Here's a quick review of all we packed into about 28 hours.

Sat 12pm - Lunch at Jason's Deli - yummy!
Sat 1pm - Stopped to browse around Whole Foods - bought some yummy bread and cheese to take back to the hotel.
Sat 2pm - Checked in at the hotel
Sat 3pm - Walked over to the car show at the BJCC
Sat 3 - 6pm - Looked at lots and lots of cool cars. Below are a few of the pics Joe took. I know absolutely nothing about cars, but I enjoyed walking around with him looking at stuff. Joe knows a whole bunch about cars and tried to teach me some stuff, but I am just not good at learning car stuff. We got to see Henry Winkler (The Fonz), the original K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider and the new K.I.T.T. Joe had his picture made in the original car. He was pretty excited!
Sat 6pm - Headed back to the hotel. Spent a few minutes on the computer looking for somewhere fun to eat dinner. Settled on Fire + Ice. Relaxed in the room for about an hour, then got ready for dinner.
Sat 7pm - Left hotel to go to dinner.
Sat 7 - 8pm - Drove around Birmingham trying to get to the restaurant. We had directions and knew where we needed to go, but apparently the city decided to repave half of the streets downtown and so closed them. We drove around for an hour trying to figure out how to get from one side of town to the other (not easy when every cross street you come to is blocked). Finally, after over an hour of driving, we make it to the restaurant only to find that there is absolutely no parking anywhere - not for blocks. I guess that's what you get at 8 on a Saturday night in 5 Points. So after searching for a parking space for about 20 minutes, we'd had enough and decided to just go back to the hotel. Going back took another 30 mins or so because of blocked streets.
Sat 9pm - We get back to the hotel still having not had dinner. We were frustrated and hungry. So, we headed up to our room, put on pjs, turned on a movie, and called Pizza Hut for delivery.
Sat 9:30pm - Pizza arrives. We took the pizza and the bread and cheese from Whole Foods and had a picnic on the bed - And it was fun! We'd still like to eat at Fire + Ice, but we'll wait until the street construction is finished!!
Sat Sometime after finishing the pizza - we fell asleep and slept all night!!!! No interruptions from children.
Sun 10am - Checked out of the hotel
Sun 10:30 - Yummy breakfast at Ihop.
Sun 11:30 - Stopped at Academy to look around. I found some cute sketchers on sale for $5. Yay for good deals!!
Sun 12:45 - Bought tickets for She's Just Not That Into You. Sat through all the previews and the opening of Inkheart before realizing we were in the wrong theater. Quickly ran to the right theater (missing the first 10 mins or so of the movie) and watched a decent movie.
Sun 4pm - Back at home. Spent the rest of the afternoon playing with Natalie. Never thought I could miss her so much in just a day and a half!

Joe in the original K.I.T.T.

Some of the cars from the show. Sorry, I didn't pay attention to what Joe was saying about them well enough to comment on these pics. But, you can look at them anyway. These are definitely not all the pics he took, but just some of my favs.

Natalie's Favorite Hat

Natalie loves this hat. Every time she sees it lying around, she has to have it. I think she likes it so much because it's one of the few things that she can put on all by herself. I let her wear it whenever she wants because she looks so darn cute in it!

Thank You, Aunt Christina!

Last week, Natalie's Aunt Christina sent her a cutie pie outfit from the Disney Store. She loved the princess dress so much that she immediately wanted to put it on (and tried doing it herself). I finally got her to stop dancing around long enough to help her get it on. She ran and twirled all around the living room showing off her new dress. Thanks again, Aunt Christina. She loves it!