12 Month update

Natalie had her 12 month check-up on Monday. She weighed in at 20 lbs. even which is 50th percentile (she actually weighed a little more than that a week ago on the hospital scale) and is 29 1/2 inches tall which is 65th percentile. Her head is not quite 18 1/2 inches which is 85th percentile! She's always had a good sized noggin'! I like to go by the World Health Organization's growth charts since they are based on breastfed babies.
She is signing "all done" now in addition to the other signs she knows. She signs "more" constantly throughout the day. She has a really good appetite and seems to be addicted to bread (waffles, bagels, cheese toast, etc) and all types of fruit.
She tries to sing the "e,i,e,i,o" part of Old MacDonald when you are singing it to her. She started saying "socks" and she says "Hey Dada" all the time. Her current favorite song is The Wheels on the Bus; I started singing it a few weeks ago and it will distract her when she gets mad/upset or during a diaper change.
She has let go while standing a few times...mainly to clap her hands or if she wants to hold two things at once (one in each hand) so she has to let go of what she has been using to balance herself. I think it might be awhile still before she is walking.

Kiss Me....I'm Irish!

HAHA! Not really. But, SO many people like to point out to me that my baby girl's hair looks like it is red that I figured she could pass for Irish....at least on St. Patrick's Day.

Natalie's First Birthday Pics

I created a slideshow of pics from all the fun for Natalie's first birthday. Thank you to all our wonderful family and friends for helping us celebrate and making it such a memorable day for us all....I have plently of pics to show Natalie when she is older. :)

(not sure why Photobucket cut off the right edge of some of the pics)

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Natalie Claire turns ONE year old at 10:06 pm today. This past year has gone by so quickly and our little newborn isn't so little anymore! I can remember the first few weeks at home with her like it was yesterday. These last twelve months have been so memorable and Natalie has brought more joy to our lives than we could've imagined. We had a HUGE party over the weekend and I will post pics soon. She loved her cake and got lots of really nice gifts; lots of cute clothes & plenty of toys to keep her busy.

Updated

OK, I am proud to say that I stayed up late last night and tonight to finally finish some posts that I had started OVER A MONTH AGO! Be sure to read back to the last week of January to see all my new posts. :)

Slacker

Well, like most things in my life, I've become a slacker with my blog and I procrastinate doing it for some reason! Who knows why.... laziness I suppose. I feel like I started this whole blogging business to update on Natalie and what all she is doing....I haven't done that in quite awhile now and feel bad. I'm gonna try to do that really soon!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

"Let the good times roll" in French... for those that don't know. Happy Mardi Gras! Today is Fat Tuesday and one of our friends hosted a Mardi Gras playgroup party. We had lots of fun! There were plenty of beads for the babies and lots of good food. One of our friends made some really good gumbo and Kristi (who hosted the party) even ordered a King's cake from a bakery in New Orleans.

Happy Valentine's Day

We've had a fun week. Natalie made a Valentine's craft at BabyGym (her two hands in paint put together to form the outlined shape of a heart). Then we went to a Valentine's party with our playgroup at Meredith's house. I made little goody bags to pass out to Natalie's baby friends at BabyGym and the party. Natalie also got some of her own Valentine's goodies from her friends including bubbles which she loves. This morning we had our first real scare. Natalie fell while playing in the pantry and busted open her eye area. It was bleeding and instantly swollen. She cried for awhile but then calmed down. I was torn all day about taking her to the doctor thinking she might need a stitch or two. Ryan called & talked to the nurse and we decided to try to make a homemade "steri-strip" for it. That didn't work so well so Ryan went and bought some liquid skin. It worked great! We tried a few times to put ice on the spot to help the swelling but Natalie wasn't having that! :)
We went to the Auburn basketball game this afternoon and then to eat Mexican food. Natalie loves the tortilla chips. (You can click the pics to make bigger. You can see her cut but it doesn't look so bad in these pics.)

11 months old

Where does the time go? Natalie has become quite good at pulling up on anything and everything. She is often like a little leech (a cute leech, of course).....you will suddenly feel her attached to your leg. For about a week or two she would fuss if she got "stuck" (like holding onto the edge of the fireplace or bathtub) and want you to come help her get down. Now she has figured out how to do that for herself! It is so neat to watch her figure things out.

She says "Hey" all the time now to people at the store or when we go for walks. She also has somehow associated a "f" sound with dogs (well, almost any animal it seems) and will make that sound when she sees or hears a dog in real life or in a book. We think it is b/c of my Mom's dog's name.



She can sign "food" and "milk" and "more". She is so proud of herself when she does it too! She has a really good appetite and will eat just about anything we give her and will continue to want more. She especially loves fruit. She has been gaining weight really consistently and is over 18 1/2 lbs. now.

We've been staying busy with going to lots of birthday party playgroups each week and also BabyGym. She also loves to go out for wagon rides around our neighborhood. She is definitely a people watcher and is quite observant!

Who's 30? Not me!

OK, that isn't true. They say age is just a number though, right? I turned the big 3-0 on Saturday and had a wonderful day celebrating with my family and friends. (I have more to say about my fun-filled day and some pics with captions to add to the blog but in the meantime check out these pics from my Mom's Picasa album. She got a nice new camera that takes great photos.)

**Updated- my b'day was a great day. Ryan got 30 balloons and decorated the house with them. He also grilled a REALLY good beef tenderloin for lunch (his first time to cook a big whole beef tenderloin). He ordered a cookie cake (YUM!) for me and had something extra nice written on there (see the pics below). I got lots of nice gifts from my family and friends. My Dad and Step-Mom sent me some beautiful flowers. We even got to go out to dinner two nights in a row! (Thanks Mom). Friday night we went to Mellow Mushroom and Saturday we went to Amsterdam's with friends. I had two martinis on Sat. night and was feeling kinda sluggish the next day. Check out more pics (click the word) from my camera that I uploaded to Facebook from that day (as well as a few others of Natalie).