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).

Fun day at the park (in January!)

We had a playdate at the park this week with some of our friends. Who knew it could be so nice and warm and pleasant outside in January? I'm starting to think that the whole global warming thing is happening faster than I realized! Natalie had a great time and loves swinging.

Band-aid Baby

Two boo-boos in one day. There was a slight accident that involved a full plastic pill box (the giant ones that have 4 slots per day for each day of the week... it is Ryan's, not mine! LOL) falling onto poor Natalie's head. She cried for a second but was fine very quickly. Her skin did get torn and bled a little so I put a band-aid on it for awhile.

**I wrote this post the day this happened but am just now getting around to adding a pic & actually publishing it to my blog today (2/26/09)....this accident pales in comparision to when she fell on Valentine's Day.**

Pulling Up

Natalie has started pulling up on certain things....mostly our knees, legs, arms, shoulders, etc. She also has pulled up on some of her toys and some boxes and has come awfully close to pulling up on the fireplace and the lower ledge of some cabinets that she explores. Today I caught her pulling up on one of the shelves in the pantry.

Cruising Along

Little Miss NC (I am saying that for you, Amy) has started cruising along the furniture. She doesn't pull up onto it by herself just yet but she will if we are right beside her and she pulls up onto our leg first & then reaches out to the coffee table. Then she just busies herself with slowly making her way all the way around the table to explore each object that she can find. (Don't mind her mismatched outfit in these pics, LOL).




She has also started pulling up some in the bathtub and this pretty much scares me (if you know my history- slipping & falling in a bathtub in Mexico and shattering my top front teeth then you understand why). So, I keep my hands on her the whole time. Ryan says I need to let go of her but I'm not so sure about that just yet....