splash park

Well, I guess it's about time I put something on the blog. These pictures are from about a month ago - Josh and I took Natali to one of the parks in town. It has a brand new water/spash pad. We drove up and the water wasn't going so I started to get really disappointed really fast. I walked up to it to try to find a button to turn it on, touched one of the poles and all the water came on!!! We were the only ones there for a while, then some other kids came. It was a really neat place and I was impressed with all the different water features. Natali had a blast and mommy and daddy got wet too!

Natali was scared of the big buckets that dumped water so she stayed away from that part. The nice things was all the water would come and go in a certain pattern so everything wasn't going all the time. We had a really good time and I am sure we will go back some day.

More to come on other summer adventures. :)

Writing

Natali can write her name!! She needs a little help with which letter to write but she know how to write them! She is getting better - even today she knew that A comes after the N. :) She did this on Sunday I think it was. She gets so happy when she writes each letter!

Making faces

I love to have Natali make different faces and it's something she seems to like to do too! Here are a few from our "session" the other day. I'll tell her what kind of face to make and she'll come up with something!

Frown face

Silly face

Another funny face

Surprised face (Yes, she can still do the "o" face)

Smile Natali!

Grandma's visit

My grandma came to visit for a few days this past weekend from Wed night until Mon morning. We had a really great time - got to go to Pump It UP, ate out for lunch and dinner a couple times, and played at the park. We enjoyed our time and had 4 generations together!

Bday catch up Part 2

We had a great time with the Bradfords who came over and brought ice cream sandwiches. Natali shower her cousin the train set and he decided it was good enough to eat!! :)

Catch up on birthday events Part 1

Birthday party at KidsView Park

We had a party with some friends and family last Sunday for Natali's birthday. It was at a local park and we had a pavillion rented. The weather wasn't exactly what I had wanted, but at least it wasn't raining. It was extremely windy!! We had to duct tape to tape down the table cloths and it was actually a bit chilly. But the kids didn't care about the wind when they were playing on the playground and us adults made it through also. :) We had a Thomas the Tank Engine themed party so I made train sugar cookies with the help of my sister and mom. Actually Natali helped me make the batter and they helped me decorate and cut them out. I also made a chocolate chip cookie "cake".

We had 3 other kids attend the party - 2 of which I got a picture of plus Natali. They were all moving around so fast at the playground, it was hard to get pictures! Overall I think the party was a success and Natali got some neat presents and some new clothes.

I will have more pictures/post at another time with our other birthday events.

Caldwell Zoo trip

I know we have been MIA for a while. Life goes too fast sometimes. Josh is training in Dallas for Denny's and he is gone from home a lot so mostly it is me and Natali. However, Josh was home for a long weekend and I happened to be off work Monday so we decided to do something different and went to the zoo in Tyler which is about 45 minutes from our house. This is a wonderful zoo and we always enjoy going. Natali did really good even though she had not napped and we were there for almost 3 hours from about noon until 3.

We asked Natali what she wanted to see first and she said "the giraffes" so we did that first.

Another highlight I think for her was the bird walk through where you can feed the birds with seed on a stick. Natali even picked a little toy bird from the gift shop as her treat above all the other cool things.

One of the cool parts for us was when the white tiger came right up to the side of the cage and just stood there for a few minutes because he/she was very interested in something outside of the cage. Wow.

I will hopefully put more pictures up tomorrow but that is not a promise. :) We have a lot of cool and fun pictures to share. We had perfect weather and the zoo was not crowded at all so it was even better. Natali called the penguins "sassy" and she would say "let's keep moving" and she was excited to see "all kinds of animals". It was a great experience for all and we look forward to going back hopefully when my sister and brother-in-law come to Longview in a couple weeks. Thanks to all who check this blog regularly - I will try harder to have updates closer together!

Snow day 2010

I am finally getting pictures on here from our snow. Our electricity had gone out for about 7 hours and it messed up our internet modem. We got it fixed today so I can use the internet now! I was amazed when I got up last Friday morning to find a TON of snow covering everything! Everything was white and beautiful. Natali loved the snow and I captured some cute pictures.

We went over to my parents' house because they had electricity and Uncle Mike was kind enough to play with Natali for a little while and pulled her on the sled. Yes, we have a sled. My parents have had that since I was little!

Silly girl

I took this picture a few weeks ago. She was going potty and had been in there for a while, so I went in to check on her. This is what I found.

She is normally allowed to get 1 sticker when she goes potty. She went a little overboard and dumped the whole bag! :)

A trip to the park

So today we all got to have a few hours together and we went to the park. It was a beautiful day outside, a little windy, but overall pretty nice. We brought bread of course because Natali wanted to feed the ducks and hear them go Quack Quack. She really enjoyed herself as did we.

Here they come when they found out we had bread!

Natali not real sure about the ones close up

I love when the water makes the rainbow color!

Natali saying "cheese"!

Josh started his new job at a Denny's restaraunt and he is having to work a lot of overnight hours (they are open 24-7). We haven't seen much of each other lately so we were so glad to have a couple hours this afternoon together! And to spend with our cutie!

Well, we made it through Christmas. We had a wonderful time Christmas Eve with Josh's parents and sister, brother-in-law, and 2 month old little boy. He is so cute and starting to smile at things. :) We had Christmas with my family last Saturday because they went to Florida this week. Natali received all kinds of things: CDs, a couple videos, a My Little Pony, shoes, and other fun things. She was most excited about a few new vehicles of course. She also got a remote control car from A. Jenny and U. Christian which she loves! It's made for little kids and she is able to work it pretty good.
We have been letting Natali take naps again because after about a week without a nap, we realized they still might be necessary sometimes! She was being quite cranky. So if she needs it, we let her nap but try to make it early in the day. She is doing wonderful with potty training! We are so proud of her and she got more panties for Christmas. :)
Will try to put pictures up soon, I know it's been a while. Busy busy bees around this house.
One more bit of information, we will be closing the coffee shop that we opened last year in September. Unfortunately the sales and income were just not enough to keep going. We will miss the place and put a lot in to it - especially Josh. We know the Lord will provide for us and Josh has actually had a job offer somewhere else already. Hopefully all will work out.

Changes

It's crazy how fast a 2 1/2 year old seems to keep growing up. Natali has gone 4 nights wearing panties and staying dry all night. She does just fine during the day so far staying dry all day. She is finally okay with learning how to pull her panties down by herself too. She has also stopped taking naps... I should say, we have stopped letting her take naps. She was staying up until 10:00pm a lot of nights so we are trying no naps and she is getting to bed a little earlier - about 8:30pm. She has SO MUCH energy at night it is amazing!! She runs around making lots of noise yelling and singing... back and forth... back and forth. Crazy. She just talks so much, she knows a lot of songs and can sing them pretty much on tune, and her vocabulary is wow!

A couple pictures of the precious


The above picture is just another example of how she lines things up. (Notice all the cars are facing the same way too) :)

Squishy car

I can't believe I haven't blogged about Natali's squishy car! Natali goes to a family friend's house usually one day a week. They have 3 boys and Natalis loves to go to their house because they have lots of vehicles! :) One day the mom gave Natali this stuffed race car. She said Natali had been carrying it around a lot that day and they would like for Natali to have it. Natali has been attached ever since! She has to have the "squishy car" with her every time she sleeps. It's the funniest thing - I guess it is kind of like other kids who have blankies - she even talks to it. I can't remember the exact circumstances of this picture but here is Natali asleep with her squishy car.

News on the kiddo

Well, we started puting big girl panties on Natali over the weekend. My mom suggested to give it a try. Natali stayed with my parents Friday night and Saturday morning because I had to work Saturday. So they put the panties on... Dora panties of course! When my mom put them on, Natali said "These are very soft!". She did really good - at one point she started to go pee-pee and leaked some but caught herself. She did that a couple times I guess but then seemed to get the idea. We told her to keep Dora dry and she goes for that. :) She says "Dora needs to be happy so I will keep her dry". Sunday she did really good and today has gone alright. Still needs work but overall, I'm impressed. This morning, she came out of her room and the first thing she said was "Mommy, can I make pee-pees in the potty?"! So we sat on the potty (she had already gone a little in the nighttime pull-up) and she went a little more and did a #2. Then she saw her panties and said "Can I wear the yellow ones today?". It made me so happy!

Sorry if this is too much information for some people but that is our beginning to big girl panties! Natali can talk like the best of them! She understands just about anything. Oh, another thing is that she likes to make funny faces and have other people make funny faces. SO here is a funny face session with Natali.

All you have to do is say "Natali, make a funny face". :)

Could it be.... a post?

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is a post. I have been really busy, out of town, and some is just plain lazy. Natali is growing like crazy in personality and vocabulary. She is amazing with what she can remember and then use later in the right way. She'll say "it's a pleasant day outside" and "I'm funny aren't I?" and "is this your antibiotic?" or "she just had a problem" or "can we go to my home now?". She knows Bible verses and songs and her ABCs and she can count in Spanish. One of the biggest things she is still in to are vehicles. She especially likes to line them up in a line anywhere at anytime. She'll line up anything actually and she'll also put things in piles or around each other. Here are some pictures