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

Shnedgie

A couple nights ago, for some reason we got on the topic of a wedgie when Natali was around. Her Pull-Up was bunching up in her rear end and I think Josh told her it is called a wedgie. She thought that was funny. The next day in the morning, Natali's was having bunching up problems again and she said "I have a shnedgie"! It was hilarious and I died laughing. She was very upset and said " I have a shnedgie!!!!!" So we fixed it and she was happy. Then I think she later said "I don't have a shnedgie anymore." She is too much!
I tried to get the video on here but didn't have luck, so I will have to try again another day.

Trying to be a big girl

Natali is officially without her paci - we took it away last Friday night. She has done okay. The first couple nap times didn't go so well, actually they didn't go at all - no nap Saturday or Sunday. She is taking longer to fall asleep and just keeps on talking in her bed. Most nights we stay with her to help her fall asleep but we will stop doing that soon. She still asks for the purple paci but not often. It's funny - she'll be in her bed and say " I need.... I need.... I need.... somethin." Like she thinks she can't say the paci word anymore.
Also, we are done with diapers - we are using pull-ups and working on potty training. I think it might be a little early but there is no turning back now. It's gonna take a while I am pretty sure to get the potty training down all the way. I don't know what to do!!! :) She goes in the potty pretty good but also goes in her pull-up.
We got a growth chart thing from my parent's for Natali's birthday and put it up sometime in May I think and marked where she was at that point. Well, we decided to see her how tall she is and she is 3 inches taller!!!!!! All her dresses were seeming short and she is growing out of her shoes. And she is reaching even more places she couldn't reach before. (Starting to work on doorknobs). Hard to believe a child can grow so much in a short time! Well, that's all for now. I have a really cute video I will hopefully post tonight.

The Nebulizer

We had to take Natali back to the asthma/allergy doctor last week because her asthma wasn't getting any better after wheezing and coughing for 1 week with the ear infection. We finally have a nebulizer. I wondered when we would finally reach that point. The inhalers just didn't seem to be doing the trick anymore. Natali was a little scared of the nebulizer at first but she has done way better than I would expect. The nebulizer has a storybook and stickers with it about Mr.Bubbles and the face mask is a fish face! :) We read the story about Mr.Bubbles needing the nebulizer because he couldn't blow very big bubbles. Well, when I went to turn it on, Natali said "make bubbles!". She thought the machine was going to make bubbles apparently after the story. Anyways, it has helped her out a lot. As long as she can watch a video, she sits really good for it. Sometimes she holds it and sometimes we will strap it on her head. The doctor said if Natali has another "asthma attack" we may look in to allergy testing. SO here are the pictures of Mr.Bubbles and Natali. (Actually she has changed it to DR. Bubbles) Silly kids.

stuff

Natali has had a runny nasty nose the last couple days and didn't feel real good last night. This morning she woke up with discharge out of her right ear. ARRGHHH. This is really frustrating and I know not fun for her. Although, she always is in such a good mood. Of course her asthma is flairing up too.
I am glad tomorrow is Friday - just ready for this week to be over. Natali is talking so much it is unbelievable. She saw a light on our computer yesterday and said "It's very strange". :) She uses words like that perfectly - I wouldn't think she would understand words like that - and "actually" and others like that. Crazy.
That's all for now. I will put up some pictures over the weekend sometime.

4th of July

I realized I didn't post pictures from the 4th of July party we went to. Kind of late but oh well. We went to the house of one of the doctors that I work for. Natali had fun going down the slide and swinging. Also, they had a train which Natali really enjoyed and we had to ride it twice. :) Here are the pics!

Natali talk

This morning we had a really bad thunderstorm/lightning/lots of rain/strong winds. There was a really big thunder, so I went and sat in Natali's room in case she needed me or whatever. She woke up shortly after that and I went and sat next to her bed. She said "I hear thunder". I said "Yup there is thunder". Natali said "It goes BOOM BOOM sometimes". :) I agreed with her and then I laid down on the floor by her bed and I guess we both fell back asleep because I woke up about 30 minutes later and Nat was still in her bed but waking up. I sure didn't mean for that to happen but it did! So then we both got up and went on with our day.

Our day included a trip to Dr.Holman's office who is an asthma/allergy specialist. Overall, he said the medicines Natali is on are good and to continue them. However, we will change the inhaler she is on every day to see if we can keep her from having flair ups. Also, we are to work a little bit on her inhaler technique to try to get her to take longer breaths each time. The appointment was okay except for Natali crying the whole time the doctor tried to look and listen to her. She hates to have her ears looked at and the stethascope. I guess one day she will understand it's not that big of a deal!!! :)

Natali was fussy a lot more today than usual from first thing this morning. Not sure what that's about. She has been putting her fingers in her mouth a lot too today. I will have to get on our other computer tomorrow and post some pictures. Until then, it's nice to have some quiet since Natali is asleep and not whining about everything like she has been today.