Well, we have been a busy family lately.

I went to Ohio to see my sister Rebecca with Natali and my dad. It was a good trip overall.
More on that at a later date.
The coffee shop is going pretty well - Fridays and Saturdays are busier than weekdays which is nice.
Natali had her 2 week checkup from the ear tube surgery and her ears look good! We have to continue a nose spray until it freezes and probably again in the spring. The doctor said it's so she hopefully doesn't get a runny nose which could lead to infection in her ears.

I will post pictures hopefully soon. SO sorry!

Life is pretty crazy right now.

Surgery went well!!

Natali's surgery went well. The doctor said her ears were very bad (infected and stuff). The surgery took less than 20 minutes. She was pretty fussy the first hour or two but after that she has pretty much been herself. She is on a few different medications - nose spray, ear drops, antibiotic, and the inhaler that she has been on for a while. We are going to see Dr.Roberts tomorrow to have her check Natali's lungs - the anesthesiologist that helped with Natali's surgery was concerned about the congestion in her lungs. He says she has reactive upper airway something or other (basically asthma). So he really wanted us to see our pediatrician. We will see if Dr.Roberts wants us to use anything else to get her over this nasty stuff. We will keep you updated! Thanks to everyone who prayed for our little girl. It was really hard to let the nurse take Natali back for her surgery but God took good care of her. :)

Quick update

So, I haven't posted in a while because life has changed around here and I haven't had the time or energy to get on the computer much.

Here are a few highlights:

Mugshot Coffee House opened on September 29th (this is the business we started in Longview)
So we were up there all the time the whole week before and week after that day

Natali is having tubes placed in here ears tomorrow morning bright and early
So we have been to the pediatrician and ear,nose,throat doctor

I had a seminar in Dallas from last Thursday until Sunday so Natali stayed with Grammie and Grampie

The house is a total wreck! Josh works pretty much 5:30am until 10:00pm on weekdays and until about midnight on weekend. Fortunately we are closed on Sundays. So I get up in the mornings and get myself and Natali ready for daycare and pick her up every day.

Then on this Thursday I am scheduled to take Natali to Ohio to see my twin sister Rebecca. (My dad is coming too)

So that's that in a nutshell. I will hopefully post some pictures sometime........Natali's hair is getting a lot longer and she is talking more.

Natali and "Mimmie"

Natali loves her "mimmies". Lately she will bring these 2 big Minnie and Mickey to you and put her arms up for you to pick her up - she wants to sit in your lap between the 2 stuffed Mimmies.

Then she lays her head back and will stay there for just a little bit.

Well, Natali's daycare called Wednesday to say she had a 100.5 fever and she wasn't acting herself. Josh picked her up early and we called the doctor's office. They said to watch her for a night and see what her fever did. Thursday she woke up with 101.2 so she went AGAIN in to see Dr.Roberts. She thinks Natali now has a virus that has gone to her chest- her lungs sounded yucky. We now have a chamber inhaler to use on her 3-4 times a day. It is a mask with a chamber tube that you put the inhaler at the end of that. We have to put the mask over her nose and mouth and puff the inhaler to her. She absolutely hates it -she screams the whole time. I think it is helping though. Good news is that Natali's ears are looking better but not all the way better. We will go back AGAIN next Thursday for a recheck.

Hurricane Ike

So Hurricane Ike came through Longview yesterday afternoon. Our electricity flickered all day long and finally went out at 3:30pm and didn't come on again until 10:30 this morning. Natali was a little concerned last night when the lights were out and she was very interested in all of the candles. :) The wind was just plain crazy! We had some big gusts that I was quite concerned about. Not damage to our house - but lots and lots of branches, pine cones, and leaves all over the front and back yard.
We drove over to my parents house for lunch and we saw a lot of down trees - 1 in particular had hit part of a house and caused some good damage. It was a very large tree and the whole thing was uprooted. I am amazed at all the damage just in Longview was caused by Mr.Ike.
So we are all okay here... thank you Lord for no more big branches falling into the house!!!!!!

Natali and her books

She loves her books! We have them on a shelf that she can reach so lots of times she goes over there, grabs a book, and sits down and looks at it. :) Sometimes she will dump all the books on the floor before she decides which one she wants and sometimes she will bring a book to one of us to read to her. She is cute when she sits by herself and turns the pages, she jibber jabs the whole time like she is reading the book.
(please excuse the slobber spot on her shirt - this sickness and stuff makes her drool a lot) :)

Update on the sickie

Well, Natali got a lot better by the end of last week and most of the weekend, but started getting worse in the middle of the week. She has been coughing a lot more and waking up at night coughing. The runny nose came back also. So we called the doctor's office and they advised for us to come in today which we had wanted to do anyways. Josh's mom and Josh took Natali in for a 3:40 appointment and Josh had to leave to go do something so it was just Grammie and Natali. They were there until 5:30!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. Apparently one of the other doctors has quit so I guess the others are taking up the patients. The point of the story is that Natali's ear infections are still there so Dr.Roberts is adding another antibiotic. Nothing for the cough because she said that is associated with the ears. We will go for a recheck in 2 more weeks and see how things are coming along - hopefully there will be nothing to see in those ears!!!

Here is just a cute pic. She likes to have blankets put around her sometimes and she walks around the house like this. :)

Sickie

Natali has had a runny nose and cough stuff for about 2-3 weeks so we decided to take her to the doctor since it seemed like she just couldn't shake this one. She has started wheezing a little bit when she breathed too. We went yesterday to see Dr. Roberts and Natali has 2 ear infections, a sinus infection and bronchitis or something like that. This time she was sick she never messed with her ears!!! Aaargh. We had no idea. That is the frustrating part. Plus a few weeks ago, Natali was waking up in the night crying a lot and we thought maybe it was some sort of phase she was going through because she seems to go through stages. Aaargh again. Of course we will never know for sure. Natali is on an antibiotic and a liquid to help dry up the snot. She seems better already today - the runny nose has run away. :) She has been is a good mood for all this which she usually is but hopefully it will be all better soon.

Also, Natali said "juice" tonight!!!! It was so clear... Josh and I looked at each other and was like "did she just say that?". She said it a few more times though not quite as clear. We are so excited to add another word to her vocabulary. Hopefully she will not forget this word. Another word she can say that I forgot to add to the list is "pop". She says this when she is outside with bubbles and touching them. :) So cute. Well, I should get to bed.

New skill

Natali is finally stacking blocks herself! She has always just knocked down the blocks and refused to stack them. Yesterday we got the blocks out and she started putting them on top of each other!!! Josh and I couldn't believe it! As you can see she did 4 blocks on her own and later she did 5 I think. We are excited for this new milestone. :)

Oh, and Natali is 16 months old today!

Talking

Natali's words

Words she is currently saying:
1. Dadda
2. Momma
3. Fish
4. More
5. Mimmi (Minnie)
6. Cacker (Cracker)
7. Nana
8. BUBBLE!
9. Uh oh
10. She still makes a cat, cow and dog noise when you ask her.

Words she has said in the past but seems to have forgotten them:
1. Yucky
2. Duck

Words she will say but only if you say them and then she repeats them:
1. Whoa Whoa Whoa
2. Book
3. Ball

That's all I can think of right now. She is doing really well. She tried really hard to say "Ranger" our dog's name last night so we will have to work on that one. It is so adorable when she says something I just love it!

I have a few things to update but I will probably do them seperately - we'll see.

Natali has started sucking out of a straw. :) Josh and I have been making smoothies the last few nights and we use straws to drink them. Well, Natali comes over to us with her mouth open like a little birdie, so I thought I'd try the straw. I made the sucking noise and showed her what to do with her mouth. It took her just a few minutes of trying and she got it... and when she did, she liked it!! It was really funny. Then she kept wanting more and more and more and more! She knows now when the blender comes out what is coming and she gets excited.

"BUBBLE" !!!!

This is a great video because it shows Natali saying "bubble" and it shows she can dance on command! :) She really does. One of things I always thought was cute about little babies before I was ever pregnant was when they would do a little dance. Now I have my own cute dancer!

Photo shoot

I realized I needed more pictures to put on the blog, so I took Natali in her room and took a few pics of her.

She is doing really well , she has a little snotty nose right now, but otherwise good. She is learning more words - the main one right now is "bubbles". We have some bubbles from grandpa and Natalis loves to go outside and have us blow bubbles for her. Now she goes to the door and says "bubble". :) It's cute. I took a video of her outside with the bubbles on our video camera and I am still working on getting it downloaded to our computer. I will post that video later sometime. Natali is also into saying "uh-oh" when she drops something.

Natali's hair seems to be growing really fast lately. Josh took this picture one night when I was gone and he had given Natali a bath. Her hair doesn't look this long when it is dry, so this is a cool picture to me. And kudos to daddy for getting a great picture! (He said it wasn't easy to get her still long enough to capture the photo)

Camera smile

Natali somehow has figured out that she is supposed to smile for the camera! It is really funny. If you have the camera and say her name, she looks up at you and does this cheesy smile. She likes to look at the picture on the camera after you take it. Here are some examples: