3.30.2009

Miss Natalie

Here are a few photos of Natalie that I took last week, just hanging out. :)

Paint & Bedding

Brad decided that if we were going to paint the nursery that we might as well go ahead and get it done, so Sunday morning, we went out and got paint. He painted all afternoon Saturday and then Sunday morning, and it's all finished! It turned out so pretty!

I took a couple of pictures this morning, but there is still a lot of stuff in that room that will have to be moved, so I didn't take any whole room pictures. You can at least get an idea of what the bedding and paint look like though! :)

3.28.2009

A Name, A Date, & Bedding

Big news - we finally decided on a name! It is going to be Mollie Grace! It's so fun to actually be able to call her by name now. I think it makes me even more anxious for her arrival!

I also had my OB appointment on Thursday, and it went great! We got to schedule my c-section! It will be Tuesday, July 14.

We also picked out bedding for Mollie's nursery, and we bought paint this morning! Brad is working on painting right now, and I'm so thrilled that it will be out of the way soon! It's going to be a very soft yellow.

This is the bedding we got - just the quilt and the crib skirt:


But I think it's SOOOOO much cuter in person. I took a picture, but it still doesn't seem to do it justice:

I think I'll order a curtain panel and use it to make a matching valence.

3.25.2009

JBF Goodies

This past weekend was the big JBF consignment sale at the fairgrounds. Katie and I volunteer at it so that we can go to the presale, and we even convinced Bill and Brad to volunteer 3 hours so we could go to the absolute start of the presale. It was a good thing that we did, too, because I got there early, and went straight to the strollers as soon as they opened. I was looking for a sit & stand stroller, preferrably a Joovy Caboose. We test-drove a similar style at Babies R Us, and Natalie thought it was lots of fun to stand on the back. I think it will be great for her now that she's firmly in the "I want to WALK" phase! There was another lady at the sale who got to the strollers right before me who must have had the exact same thing in mind. It was kind of funny to watch her going from stroller to stroller looking at prices, then she grabbed the tag on one and said, "This one! I want this one!" to the stroller attendant. It was one of two identical red & black Joovy Cabooses. So I promptly told her I wanted the other one. Mine was $70, and hers was $50, so I missed out on a slightly better deal, but it's a $150 stroller, so I was still thrilled with my price. Here's a picture of the stroller from the website. Ours needs to have a super-good cleaning!I also got a ton of cute clothes for Natalie that I'm so excited for her to get to wear. We are back to winter/fallish weather now, though. She didn't have really any Spring/Summer clothes in 24 month size, so I got to buy her a whole wardrobe. I was so excited to find awesome deals on such cute stuff! I paid about $4 per dress, $5 for jeans, and $2.50 for each shirt/top. You can't get those kind of prices at Wal-Mart, much less Children's Place, Old Navy, Gap, and Target! Here are most of Natalie's new clothes: These last 3 dresses are my absolute favorites! I can't wait for her to get to wear them!

I also got a booster seat for Natalie, some nursing pads and milk storage bags, a few wooden puzzles, and some cute board books to refresh our collection (Mommy & Daddy are ready for some fresh material!). :) You'll notice that I didn't mention buying any clothes at all for the new baby. I resisted temptation and didn't even LOOK at that section! We are so blessed that Brad's sister Lisa is sending us all of her preemie/newborn/0-3 month summer clothes that she had for Aubrey! This should work out wonderfully since Aubrey was born July 10. I think that once we get through the summer and warm fall months, our new girlie will be able to fit into the same clothes that Natalie wore since we have TONS of 0-3 month fall/winter/spring clothes!

3.18.2009

The Big Girl Bed

I have to say, Natalie has done amazingly well with her new bed! Brad took down the crib and put the full-sized bed from our guest room/soon-to-be-new-nursery on Friday, and attached the bed rail to the side. Natalie LOVES to get up on her big bed, and she LOVES to sleep in it! It's hilarious how excited she gets about the thing. I thought that might be bad and she might not want to actually sleep in it, but she does! The first night went 100% perfectly, and so did naptime the following day. When I heard her on the monitor in the morning, I went to her room, opened her door, and she was just climbing off the bed, saying "down!" That's actually one of the only times she's even gotten out of it though! Usually, we go in and she's happily rolling around or sitting up in it. It almost makes me feel like she was crowded in the crib, but I know she had plenty of room. We did have one weird naptime on Monday, but all in all, it wasn't so bad, and I think it had more to do with her teeth bothering her than anything else.

By the way, she is seriously working hard on her 1st year molars. One of the top ones has a few cusps poking through, and all 3 others are thisclose to poking through as well. Honestly, I probably shouldn't say this, but it's been much easier than I ever expected cutting molars to be, since the other 8 teeth she has were such a bear. Praise Jesus! Hopefully it doesn't get too much worse before they are all the way through. It makes me not dread the 2nd year ones nearly as much!

My allergies have actually been better lately - Praise the Lord!!! - so maybe Natalie and I will venture out to the park tomorrow and take some pictures outside. We have some other errands to run, too, so we'll see. I know I've been bad about not taking enough pictures of her lately!

3.12.2009

Ten on Twelve

As promised, ten photos on the twelfth. :)

8:00 am: Mark's famous recipe pulled pork is in the oven. It's my week to bring dinner for the Yirah girls. Hope they like it!
9:00 am: You can't see them, but Natalie has her first real (meaning about 95% of her hair is up) pigtails today! I was trying to get a cute pic of them, but she just wanted to play peek-a-boo from behind her chair. :)
10:00 am: Natalie watching the snow. Yes, I said SNOW. In Oklahoma, in March. Crazy!
11:00 am: Natalie's tower of blocks. I'm very impressed with her stacking skills!
12:00 pm: Too tired to wake up early + Natalie having a clingy day + Brad home for lunch = Mid-day showering for Mommy. Not complaining!
1:00 pm: Sleeping Natalie. This was one of the easiest naps ever, surprisingly! Notice the new addition to her crib - her own Ariel pillow!

2:00 pm: Seizing an opportunity to finish getting ready while Natalie sleeps.

3:00 pm: Natalie's up and it's time for a snack. We share cheddar bunnies. Yum!

4:00 pm: Natalie "helps" me make brownies for tonight.

5:00 pm: First Natalie tells me "shoes," and brings me these. So I put them on her. Then I go back into the kitchen to clean up, and she starts saying "hep! hep!" She's trying to climb into this chair. So I "hep" her into the chair and give her some paper and crayons. I come back over to her a couple minutes later, and you can't really see it in this photo, but there is red wax on her lips and chin. We seriously need to work on the "crayons are not for eating" rule. Just when I think she's got it, I find wax in her teeth. Yay. ;)

18 Months

Can you believe our little Natalie is a year and half today? Here is a photo that I took when she was 6 months old and then one that I took this morning!

3.11.2009

How time flies!

I can't believe it's been almost 3 weeks since I posted anything! Time really flies! I know I've been terrible about taking and posting pictures lately, but I'm really excited for the nice weather and better light! More pictures will be up soon!

Speaking of pictures, I missed doing "10 x 10" yesterday, but that's ok because again, I planned to do it on a stay-at-home day rather than a work day. I'm planning on doing it tomorrow. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be cold tomorrow, so we probably won't have any "side" pictures, but that's ok. :) Tune in tomorrow or Friday for a day's worth of pics!

Well, baby planning stuff is in full swing around our place. We're closer to deciding on a name and decorations for the baby's room. We also have decided to go ahead and move Natalie into a big girl bed in her current room instead of buying another crib. I'm worried about some rough nights, but I think it will work out. I really think she'll like it and it will save us a lot of money and it will be easier to make the transition now than once the baby is here. We'll let everyone know how it goes!

It's hard to believe that Natalie will be 18 months old tomorrow! I will have to take a picture in her chair with the pink bear as one of our photos! She is growing into such a "little girl," and we have more fun with her every day. We think she's kinda quirky (in a good way), and she's also pretty independent, very strong-willed, and at times we think the only word she knows is "no," but that's really not the case. We sat down and tried to count how many words she knows, and we were astounded! She uses more every day, and it's fun to be able to communicate with her better. I think my favorite new word of hers is "help," because it sounds really cute coming from her, and also because I'm glad she's decided to use this a lot rather than the previous method of pointing and grunting when she wants up or down or whining if she thinks she's stuck somewhere!

Another example of her communicating new things all the time was yesterday morning. I was getting her dressed, and after I put her pants on, I helped her sit up so we could put her shirt on. She sat up and looked at her pants, which were covered in big colored polka dots with snowflakes/flowers in the center. She pointed to one, and happily said, "preee!" I hadn't heard that before, and it took me a minute to figure out she thought her pants were "pretty!" I thought that was pretty cute! :) She's never paid much attention to what she was wearing - or given her opinion about it - before!

We're still working on potty training, and she is doing really well with it. We probably just need to buckle down and try out some training pants if we want it to really work consistently. I guess we're taking a laid-back approach and I'm not sure what the best thing to do at this point is. She does have her 18-month appointment next Monday, so I'll probably ask her doctor her opinion. We just love her, and her adivce is usually spot-on.

Well, I'd better finish my lunch and get back to work. Like I said, check back in the next couple of days for pictures!