Natalie's Second Trip to Michigan

We just returned from a trip to Michigan - hence the lack of blog posts! Here are some pictures from our jaunt.

Mohawk baby, getting her hair washed the night before we left so she could impress the family with her cuteness.

Natalie with her cousin (and my godchild) Nathan! Isn't he handsome?

We went to Katie's soccer game while in Michigan. Natalie loved watching all the kids run around.

Katie climbing trees.

Natalie at Bubba/Gramma Nance's house, sitting in her new fancy Michigan high chair! While we were there, she tried some new foods - tofu and wheat (bread). Both successes. She likes tofu because she can eat it herself as finger food.

In the backyard at Aunt Pam's house.
Then on Wednesday we drove to Evanston IL to visit Aunt Amy, Uncle Chris, and Matthew! It was the first time we'd seen Matthew, though he's eight weeks old. What a charmer. They don't make babies any sweeter than him. Once I picked him up, I had such a hard time putting him down again! He is the calmest, most delightful little guy.

Natalie has a hard time leaving other babies alone :-). She tried to grab Matthew - possibly searching for his paci? She loves to steal everyone else's paci, even when she has her own available.

Then we returned to Michigan. Here is a picture of Kates and Natalie. As you can guess by our attire, the weather was purely delightful while we were there - we had lots of nice outside time.
Emma amusing her cousin.
Aunt Pam holding her niece!

The trip was full of wonderful family time. Unfortunately, it also coincided with chemo for Aunt Pam. We're glad that we were able to help out and have planned other trips back for this summer, so Natalie gets to enjoy lots of cross-country flights.

In other Natalie News:

Natalie is very vocal like her mother. She particularly loves to say 'MAMAMAMAMAMAMA', which I find very flattering! She also uses almost all other consonants in random order. We love to hear it.

She still isn't crawling per se, just scooting around on her stomach - though she has started the phase where she gets up onto her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. Believe me... Tyler and I aren't too eager for full-fledged crawling. At the same time, we accept that it isn't that far away! It's nice and exciting to see her moving around while she's still relatively slow. I wish we could continue to be a few steps ahead of her, but alas... I fear those days are rapidly drawing to a close.

Happy Tax Day!

It's common knowledge that April 15th is a holiday in this household. The end of tax season! Yay!

To celebrate, Tyler went to his firm's annual April 15th party and relaxed with the rest of the accountants from his company. Natalie and I scooted around the house, trying to eat the door stops, playing with the foot pedal from her Diaper Dekor, and trying out mango as a finger food (it was a hit). Here's a quick video I took. You can see how fast she's getting at scooting! Disclaimer - I took it with our regular camera, not the video camera, so the quality isn't great. And then, of course, Natalie decided that she wanted to grab the camera, so the video abruptly ended. As her mother I think it's pretty darn cute though.

Tonight she also decided that she wanted to explore the consonant. She has been trying a few out for size lately - we'd hear maybe one "na" or "fa" a day, almost like it was a mistake she made. Tonight, though, she kept saying "ma! ma! ma! ma! ma! mama!" I know that she was just playing around with the sound, and she didn't know what she was saying, but it felt amazing to me.

Picnic at the Park (a.k.a. Sunny and 75 degrees in San Francisco)

Today we had a picnic at Golden Gate Park with our friends from the Mom's Group.

Our girl swinging!
One thing she really enjoyed about this weekend was the warm weather. She got to enjoy lots of diaper-free time, and lots of barefoot time. She loves to feel the breeze on her toes! She wiggles them all around.
Natalie (back to the camera) seated next to Maya. Sarah and Olen are visible in the top left corner and you can just barely see Kathy and Sadie in the top right corner. We had such fun!
Mom and baby enjoying the sunshine

A few shots from late March/ early April

At the end of March, Sarah and Anna came over for a trip to the swings at the park. Both girls needed to eat lunch before setting out... good thing Kai's high chair lives right next to Natalie's high chair in our kitchen! Yet another advantage of sharing child care during the day with a wonderful family like Maureen and Kai.
The girls playing
Uh, Anna? I think there's a little something on your nose.
Here's a picture of Natalie hamming it up for the camera. She is really into scooting around on her tummy these days. Can you imagine that there was once a time when this girl would *scream* if she was made to do tummy time? Feels like that was all a dream.
Natalie's new hat. We like the ear flaps! She likes the strings. It's a win-win situation.

Belated Easter Pictures

Beware! These pictures are so cute that we can't be responsible for the consequences if you look at them.
Investigating her Easter basket
Liking the card best
Bunny in her basket!
Where'd all the candy go?

Guest Appearance!

Here's a guest appearance from Easter last month.
We get to see Maya, Kearsley, and Todd again this upcoming weekend, as we are having a picnic at the park. We will be sure to post some pictures. Once you see a smile from Maya, you can't help but want to see that happy grin again and again.

Springing forward!

Every day Natalie gets stronger and a little more active. She has discovered that her knees can help move her along and using both arms together, she can spring herself around to where she wants to go! It is very exciting for her and for us! Looks like crawling is right around the corner...