Vocab

A few videos of Natalie's burgeoning vocabulary... I apologize for the awful video quality and the finger in the first one! I am really not good at taking videos.

Natalie making a few animal noises while enjoying a chilly but sunny winter day.


Bird-watching


Ah! There's the cat!


This weekend she started telling us when she wants "uppy"... Also, the second she wakes up, now she wants to go "outside". She likes to point out mommy's "wawa" bottle. And, I think the cutest thing she does now is to carry around her little plastic measuring cup, telling us that it's "cawshee" - ie coffee! We've been saying for 17 months that Natalie loves Starbucks, and finally we have proof.

Natalie's latest

Since we don't have many pictures to post due to the aforementioned camera issues, here are a few 2009 videos of our girl in action and chatting away. She gets better at repeating words every day and at telling us the sounds animals make. Multi-word phrases coming up soon!




Here she is during one of her many daily activities:

New Phrases

This week was a language explosion (as my sister Pam so aptly termed it) around the Gibbs household! Some of the phrases spoken:

• "Where's Daddy?"
• "Here they are!" (when asked where her toes are)
• "See-see good girl, See-see good cat" (as I mentioned earlier in the week, See-see is Reese our cat)
  

She also has started helping us read and interpret books this week. For example, most animals say "moo" in Natalie's world - except the dog, who says "ffffffffff". And the chicken says "baw baw baw". All cats are "see-see" and say "e-ahhh" in a kind of screechy meow (shockingly similar to Reese's *actual* meow), although See-see herself is identified as a cat... I guess she must have put it all together that Reese is a cat, and all pictures of cats are like Reese.

She has loved "lift the flap" books for a while, but this week has started actually telling us what's under the flap before we lift it. It's been pretty amazing to hear her tell us that, inside Clarabelle's coach, one can find CUPCAKES! And behind the fence, one can find PERCY! And, inside the station house, one can find a PARTY! (For those parents among you, all of these references come from one particular Thomas-the-tank engine book).

It's pretty cool to hear so many new things come out of her mouth - and for both Tyler and I to have been around to experience it! What are the chances that she would learn the concept of the phrase during the one week when we would both be home to hear it? This is all especially meaningful since Tyler will soon be in the throes of busy season, where he will only get about 1/2 hour daily with her every day except Sunday. So we are really excited that he got to be around to hear all of this.

I've been complaining that she has been walking around the house aimlessly yelling "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" for about a week straight... But yet there is no part of me that looks forward to dropping her off at daycare tomorrow.

p.s. no camera yet. So no pictures. Sorry!