New Hat!

Natalie got a new hat this weekend, and our camera actually obliged us by taking a few pictures of the occasion!

Mom and Dad are far too proud of this beautiful little (almost) 18-month old.

She had so much fun watching the Super Bowl yesterday. At the start of the game, she settled in on Mom's lap with a cup of milk and a bowl of crackers to watch for five or so minutes. It was like she knew that people all over America were doing the same thing - albeit many with a libation stronger than milk, and a fattier food than crackers! Then her friend Anna arrived, and the tv could have disappeared for all Natalie cared after that point - although both girls really seemed to like Bruce Springsteen's halftime show.

In Baby Boy Gibbs news, we are officially in our third trimester (!!). Tomorrow I will re-encounter all sorts of prickly needles (glucose screening, then a CBC, then a Rhogam shot) at my doctor appointment. BBG has been moving around quite a bit - he especially seems to like it when I sing to Natalie. He was moving all over when I sang "twinkle twinkle little star" this evening (while Natalie rocked her baby doll). I'm glad *one* of us likes my awful singing voice...or, maybe he hates it and wants me to stop? :-)

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!

Last Post of 2008!

Our camera is now on the fritz. Here are some of the last shots we caught before everything went pink and fuzzy.

Strollin' around.

Gosh, this Santa guy? We aren't sure we like him. Even though last year we were just fine with him.

Mom got in the picture to try to help Natalie smile. It didn't work.

Things went downhill from there. Please note the look of immense displeasure on her face. Point taken.

Her first "real" taste of snow! It was snowy when she and I traveled to Michigan last January for Aunt Amy's baby shower, but she was too little to really experience it. This year Aunt Pam pulled her around in the sled outside, which Natalie thought was pretty cool (especially since cousins Emma and Nathan were playing alongside the sled)!

We had a wonderful holiday this year. We went to Michigan for the week of Christmas and Natalie was a champion traveler. Mom and Dad were very proud! Natalie had such a nice time with our extended family... it was hard to leave.

A few more notes -

Natalie is quite the talker these days. She likes to have pretend conversations with 'See-see' (i.e. Reese)!

She loves it when we sing the ABCs to her. She bobs her head and shakes it all around, and asks us to sing it again. Considering that her other favorite songs all either hip hop or rock, we think this is just fine!

Natalie is starting to adore Elmo. She picks him out in all of her books and squeaks "Elmo!" with delight. What is it about that fuzzy little red guy?

Here is a little video of Natalie enjoying the chair she got from Grandma and Grandpa Gibbs for Christmas. She totally loves it!

Why haven't we taken pictures lately?

We've been remiss, that's why. We will do better with the holidays approaching. We *should* have had Santa pictures for you this weekend but Natalie's nap schedule didn't cooperate with Santa's visiting hours at a local shop in San Francisco... so we will take those next week.

About a week and a half ago we found out that Natalie's going to have a baby brother! We are reading a book we got from the pediatrician over and over these days - it's called "Babies" (creative title) and it goes through all the things babies need, like food, and sleep, and play, and love. Natalie loves the book so let's hope she is learning something from it. Probably not though - we think she just likes the baby pictures.

I did notice this morning that she is getting very jealous of Reese, if the cat comes too close to Natalie's favorite toy - whatever that might be during a given five minute interval. Not a good sign. We will work on that characteristic over the coming months :-)

Thanksgiving Recap

Here's a picture of three of my favorite creatures: My dad, my daughter, and my cat.
Natalie sure had a great time with my parents when they came to visit us in November!

Then last week we flew to Tyler's parents' house, just north of Seattle. It was co-o-o-o-ld! We had to bundle Natalie up during our trip to the park. Another wonderful time was had by all.

Natalie was very much indulged by attention from all sorts of grandparents two weekends in a row! She will be completely bored this upcoming weekend with only mom and dad and Reese to occupy her.

We got back to California on Saturday. Predictably, I was all ready on Sunday to get our Christmas tree! Luckily Tyler knows me by now so he was mentally prepared as well for the task.

Natalie had fun picking a Christmas tree. Remember last year when we picked out a Christmas tree? She's, um, a little bit bigger now :-)

-22 lbs 6 oz (a loss of 2 oz from a couple weeks ago, and the same weight as she was in October - oh well)

-31.5 inches

Helping mom decorate the Christmas tree on Sunday! She did a great job taking ornaments off for us.