Natalie's Greatest Hits 2010-2011

Having a baby is pretty cool. Natalie is 8 weeks old and has become very giggly and likes to converse with her toys. Her favorites are the ceiling fan, empty corners, her seahorse, her squeaky giraffe, and the cursed and ever-elusive yellow cat that hangs from her swing. She loves bath time, only wakes up once during the night - and not for long - and likes to grab hair. She is the greatest.














Day 2 of being home from the hospital - she's relaxed her legs by now, but she still likes to show off that she can get her arms over her head.















Natalie loves her swing (note the evil yellow cat on the right - her arch nemesis); she also loves flashing gangster signs.















Before she started all this giggling business, she generally had a look of disgust on her face. This is what we saw probably 60% of the time.

















We might as well do something with all her hair. But giving her devil horns is all we can come up with.






























Laughing either at dad or the fan - her two best friends.
















She loves her giraffe - it was the first thing she would follow with her eyes (although she's not doing that in this picture), and the first thing that made her smile and laugh.

Natalie Pictures

Christmas & Natalie's Blessing

We had our first Christmas with Natalie. She made quite a haul:















Our Christmas presents:
































On Jan. 2 we blessed Natalie. Lots of people came; we had tortilla soup. A grand time was had by all.

Natalie is Here!

Well, she finally, FINALLY came! After a few obnoxious hours of contractions, the doctor decided that Natalie was just not in the mood to be part of the birthing process anymore, and we got to do an emergency c-section. It was quite the adventure. We went in at 12:54, and at 12:56, she was born! She is 6 lbs, 11 oz, and 20 inches long. And she has HAIR. At least for now.

Four More Days!

At the beginning of the school year, I measure the kids with a piece of string and we keep it until the end of the year to see how much they've grown. This year, I measured my waist, and in three months I've expanded as many inches as 6-year-olds grow in a school year. Woo wee.

One More Week

Hooray! Apparently I get to go be induced at 9:00 pm on Tuesday the 7th, so a week from today, I'll hopefully be able to pop my back. We'll see. It can't come soon enough, though. I was thinking that I regret not taking more pregnancy-tummy pictures, so I took one -














And now I don't regret not taking so many pictures.


Here is a picture from a month ago at a Halloween party - I was a skeleton or something, and Brian was himself from high school:

More Goings On

At the beginning of the month, Brian went with our first grade class to the Zoo. He was the only parent to not lose a kid! Side note: don't ever take 25 six-year-olds to the super-hilly Hogle Zoo in the 90-degree heat in your eighth month of pregnancy. Speaking of which, I am huge:



















Or at least I just look enormous. My doctor says I'm measuring "perfectly", and that everything else is going "perfectly" and he keeps referring to me as being on "cruise-control," which is all fabulous, but it means we don't get a 34-week ultrasound because it's not "medically necessary." Lame.

We only have 7 more weeks (hopefully). I have my sub all ready to go, and luckily we have a two-week Christmas break this year so I only have to write about 13 days' worth of sub plans (hooray). The baby (Natalie) moves a LOT, especially at 10:00 pm, during what we call the "Baby Party". The Baby Party lasts from 10:00 to midnight and involves a lot of dancing, gymnastics, stretching and what I think is kick-boxing. It's always a fun party. Everyone is invited.


We also adopted the world's best kitten for a week. All he did was sleep. Here's a picture of him when he fell asleep while we were changing the sheets:



















His name is Cow. He is adorable. But Brian, being the logical person he is, had the forethought to recognize that we wouldn't want a kitten in a few weeks when we're changing a screaming baby's diapers. So now he lives with some family in Woods Cross. I resent them a lot.

We also went for a drive up the Alpine Loop to see the fall colors. We like the fall.