Disney Princesses

Can YOU name all the princesses in this picture? Natalie can. Her favorites are Snow White, Ariel and Cinderella (cin-E-rella as she says). We found some cute little 4 inch dolls for her at Walmart. She has Snow White and Cinderella. We've bought Ariel but are saving it for a special occasion. We will eventually get them all for her. They come with soft plastic dresses that you can change their clothes..and shoes too but we've been keeping them from her since they are so tiny.

Left to Right (Sleeping Beauty (Aurora), Ariel, Snow White, Jasmine, Cinderella, and Belle)

Natalie and her "Soonies"

So Natalie is very passionate about noodles..or soonies... as she calls them. No clue why she calls them that, but that is her word for it. We are working on getting her to use a fork. So I have been showing her how to twirl her fork in the spaghetti and get it to stay on the fork. So we call it "twirly whirly" which really just makes her giggle. She was having a LOAD of fun stuffing as much pasta into her mouth as possible. I figured I'd post up a few pictures of her "soonie"fest so you could see her enjoyment as well as how big she has gotten. I think she might actually be moving into size 24 months now in clothes!!! She was 24 lbs when we went to the dr's last week for her cold. Enjoy!

PIE

So..the whole time I was pregnant with Natalie all I craved was Pie. Unfortunately I ended up with gestational diabetes and couldn't have it, but I have to admit that pie is one of my all-time favorite foods. And there are very few pies that I don't like. So I've decided that this year I am going to learn how to make wonderful pies. And of course that means that Paul is going to have to eat a lot of pie too! So if you have any recipes for awesome pies, send them my way please!

Check-up

Natalie had her 2 year check-up last week. It was a big late but since she had croup and an ear infection on her birthday and it took 2 weeks for those to clear and then we went out of town, it was delayed. She is doing great! Staying on the same curves as always...23.4 lbs (10%) and 33 inches (25%). She is starting to string words together into sentences, like she'll say "Watch Dan Zanes" or "Turn On". She still says her cute things like "Bock Bock" for chicken, although now she is saying "Chicken" more. And my personal favorite, "Soonee" for noodles seems to be drifting away...she says "noodles" now! But she continues to surprise us with the words she picks up from us. Her newest words have been "Special"and "Snow White". She is really becoming quite a little girl..she's big into the Disney princesses, especially Ariel and Snow White. And she loves playing with her play food from Uncle AJ and the dishes we gave her!

And we're back...

So we had a whirlwind trip over Christmas break. We left on the 11th and drove to Atlanta. We stayed with my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Lou...who will forever be known as Uncle Boo. Natalie loved the stairs in their house. She referred to them as Barbara, Boo and steps!! From there we drove down to Mobile, Alabama to visit the Hendersons. It's been 3 years since we've seen them...they had never met Natalie and we'd never met their son Noah. Natalie and Noah had a great time together, which included Noah holding her down and kissing her!! From there we drove 9 hrs (in one day with a 2 yr old!!) to College Station. We were able to see lots of friends there as well as pick up some new Aggie gear and check out how much has changed in the 2.5 years since we moved.

Then we headed up to Corsicana. We were able to see lots of friends while we were there and Natalie loved hanging out with Nana, Papa, Uncle Drew Drew and Uncle Jay Jay (who she also called Drew Drew). Natalie fell in love with the piano at Nana's as well as all of the portraits in the dining room. She continually asked for her friend Morgan the entire time we were gone. And she somehow convinced everyone in the house to put Dan Zanes (her favorite musician) on the computers and watch his videos with her (they saw she has us under her thumb!!!).

We also went to our friend Dylan's wedding. It was a beautiful service and so good to see old friends and meet new ones. We are so happy for Dylan and Heather and all they are about to experience together. We also got our FIRST night alone without Natalie since her birth. We stayed in Dallas after the wedding and went out with one of our bestest friends, Randy.

Natalie was able to see all of her godparents while we were home also. Melynda came and spent the afternoon with us; Jamie came down with her parents for an afternoon; and Randy and Cassie came to visit our last afternoon there.

Christmas itself was good. Natalie still isn't really into opening presents and lost interest in about 5 minutes. So we spent most the day trying to get her to open gifts and eventually opened hers up ourselves. Santa brought her a tricycle (or bicycle according to her) and a Mega Blocks table. She got lots of books and clothes. Paul's big hit gifts were a Steam Mop, blue towels, and a chef's coat. My big hit (that I got when I got home) was a Nook (similar to the Kindle). Loving it so far. We also managed to "need" a new camera and a GPS while we were away!

Finally we headed back home. We drove to Tuscaloosa in one day. Then we headed back to Atlanta and went to the aquarium. Would have been more fun if there had been less people. (hint: don't go during Christmas break or when Virginia Tech and Tennessee are playing in a bowl game there the next day). We again stayed with Barbara and Boo. We also got to see Jay and Stephanie. Natalie kept saying "bye" to all of them as we drove away. We got home yesterday and were OVERJOYED to sleep in our own bed..and to have Natalie at the other end of the house where she could stay in her own bed and make noise and not bother anyone.

Not sure if we will make that trip to Texas again for a while. It was quite an ordeal but we make it home safely.

Happy New Year and I hope that 2010 brings each of you all of the things you want and need.

(if you are wondering what happened to all of the pictures from our trip, we ended up with over 700 of them on our new camera so I will just be posting up the highlights on our picasa website. If you want/need the address, just send me an email!)