Natalie Update

Just a quick update on new things with Natalie:
1. She's getting two new teeth! Her front upper teeth are coming in to match the bottom two.
2. Natalie enjoys helping feed herself at meal time, and has started trying more "adult" foods. Over the weekend she had pancake, pieces of rotisserie chicken, a little bit of fried rice mixed with her veggies, and just a teeny bit of ice cream. She also likes to hold her own bottles now, which is super cute.
Favorite foods: Cheerios, Gerber puffs, chicken, any fruits.

3. Natalie is walking with her car more than ever! She has even started learning how to turn corners with it. Natalie has also started to walk with us holding her hands, but she doesn't like that as much.
Favorite toys of the moment: her car walker, her octopus (plays music and says colors in 3 languages), and her blocks.
4. Natalie and Calla are getting along a lot better. Calla lets Natalie grab her collar, and her back, and pull herself up using Calla as balance. And Natalie is learning not to grab Calla's ears or nose. Natalie also really likes to try and get Calla's ball when we play fetch - it wears out both dog and baby!

I'll soon be walking...

Natalie has finally figured out how to make her car-walker move. She is now thoroughly enjoying walking around our living room. She can't go far at once, and tends to fall down, but she's definitely on the move. I'm sure that walking on her own isn't too far behind... I'm not sure how to feel about that! We're excited, obviously, but it just means that she's getting so big...




Also, my sister bought Natalie this great red jacket for the winter. Doesn't she look cute? Also, you can see how long her hair is starting to get - it'll be mostly one length soon, and then we can trim it and let it grow out!

A weekend in Leesburg

This weekend we stayed at home and my sister Carrie came to visit, which was wonderful! We had a great weekend. Friday night she and I hung out with Natalie, as Evan had been out of town for work Thurs-Fri, and didn't get in until late Friday night. Here's Natalie trying to get to Carrie:

Then, Carrie got to help give Natalie a bath, which is always fun (nothing like trying to hold onto a naked, slippery baby as she tries to stand up in the bathtub!).

On Saturday, Evan went out canvassing for the Obama campaign (they gave him 67 houses to hit, which was a ton! but he did it!). Carrie and I walked with Natalie into downtown Leesburg, intending just to wander and look at all of the cute old stores.

While walking towards downtown, we passed this super cute old house:

The front is decorated for the fall, but it would be gorgeous any time of the year. We couldn't tell if it's a B&B or not, but there's a sign on the left stating "Hall House" indicating to me that it might be, or maybe that's just the name of the place. If I had a great old house like that, I'd name it!

Turns out that as part of the 250th anniversary of Leesburg, this weekend was "Court and Market days." It's a farmer's market type of event, with food, local crafts, and lots of historical stuff about Leesburg, like this old fire truck:

On the way back, Natalie finally got sleepy:

We also explored some of the old antique stores, and had a cookie & cupcake at Lola's cookies, which was featured on the Rachel Ray show for it's version of the blondie. The treats were REALLY REALLY good. I recommend to any who come to Leesburg. Natalie liked her little tiny bit of cupcake too. :)

On Sunday we all went to CostCo in the morning for some house hold supplies and groceries, and then Carrie unfortunately had to head home. In the afternoon, Evan and I took Natalie and Calla for a walk around the neighborhood. We ended up walking over to Ida Lee Park, about 1 mile away. There's a big rec center, a new library being built, an old cemetary, and beautiful land all around. It gave us a pretty place for some pics:

Finally, Natalie wore a new outfit today that is absolutely adorable.

I love the boots (thanks to my Aunt Jacki!), and she's finally getting used to the hat (we had her in it all weekend, as you can see). Too cute!

A trip to Boston

Over the Columbus Day weekend Evan, Natalie and I flew up to Boston. Evan's brother lives there, as does his good friend Jim (and Jim's wife Michelle), our friends from college Andy & Emily, and Evan's cousin Kristen. Additionally, a friend of Evan's from high school (Liz) lives in Boston, and our friends Chris & Renee came up from Massachussetts. It was great everyone came to see us!

First off, Natalie was wonderful on both plane rides. No fussing; she was fascinated with the whole thing. She fell asleep through landing on the way to Boston, and slept through take off on the way back home. She was such a good baby! Here she is enjoying her first plane ride.

We stayed with Jim & Michelle in their great new house in New Roxbury, a suburb-like part of Boston. It's beautiful!! We're so happy for them. In fact, all of Boston was beautiful last weekend. The weather was lovely, and we were able to see so many things. After arrival on Saturday, we headed into downtown Boston. We headed to the New England Aquarium first:

Here are Natalie and Evan on the pier outside of the aquarium:

When you enter the aquarium, the first thing you see is the penguin pool around the giant fish tank in the center of the aquarium. The penguins were so much fun!

We managed to see feeding time:

And I really liked this guy - he stood like this for a very long time:

I had fun showing Natalie the touch pool (although she didn't touch anything herself!)

Here are some of the cool animals we saw at the aquarium, as well as Natalie's reaction to them!

We saw two other Boston sites: the Old State House, where the Declaration of Independence was first read to the city of Boston in 1776.

In the square out front is the site of the Boston Massacre (the circle in the middle)

We also saw a few other sites, including Quincy Market, but I don't have pictures of those!

Saturday night, we went to Maggiano's in Boston - a family style Italian restaurant. There were 11 of us, plus Natalie. The food was delicious, there was a ton of it, and Natalie was really good! She even got her first taste of salmon, which she seemed to really enjoy!

On Sunday, we took the Fenway Park tour. It was great - one of the best deals in Boston ($12/person), and I don't even like baseball very much! We had a lot of fun, especially Evan. He was especially excited about Fenway being Natalie's first ball park, as it was the first one both he and his dad ever visited! I think we had fun, and learned a lot.

Here's Fenway from behind home plate while we listened to the tour guide:

Here we are at the Budweiser Bar over left field:

And here's the view of Fenway from the top of the Green Monster:

It was a really great weekend. We were exhausted from everything we did, but it was all worth it. Thanks to everyone we saw in Boston - you turned it into a wonderful weekend!

Happy 10 months old!

Today Natalie turns ten months old. I can't believe how close she is to being 1 year! The time flies.

This week has been busy, but a good one. Every night either Evan or I has had to either work late or had a meeting, so we haven't gotten a whole lot of family time. However, we've been able to trade off hanging out with and taking care of Natalie, which was really nice. I was also able to get lots of pictures of Natalie this week!

The biggest new thing is that she's taken to feeding herself VERY well. In fact, we have to give her some kind of finger food at every meal now or she completely freaks out. So, after the healthy-for-her veggies & meat, and the yummy fruits for dessert, Natalie gets finger foods! Either Gerber puffs, or Cheerios (she, like all babies, LOVES them), or if we've started eating our dinner, we give her pieces of whatever we're eating (bits of chicken, pasta, etc). Here she is cramming puffs (or Cheerios) in her mouth:

Can you see the cute pig tails? Essie put them in at daycare. I love them!

And here are the super cute pink Uggs (yes, real ones!) that my brother-in-law Todd and his fiance Claire sent to Natalie from Australia (where they're much cheaper, being invented there).

I think Natalie also looked really cute in my scarf:

Although I had to take it off of her, as it was so long that she was tripping over it. But so stylish!

This is a sweatsuit I bought for Natalie at a consignment sale - it's adorable. I love the butterflies!

Lastly, here's a picture of her today after I picked her up from daycare:

That's about it! Natalie's doing great - crawling everywhere still, trying to climb on anything she can, playing with everything, all about eating, and just generally being a good baby. Evan's been busy with work and with helping out the Loudoun Democrats as we get closer and closer to the election. And I've just been working, although luckily no more weekends for a little while!

We're off to Boston tomorrow morning for the weekend, so I should have lots of great pics and stories when we get back.

Birthday weekend of fun

Friday Oct 3 was my birthday! We didn't do too much, as the real celebration was Saturday (more below). On Friday, I only worked half a day, and got to spend the afternoon with Natalie, which was great! Then, Evan got us take out for dinner, and I got to open my present from Natalie: "Rockferry" by Duffy. She's an up-and-coming British artist, and the CD is pretty great! Otherwise, it was just a relaxing day.

Late Friday night, my parents & sister showed up to spend the weekend. Evan's parents [and my grandmother, Natalie's great-grandmother! -Evan] also arrived in Leesburg, as did my aunt and her friend, but we didn't see any of them until Saturday morning. On Saturday, everyone came over for breakfast (bagels & cream cheese, yum!), as did our friends Kathy & Eric, and then we went to Pumpkinville! Evan and I had gone last year, and thought it would be a fun thing to take Natalie to, as well as go with family. It's a lot of fun - an animal park, hay ride, lots of activities for the kids, petting zoo, paint your own pumpkin, free apples & cider, etc. Your standard fun fall activities. :) I think everyone had a good time. I know I did - thanks to all of our family who was able to come. It really was better because you were all there.

So, lots of pictures from that day! I'll try and separate them out some.

Here's Evan, Natalie and I at the pumpkin patch:

Evan took Natalie down the big hay slide:

Now, evidence of the animals, and us having fun in the petting zoo:

Natalie had fun watching the monkeys fly around their cage:


And then, Carrie took her niece on a camel ride! She said Natalie was talking excitedly the entire time. Not every almost-9-month old can say they've been on a camel!

We took a tractor/hay ride around the entire farm. It was bumpy, but fun. There was excitement when towards the end my dad lost one of his shoes, so Evan got the guy driving to stop and he ran back to get Dad's shoe. What a good son in law! As my dad said, "the best". Unfortunately, the guy didn't wait, so the first picture here is Evan trying to catch up. The rest of the pics are us enjoying the ride!

Everyone got to take turns carrying Natalie all around; here's Natalie with various family:

Finally, here are just some cute pics of Natalie and family from the weekend.

Again, thanks to everyone who came. I had such a great birthday! Oh, and other gifts were great (I opened those on Saturday). Because my iPod was stolen Evan, Carrie & my parents got together and got me a new iPod touch! I'm still figuring the whole thing out, but it's pretty awesome. My Aunt Linda and Evan's parens got me iTunes gift cards! So, lots of new music and such for the birthday. I can't thank you all enough - it was so much fun. Can't wait to see everyone again soon!

A quick update

Hi all. Sorry that it's been a week since I posted; I didn't realize that had happened! I was out of town over the weekend for my friend Beth's bridal shower in Williamsburg, Va. It was only my second time spending a night away from Natalie, but spending the time with my girlfriends helped to keep my mind off of missing her! The girls had a great time - the shower was lovely, and then we saw the movie Ghost Town that night. It was quite amusing! Breakfast the next morning at a cute little pancake house, and then headed back to Leesburg.

Evan had a good weekend too! Our friend Chris stayed with him, while his wife Renee went to the shower with me. 3 other guy friends came over too, and they had fun guy-time while the ladies were away...although it's a bit different with Natalie there! Evan said Natalie was great all weekend, which made me really happy.

It's been a busy work week, which is why I haven't written. We're all doing great, just busy. Natalie is starting to get better at walking & eating:
1) she walked a couple of steps while holding onto and pushing her toy car
2) she "cruised" from one end of the couch to the other, holding onto it while walking a couple of steps
3) she ate some small chunks of chicken with dinner the other night, and really enjoyed it! I was told at daycare today she had a couple small pieces of bagel and some banana bread, so eating solids is coming along very well!

I will have lots to talk about from over the weekend, as we have lots of family visiting for my birthday. I promise to do a full post with pics & videos then!