They've hatched!

Last week I posted a picture of the small robin's nest I found in one of my hanging baskets. As you can see, there are 4 little blue eggs:

I kept worrying the mom would abandon the nest, so I wasn't going near the plant to water it very often. Luckily, every time I/we left the house in the morning, I saw the mom fly away, so she was still taking care of them! Finally today I pulled the plant down to water it (carefully!), and saw that the eggs have hatched!

As you can see, there now only appear to be 2 little fluffy chicks, so I guess two didn't survive. But the two that are there are so cute! They would settle back down to sleep when the plant was stationary, but when I moved it they stirred and opened their mouths like this, assuming I was mom ready to feed them! I then started to get worried that I'd be dive-bombed by an angry Momma-bird, so I hung it back up and will leave them alone for a while.

Natalie & Carrie at the pool

So as I said earlier, my sister Carrie kept Natalie on Saturday night while we were at Ed's wedding. It seems like Natalie had SUCH a great time! Since she can't tell me outright, I have to go by what Carrie says (Natalie was well behaved, Carrie had such a good time with her, etc), and by looking at the pictures!

So when we left Natalie at Carrie's, she was sleeping. After she woke up, Carrie took Natalie to her friend Liz's house, where they all went to the pool. I hadn't brought a bathing suit for Natalie, not expecting this to happen, so Carrie bought her a two-piece from Target with an over skirt (adorable! we also have one pieces for her from my aunt).

I wasn't sure how Natalie would do, as she hasn't been in the water yet this year and probably wouldn't remember being in there last summer. But, my fears were all for nothing - Natalie did great, and apparently loved the water. Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Aunt Carrie loves her niece so much!!

And I think this one is my favorite, actually taken by Carrie's friend Liz!

After the pool, they went out to dinner. The only reason I included this picture is to show how cute she looks with her hair in a ponytail!

Natalie on The Lawn

On Sunday we headed to UVa for a brunch at the Colonnade Club (hosted by the bride & groom), which gave us a chance to let Natalie run around on grounds! We first hung out in the garden at the Colonnade Club, which had tons of room for the kids to run around.

Natalie walked all the way from the bookstore to the lawn - about 1/3 mile or so! She did great, but it resulted in a couple of stumbles on the gravel, and Natalie's first skinned knee(s) - one was only very slightly scratched, but the other was bleeding a bit (you can see it here).

She recovered quickly though and had a lot more fun!

Natalie had a great time running around. One of her favorites was going up & down this ramp (both by herself and with Zabby). She did really well - no falling!

She also had a TON of fun chasing Zabby, and getting Zabby to chase her. Unfortunately, I don't have a good photo of that, but I have this nice one of them sitting together:

And it's always nice when we manage to get a good family photo!

Finally, we headed out to The Lawn! Here's Natalie in front of the Rotunda (LOVE this photo!):

And Beta, Zabby, Beth, myself, Natalie & Kathy in front of the Rotunda

Ed's Wedding at Keswick

We went to our friend Ed's wedding at Keswick Country Club near Charlottesville, VA over the weekend. It was BEAUTIFUL. Super fancy, but beyond that we just had a great time with our friends. My sister was great, and kept Natalie for us overnight so we could enjoy the wedding. I have pictures of Natalie with her, but the camera batteries are dead so they'll be up once I get new ones!

So, onto the wedding. Here's the bridal party (well, groomsmen) in front of the beautiful setting

A side view of Keswick Hall just after the reception

Evan and I by the infinity pool

Peter, Noel, Evan and Andy at the reception

The beautiful sunset from our table

Everyone at our table
Back row: Roy, Michael, Evan, Robert
Front row: Danielle, Andy, Me, Emily, and Kristina

Kathy and I on the dance floor during the reception

I have some other pictures, but many of you readers don't know a lot of the people so I didn't include them. If you do know them, and are on facebook, you can see more of the pics there!

Natalie's favorite books

Natalie currently has three favorite books, and I can't recommend them enough:


This book is great! Natalie loves "counting" along with me as the caterpillars go from 10 to 1 (they're raised off the page so she can easily touch each one). On each page, we count how many are left, and read about why one stays behind.

Then, on the last page, they all become beautiful butterflies that pop up from the page! This is of course her favorite part. She loves opening & closing that page to make them pop up. I constantly have to stop her from pulling too hard on the butterflies, but she's slowly learning.





I just bought this one for Natalie this week, and she's picked it out before bedtime every night! She likes that the butterflies are raised off the page (like the caterpillars), and they're a little sparkly.

Each page has a color scheme (like "purple pansies tickling a purple dragonfly") that matches one butterfly. I think it's really good for learning colors; she can already point to the yellow one when I ask her! I think she's going to learn purple next; she says it a lot.


This one is also great. It has a button on the bottom right corner that you push to make the lights go. Each page talks about something different "stars to watch over you; rockets dashing out into space; streetlights lighting the way", etc.

Natalie knows where the button is, and tries to push it but doesn't have the strength to quite yet. The funniest part is that almost any book we read she now pushes at that part of it, expecting something to light up. So cute!





Let me know about any faves your child, niece, nephew, cousin, etc might have and I'll think about getting them! You can never have too many books.

Fun: outside & in!

I love this time of year! It's so beautiful out that we spend at least 30 minutes outside with Natalie & Calla after picking Natalie up from daycare. The temperature's been great; Natalie LOVES being outside, and she wears herself out completely (which is always a plus!). If only it would stay this way instead of reaching 95 with 90% humidity!

Here are a couple of pictures of our fun time outside yesterday (wednesday):

The balloon was from daycare; it was Essie's daughter's birthday


The great balloon escape! Luckily it got hung up in our neighbor's tree (you can just make it out at the top of the photo), and Evan was able to get it down.

Today I discovered this absolutely perfect robin's nest (with eggs) in my hanging plant! I guess soon we'll have a whole family living there.

And lastly, here's my beautiful girl while we were playing inside the house this evening. I can't get enough of that smile! And I finally figured out a trick to get her to do it for pictures.

A weekend in the OBX

Last weekend we headed down to the Outer Banks to visit my family. We went for 2 reasons: to see family (and because we hadn't been to my parents' house since Thanksgiving), and to participate in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life with my mom. This year we didn't have a team and raise money; we just walked with my mom in the Survivor's lap (and a few extra laps), met her friends from her cancer support group, and saw the luminary ceremony after dark. Next year we're putting together a team to walk, so look for me to hit everyone up for donations. :)

We spent Friday running a few errands, went to dinner, and then hung out on the porch (we had beautiful weather) until bedtime.

Check out Natalie's new pajamas!

Saturday afternoon we went to the Relay for Life:

Grandma Sandy pushing Natalie around the track


The clouds were really amazing

My mom and I went back up at 9pm to see the luminary ceremony. You could purchase luminaries either in memory of someone who died of cancer, or in honor of someone who has survived. They looked beautiful, and are a great way to raise money.

Luminaries for my mom (middle bag)

And my grandmother (Adele)

This was the clearest picture I could get of the luminaries spelling out "Hope" and "Cure" in the bleachers. It was really beautiful.

Photos from NJ

As promised, here are some pictures from last weekend (Mother's Day weekend) in NJ. When we arrived Saturday morning, Natalie was surprised with new toys! Here are her & her uncle Scott building with the pink, giant legos:

Since Scott had to leave on Sunday, we had a nice "Mother's Day" dinner on Saturday. The guys cooked for us, which was really nice! Granted, that happens for me a lot, but Lynn does their cooking so it was a nice break for her. They made rack of lamb (and fish for me!), mashed potatoes, veggies, bread, etc. It was very good! And for dessert, cake:

Here's Natalie's Great-Grandma feeding her some cake:

Then after dinner, Natalie was of course all hopped up on sugar, so she had some fun playtime.

She's not wearing any pants b/c they got spilled on!

Mother's Day morning Evan brought Natalie in to play in our bed for a while. It was so sweet!

Here's Natalie and Calla on their Grandpa's lap later on Sunday:

We all went to Alstede Farm, right up the road from Evan's parents' house. They have a large nursery, animals, play areas, etc. It was lots of fun! There were roosters, pigs (Natalie loved them), cows, horses, goats, and sheep. Here I am showing Natalie a horse, about 5 seconds before she completely freaked out (I guess it was big & scary):

There was a big hay stack for the kids to climb on, so we thought it'd be a great place for a family picture! Calla jumped right up to the top, surprising all of us.

Grandma, Uncle Scott, & Grandpa with Natalie at the farm: