Christmas Part 1

As part of my parents visiting before Christmas, we celebrated the holiday early with them. My sister and her boyfriend were supposed to be here as well, but with the 2+ feet of snow, they couldn't make the drive up there (we'll see them briefly on Jan 1 to exchange gifts). So, we exchanged gifts with just my parents.

I think everyone enjoyed their gifts, especially Natalie. As she's what Christmas is all about (watching the joy she gets out of opening presents is amazing), I took pics of her mostly. :)

Here she is opening her new Muppets movie "Letters from Santa" while sitting in Daddy's lap.

Opening a new quintet of matchbox cars - her favorite!

Sitting on Mommy's lap, opening a gift.

Showing off her Christmas bow. Note the cars in her hands - told you they were her favorites!

Our family that evening (Natalie and I are in pajamas). Natalie is showing off one of her cabbage patch kids (see previous post), and I'm wearing my new necklace, a gift from Evan!

Birthday party fun

Wow, am I behind on posts! I guess that's what happens when there is SO much going on!

To start catching up, here's the report on Natalie's birthday party. We were able to hold it on Sunday, Dec 20. A couple of friends came over: Angie & Kevin could walk from their house, and Peter & Alison decided to come with Liam from Bethesday for the fun. My parents also arrived Sunday morning, so we had the party, even if it was smaller than planned!

Here's Natalie opening a present

These 3 adorable cabbage patch dolls were bought by Grandma Sandy for Natalie. Here she is showing them off, then Natalie showing them off:

Evan holding Natalie and Liam

Totally without planning, Ali and I wore the same maternity shirt! So, we matched. :) She's due about 10 days before me.

Here's Natalie's birthday cake! I am very proud of it, as cooking/baking is not one of my strong suits. But I think it came out really well, and it tasted super yummy! The cupcakes are thanks to Grandma Sandy. The cake was fudge marble, and the cupcakes were chocolate. So good!

 Natalie ate a little bit of this cupcake, and went full into a piece of cake, but I didn't get a good picture of that.

Natalie in the snow!

Here are some pics of all of us out in our 2 feet of snow on Saturday and Sunday!
First up, Saturday, while it was still snowing:

Snow is by far one of Calla's favorites:

By Sunday, the snow had stopped, but it was still cold, cold, cold! We bundled Natalie up and I took her for a nice walk around while Evan shoveled us out.

And, my parents were able to get here,safely! They arrived around 10am on Sunday morning. We've had a great time with them, celebrating an early Christmas and a belated birthday party with Natalie. I'll post pics from those soon!

Snow, you have ruined our plans

As all of you who live on the East Coast know, we've gotten hit by a ton of snow this weekend. For those of you up north who may not have gotten it yet, as of Saturday 12/19 at about 3pm, we've got ~18-24" of snow, and it's still falling pretty hard. It's lovely, and we've had fun being snowed in today, but unfortunately this snowstorm has ruined our holiday/weekend plans!

My parents, sister, and her boyfriend were supposed to come up this morning so we could all spend "Christmas" together, as we won't see each other on Christmas day. My sister decided not to come at all (which was a good choice), and my parents tried to come up last night and beat the snow. Unfortunately, they didn't, and got stuck in Fredericksburg, VA. They got a hotel room last night, have been camped there all day, and will stay there tonight too. Tomorrow hopefully they will make the rest of the trip. But Carrie can't come at all, as she has to work Monday, so she can't be here for our holiday celebration. I'm really bummed out about that.

Plus, we were going to have Natalie's 2nd birthday party today. I postponed until tomorrow because of the weather, and hopefully won't have to cancel, but we'll see how tomorrow goes. I know Natalie won't remember this birthday, but I still really want to have her party. I guess we could do it just us, if no one else can make it!

We did get out into the snow this afternoon; I'll post pics & video from that later on tonight.

Holiday festival in Leesburg

On Saturday, Evan and I took Natalie into downtown Leesburg to the holiday festival. They normally do some holiday-related events, but in the past they've all been held at night. This year was the first year it was during the day. It was still cold, but bright and sunny, so we hung out for a while.

We first walked up to the main drag, where we hoped to catch the tail end of the holiday parade, but unfortunately we missed it. So, we kept walking downtown and headed first to Lulu's cookies to get a holiday cookie. Here is Natalie all dolled up in her cold-weather gear with a mouthful of christmas tree cookie.

We then walked around for a while, and I saw a sign for carriage rides. So, we headed in that direction. There was a short line, so we had to wait about 30 minutes for our turn. Across the street in one of the parking lots they were doing free trolley-train rides, so I took Natalie on that. Evan wanted to hang out off to the side, but it turns out we should've had him go on the train with us, as Natalie was NOT happy that Daddy wasn't on the train! But she did have fun after a little while, and he was able to get these cute pics.

We then went on our carriage ride. Unfortunately, Natalie didn't have as much fun as we thought she would. This was most likely due to it being naptime, and the horse scared her a little bit. But while riding around downtown we saw some carolers, and Santa & Mrs. Claus walking around, and that helped. Here's the shot from our carriage (there were 3 in a row, and we were in the second carriage):

And lastly, Natalie and Daddy right before we headed back home!

Two year Checkup

I totally forgot to post about Natalie's two year checkup! It was last friday, and she did great. No shots were needed this time, which helped with the lack of fussing. :)

Height: 34 1/4" (75th%)
Weight: 24 lbs, 8 oz (just under 50th%)
Head size: ~18" (10th%)
- she still has a really teeny head! Not that I mind; I think that's one of the things that made labor with her so easy. Let's hope the little guy is just as small!

I was easily able to answer "yes" to all of the "Does Natalie do (X)" questions that were asked. She's right on target for what she should be doing! And on the information sheet they gave me for the things we should start noticing over the next 6 months...well, she can already do them all. Particularly the talking-related ones. We almost always get 4-5 word sentences now. I'll try and put a video up soon.

I have a few pics from our outing to downtown Leesburg for some holiday fun on Saturday; I'll try and get them up soon.

Also, seeing the midwife for my 24 week appointment/checkup in a few days, so i'll let you know how all of that is going. So far, great! This little guy sure does LOVE to move around. It's nearly constant, especially when I'm sitting still!

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Today, Natalie turned 2 years old!

I can't believe it's been 2 years already. My baby girl is no longer a baby; she's truly her own amazing little person. I do miss the baby stage at times (which coincides nicely with the new little guy arriving in less than 4 months!), but it's so wonderful to see her learning about the world, talking to her, and teaching her. She is about the best kid I ever could have hoped for.

My mom & sister arrived on Tuesday to hang out with me for a couple of days. I took yesterday off from work, and we spent the day together, doing a little shopping, eating, and hanging out. We took Natalie to her My Gym class, and hung out with her in the afternoon. It was great fun -  I was sad to see them go today! But since they were leaving this morning, I left for work a little late to see them off. So, Carrie and I got Natalie up and dressed, which let me wish her a happy birthday this morning!

After work, we had a short party at daycare. Natalie had a cupcake...or, more specifically, just wanted to eat the candy snowflakes off of the top of the cupcake. She even managed to almost blow out her two candles all by herself! Mommy had to help at the end.

She also got a little birthday present from Essie: a pair of Disney Princess slippers...

and matching sunglasses to go with her new DP phone from Aunt Carrie! And a little purse to put them all in. Too cute!

After her favorite dinner (cereal!! - she really wasn't that hungry tonight), we decided to drive around and look at Christmas lights. As we were about to leave, Santa came by on a Leesburg Fire Truck! She had fun seeing the truck and waving at Santa. We then drove around the neighborhood, seeing all the "pretty lights!" that people have put up. We may have created a monster though, as we let Natalie sit on my lap in the front to see the lights better. Don't worry, we were going about 5-10mph and not on any major roads, so she was totally safe. She had a really fun time! Then, we read her new Christmas book from Grandparents Macbeth, and off to bed. Happy birthday, bug!

Leesburg Tree Lighting

Last night, we walked into downtown Leesburg with our friends Angie & Kevin to see them light the Leesburg town Christmas tree. It's a pretty quick walk downtown (about 10-15 minutes); we just had to get all bundled up against the cold.

Here is the town tree after the lighting:

And here are Natalie and I posing in front of the tree:

(apparently those gloves tasted good; we couldn't keep them out of her mouth!)

Happy to be outside!

As many of you know from being around her, and as I may have mentioned on here before, Natalie is never so happy as when we're outside. Just walking around makes her ecstatically happy. So, with cold icky weather on the way, we're trying to get her outside as much as possible.

This past Sunday was beautiful: partly sunny, mid 60s, no wind. We had put up most of our Christmas lights already, and spent some time outside finishing that up, raking, and just taking care of little things. I of course brought the camera with me to catch pictures like this:

Look at that happy face!

We made a game of Natalie walking backwards away from me (she's just recently realized how much fun that is), then RUNNING towards me so I would "catch" her. I took this video of the game:

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving this year we headed down to the Outer Banks. For once, my whole family actually got to spend a holiday together! With two nurses in the family, this doesn't happen very often. It was my parents, my sister Carrie & her boyfriend Mack, the three of us, and my Aunt Linda. Oh, and the two dogs. A full house, but a great time!

We had our Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday, as both Carrie and Mack had to work Friday, so they had to head back on Thursday. It was kind of nice doing it that way - it was like getting an extra day on the trip!

Here are some family pics from Thanksgiving day:

Then we have Aunt Linda & Natalie:

Carrie & Mack:

We mostly just hung out, as the weather was a little crummy the first day, and it got cold after Thursday. But we did get some outside time, playing with the race cars on the deck:

Natalie really liked these, but she had a hard time figuring out how to hold the trigger down to make the cars go. Hopefully her motor skills will progress to where she can do it soon!

We also spent some time at the park (as always when we go to Grandma & Grandpa's). She especially wanted Grandpa to push her in the swing.

And of course, fun with the doggies! First is Natalie relaxing in the comfy chair with Calla

Rizzo & Calla got along WAY better this trip than they have previously. I even managed to snag a quick shot of them all tangled up sleeping on the couch next to me. It was adorable! Unfortunately, it was even cuter just before I took this photo, but this was the best I could get.