Missing My Little Sweetheart

Today, as I am recovered from my bad stomach virus, I am trying to see where I left off on my work and what I need to do next, my thoughts drift to MY SWEET LITTLE NATALE. Today has been a week and two days since I have seen her. I guess it is time to get the webcam out again. I sure miss seeing her sweet little face. I would love to pick up the phone right now and call her, but I am sure she is at her school. I was so sick last week, but now I feel better and my heart longs for another day like we had last Saturday.

I paused my work just a few minutes to vent. I thought, you, my blog readers, could relate.

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

Can Abby be a boy name?

CAN ABBY BE A BOY NAME? I don't think so, but I just realized that one of the kittens that I thought was girl is actually a boy. Oh No! It's the one she named Abby (Cadabby). Her other suggestions was Cookie Monster...so maybe his new name is Cookie Monster. I will have to call Natalie today and discuss this with her. Too funny, huh?

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

Mimi and Natalie's 29 hours together...

WARNING: This is a little play by play of my time with Natalie. It is a little excessive (overdone), however, you want to word it. I had this idea of listing all that we did, but I can't seem to do that w/o going into at least a little detail. So you don't have to read it. I am sure I did this more for me. I want to remember what a special weekend we had together. The posts that I made before this one are the images that go with this weekend. You may prefer to just view them.

*another warning...I am uploading several sets of images, but I am backwards in finishing publishing them. I just "saved" and I am finishing the lasts first...though this last actually is the one that sort of sums it all up. So you may want to come back later to read bottom up. Just a suggestion...

This is a black and white image that I photographed of Natalie before we played at the park. Natalie hitched a ride to Mimi's house with a friend and her daughter who were coming in from Baton Rouge. Natalie's parents stayed home so they could study. I was so ready to see my Little Sweetheart, Natalie pooh. I was soooo ready to hug and kiss her. I couldn't do that enough this weekend to get in 2 weeks worth!

I wanted to make all our time a Natalie adventure. And I love that a 3 yr. old adventures can be the simplest of things like feeding the cats or giving Precious a bath.

Natalie arrived here around 5:00. (I worked all day trying to get as much work done before she got here because I wanted spend all our time together playing once she arrived.)

• I had to tell her that the "new " kittens had a new home. (Someone took the whole litter. Yeah!) I decided that she and I should name the older kittens who must be staying. We ended up with Bobby Cat (the 2nd or is the 3rd) for the cat with the 1/2 tail (and the only make cat or teenager cat). For the other two, we decided on Abby (as in Abby Caddabby) and Zoe (both from Sesame Street). The black kitten with no tail was named Zoe and the other gray kitten who looks a lot like Mama cat (aka Paris Hilton, originally named by Aunt Cari).

• We fed the "big" kittens and Mama Cat.
  
• Natalie found her tutu, fairy wings and wand for her new costume. I should have had it put up to show her later. She had the tutu over her bottoms before I knew it. It was too funny-too sweet. It was time to get the camera out.
  
• Natalie and I played games and had a snack while I finish doing some straightening in the kitchen...a must so that I could cook supper.
  
• Poppa played with Natalie while I cooked grill cheese sandwiches and French fries for our supper.
  
• Natalie also had to show Poppa her new tutu. Then they showed Natalie's mommy and daddy the tutu via webcam. This moment should have been videoed. It was so cute! Actually it was hilarious!
  
• Natalie and I gave Precious a much needed bath. This was quite messy.
  
• Natalie insisted on watching "baby einstein" DVD (Baby Noah, Animal Expedition). In my opinion, she has long outgrown these, but recently she has re-discovered them. So I got the two out of the bag that I was giving away to my friend's new grandbaby. I guess even little ones enjoy watching re-runs (their own kind of re-runs). It is probably us (Randy and I) that's tired of these. I wanted to read to her (I miss reading to her.), but I guess she misses the videos that stays here.
  
• She did let me read her Prayer Book that I found while cleaning my room really good recently. It is an interaction book and question book for you (the parent/grandparent) to ask questions and document them. She had not seen this book so she was interested in it.
  
• She started off sleeping with us which is what she normally does and then I remove her to her toddler bed. Early in the night she seemed to be having nightmares. I comforted her, but the next time a little later in the night when she did this, I called her to come get in bed with us. She slept pretty good after that!
  
• Natalie slept 'til 8:30 while I did some work in here on the computer for a client.
  
• I climbed back into bed with her for a few minutes to snuggle....something I started when she just learned to toddle in here. It would be cool from the A/C so I would ask her if she wanted to snuggle. We would either grab some blankets and snuggle on the sofa or we would go back to bed to snuggle. One of my most favorites things in the world to do with Natalie is to snuggle!
• She wanted cereal for breakfast. At first she said she wanted the pancakes that I had offered to cook her, but then changed her mind by the time she got in here. I think she remembered pancakes take a little more time than cereal. I think she woke up hungry.
  
• I asked her what she wanted to do today while we ate our cereal. She said "play games", "play play-dough". So while we were discussing these things, I received a text message from Cari (she had stayed the night with a friend). She reminded me of the lunch that included the parents to meet the new youth pastor candidate. So I asked Natalie if she wanted to go to the church for a bit to see Aunt Cari and then go to the park. That's not playing games or play-doh, but playing at the park has to be better, huh?
• So next Natalie took a very long playing bath. She found toys that she had not seen in a while that I discovered while doing some cleaning/organizing in my bathroom last weekend. She even found some I had put in another room to give away or garage sale (some that I thought she had outgrown...sort of like the DVD that I thought she had outgrown too).
• Finally, I realized it was later than I thought so I had to rush the rest of the bath. And finish getting Natalie dressed. I decided to dress her up a bit because I just don't get the chance to do as much any more...something that I enjoy and miss. I dressed her up in a cutsey casual dress and brought more casual clothes for the park.
• Natalie and I went to the lunch to meet the potentional youth pastor. I thought it was for parents and youth, but it was just for parents. So Natalie didn't get to see her Aunt Cari yet, but she did get to see her special "auntie" Tanya. She loves and adores Natalie too. She was so glad to see her.
• After the lunch (before heading to the park), Natalie and I went to the mall to buy her pair of shoes. She wore sandals with her dress, but I always have her wear tennis shoes to the park because of the dirt and pea gravel...I do not want that on her feet or in her sandals. I grabbed the other clothes, the socks and I meant to get her tennis shoes out of bag. I recently bought her several pair of shoes but they went to BR. It wouldn't matter because I forgot to get them out the bag.
• Natalie seriously wanted a pair of Boy Diego shoes. That's our shoes shopping started. We spent 45 minutes to an hour trying to get shoes at Shoe Dept (a simlple task that should have taken no more than 15 minutes). I wanted plain leather keds or mary jane keds like I recently purchased for her. I found something in between an authletic shoes/traditional keds. After waiting and waiting we discovered, they didn't have the mate. So back to square one, we finally settled for a pair of plain Nike's and pair of Deigo socks (to go with her boy Diego p.j's that she wears every chance she gets...she had wore them the night before!). A shoe store with three-year old w/o a stroller is not fun.
• Thank goodness she had the next stop to look forward to...COOKIES! From the very beginning I had told her after we got shoes, we would get cookies. I had to remind her often during our time in the shoe store that if she didn't be sweet that she would not get a cookie. She picked a sugar cookie with sprinkles, of course. She is very fascinated with sprinkes. She also asked for a "brown" icee! I love the way little ones request what that want...brown icee rather than coke icee.
• One more thing before playing at the park! Poor Natalie! I knew Natalie probably wouldn't wear this cute little dress again and this was her first time. Summer is almost over and I am afraid it will be too small for her next summer. So I insisted on a few photographs before playing. She was not too happy about this, but she did cooperate. After all she really did want to swing and slide.
• FINALLY NATALIE WAS ALLOWED TO PLAY. She had so much fun. She loved chasing the other children around too. She played until Cari and her friend, Ashley, showed up. They went to the youth meeting for their age group. Natalie was thrilled to see her Aunt Cari. This was her first time to see her since she got home (our home is still her home too).
• Next we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Natalie has found a new love for ice cream sundae's (I have a post just about this.). I felt sure she wanted the chocolate sundae, but after reading the list off to her, she insisted on the Marshmallow Sunday. I don't even know the name of what I got, but when I saw the people in line of ahead of me with it I knew that was what I wanted. It a waffle cone bowl with tips dipped in chocolate, filled with vanilla ice cream drizzled with carmel and sprinkled with pecans (coconuts as Natalies calls them most of the time...she knows they are pecans, but continually says the wrong thing...heck, we all do that about certain things...I know I do!). Oh yea, it also had whipped cream. Guess who's ice cream Natalie ate. Mine! Who could blame her! Hers was good, but mine was definitely better. I tried to talk her into just getting this with me to share...oh well. We all got to taste a Marshmallow Sundae, but 90% of it went in garbage. It was good. Mine was just so much better.
• We came back home after this. There was one more meeting at the church with the youth group at 6:30. It was already about 4:30. We were going to do some goof-off shopping, but before we even got to our first stop Natalie fell asleep so we came home. I knew she needed her nap much more than we needed to shop. I knew we would not have much time here, but it was good that we came back home because I had forgot about the package the mailman would be delivering while I was gone that I needed to open and take to Vidalia.
• Natalie woke up as soon as she heard me complaining about a package that the UPS guy must have left the day before under the carport area/Randy's work room. It must have blended with his stuff. It really upsets me when delivery people leave stuff out. In the past I have had packages damaged after they were left. I have had them rained on and I have even had negatives chewed on that was torn open by a dog. She must have assumed that this package was for her. I often send her packages to BR, little happies from books and DVDs to the rain jacket that I got her last week. This package actually was for her. It was fall clothes from The Children's Place. I wished I had some photo of her opening it. You would think it was Christmas!
• My portrait packages were at the front door that I needed to go through so that I could deliver when I went back to Vidalia. I had forgotten about this until we came back home. The client was in for the weeknd and since she had a 20x20, it is better to hand deliver than mail. While I did this Natalie tried on her tutu one more time to show Aunt Cari and then she played bubbles.
• I took Cari and Ashely back to church for the youth activity for all the youth. Then Natalie and I delivered portraits to Mrs Cristi's house for her daughter, Casey, Avery's mommy. Natalie made herself at home there helping herself to chips...not just any chips...certain chips. I caught her putting one back to get another one. I guess she is a little young to know that that is rude.
• After the youth activity, I picked up food for Natalie and Poppa at Popeyes. Then I delivered Natalie to Nonna's house. Nonna and Papaw had plans so Katie was there to keep her and Emma. I wished I had photographs of this meeting too. Katie and Emma were glad to see Natalie as she was excited to see them too. This is where my weekend with Natalie ended with Natalie. I got back in the car a very sad Mimi.

I came home and cried. I cried for the joy she brought during our most precious time together and cried because it just wasn't long enough. Quality really isn't better than quantity. I heard this one time and it definitely applied to this. I cried again the next morning. She is so fun and is always such a busy body and never quite unless she is asleep or engrossed in a show. So it sure was quite and lonely here the next day without her.

I am trying to get this blogging caught up so that I will be ready to savor our memories with digital capture the next time she is here and so that I can look back at my posts so that I can enjoy the fun we had together one more time. She truly is our little ray of sunshine!

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

Saturday afternoon (09.20.08) at Duncan Park

OUR MINI PHOTO SESSION She looks so old in these. She's only three, but when I look at these, she looks so much older...well, at least 4.
I love the beauty in this image even w/o a big smile.
I love these shots...

My favorite of these.
a "brown" (coke) icee break...

After being forced to shoe shop, then a mini portrait session, Natalie wasn't in the most cooperative mood for looking at her Mimi while playing. Though I did manage to get a few before my battery died!

whee!

I hate that my camera battery died, but I knew it would probably happen because I forgot that it was low and thus I forgot to re-charge it before leaving. I am just glad that it did not run out before taking a least a few of her playing.

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

Natalie getting ready to go...

This is right after Natalie long little play bath. She looked so cute in the mirror brushing her teeth. I had to run and get the camera to document this with photos too.

How sweet is this?

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

NATALIE SHOWS OFF HER NEW TUTU...

...TO HER MOMMY AND DADDY VIA THE WEBCAM!

This was too cute. She seems to have to kick up her bottom to show off her tutu and her fairy wings. It was quite funny and oh so sweet.

I love this one. She and Randy seem to have the same expression showing here.

One of the sweet happenings of our weekend.

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

NATALIE HAVING FUN AT MIMI'S

This costume recently came in. I decided not to mail it to her...the package was big for one thing, but the main reason is because I wanted to see it on her and see her reaction when she saw it the first time. (I am glad that I did. It was priceless.) We had showed it to her on the webcam. Randy tried to convince her it was his Jamacian hat...strange, but he explained it (long story). Not long after she was here, she found it and started trying it on.

I will wait until later to show full the effect of this so it will be a surprize, but I couldn't resist showing at least a few of these because Natalie had so much fun with it. She tried it 3 or 4 times.
As I look at this images, I am reminded that Cari informed me that we were putting the wings on upside down...oops!



I needed to clean the kitchen a bit so that I could cook up some simple supper. So we played this ABC card game (I made up the way we played it) and since she was already hungry she had a healthy snack.

the ABC game...

the game and the healthy snack Dora yogurt smoothie and roasted pecans...

JUST BEING SILLY AND PLAYING WITH MIMI....

I was also glad to see Natalie wearing this new cute little out fit that I recently purchased for her from Gymboree for the Prep School line. I assume that she wore this to school this day too. It looked really cute on her with little Sperry boat shoes that I had sent to her too. It also has a cute little hat too. I love little outfits with cute hats. I am such a sucker for them!

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

CHOCOLATE SUNDAE WITH A CHERRY ON TOP

A little story behind the chocolate sundae. I love to get Carmel Java Chillers at the Sonic. I introduced Natalie to shakes first and then to chocolate sundae. The Saturday night that I picked her up at Nonna's house (before Labor Day/the storm), we took Natalie to McDonald's since she had already had supper (we hadn't), she got a sundae. She wanted a cherry on top. Remember the post of her eating desert before moving at the Mexican restaurant. That's when I found out how much she loves the cherry on top too. Of course, McDonald's sundae do not have cherries on top. She still enjoyed her sundae, but before she had to go back to BR, I wanted to make sure she had one more sundae, but this time WITH A CHERRY ON TOP!

I gave Cari my camera to document this adventure. This is me handing her the sundae!

her reaction of anticipation...

I know it's blurred probably because of the movement. This is her getting the sundae.

too cute, huh?

I put her bib on her over her car seat. I am so glad that I did. She thoroughly enjoyed this Sundae. And car seat would have enjoyed it almost as much had I not had the bib. I know some of you had long go rid of the bibs by the time your child turned three, but not me. I tried to make my kids (and Natalie too) wear them until they are 3 or 4. I would rather have stained bibs than clothes.

Then Poppa enjoyed the rest of what she didn't eat. What a mess, but what a fun memory too!

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

Natalie at Wal-mart...

NATALIE AT WAL-MART IN NATCHEZ AFTER WE SHOPPED FOR FOOD TO TAKE TO BATON ROUGE FOR HER AND HER PARENTS. IT WAS QUITE AN ORDEAL. LOTS OF PEOPLE WERE TRYING TO REPLACE THEIR FOOD LOSSES THIS DAY.

The story that goes with this image was actually posted on "Worth Remembering". It was more about my thoughts than "Natalie's World". But I did want to include one of the images here in the sequence of the events.

http://ainsworthremembering.blogspot.com/2008/09/work-work.html

http://ainsworthremembering.blogspot.com/2008/09/recovering.html

So if you're interested and if you have already read them, the links are above this text.

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

A QUICK TRIP TO GIGI'S HOUSE

I missed this image in the post and realised it as I was viewing this before "publish the post". When Danny and Maria were leaving I remembered to the get the camera out. I didn't get any of Jackie and Denise. They left the night before. And my camera was still in the bag. I am trying to get better about taking photos of the little things like short visits with family.

"ARE WE THERE YET?"

That's what Natalie kept saying about 30 minutes after we left. Eventually we taught her the "I Spy" game to entertain her.

Saturday evening, September 7th, we left here for a visit with family and funeral in Bastrop. It happened to be that some of the other the family was at Mom's too for the weekend. Randy's mom's friend had passed away the day before. Randy had already scheduled his crew to work for Saturday...that had much to do with ginning season just around the corner. So we didn't leave until he finished his day. Since Natalie was still here from the storm, she got to go along for the ride too. Of course, my family was more glad to see her than us. We'll you know what I mean!

So these days I am tryng to remember more to document little things like this. Right after we got there Sat. night Natalie handed books for GiGi to read to her. This was photographed then, but I wanted to remember that moment so I asked them to get a book.

Natalie with Brooke and Aunt Cari.

I didn't actually get a great photo of us looking at the same time. Me looking, but not Natalie.
Laughing at each other...
I saw this for the great opportunity it was...

Now I am smiling good and Natalie's wants to kiss. I really like this one. Not what I was going for, but it will always be very special to me.

Natalie on Papaw's new mower.
Natalie and Papaw
Poppa and Natalie

After we photos, we soon left for our trip home with a promise to stop in Delhi for ice cream sundaes!

We had a great visit with family. I hate that Mr. Cecil passed away and that's Randy's mom is dealing with this loss, but I am glad that we got to see our family and that they got to see Natalie and her see them again. They all love her so much too!

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

HAPPY BE-LATED BIRTHDAY...

AUNT JACKIE! Forgive me Jackie for being over 2 weeks late on this post. I am actually over two weeks behind on all posting...so maybe it's forgiveable.

As a child growing up, my sibs and I all had our b'day 3 months apart: mine-July 22, my brother's-August 15, and then my sister-September 6th. It was sort of neat (but more for Danny and Jackie because they also shared b'days with aunts...I always felt a little left out or just little less special because I didn't...okay, I guess that was just a kid thing). I do have another brother, but I was almost grown by the time he started have b'days. He was just 4 years old when I got married. So he didn't exactly grow up with us. He is actually closer to Cameron's age (Natalie's daddy). He is only 8 years older than him.

Okay, if you keep up with "Natalie's World" you are wondering what's the deal with the b'day photos with such old images. After all Natalie is much older now. I may have more recent images, but these were just easy to find. This has also made me realize that when we have family get-togethers, we usually just photograph the children...sometimes the child with the grandparents, etc., but mostly just the kids. Probably because most of us don't feel as photogenic as we once were. LOL!

So as you can see these images from the hospital, the first time Jackie met Natalie. "Happy Birthday, Aunt Jackie" from Natalie.
With all the disruptions of life as we normally know it, Jackie's birthday was a little overlooked by me...not that we are that great at keeping up with this at our age! But I did want to make a post in honor of Jackie, my sister, Natalie and my children's aunt.

Hope you had a great day, Jackie!

we love you...

natalie and jami

A LITTLE FUN AFTER THE STORM:

After the yard was cleaned up from the storm and before cooking supper, on Thursday evening (09.04.08) Natalie had a little fun out in the back yard with her new "Dora" soccer ball. Cari and I found this ball earlier this day at Fred's. We went shopping at Fred's just to get out of the house for a little while. We had already done some work outside earlier that a.m.--sweeping leaves and small limbs of the steps and porch. It was much cooler working outside with the Fall-like breeze blowing rather than the alternative, no air conditioned house. The first phot is of her getting the ball out of the car...I left it in there when we came home since it rolled to the back. It is much easier for her to climb in to get it than us.

Earlier this afternoon we finally got to watch the Little Mermaid movie that we checked out several days ago. She liked and had many questions about the witch and such. She still seems to enjoy shows like Dora and Diego that interact with the child viewing the program. They interact by asking them questions, asking them to repeat things and to do things like jump, etc. according to the adventure of the show.

The following images are her playing with her daddy and her aunt Cari. Her mommy was working. She called the Sand Bar and told them that she was "in" for the storm and asked if they could use her to work. So while they were in, she got to make a little extra cash.

I love this one with her knee up in the air trying to really understand this soccer concept!

After a litte soccer fun, Natalie and her daddy swing.

I love this one too. It shows her braided her that I braided while we were watching the Little Mermaid. She has never been too fond of you doing much with her hair. Evidently she is tendered-headed like her mommy. I never thought that actually existed until I have had many battles with her doing her hair. It turned out really cute and she seemed to be proud of it too.

That's it for now. While I was cooking supper this same night the rest of our power was restored. Actually, all of our power. We turned the generator off and finally had central air again. Yeah!

~~Natalie's Mimi~~