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~~

MOVING DAY: PART 2

NATALIE'S NEW HOME:

These are the images at their first apartment as a family.

This is a view of Natalie's room from the door. I didn't have wide angle lens which you really need in a small space. My only wide angle lens is on the camera that I have given Brittany to use to photograph/document Natalie in Tiger Land.

Natalie's little room is Dora Themed. This is acutally Natalie's first "real" room. She had a room at our home (the sunroom) when she was an infant. But when we took her baby bed down and using the mattress for her toddler bed, we put it in our room. The sunroom became her TOY ROOM. One day I would like to convert it back to a sunroom and use it for window light photography again.

These images were all captured late that day affter we got back from Wal-mart. Cameron is working on some software for something (internet, I think), Emma is helping with the sofa cover that her mom picked up at Wal-mart and Natalie is "cheesing" for the camera.

Cameron really hates to be photographed, but I when I reminded him that we would be leaving soon and that we would all be out his hair, I got this nice expression. Thanks, Cam!

Brittany is like Cari. She doesn't mind looking up and smiling for my camera even if she does have drenched hair from the downpour that we got caught in leaving wal-mart. She is writing her address down for me here.

They got very lucky in getting a 3-bedroom apartment. This is the extra room where everything ended up until it was unpacked and put up. This room will be their office and...

Cameron's closet. This way all three of them will have their own closet.

I assume Natalie's golf clubs will be stored here too.

Another image working on the sofa cover...I think it was a little difficult.

Joey (daddy's friend--now also Natalie's too) playing with her in her room.

Their bed with their new bedding that Uncle Danny and Aunt Maria bought from their Target registry. Maria, I don't think this photo is does justice. It looked for pretty. The lamps Brittany's mom really went great with it. And all the other accent pieces. I didn't photograph the other side in the two bedroom, but they put pretty curtains over the open closets. By the time we left there, it was all coming together very nicely. I think they were proud of it too. (I wished I would have thought to photographed our first apartment. I have photographs while there, but not each room.)

Brittany's family with Cameron, Brittany, and Natalie. They all got there mid-morning with four different vehicles of boxes of things to unpack.

Randy and I with Cameron, Brittany and Natalie just before leaving. I looked terrible after the bringing bags and bags of stuff up three flights of stairs. Yes, they are on the third floor. Oh well, I often avoid photographs because I think I look terrible (which I did), but I am not as concerned with that looking great in each image. I would rather have my image than not! It's the price I have to pay! Randy and I didn't get there until around 3:00. We brought the trailer with their furniture. To give the girls a break and get them out of the way, I took them to the LSU playground (as seen in part 1).

Think Natalie is enjoying her new apartment in Baton Rouge.

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

FINALLY... LAKE IMAGES from 08.16.08

NATALIE IS PROUD OF HER DORA LIFE JACKET AND SO HAPPY TO BE AT THE LAKE

The Mallory family joined us for a nice relaxing afternoon at the lake. This is Natalie and Mr. Fred posing with her Disney fishing pole. Natalie doesn't know him yet as well as the rest of the family, but she will soon. She loves everybody!

Tanya and Natalie (we're trying to teach Natalie "Aunt" Tanya because Natalie has become so special to her too)

Natalie and Poppa posing with her fishing pole.

I love this shot. They are so involved in fishing they forget that I am there. Too sweet!

big fishing pole, Poppa: We're not big fishermen (or fisherwomen) so it's not like we have lots of fishing equipement lying around. But I knew it would be fun for Natalie to do on her last Saturday living here.

Natalie loved swimming in the lake.

Cari and Alexa on the jet ski...

Natlie swimming with Tanya again...

Now she's swimming with Alexa.

I'm telling you. She loved swimming in the lake.

I think Cari was the first one to catch a fish! Natalie gave up on it at that point and decided she would rather swim in the lake as seen above.

I suggested Stewart bring a friend since I have no children his age. He brought his friend, Clayton. Clayton on the left and the right is is Stewart.

Randy caught a really old beer can. It was quite funny!

see...

The first time the three of us (Randy, Natalie and me) decide to ride the jet ski it flipped over before we ever left. I knew it was happening. It was like it happened in slow motion. So I sort of pushed Natalie out of the way so neither of us nor the jet ski would fall onto her. Tanya already had the camera in my camera in her hand to take a photograph of her us. I didn't know she had captured this until I downloaded my images to my computer.


okay, let's try again...

Just before we got off...after getting off Natalie said that she enjoyed it "a little bit".

We took a break from the jet ski.

We tried it again. This time after she got off, she said that she enjoyed it a "lot" bit!

Natalie finally caught her own fish too!

and so did Alexa...

This was Natalie's reaction to something exciting...I am sure what!

After Natalie caught a fish, she had more patience to try again...don't we all usually do that! Ask Cari. She sure did!

This was the baby fish of the day. I think Tanya caught it. Isn't he tiny?

The tiny fish was so little you can barely see it in this photo. I guess I should have circled it too. Natalie sees it. Do you see her looking up at it?

Best Friends just chilling before going home!

And what does a little girl do on the way home after a fun day at the lake?


Okay, I will finish these later. I am having problems with the rest of these upload. The rest of the images and story coming.

EDITED:

I did finally get the images to load. I noticed some of the images that I was having problems loading were high resolution images. I usually convert all files to low res so that they will upload and download when are viewed easily. So I converted them and then magically my uploading problems disappeared.

I think I have already wrote about the day we did this. In a nutshell, this was Natalie's last Saturday before moving to B.R. The summer had been so busy that we had not gone to the lake all summer. So what better day that this!

We all had a nice, quite, peaceful day at the lake. I am so glad that I have nice photographs so that I won't forget this fun day.

~~Natalie's Mimi~~

~~Natalie's Mimi~~