SEPTEMBER 9, 2005: NATALIE LOVES HER CARE BEAR MOBILE!

MORE IMAGES FROM TWO YEARS AGO.
Can't you tell that she how much she loved that Care Bear mobile!

So these are two a few from two years ago. I don't have any images of Natalie from a year ago from this week. But I do have some studio images in September from a year ago...they will come in chronilogical order (around the end of the month). It makes me very sad that I didn't do more then. I know it had a lot to with the fact that I had begun dealing with a mobile child last summer and fall. When she was younger, I kept my 2nd camera laying around so it would convenient. It still is convenient to keep it out of her reach, but I have made it a priority. I just hope that I can keep up with it during my busy season that is appoaching soon. I'll try. ---Natalie's MiMi

Last week 2 yrs ago! SEPT. 7, '05

Cari and I had to go to the orthodontist in Alexandria. I can't remember why now...maybe impressions or something. I never have time to go shopping. I do most online. But since we were there we went to Old Navy. I fell in love with the line for newborns. I prefer baby-like soft clothes for little ones...especially tee shirt material like this and of course, I LOVE, LOVE hats on babies. I did have so much fun dressing her in cute clothes. She didn't mind hats when she was really young, but then quit liking them. She was tolerate of them this past winter; she did understand she had to wear them when it was cool. Since she has had fun trying them on, I am hoping that she will like wearing cute hats again. I have been shopping around online for fall lines and Gymboree has cute beret that goes with this particular line. So I will keep my fingers crossed that she will think that they cute too!
She doesn't look extremely happy in the above two images. But I think she is much happier in the next one later on in the day.

In this image, she is intrigued with her Care Bear mobile. I had told Cari that she could choose her bedding theme. I was going to let her chose a character them. I didn't for my own kids because I went with a more classic theme and I did again with Natalie too. So to make it up to Cari, I did get her a Care Bear mobile. Natalie loved it right away!
Another image looking up at her mobile.
This is Cari's home work project. She had to make something useful out of garbage. She made a picture frame out of boxes and bags that Natalie's things came in. Cute, uh?
Cari has changed a lot too! I will have to post images of her soon too. She was voted Miss FCA which (I think) stands for Fellowship of Christian Athletes. So she will be participating in homecoming activities...which means more photos!

The last image Natalie is really getting excited about her mobile. She loved it for so long. I have more images of that soon. It was so neat watching Natalie enjoy the little things soooo much, like a set of 4 Care Bears going round and round. How fun was that! ---Natalie's MiMi

McDonald's Play Land--September 8, 2007

OUR SATURDAY EVENING AT MCDONALD'S!



Poppa acting silly with Natalie.
Here Natalie is in the "scary" section. I did not want her to go up those steps. I knew she could get there. The problem would be getting down. But she was egged on by her Poppa and others who were watching. They said "let her go...just she see how far she can go". I was sooooo right.
So guess who had to go up there and get her down!
These slides she can handle just fine!
What an adventure we had! ---Natalie's MiMi

PLAY-DOH FUN! SEPTEMBER 7, 2007

The 2nd image gives the title that explains that this was her first time to play with play-doh! I had read an idea about play-doh. It was ideas about things that children can do on their own while you get some work done. The idea was to set a plastic table cloth on the floor and make a chair tent over the table cloth. Then give the child one color at a time so when they get tired of that color that they can exchange it for another one thus getting more play time out it. Well, I thought great idea but first we need to know what to do with play. It also suggested cookie cutters. I never got into play doh with my children (long story). So I was pleased with these new ideas. So the other day I bought four colors of play dough. Waited until Friday when I would have her again. After I got things straighten up around here, we played play doh!
Of course, Natalie didn't know too well what to with it yet. So I would cut the shapes with the cookie cutters and then let her play with them. She calls hearts, valentines because of her "I Love You" Elmo book. The last two pages have hearts all over it and it says "Will you be my Valentine?" (Elmo is asking.) She always says "uh, huh". It is so cute. Then it says will you give Elmo a kiss and of course, she does. She she was tickled with this "valentine"!

This is the "cheesy" expression that she gave me when I asked her to look at MiMi.
I love this concentration expression. This is her playing with a little dog that I cut out for her. She would tell me which color she wanted to play with. She seems so advanced on her color knowledge. She could identfy all basic colors way before her second birthday. So now we're learning to identify ABC's. So I used some alphabet cutters that I had for my kids for Jello jigglers. I got the ones out that I thought she could identify. I would cut the item and then ask her. I didn't ask before because some of them didn't look recognizable until it was cut. These are the ones that I was pretty sure she knew...A, B, C (for obvious reason--being that you see them first at the beginning of the story books) N (for her name) H, M, O, X, Y and Z. I think she has learned most of these from the Elmo A, B, C DVD that Uncle Danny and Aunt Maria got her for her birthday. And I guess from just watching Seasame Street, other educational shows and her ABC story books.

Yesteday she was eating these new alphabet cookies that I found at Wal-mart and I was amazed that she even recognized even more letters...F, P, and maybe some others, but that's all I remember right now.

MiMi needs cookie cutters! This was my elementary designs. Don't you recognize Cookie Monster and Elmo? Natalie did!
We had a lot of fun...though it was a little stressful--trying to capture the memories and trying to keep the colors from getting mixed up. But it happened! Now we have another color too--
TIE-DIE COLORED PLAY-DOH!
No matter how much we grow up. We never forget the smell of play-doh. I told her not to put it in her mouth and she said "I'm smelling it!". I had actually forgot about telling her not to put it in her mouth until just now. She looked over her shoulder from her high chair while eating her breakfast and watching "Little Bear" and said "Don't put it in your mouth, Natalie!" repeating what I probably told her several times while playing.

Natalie woke up from her nap before Cari and Brittany got here after school. So she had her a ice cream cone for her afternoon snack. She usually still eats them with a spoon. Then I eat the rest in the cone. I love ice cream cones! ---Natalie's MiMi

SEPTEMBER 4, 2007

My favorite image of the day.

I have many images to post. I have most of them ready. All I have to do is add the text. But I was waiting for Brittany to add her images from Labor Day weekend. They made it official! Cameron surprized her with the ring! But now it's has been over a week, most every one knows by now. I know with school and work and everything in between she just hasn't had the time. But keep looking she has images to post and hopefully the story to go with it. I am looking forward to seeing it as much as you are!

The Beginning of Our Day! Natalie eating her cinnomon roll and I think teasing Precious with it. Precious loves anything we eat. I think she loves school days...more breakfast foods for her!

I am always losing Natalie. As soon as I realize that she is out of sight, I know it is time to hunt her down! She is in this really big meddling stage and loves to get into anything and everything, but some things over and over. While I was calling her (sometimes she answers and sometimes not...sometimes she says "Coming!", but doesn't move), I could hear her saying something and I realized that it was coming from her daddy's room (which is still upside down since he moved out--not enough hours in the day!). When I went in there, I heard her saving Daddy's DVD. Then when I repeated it, she said something about computer...which I think she corrected herself and me. This was Cameron's flight simulator game for his computer. I ran to get the camera.

BUBBLE FUN!

Another one of those times that I was disappointed with my images. But I have to forgive myself, because I do have memories. I have very few images of Natalie one year ago and lots from 2 years ago (more of those coming soon) and now we won't forget this year since I am documenting so much of our activities. You really do remember so much more the times that you photograph than the times that you don't! THE ABOVE IMAGES WAS HER PLAYING WITH BOTH BUBBLE WANDS. We had played bubbles the week before. She had struggled with blowing them...she did finally get it, but she does seem to eat some of the bubble juice. It doesn't seem to bother her! Good thing it is non-toxic! I went into Dollar tree while doing some shopping with Cari on Labor Day! I was tickled to find these giant wands! She is using both of ours in this image.

She had so much fun. You can really tell by the expressions on her face in the above image and the next two. Acutally, we both had a lot of fun! These bubble wands created some really huge bubbles...like 12-18 inches in size. Natalie couldn't do the big ones thus not photos of those bubbles. I left them outside until after school with plans to wash them and show them to Cari after school. I wished I had my camera then. Cari played with them until she had no more bubble solution. Then I brought them in to wash and save for another day!

To help compensate for some of expsoure on this one, I used a pastel action that I purchased a while back. It gives a nice artsy look to the image.

After bubbles, we had our snack outside too. This is one of her new favorite snacks, yogurt rasins. I love them too!

LUNCH TIME! I just realized that Natalie is eating her Dora soup and drinking her Dora yogurt drink! I think the reason Dora is so popular is because she is every where!

Are you wondering about the Duck Hat? More of that meddling...Natalie has a basket of hats some winter hats and some summer hats. She got into them earlier that morning and kept this one on. It is soooooo cute on her. But she makes anything cute!

The rest of this day was probably naptime. Natalie keeps my mornings with her very busy, but she is such a good napper. She usually sleeps until I go pick up Cari at Brittany's or at school. And that's not the usual 3:00 time! It's more like 4:15 or 4:30 because Cari is working out with the softball team because she is planning on trying out.

Natalie is so exhausting but she keeps me laughing that is when I not "screaming"! That's our day on September 4, 2007....Natalie's MiMi

LABOR DAY WEEKEND: SEPTEMBER 2005

Natalie meets her great-great grandmother (my grandmother) who is now 86 years old. Natalie was 5 weeks old in the photograph. Grandma's vision is considered legally blind, she does have limited vision and loved meeting her great-great granddaugher.

This is my daddy with Natalie. He loved meeting his first great grandchild. He has always loved babies. He calls them all "Papaw's Baby".

This is Poppa's mom (Randy's mom, Opal). She came from Bastrop to meet her great granddaughter. I feel bad that I don't have photographs, but Randy's dad Leon came earlier and I forgot to get the camera out.

This is my FIVE GENERATION PORTRAIT that I will treasure forever. I love pretty goofy in this one. I think I looked betther in the others, but I think Natlie and Grandma looked better in this one. Since they are the oldest and youngest, I think they count the most. I love my family!

I think (it has been 2 years ago) all the other images were taken on that Sunday afternoon, but this was taken Saturday afternoon. This is Natalie and Conner Sullivan, my cousin's baby boy. My Aunt Norene and Uncle Jerry came to my mom's. There newest family member and his family were also in for the weekend too. This is Todd's youngest of three boys (I assume they gave up on the girl!). Todd is my Aunt's youngest child and Conner is her youngest grandchild, at least he was at the time of this photo. My Aunt Norene and Uncle Jerry have four children and they all have 3 or more children. So I can't keep up with it...not like our family at all. I think Conner was about 1 week or so younger than Natalie.

It was a nice Labor Day weekend sharing our beautiful Natalie with our extended family. She had already met her G.G. at the hospital when she was born. She would love to see her more often and this was our first visit at G.G.'s.

I wished we had more time for visits. I just visited again for Labor Day weekend, but Natalie didn't get to come this weekend. I missed her being there. She had to be with her mommy and daddy. It had almost been 2 weeks since she had seen him. I know it was driving him crazy. I think Brittany is working on a post from their weekend. I am looking forward to seeing it too. ---Natalie's MiMi

BEAUTIFUL BABY NATALIE: 2 YEARS AGO

These images were captured almost exactly two years ago. The exact date of these were

September 2, 2005. I took these the day before going to my mom's for Labor Day weekend. I wanted to print some from my computer (I rarely do that) so that I could take some for my mom and my grandmother to frame. Natalie is my mom's first and only great-grandchild. It should stay that way for a while (we hope) and she is also my grandmother's first and only great-great grandchild. I am so glad that Natalie has a great-great grandmother. I know her parents and grandparents are young, but I think it is such an honor to have 5 generation on this earth at the same time.

Natalie's blue eyes were evident immediately. Baby girls are so lucky. They get to wear all colors...from pink to blue.
This is one of my favorites. I love her little smurky, smily expression!