Hard to explain

Natalie is learning so many things these days. Her vocabulary is getting very big, and as long as we're paying attention, DH and I can usually figure out what she's trying to tell us. Okay, "potty" sounds a lot like "Barney", so there's some work to be done there, hey, it's a start! I can't say what her first word was, but a few of the ones that are pretty easily discernible now include: mommy, daddy, yummy, book, baby, doggie, duck, up, down, more, please, boom, yeah, and no. She still is having some trouble with the K-C sound, and says "dat" instead of "cat", but that's not too bad. She also says her name when you ask her what it is, though that's not all that easy to understand yet, and she knows what a cow, horse, and sheep , and dog say.

We're having a bit of trouble with a couple of concepts though. To be specific, spitting and blowing! Why would these be so important, you might wonder? Well, she's grasped that when her nose is bothering her, she can blow it in a tissue. She likes to do that, and knows that she is "blowing". She also has a little whistle that she likes to blow. So telling her to blow can be a bit confusing. We want her to learn to blow out when she's swimming so she doesn't drink water and can eventually hold her breath going under. When we ask her to blow bubbles in the water she closes her mouth and blows through her nose! Spitting is also becoming important since we're supposed to brush her seven teeth twice a day. We want her to rinse and spit before we get her on a regular toothpaste regimen, but so far efforts in spitting lessons have resulted in much water drunk, followed by leaning over the sink and forcing out tiny bits of spittle. Pretty comical actually, and Natalie loves the practice!

The pictures following have nothing to do with the above! Just a few random ones from our weekend, which was spent mostly at Pearl Street.

Here she is saying "bye-bye" to some poop! Potty time is actually mostly "magazine reading time" and becoming one of Nat's favorite pastimes. Note the potty seat ring on her bottom!

Here she is with her dad, walking through the rocks on Pearl.

And playing in the water.

The following day, waiting for some friends in front of The Med.

And saying bye to her friend Piper after lunch and a walk on the mall.

This week has been pretty uneventful except for we finally launched our yoga search engine, Shantibird! It's been a lot of work, but we're pretty happy with the results. If you know any yoga teachers, (other than me!) please pass it on!!

And have a great weekend!

Camping Round Two

This Monday evening we went camping again. The main reason for the trip was to visit with DH's Sister and her family while they were visiting their mom's cabin in Southern Colorado. It seems crazy to be so close to family and not get a chance to see them. So we drove a few hours South, and they drove a few North, and we met in the middle. We decided that driving there and back in one day would be too much for us all, so we camped the night before. The camping spot was beautiful, and we picked out a nice place to hike the next day with the family.

It turns out the site was also the dirtiest place in Colorado apparently. I've never seen such dusty, dirty dirt. And it was all over us. Here's the dirty baby, enjoying some goldfish crackers in front of the tent.

And here she is a bit later - even dirtier. She's got a yogurt mustache, and we were hard pressed to find a clean cloth to tidy her up with after she finger painted with her ketchup and mustard.

But eventually we managed to get her into the tent and ready for bed. She really got a kick out of the sleeping back and tent setup.

All she needed was a little cuddle from dad though, and she was out.

None of us slept that great that night though. DH and I were sure we heard bears off and on all evening. And then Natalie woke us up bright and early just about sunrise.

Here's a shot of the whole site that morning.

And here's the grumpy baby having some cheerios while we wait for the oatmeal, (and coffee) to be ready.

We went for a little walk around and got some good pics of the local 14ers.

We had a lovely morning, and then broke down most of the campsite while Nat had a 2.5 hour long nap in the tent. She was up just in time for us to go on our hike... but we were still missing the rest of the family, so we did some reading instead.

Turns out they'd made a wrong turn, and were running about an hour behind. We missed our chance to go on a hike before we had a hungry, cranky baby on our hands, so instead we planned our lunch.

Here's Natalie with her cousin Emma! They got a kick out of each other!

And here she is with her aunt Kirsten. Deciding on a place for lunch was very serious business, (and it turned out we did a bad job of it after all!)

On our way to lunch... checking out the local Salida color.

And at lunch! We had a nice seat out on the lovely patio. Which apparently the waitstaff forgot existed. Service was poor to nonexistent, and the party gave the food mixed reviews. Natalie kept torturing herself with the lemon wedges from our water. It made for some good pictures though!

Here we are, back at the car. Time to say good bye to the fam. There's Sam in the back seat of the car.
It was a nice visit. Natalie and I both got a bit sunburned from our very long lunch on the patio, (really, tacos shouldn't take two hours people), but maybe it was the sun that helped Nat sleep almost the entire trip back!

And when we got back, we got to have yummy brownies for our snack to reward us for a successful camping trip! Thanks for the brownies guys, they were great! We'll see you again in Austin in September!

Bespeckled

We had a lovely weekend. Late last week Natalie had had a low grade fever two days in a row that was making her miserable. It finally broke Friday night, and she was her cheerful self on Saturday. We went shopping with my mom, and she was a good girl and had a good time. She got complements on her new hat by multiple people, and on her haircut, (believe it or not!), which has actually still never been cut, but she does have a pretty cute head of hair in my opinion!

We had a great time riding the little train around the outdoor mall. It goes around the block a couple of times.

Natalie got a kick out of the sounds it made. But the best part was when we came around the block and we could see Grandma again. Natalie's face lit up and she started waving! Very cute.

My mom and I had noticed little patches of rashy dots on Natalie during lunch, and had just though it was the heat, or maybe sensitivity to her sunscreen.

When we got home though, my DH noticed it was all over her! We had just arrived at a BBQ at a friend's house when the doctor called us back. From our description of the rash and since it followed two days of fever, and came about 10 days after Natalie's MMR shot, they were pretty confident that she had Roseola, or baby measles. She was also very contagious to children under three, (of which there were about 10 at the party!) so we went home to play outside for a bit instead.

Natalie's rash is mostly gone now thank goodness, but even so, she was feeling pretty much fine after the fever passed. And we did have a nice weekend!

We're heading out this afternoon to go camping again for a day or so near Buena Vista. We're going to meet DH's family down there for a hike tomorrow. So hopefully I'll post again tomorrow night with some good outdoorsie pics!

What Summer's all about!

Natalie sure is enjoying the Summer. We brought her tricycle down from where it was hanging in the garage, and she's loving getting on and off of it and getting pushed around. She just needs a couple more inches and she'll be able to reach the peddles!

And she's learning the joys of one of my personal favorite Summer activities: watermelon!!

Though next time I'm getting the kid naked for this one. It'll be much easier to hose her off afterwards!

We're taking it pretty easy these last couple days. Natalie is mostly over the cold she had last week, but now she has a low-grade fever that's making her pretty uncomfortable. We think it's the side affect of the MMR immunization that she had last week. This is about when it was supposed to kick in. So we're just chillaxin' in the AC.

First Camping Trip

This weekend we took another trip down to my DH's mom's cabin near Antonito. DH's brother and his family were staying at the cabin, so there was no room for us, so it was a good time to give camping a first try with the little one around.

This is where we stopped for lunch on the five hour trip down south.
And Natalie enjoyed some cookies for dessert after lunch back in the car. It's always hard to get her back in her car seat after so many hours in it. Cookies helped.

But once we got to the cabin it was all fun and games.

And she liked playing with Peyton and Sarah and all the fun toys they'd brought to the cabin. Peyton was a good sport and didn't mind too much when she destroyed his lines of armies.

And Sarah learned just how heavy a 20 lb baby really is!

Once we got back to our campground, where we'd previously only set up the tent, we came to the realization that we didn't have batteries for the air mattress! This is the first time we've camped with one, (we thought it would be better for all of us if there was a comfy bed during Natalie's first camping trip), and we the package was not specific about the inflation instructions. Luckily, as we made this unsettling discovery (an hour past bedtime!), the camp managers pulled up in their truck to get some I.D. to go with the check we'd written them! Luckily they had a pump in their RV and they took DH and our floppy mattress back with them, and then delivered him and the inflated mattress about fifteen minutes later on their golf cart!

So it was a rocky first night, but we were finally settled into bed.

We woke up and Natalie seemed to think this tent living was no big deal.

We went back to the cabin for some pancakes, and to sign the rock in the basement. Natalie's prints were a bit smudgy.

Here are the girls on the porch.

And the whole gang right before we saw Kenton and Kellye off. We packed up our camp site and headed to Crestone for night two. We were going to stop at the Great Sand Dunes, but it was already hot, and we knew it would be worse there, so we'll probably save that trip for the fall. One of these days for sure.

On our way to Crestone we had stopped and visited the Alamosa farmer's market, and ate our lunch in front of this really classy bar. It was nice and cool in the shade.

But we decided to finish our lunch in the car after a few really nice folks left the bar to linger and smoke around the corner from us, (one told directing the F bomb at us in passing!)

Natalie's getting some good use out of her few teeth now! She didn't get much of the apple, but she cried every time I tried to take it from her to help her, so I guess she's on her own there, little Miss Independent.
Here we are at campsite number two just North of Crestone in the Sangre de Christos. We liked all the fun stumps for Nat to play on.

And here she is helping get the tent ready.

Climbing on some rocks with dad.

And moving the car into the shade! Her first time in the driver's seat!

Our attempt at nap time.

I have been taking the blackout blinds in Nat's bedroom for granted. Setting the mood for nap time is much harder when it's bright out. Even for a tired baby. In our case it just made for a crazy baby, and the air mattress turned the tent into a jumpy castle!!

But eventually we did get to sleep, and after nap time we began to set up the fire and get dinner ready.
Natalie wasn't much fazed by the change in scenery when it came to dinner time.

Here's DH flipping our humongous steak over the fire... we didn't come prepared to grill and he had to use his knife.
After a surprisingly easy night, and late morning, we took a little hike into the National forest. The trail head was right next to our site.

But our hike was cut short by the swarms of mosquitoes surrounding us. No matter how much bug spray we had on, they would not be deterred. I have five bites on my elbow alone!! Natalie had one that made her hand swell up and we had to head out and find some Benadryl!! (the hand is much better now, thank goodness!)

So while we packed up the rest of the camp site, she played in the backseat of the car with the AC running.

Our drive back was pretty quick and uneventful. We woke up our sleepy baby for a lunch break at a BBQ place. Here she is playing on the porch of the restaurant before we head out one last time. Check out that bite on her cheek!! Poor thing!

After lunch Nat slept the whole way home. I'm tempted to make Benadryl a part of our road trip plans from now on, but something about that just doesn't seem right...

We're considering a similar trip for next weekend since DH's sister and her fam will be visiting the cabin then. I think we'll be up for it by then, but right now it's just nice to be home and heading to our own bed!