bigger, faster, stronger, smarter

This weekend we were happy to help Aanya celebrate her second birthday! These girls are growing up so fast, it's scary! They are smarter than ever. More courageous and bold. And they are developing a sense of self that we all take for granted in ourselves, but it is amazing to watch it grow in these little ones.
Natalie really loves Aanya. She followed her all over the little gym, where the birthday party was held.


Along with everything else, Natalie is developing a real sense of humor. She loves imitating other kids, and thinks she's so funny. Just like her daddy. I'm going to have my hands full when this little ham really comes into her own.
How cute are all these little ones sitting at the table all by themselves!?


Natalie is doing so many interesting things lately. They really reveal that her little brain is working hard. She feeds all her stuffed animals and animal toys. She also has been asking me to put diapers on them, and telling me when they need to use the potty. She's becoming quiet a little flirt, and loves smiling at people at the grocery store, if they give her the least bit of encouragement. She also has a very good memory. She remembers people, and what we did with them... for example, she points to pictures we painted with the girl across the street and she says "paint, Maddy." Or remembers our dinner guest who she was scaring with her little "boo"s, and she says "boo. Justin" and points to the chair where he was sitting.

She is also beginning to show some conversational skills. She'll say "bless you" when you sneeze, and "please" and "thank you", and "bye, bye". And she talks to me from the back seat of the car, telling me about what is in her book, or what she sees around her, "Horse, hungy, hay", "truck", "doggie", "blankie", "jacket", and "yoga mat".

And when you ask her how old she is she holds up a finger and says "one". After that Natalie will usually say "Aanya, two!"

Happy birthday Aanya! We had a great time!

Getting Halloweenie

This Saturday evening we went to the local community center for the third annual "Trunk or Treat" event in the parking lot. There were a bunch of cars decorated and giving candy out of their trunks and tailgates. Pretty cute idea. Natalie was too little to do the haunted house, but the line was long for that anyway, so we didn't mind skipping it.

We put her in her little handed down lamb costume. Another very cute item from the Renee collection! (Thanks Renee!)
Natalie really liked the idea of getting candy from all these people. She wasn't shy at all. She doesn't know what's in most of those colorful wrappers, but she knows she likes M&Ms, (or "ems" as she calls them), and she didn't mind collecting some other unknown treats to fill her basket.
She also got to go in a school bus for the first time. But I don't think that this haunted bus fulfilled all her "wheels on the bus" fantasies; no people, or crying baby, or even a bus driver. Oh well, maybe next time.
By the time we'd fleeced all the local trunks we headed home for some more Halloween fun - time to carve one of those pumpkins!!

Natalie wasn't thrilled about the icky texture of the insides of the pumpkin, and she kept saying "peee-ew", so I don't think she liked the smell much either.
But she did her part to collect the seeds for roasting, (that batch didn't even last 24 hours - too tasty.)
She seemed to enjoy the final product though.
Baby's first Jack-O-Lantern!

Gymboree sample classes

Last week we did two sample Gymboree classes to see if we'd be interested in signing up. We did a "play and learn" and an "art" class.

Natalie loved running around the gym. In the background you can see the blue mat she tripped on and the wooden structure she got a big head bump on, (her first of three that hour.)
She is getting to be a very good climber.
And she liked being pulled around on this thing, (you notice I let the other moms do the dirty work, while I sit back and take pictures!)

This tube was a popular item. She was fascinated by Gymbo the puppet. I thought he was a little creepy.
After class we played around in the leaves for a little while. This is where she received her second and third bumps of the hour.
Later in the week we tried out the art class. The best part of this was that I didn't have to do the cleaning up.
Natalie also liked the snack they served while we were waiting for some paint to dry. The fruit leather took her a bit longer than most of the other kids, (she still doesn't have her full set of teeth), but she wouldn't let me take it from her when it was time for the next project. See it hanging from her mouth?!
Fun stuff. Gymboree was a good time, but we won't do it again for a while. We're liking our Little Gym classes, and I think she's getting some very good skills out of them. Though the singing in Gymboree was much better!

pumpkin hunting

Last Saturday we spent the morning with my mom, working on clearing out all her leaves, and then looking through pumpkins at the huge pumpkin patch. It was fun to play in all the leaves at her house. Our trees are still too small to produce real, jump-worthy piles, but that's not the problem at my mom's house at all! Even Natalie was able to lend a hand with her little pink rake.
But it was just as fun throwing her in the piles to work her way out.
Though she did accumulate an uncomfortable number of leaves in the diaper area.
After bagging all the leave, (another job Natalie was very helpful at), we headed over to the pumpkin zoo... I mean patch. It was a little crazy, with policemen stationed at the entrance to regulate traffic, but the large farm has this down to a science, so they were pretty good at moving people through.

There are multiple fields to choose from, and they are each so large. We picked a spot and started searching. Because of the recent snows and frosts, it was actually pretty tough to find pumpkins that were sound. Most of them had frozen and were soft - if not all over, then in spots - so each pumpkin had to be thoroughly checked over. Many of them looked like this:

But even the ones that looked good were mostly soft. We managed to find a few that we wanted to take home.

And once we got our pumpkins loaded into the car, we just had to find our way out of the fields and back to the gate.

We stopped on the way out and checked out the little farm zoo they had. These goats were pretty cool, and Natalie saw her first pig in person as well.
We also had to stick our faces in a few holes. This little pumpking was just the right size for our little one.
And every trip to Broomfield that ends around lunchtime had to include a stop for noodles at our favorite pho place, Pho Duy!
Natalie loves her noodles!

more Fall fun

Last week we took another trip to Cottonwood Farms with my friend Amy and her little girl Caroline, 10 mo. We had a great time checking out all the animals and just enjoying another beautiful day after all the cold snap we'd had, (and are experiencing again!)

Here's Nat giving Caroline a gentle hug.

And then checking out the cow!

Licking a pumpkin.
On our way over to the maze we ran into our friends from across the street. Natalie was so excited to see her friend Maddie! So we stuck her in the wagon too! What a cute group huh?

On our way out we had to check out the heavy machinery. Unfortunately, no climbing on the tracker. I figure that means no setting your baby in the driver's seat either, so oh well. Natalie liked the big wheels though.

More pumpkin pictures to come!

bumps, bears, and breakfast

So here's another random mix of pictures from the last couple weeks. I have some new ones on the camera that I need to load up, but I had to share these last few pics and stories from the last batch!

With Natalie's growing confidence walking and even running, (she has yet to get jumping or hopping, but not for lack of trying), she is accumulating a growing number of bumps, bruises, and scrapes. This one pictured below is from two weeks ago. Then when it healed up, she fell, three times in a row on her forehead about a week later. Getting a bump, then a scrape on the bump and her wrist, and on the third time, a new bump on her forehead in a different place. The kid's a bit clumsy, but hopefully she'll grow out of it. The bruises and scrapes are almost healed, and then yesterday she was going for a nice walk with her dad when she fell and scraped her knee! Earning her first band aid and learning a new word: blood!

Here she is taking her bear-conducted train for a walk. She always says "bye" and then heads for the garage door. She turns around, says "back!" and walks back in grinning. What a good trick! But she's finally got the pulling thing down. Before whenever she wanted to play with pull toys, she would just pick them up by the string and try to carry them along.
And now for some classic breakfast pics! Seems like spoons are a much messier way for Natalie to eat than forks. She doesn't have the right tilt down yet.

Rice crispies and yogurt:
Cream of wheat, (more fun to play with than to eat, but she does usually eat it all).
And a smoothie. Her favorite. She requests these a couple times a day.
And this one's more of a post breakfast pic: hot chocolate mustache!

a little Autumn party

Last weekend we went to our friends', Erik and Renee, house for a little Fall party. Unfortunately the weather was awful and cold. But we bundled up, and managed to have a great time nonetheless! Katie, Renee, and Meagan. Since Meagan is their last of three kids, we get many many adorable hand-me-downs from these two cute girls! Under everything, Natalie is actually wearing a shirt and jeans and socks from them!

Natalie liked following Katie around.
She wasn't too interested in sitting by the fire though. Too hot.