cottage cheese container still life

"VIVA" by Natalie

It was very difficult to choose which of the pictures from this series to display here. There were so many.

Well, I'm out of pictures for the week. I hope you all are having a great Thanksgiving. We are scheduled to be in Cabo San Lucas today. Our last stop in Mexico. We will be back in LA on Saturday, and back home on Monday night.

another cardboard box story

Punch and Judy

Hanging out with dad can be so much fun!!

Smoothies before bed time...
more magazine reading...
And then a little bout of sparring.
With the proper gear, of course.

first haircut!

Natalie got her first haircut the other day! We just needed the bottom trimmed off so it wasn't so scraggly, but we're trying to let most of the bangs grow out. Natalie's daddy took her to this great kids salon in Boulder called LolliLocks. She sat nice and still and looked in the mirror most of the time. She liked driving her little car.
And afterwards they put ribbons in her hair, (this reminds me a bit too much of when you take your dog to the groomer...)
And topped it all off with glitter hair spray!
Plus they gave me a couple of her pretty golden locks in a little plastic envelope. And now we have a much tidier little girl!

copy cat

Reading with dad.
And being silly.
Natalie really does love to look through Sunset - there are always lots of dogs in it and it's fun to find them all!

first snowman!

When we got home from the gym the other day we did some playing in the snow. My dad was over with his dogs, and they make snow play look very inviting. Natalie got some lessons in snowball making.


And I showed her how to make a snow man, (another new phrase she's learned this week".
A very small snow man.

Gym Time

Tomorrow morning, way earlier than could be called "bright", we're heading off to LA where we will sail on a Princess cruise for a few stops in Mexico. Natalie has been practicing her Spanish in preparation. She knows "hola", "adios", and "gracias". I will hopefully be able to post a few pics from the ship. If not here, then definitely on Facebook. For now, you will have to make due with some pics from the week.

We've enjoyed some beautiful weather lately.... crisp and cool, but nice and sunny. Here are some pictures of Natalie outside of gym class enjoying a smoothie, (the benches were all covered in snow, so we couldn't hang out where we usually do.) But she liked watching the cars in the parking lot almost as much as the squirrels we usually watch.

She was so pleased to see a delivery truck pull up and stop in front of us she actually cheered!

A few days later we had another gym class. Her two favorite parts of gym are the balls and the bubbles.
Here she is waiting for some bubbles on her tummy.
And when we're done in the gym we all step out and it's stamp time! Natalie is always the first one sitting against the wall waiting for her stamps. She pulls up her pant legs and gets her little hands ready!She's checking out Lily getting her stamps in this pic.

little monster

Natalie used to be so good in restaurants. She used to be such a good little eater. She never used to talk back, (well, she never used to talk!)

Not so much anymore.

Our little angel can really turn on the waterworks. When she hears a contrary word she'll arch her back and throw herself on the floor. Usually she can be distracted eventually and we don't have to give in, but sometimes not so much.

Here she is after essentially winning. She was supposed to be sitting in her high chair at this restaurant, but she's obviously in the booth.

We made the most of it and grabbed a family photo.
And as her verbal skills improve, she exerts her will more and more often. One of her favorite new phrases is "right there". DH loves the Southern twang she gives the word "there" - "they-er". Usually she wants someone to sit somewhere... in the chair or on the floor next to her, and she'll point or pat. But today when I was changing her diaper she said she wanted some water. I said we'd get it when we were done, and she said "right there, table", and sure enough, there was a cup of water.

But she's not all demands. She says "please", and "thank you", and even "welcome" sometimes. And in the morning, she loves to go in and greet the lucky parent who gleaned a few extra minutes of bed time with a chipper "Morning! Wake up!" I guess there are worse ways to start the day!

making letters

We're working on the alphabet with Natalie. She can "sing" her ABCs through D, and sometimes E when reminded. After that she just keeps singing "B, B, B, B, B". Actually when asked to sing anything, that's what she chooses. So we're making some letters for her wall. Almost every day we make another one. It's a fun project to use markers on for the first time.

Naked markering... no matter how "washable" they are, it's still easier to get marker off of bare skin then out of clothes!

play kitchen, for now

There was a lot of snow on Sunday. We didn't want to go out. And Natalie was pitifully playing "cook" using her stool as a stove, and looking for something to use as an oven. We are planning on building her a play kitchen for Christmas (after giving up the idea that we don't have the space for one since she loves to play "cook"). But since we're not there yet, and since we were bored, and snowed in, we made her a temporary cardboard box and duct tape play kitchen. We haven't glued the knobs on yet, but the cupboard and oven open, and stay closed with velcro. It's a hit.



Elmo and Barney are reaping the benefits of all-you-can-drink smoothies and tea.
Don't they look happy?!

great thrift store finds

We have a project in mind for Natalie for Christmas, but before we can start, we need to find the perfect used piece of furniture to make it from. So we spent much of Saturday scouring thrift stores in the area looking at furniture.

Well, we didn't find what we needed, but we did make some really fun book purchases. And even better than that, we made some Barney purchases as well!!

Here's Barney himself for all of $.54 with tax! Natalie is so stoked!! Since this guy went for a turn in the washing machine, she's barely let him get away from her.

Here she is helping him turn the pages in her new books. And for $1, we couldn't resist the Barney banjo. It plays music as long as you interfere with a little light beam through the center hole.

And you can change the instrument and song!
Score!

getting better

It's feast or famine with me on the posting pictures front, I know!! I'm planning on posting blog entries straight for the next two weeks though, so we'll see if I can keep it up. But first, I wanted to catch you up on Natalie's eye!

Here is what it looked like the day after the stitches. Still very swollen, and bruised.
A day after that it was much less swollen, but much more bruised. She had quite a little shiner going on for a while there.
Here she is on Wednesday, right after she got the stitches out, (just getting her back into the room at the doctor's office was a struggle, but the procedure itself was pretty easy.)
A couple days after that...
And this is yesterday.
As of today the place that was stitched up is pretty much healed. We still coat it with oil a few times a day to keep it moist and heal any scarring, and Natalie endures all that attention very stoically. She still has some bruising underneath, but she's not looking nearly so bad.

She has really disliked anyone bringing attention to her eye this whole time. She gets a bit mad when people have noticed it and ask her how she is, or say she has a "boo boo." But she has learned one new word from the whole experience: "better". Our little trooper.