Super Bowl, Super Cute

We headed over to Uncle Mark's house on Sunday for the annual Pence Family Super Bowl party (and birthday party for Uncle Mark!). Anytime we go to Uncle Mark's house, Joanna loves to play in front of this huge mirror wall in the dining room. Here she is making faces in the mirror. (I'm the one with the giant white spot for a head.) :) She did pretty well, but it sure is hard to go the whole afternoon with NO NAP! My child has not napped for me since Friday. I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet, but I'm sensing the end is near. She did take a nap for her teachers at MDO yesterday, so I'm holding out hope. It's funny though, we had a much better afternoon Monday and today with no nap than we did yesterday with the little MDO nap. That child is grumpy/clingy/needy (more than normal) after her naps. This is why my mom says she let Kathryn give up hers when she was 2. It just wasn't worth it! If this truly is the end, she'll still be having quiet time in her room for Mommy's sanity.
We played a game where you start by putting a bag on your head. Joanna wanted to play, too. If you look on the left side of the picture, you'll see that Pop is holding Natalie on his chest, asleep. She had a hugely long and wonderful Pop nap. I actually had to wake her up (yikes, I know!) because she was having such a marathon nap. She needed to eat! (I needed her to eat!)

I just thought this was cute. (And yes, you did notice a wardrobe change.) I don't remember exactly what she spilled on herself, but it was somethin'.

Playin' football with Jenny.

The annual Superbowl football pose: If you feel like it, you can look up last year's pose in my old blog posts. :)

TOUCHDOWN!

I could've taken a BUNCH of pictures, but I just wasn't feeling great. I did notice that Mindy and Mark and Allison took a few so maybe they'll pass them along. Did you read that, people?! I want pictures!!

Often I need to lay Natalie down for a few minutes when I go into Joanna's room to get her dressed or read to her or change a diaper or whatever. I have a nice soft cushy blanket for Natalie to lay on in the crib. And we've discovered that she LOVES looking at the mobile and listening to the music.

I don't have a picture of it yet, but I've discovered that she also LOVES looking at Joanna's new Valentine's giraffe. Mamma and Pop brought it over a couple of weeks ago -- it's a Beanie Baby giraffe that is white with little red hearts on it instead of spots. It's very cute, and I think Natalie likes it because of the nice contrasting colors. Joanna isn't extremely thrilled about sharing yet, but she does very well.

I know I complained a little about Natalie in my post earlier today... well I shouldn't have! She has had such amazing naps today. I don't think I've posted this, but she's been doing really well with napping NOT on me. I haven't gotten her to sleep in her little bed, but I also haven't really tried. She's been sleeping in her little pink bouncer during the day. She seems very cozy, and she sleeps very well amidst all the noise of the house. Most of the time I get her pretty much asleep in my arms, then I lay her down. Sometimes she's a little more awake, but still manages to put herself out with a little bouncing and a little paci sucking. The bouncer also has a nice soft vibrating mode that she's very fond of. I have to say that I'm extremely impressed with the battery life on that thing! We're frequently leaving it on for long periods of time. Whoa, this is a long rambley paragraph. Sorry.

Well, I've been thinking for about an hour that the child is going to wake up soon. I think she essentially started her "night" already. She's is heavy night sleep, I think. I know as soon as I go lay down she'll wake up, though!