Memorial Day

The best part of Memorial Day for me?  Matt had the day off from work!!  He did a lot of work in the yard and got my clothesline up!  Yay!  Line-dried clothes tomorrow!

Joanna got all her Disney movies off the shelf and “organized” them.

I’ve had a hankerin’ for banana bread.  I just wish I’d made more than one loaf – isn’t it beautiful?!

I also made a batch of chocolate chip cookies in my NEW MIXER!  Oh, it makes it so much easier to make cookies!

Natalie apparently started reading today.

This evening we went to the Vandenberge’s for yummy dinner off the grill.  Oh it was so good!

All four kiddos on the swingset.

After dinner they set up the little pool and the sprinkler fountain and the water table.

Natalie mostly played at the water table.

Joanna had a BLAST in the pool.  Almost makes me want to go out and get one… almost.

The big girls played so sweetly together!

I like the way the water looks splashing off of Joanna’s hand.

Natalie was pretty pooped by this point.  You can see her customary thumb in mouth/finger in belly button tired pose.

Joanna was trying to get water from the hose into the bubble container.  She actually has pretty amazing aim.

This is the only picture I got of all four girls in the pool.  They had lots of fun!

I know Tony took a bunch of pictures on his fancy camera.  I look forward to seeing those!

Natalie’s so funny

Updated June 1st to include some words I forgot... scroll down.

In the newborn box, we discovered these mittens, and Natalie fell in love. She wants them on her hands whenever she sees them.

She even wore them out to the car for our errands today. I took them off just after this picture so she could drink her water. Oh, and it’s like 4 million degrees outside.

This afternoon Matt set her up with some juice and goldfish in the rocking chair. This picture doesn’t do it justice, but she looked so relaxed just chillin’ with her snack. It was very cute.

So I might as well do a little post about all things Natalie… what I can remember/think of anyway. My thoughts come and go so quickly these days!

Natalie…

-still uses her “more” and “all done” signs frequently even though she can say those things. “More” sounds like “mo,” but “all done” is pretty clear! She also signs “clean up,” “milk,” and “please.”

-can say: more, all done, no, baby, Mommy, Daddy, Pop, Puppy, ball, please, mine, hi, bye, and probably some others. Update -- some words I forgot: uh oh, mine, thank you, bless you, please.

She nods for yes. She also says a lot of one time things that she repeats. Like the other evening my mom said, “Say Hi David.” Natalie repeated plain as day, “Hi David.” I think she’s talking more than her big sis was at this age. Makes sense though.

-sings constantly. Right now it’s usually “Twinkle Twinkle” or the clean up song.

-Jabbers so much. She especially loves to talk on the phone, but will talk just to no one around the house as well.

-can and loves to climb up on the dining room table. Wah. :(

-has a little bit of curl in the back of her blondie hair.

-really loves corn on the cob, peanut butter and jelly, flavored yogurt, spaghetti, bananas, carrots from my mom’s chicken soup

-waves hi and bye a lot. She has a really cute wave.

-walks and runs very well.

-laughs when I tell her no or to sit down or come here. It’s kind of infuriating but soooo cute.

-goes down for naps very easily. She transitioned down to one nap, but the last couple of weeks has taken two naps many days. We’ve had full days and late nights pretty frequently. I’m very thankful she’s taking two to catch up.

-When she doesn't want to do something, usually go in somebody else's arms, she shakes her head no while pursing her lips. People will purposefully do things to get Natalie to make this face. It's that cute.

-was very afraid of the thunderstorm tonight. :(

-Is so stinkin’ cute and knows it!

Getting Ready

I decided to go through the girls’ bins of clothes from 0-12 months and see what we could use for Baby Brother.

It was more than I thought!

Not a lot of newborn stuff, but some really useful things.  There’s a footless PJ thing that Joanna wore A LOT and a gown I found at Baby Daze for Natalie.  The rest of the stuff is burp cloths and mittens.

For 0-3 months it’s mostly blanket sleepers and footie PJs.  The timing should be just about right for that kind of thing.

For 3-6 months, there were quite a few onesies and PJs, also a train outfit and a jacket.

 

Just a couple pair of jammies for 6-9 months.

A few onesies and some PJs for the 12 months stack.

Overall a pretty good start!

I wonder if he will be petite like Joanna, a little more average like Natalie, or a hulk?  Looking forward to finding out!

Birthday Present

I haven’t been able to blog about this because things have been so hectic, but several weeks ago I got a big white box in the mail.  I had to wait until my birthday to open it!

Fortunately Dad and Renee (who is was from) let me open it on birthday eve since I was headed to their house early the next morning.

This is what I found:

I made a surprised gaspy sound.  I was very excited!

I just now got the chance to actually take it out of the box though.

I made another excited sound – isn’t is so beautiful?!

 

I’m sitting down to read all about it right now.  Anybody have any Kitchen Aid mixer tips or favorite recipes?

Wedding Day

The only wedding I’ve been in was my own.  To say I was living vicariously through Joanna today is an understatement.  :)

Look very closely and you’ll see Joanna’s name printed on the right side of the program!

I had a booger of a time getting Joanna’s hair to do what I wanted, but once I got it set before the ceremony, she left it alone and it looked cute!

The flower girls, Jade and Joanna.

There was music playing before the service and Joanna had to go up and get her groove on.  I hope nobody minded.  :)

The headdress fit very nicely on Miss Natalie.  I just about couldn’t get it back from her.  I’d forgotten how much she loves hats.

The flower girls’ baskets.

My girls playing right before the service.

This one’s kind of blurry, but the Joanna had her alien face on in my only other option.  :)

I forget who Natalie’s looking at here.  I’m pretty sure it was Josh.

Daddy the sound man and Joanna the flower girl.

This is an example of the alien face I mentioned.  I don’t really know where it comes from.

Even though it’s a little fuzzy, I LOVE this next picture.  Joanna was pretty transfixed by “her Christiana.”

Happy, excited girl!

Waiting so patiently for her turn to throw the flowers!

Like I mentioned in a previous post, she pretty much fell apart after it was all over.  It was kind of like talking to a dog… a dog who doesn’t speak English.  She well-behaved genes were just wore out.  She did so good, though, and we actually did get her to look cute in the pictures as well.  It just took a little longer.  Communications were down.

But then she got some candy and that made her feel better.  I did get some real food down her today, but I would say that over half of her caloric intake today came from junk food.  Momma said there’d be days like that.

She said her tummy hurt after she ate this whole thing and drank a bunch of water.  She perked up after the chocolate cake though.  (Am I a swell mom, or what?)  I really was just going to let her have a bite of Matt’s cake because she’d spent so long watching them cut it and longing after it.  But seriously, she started to feel better and act more normal after eating some!  Chocolate really does have healing properties for my people.  :)  And she didn’t even eat a whole piece.

 

Everybody threw gold coins at the departing couple.  I don’t totally get it, but it was cute.  And they were plastic and I don’t think anyone got hurt.

Joanna picked up a few.

And clutched them the whole way home, even after falling asleep.  You may have noticed the wardrobe change here.  When we were on the highway in-between no where and no where, Joanna had to tinkle… bad.  We stopped at a gas station, but there was someone in the restroom.  (At this point I should have rushed her out of the store and into the grass, but I didn’t.)  By the time he got out, Joanna had held it as long as possible and peed all over the floor.  Ew.  The bathroom was so gross, too.  Blech.

My happy diva on the way to Uncle Andy and Aunt Christiana’s house after stopping quickly at home.

It was a very fun, very full day with family.  We had so much fun and are so glad that Christiana’s officially one of us!

Joanna’s “Prize”

Sweet Christiana gave the kiddos in the wedding party a “surprise,” and Joanna was calling it her “prize.”  She LOVES these magnetic paper dolls.  She got to play with them for the first time this morning.

They are so perfect for her!  Matt couldn’t find one of the dolls when I moved Joanna from the living room to the dining room to play, but it turns out Joanna had put her in the baby carriage.  I think she needed a nap.

Thank you Christiana!  Joanna LOVED being in your “wedder.”  She thought you were sooooo beautiful today!  More pics of that to come up next!

Uncle Steve said he'd never seen anyone under 4 pull it off.

And to that, I say "HA!" The girls did so good! Joanna got a little obsessed with straightening the aisle runner there at the end, which you'll see in the video. I thought it was pretty cute. She just walked so sweetly down the aisle, fixed the runner :), and took her place at the front.

I stopped filming after that, but she spent a couple of minutes standing by the bridesmaids before going to sit with Aunt Gail for the rest of the service. I was way in the back so I couldn't really see her, but she sat still in the front row for the whole service. I was pretty amazed.

After that, she lost all ability to concentrate and listen. I think it got all used up in the rehearsal and the wedding. :)

A Diva Day

First thing this morning I put the Natalie in the rocker while I got breakfast ready.  When I came back, they were both in there, rocking.  Notice Joanna’s shoes.  She’s never very far from dress-up.  It’s just about her favorite thing to do.

I finally settled on shoes for the flower girl dress yesterday, and we tried on the whole outfit this morning.  Can you believe the perfect-ness of these teal shoes?!  LOVE Tar-jay!

On the way to lunch today:  Oh my.

For Joanna, the rehearsal today was a dress rehearsal.  I wanted her to practice wearing the full get-up.

She was BORN for this!

I don’t know how she’ll do tomorrow, but she just ATE IT UP this evening!

There was some rolling on the floor too.  But just before this picture she was sitting so sweetly on the floor with the dress puffed out around her.

Here she is waiting in the narthex for her turn to walk down the aisle.

I’m using blogger to upload a video of part of the walk down the aisle tonight so it’ll be in a a different post.  Take a look!