My 6 week old

Here are a few things Natalie is up to these days:

• Smiling! She's been smiling for a while, but in the past few days it has begun to happen pretty regularly. If you smile at her, she will likely smile back. It's absolutely beautiful!
• She likes looking at things, especially things with great contrast. Aunt Mindy and Uncle Steve have a giant close-up zebra painting at their house that she liked looking at. She also likes looking at Joanna's Valentine (red and white) giraffes.
• She likes hearing things like rattles and white noise and her noisy sister.
• She coos and gurgles some now.
• She's not much of a spitter-upper (yea!) although she does spit up more than her sister. She also seems to eat more than her sister.
• My estimate for her weight these days is 10-10.5 pounds. I don't expect I'll venture anywhere with a baby scale soon, so we'll get an "official" measurement at the 2 month check up. She'll actually be going in at about 7 1/2 weeks due to our pediatrician heading to Africa for a mission trip!
• She still likes sleeping on people a lot and not so much in beds and stuff. Oh, well. She is asleep in her bouncer right now though! I definitely never type this much one-handed.

The search is on...

Do cameras wear out? I ask because I think mine has, or is. I just can't get good pictures inside. They're blurry or have red-eye or they're dark or just not crisp. Sometimes if I have the settings just right and my subject is being very still, I can get a good one. However, I have two little NOT STILL girls. I can still get good shots outside in the natural light, but that's just not where I take most of my pics.

So, I've decided I'm officially on the search for a new camera.

This is what I like about my current camera:

• It is very small; I can fit it in my pocket. This is very important to me.
• It has a large screen on the back.
• It is easy to use.
• It has a good video feature on it.

This is what I do not like about my camera:

• It is slow. I have to press the button before my child does something cute.
• It mostly takes fuzzy pictures.
• It uses xd memory cards.
• The flash washes things out.
• The power button is too close to the picture taking button. I often turn it off instead of taking the picture.
• It's too easy to switch modes. It switches in my pocket sometimes.

So, if you have a camera that you particularly like or do not like, let me know. I'm going to do my research before I actually buy something (or Santa brings it to me), but I would like input from people I know who actually use their camera. So leave a comment, send an email, make a phone call -- something!

My 2 year old

Becoming two takes time, but after it happens it seems to have happened so quickly.

• Today Joanna fell asleep in the car on the way home from Aunt Mindy's house. I can't remember the last time she fell asleep in the car. At some point, it just stopped happening.
• I'm not sure when she stopped, but Joanna doesn't sign anymore. She doesn't need to. She can say anything. I might be the only one who understands her sometimes, or she may have to show us, but she can say anything.
• Some of her very independent phrases include, "mine," "no," and "Joanna do it." She uses these phrases frequently.
• She loves reading. "More book" she'll say. Most of the time we read before bed, but we read a little other times too. Her current favorites are a Sesame Street counting book that she calls "Ernie" and a Mary Engelbreit Mother Goose book she calls "Dumpy Dumpy" (Humpty Dumpty).
• She loves to draw with anything and on anything that's available.
• She has a couple of comfort objects: a soft green blanket, and a little giraffe blanket thing. She calls them "Blanket-Lovey." They're kind of one unit. If she's got one, she has them both. We have a backup Lovey, but I'm pretty terrified of losing Blanket (although I know she'd do fine).
• She has something I call "stealth mode." She moves really really fast!

Oh, I love this child!

The BIG Birthday party post!

The Birthday girl! She kind of has a funny face here, but I love this shot!Some of our friends gathering: Paul David found the trains pretty quickly; Joanna's observing him play. Aunt Missy with Joanna and Natalie
Great Grandma showing Joanna what 2 looks like:

Joanna spent much of the party mooching food from everyone.

Caleb and Aidan spent much of the party racing the strollers around the house!

Bailey all tucked in Joanna's bed. :)

Emma enjoying some good snacks.

Matt with Callie -- just chillin'

Most of the rest of the pictures are of the cake or eating the cake!

Mmmmmm.... cookie cake, my favorite! And Joanna loved it, too. "My tookie," she said.

Snagging some icing -- anyone watching?

TWO candles, this year!

She LOVED watching everyone sing to her. We have video of it, hopefully I'll get around to uploading it at some point.

Blowing out the candles -- Mommy had to help a little.

A pizza cutter is a very good way to cut cookie cake.

Yum!

Oh, chocolate face.

Some more friends -- Amy, Abby, and Josh.

Chris and Aidan.

Messy face, which prompted Joanna's friend Anna to say, "Oh, look at you!"

And proceed to clean her up! Then she got an audience!

She is a very good big sister!

Mamma, Pop, and Aunt Missy

Some of the big group:

Joanna was trying to tell us it's time for presents!

So we started digging in!

Trying on her new shoes from Aunt Missy. The girl definitely loves her shoes.

Joanna with all her loot! Thank you everybody!! She has already played with most of the toys, and they're all a big hit!

Anna with her balloon and goody bag, ready to head home.

The balloons where big hits with all the kiddos. There sure is something magical about balloons.

I have not fallen off the earth...

I've just been busy! Today we had Joanna's birthday party. We had fun, took lots of pictures, ate lots of cake, and opened lots of presents. I will post about it soon!

My girls turn big ages tomorrow. Natalie will be 6 weeks old, and Joanna will be 2 years old! Can you believe it?!

My Very Wonderful Mother

Now you all know how wonderful my mom is, and many of you have even experienced it first-hand. I feel I must tell you the most recent wonderfulness of her generosity. She has loaned me her computer! My poor little laptop just doesn't have the memory or processing speed I really need for my work stuff (not to mention the zillion baby pictures), but it has been plugging along. We're just not in the position to buy a computer right now, especially since I have pretty expensive tastes. :) Well, my mom has a pretty nice (big, fast) computer and really only uses for the internet when she travels. So she offered to swap (temporarily, of course)! I had our computer guy at work load all the programs I need onto my mom's computer (hereafter called Toshiba) as well as network it up at the church. I just finished moving her stuff to my computer (hereafter called Dell) and my stuff to the Toshiba. To give you an idea of my new luxury, the Dell currently has about 3 or 4 free gigs of memory. The Toshiba has 101! And that's with ALL the pictures I had to banish to the external hard drive. Whoa!!

Thank you, Mommy!

Happy Valentine's Day from two very cute little girls.

A photo-op this morning with matching PJs! Aren't they totally precious?!
Thank you Kathy for our very first matching outfits!
On a related side note: it seems Natalie is definitely into 0-3 month clothes. Some are a little big on her, but most (like these PJs) fit her perfectly! She can also still wear most of her NB stuff, but some is getting kind of short in the leg and tight in the neck. Yup, my girls are growing differently for sure. Joanna wore a NB outfit at her baptism. She was almost 3 months old.
I had a good day just chillin' with my girls. We had what has become our traditional V-day dinner: pita pizzas! They're easy and everyone loves them. Next year maybe I'll make them heart shaped. :) It's funny -- Joanna's first Valentine's day she got to eat pizza; Natalie's first V-day she just got milk.
Happy Valentine's Day everyone -- hope you all found somebody to love!