Mostly Today, but Yesterday, too.

These first two are from last night. I picked up a pair of footie PJs at Baby Daze for Joanna, even though footie PJs are exactly practical for 2 1/2 year olds. I thought they might be nice for cooler nights, and I figured (rightly so) that she would love wearing PJs like her sister. Natalie in her PJs (couldn't be bothered to look at the camera -- very busy learning how to change channels).

Last night I worked on cleaning out/organizing my bathroom which hadn't been done in Natalie's entire life. Things just kept piling up in there and it was gross. Also, for many months we've all been showering and getting ready in the other bathroom, and I'm about ready to move back into the master. The major reason we "moved out" was because we didn't want to disturb Natalie. When she was really little, she was usually sleeping with me in the mornings we Matt was getting ready and she and I both were very disturbed by the bathroom light. Even now, she usually ends up in our room in the early morning, and it's just easier to get ready someplace else. We have a pack 'n play in our room where Natalie typically finishes her night from 5 or 6 on as well as naps. I'm ready to move back though becuase I find that I very rarely actually use the time when she's sleeping to get ready! Also, I'm working on making my bedroom child-friendly again. I sort of like the idea (dream) of having a "sanctuary" -- a no-kid zone, but it just isn't practical for us! I want the girls to be able to follow me in there and entertain themselves (safely!) while I put on make-up, change clothes, whatever. Wow, really long, rambling paragraph just to say I found these costume jewelry bracelets and I gave them to Joanna this morning. She was SO EXCITED.

Somehow the girls ended up being dressed similarly this morning, and I just had to get pictures!

I would have taken more, but I was very VERY nervous about Natalie doing a face-plant on these concrete/metal stairs. Yikes!

Our friend Amy Creamer was walking past and insisted on taking a picture of all of us -- thank you, Amy!

Amazingly, we're all kind of match-y. I just love how that works out sometimes without one single plan for it. :)

Back at home...

Have I mentioned that child LOVES to dress up?! I'm thinking a trip a trip to the thrift store may be in order for some slightly large, slightly extravegant clothes for her to play in.

We discovered (after she had a particularly fussy morning in the nursery) that Miss Natalie is sick today. When I dropped her off, I swear I thought she was fine. She had a slightly runny nose, but I figured that was due to weather change and her maybe being a little cold. Poor thing is now all raspy in her chest and she has a fever. :(

Anyway, that's why Matt is snapping peas in this picture.

Natalie needed me so Matt snapped peas.

After I discovered Natalie had a fever, I gave her some Tylenol and a little Baby Mozart and she started to feel better. Joanna and I left Daddy and Natalie to go feed and walk David's dog.

Is my daughter stinkin' beautiful, or what?

Joanna and I took Didi for a walk, got her to poop! (the purpose of the walk), and fixed her some dinner. Then we got all buckled in the car to discover it wouldn't start. (Some of you may remember it does this from time to time.) I was parked behind a working car in David's driveway, but that didn't help. I called Matt so he could come get us (not remembering I had Natalie's carseat in the van.) She was asleep on him, poor tired little sick baby. I decided to call my wonderful Vandenberge friends, thinking it might not be too difficult for one of them to come rescue us (and they already had a Joanna-sized carseat strapped in their car!) Lisa and Anna headed right over, and pulled up about 2 minutes after I started the car. I wouldn't have even tried, but Matt called and told me to. He'd been praying for it to start. I started in on the whole, "Well, you know God doesn't always answer yes..." business, never dreaming the car would start. I should just shut-up and listen to my husband. God has been telling me that a lot lately. I really really should just do it! I came home to this:

Wow.

Matt left for Financial Peace pretty much right after that, so the girls and I had dinner by ourselves. I packed Matt a quick snack, don't worry.

See this tray? She ate about this much... three times. I love that sometimes we can all eat the same thing! It was good, too. Baked chicken, green beens, and rolls. Yum. Stay tuned for a 9 month post from my Natalie!

Thank you, Vandenberge's for coming to rescue us!

It's the little things.

I would've taken a picture of the whole girl, but the rest of her was naked. She loves to dress up! These are Daddy's socks with one princess shoe and one of Gran's shoes.

I picked up Joanna first on Tuesday, and we came into Natalie class to find this:
Oh how stinkin' precious she is!

This is one thing Joanna loves to do in the "baby class."

There's a new farmer's market in Humble at the Methodist Church. We went to check it out on Wednesday, and walked past their pumpkin patch as well. I think Joanna was thinking, "what's with all the pumpkins?" It was too hot out there so we left to get ice cream. :)

This is the end of Natalie's wave. She slides her hand back and forth in front of her. It's very very cute. I'm surprised she waves with her left hand, but I'm wondering if she's mirroring us instead of using her dominant hand?

We picked up Natalie's halloween costume today (Thank you, Lisa for the tip -- I forgot to call you back this afternoon and now it's too late!); she's going to be a pink butterfly. It was hard to explain to Joanna why she couldn't have a pink butterfly costume, too. We talked about how she was going to dress up as a mommy for halloween and we were going to get her a Moby Wrap just like Mommy's. Well, toddlers aren't ones for delayed gratification, so we picked that up this afternoon, as well!

That's her "I've been holding this baby all day and my feet hurt and I need some chocolate" look. :) Seriously, though she loves it and she's very much looking forward to this Halloween thing where she gets to carry a diaper bag and wear her baby and push another one (or whatever happens!)

I will leave you with a picture of our technology corner:

The new one looks like it could eat the old one for breakfast. And it has enough memory to do it (a hundred times over). If you look closely, you will see that it has a number pad!!!! I seriously hate having to type in numbers using the row above the letters. I don't have to type numbers much, but I LOVE ME A NUMBER PAD! It's the little things...

Quick(ish) updates.

I had to post a couple of updates on the girls, but I'm not up for downloading pics right now. I'll get to them this weekend, I think!
Anyway...
-Natalie has said her first word! She started last week sometime. It's "hi" accompanied by a very cool hand wave. I don't have a video yet, but I did take a picture and you can kind of tell how she waves. Her "hi" sounds more like "haaaa," but I know what it is!
-Miss Joanna has been wearing panties everywhere all the time (except at night) since Saturday afternoon! I must tell you I LOVE just putting diapers on one kid! We still have a lot of work to do to keep her excited about it and continue growing her ability to do it all on her own, but she's doing so good! She was just ready and she did it! She had one accident at school on Tuesday, but it was around lunch so I know she was distracted. :) She's had a couple of others here and there as well. I think I've mentioned this, but the panties we're using are so wonderful. They're plain white Gerber, and they have extra padding in them to absorb when there's a leak. This means if Joanna's in the kitchen (or say, the front of the Sanctuary at church) and realizes she waited too long, the panties keep her legs (and floor) dry and she runs to the potty. They're also very easy to clean for those icky accidents. We don't have enough, though and they're hard to find, so Joanna's going will get to pick out some others this weekend at the store. I think that's an important rite of passage: picking out panties! I just cannot say how proud of her I am! She is so good about remembering to go, even when she's busy busy. She's even napping in her underwear. My big girl is definitely not a baby anymore! :(
-Enough rambling. I'm very excited that my new work computer has arrived at the church and will hopefully get set up tomorrow! I'm dying to get my hands on it and load all my files and get it "broken in." My little personal computer just couldn't keep up with the demands of my job as of a couple of months ago, so the church purchased one for my position. All I know about it is that is a Dell and it's 17 inches and it's black. I just know it will be so much better at all my graphic-y work stuff. My wonderful mother has been letting me use hers on Thursdays the past 6 weeks or so since I had to start using the new version of this one program and my little Dell just wouldn't have it! I've had a lot of computer issues at work lately, and I'm very much hoping they won't be issues anymore, and that I can just focus on doing good work!

The many fake smiles of Joanna

After watching Joanna have her school pictures made this morning, I was prompted to do this post. We have really got to work on an authentic smile for this girl!

The overbite smile.
More of a grimace:

Smiling with just her mouth:

Simply goofy:

Actually a little bit closer, but the timing wasn't right:

She doesn't even look happy here!

Not too bad, but still not an authentic smile:

My little squirrel.

I wanted to get a few pictures of Natalie this morning, just because. My camera just takes awful pictures inside, though, and Tiny Cuteness here doesn't get the whole, "hold still and say cheese" thing. This was all I got this morning!We did a little better this afternoon in the natural light.
She had her tongue out a lot!

Here's the squirrel part:

I fished a few of these out of her mouth before I decided pictures on the deck just may not be worth it! And there were ants and mosquitos and it was humid and hot and nasty and I missed my A/C. So we came in.

Party Girls!

We went to Paul David's birthday party this past weekend at the park! Swings and slides are so much fun!
Matt earned his keep swinging...

...and sawing.

The birthday boy!

Even though Matt is an Aggie (and we all are by association!), he let us buy Paul David a Bevo thing for his birthday. (Secretly, I think it was cute!)

Uh oh.

It sure was tasty!

Natalie did not get cake. She liked her puffs, though.

Paul David had a pull-string Pinata. It was very cute to watch. The kids pretty much didn't know what to do, even when the candy fell out! We had to tell them to go pick some up!

We had fun, Paul David. We thank God for you -- Happy Birthday!

The Girls

Joanna just may be potty trained! She is so good about stopping whatever she's doing to go use the potty. We've just been doing panties at home, but we're about to go cold-turkey tomorrow! She even wore panties and kept them dry at nap time today. I'm so proud of her! Anytime she's in a diaper or pull-ups she pees in them without thinking about it, but she very rarely has an accident in her underwear.

Natalie is eating finger food like there's no tomorrow. She LOVES to feed herself. Yesterday she had peas and carrots with lunch and pork chops and green beans for dinner. She's a big fan of all her grains: toast, puffs, Cheerios, and such. She would much rather feed herself than let me feed her, but some things are just too hard for finger foods!

I've started making Natalie's rice cereal. I don't know why I never did it before! It's very easy, and soooooooo much cheaper than the boxed stuff. It's not quite as convenient, I guess, but close. For rice, basically you just grind the dry rice, then cook it much like you would oatmeal. It's even freeze-able. I froze one batch in ice cube trays. I just reheat it in the microwave and add a little more liquid to it (applesauce, juice, water...). It's pretty gummy right out of the fridge or freezer. I think it has more flavor than the boxed stuff. It's much like grits. Is that what grits are, does anybody know? Nope, just looked it up -- grits are made from corn. Still... similar. I also made mashed potatoes for the first time today. (I know... sad; don't tell my grandma:) ). They turned out great! Everybody liked them, including Natalie. I think I may need to add some more "stuff" next time.