Joanna and Natalie love to bring their play food into the kitchen to use my pots and pans. :) As long as they clean up, it’s fine with me!
These next few are from when the family was here for Baptism day. I was using Renee’s camera to get some pics of the girls before church. I thought about posting them all because of all the funny faces, but I kept to a few of the best.
Natalie’s face here is hilarious!
This is such a Joanna face lately!
I love ‘em!
My Natalie has been a hoot and a half recently. I just want to hug her and snuggle her ALL DAY LONG! This first one is from her two year check-up back on the 14th.
She was 27lbs, 32 1/2 inches tall, with a head circumference of 19 inches. As Mary Poppins would put it: “Practically perfect in every way.” 
These next few pictures are from when the fam was still in town. I can tell because I took them with Renee’s camera. That, and Kathryn’s in some of them.
Isn’t she simply gorgeous?!
(Notice the difference in quality between the last picture and this one – whoa. These next ones must have been after the family left!)
Natalie is very into accessories these days. I remember that phase from Joanna (she still is there somewhat). I think it must have something to do with what Natalie can put on/take off herself. She has trouble with clothes, but accessories are something she can be independent about!
This is why you will often find her in a diaper and… something else.
She is also VERY into reading right now. I look over so many times a day to find her sitting on the floor by the books, just quietly going to through them. LOVE IT. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!
Accessories and books? What could be better?!!
And even though I don’t like to encourage playing in the baby doll bed, I just had to snap this one. Oh she is just SO STINKIN’ CUTE!
I love my Natalie so much! (And lest you worry, posts on the other kids, whom I also love so much, are coming soon. 
We were invited to our friend Will’s 40th birthday party at Tin Roof over the weekend. Yay for birthdays! and Tin Roof! and friends! and Will!
and playgrounds!
Matt got some good “action shots” of the girls playing!
We had lots of fun – thanks for inviting us out, Fishers! And Happy Birthday Will!
We are very lucky people that sometimes, my mother will bless us with a date night. The conditions have to be just right, (her date out of town, weeknight, nothing good on cable – okay, kidding about that one) but we sure do feel lucky!!
Last week we were able to use a Red Lobster gift card that was burning a hole in our pockets. We splurged. In more ways than one.
I do so love me some fried seafood. And have you had the baked potatoes at Red Lobster? I could lick them. Sometimes I do. They are covered in buttery, salty goodness.
Matt got some yummy shrimpy platter. He even shared his pasta with me. Mmmmmm.
He ate all of his, but I had a lot left over for my lunch the next day. I LOVE LEFTOVERS! And the girls were at school so I didn’t have any moochers.
When we came home, the girls had conned my mom into leaving the light on, so it was a good opportunity to take sleeping baby pictures.
This was the day after Natalie discovered “The Boots.”
Those boots were a Baby Daze find back when Miss Joanna was 2 or so. The size 6 pink boots. She loves ‘em. Sadly she didn’t have any socks on this evening, so it took a little straining on my part to get them off! She didn’t even stir.
My dad (in Oklahoma) called me this morning at 7:30 to gloat about his snow ice cream. :) I sure do love snow ice cream, even though it’s been most of my life since I’ve had any. :(
He didn’t have to go very far to get the snow – check out his back porch!
And he described this as a “blanket” over the logs – wow.
I guess I don’t really wish we were having this weather, but I kinda do… a little.
(I’m going to keep this post up on my computer today and see if I can remember any more recent funny things. Some of them are ones I already posted on Facebook.)
Joanna
I heard Joanna last night in the bathtub “baptizing” Natalie. It sounded something like this: “I bathtize you in the name of the Father…” She’d say that a couple of times, then giggle and giggle! I love it when I hear things come out of her mouth that she’s picked up from a church service.
Joanna was looking at one of her new princess Barbie-like dolls. It is wearing a leotard and tutu. She asked me “Can people go tinkle in their swim things?” Always thinking, that one.
Natalie
When Natalie sings “Happy Birthday” lately, it sounds like “Happy ethday to you!” And of course it always ends in “to Natalie…”
This man, to be specific. :)
And some other pictures totally unrelated to Matt cleaning my kitchen.
One of my favorite pairs of PJs bit the dust this last week. I knew it was coming. They had started “pre-ripping” along the folding seams. I had Joanna take this picture of me. I’m pretty sure these pants were older than her… by a few years.
I’ve been thinking lately about what I would do diaper-wise if/when we have another heavy storm/hurricane (think Ike) that knocks our power out for a long while. Part of me thinks I should just use disposables and not worry about it. But the other bigger part of me really doesn’t want to little old lack of washing machine stop me from continuing to cloth diaper. :)
So that being reason #1, I decided to order some “flat” cloth diapers. These are just big squares of cotton that you fold to fit on the baby. They were first, then came “pre-folds” because somebody figured out they could skip a step when it came to diapering.
Reason #2 for ordering these diapers was that I wanted a few more pre-folds (or something like) to fit in the covers. I use them when I’m a little behind on laundry (which does happen!) or when Natalie’s diaper rash is pretty bad, I’ll pin one on her and go without the cover for better airflow.
I asked the girls to model how big they are.
So back to the hand-washing. (By the way I’ll totally post if that actually happens. 
We found a video online of a five year old girl folding the diapers, so Joanna is very into “helping.”
