More Birthday Pictures

I love our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree with Natalie’s new age.  We did it this year as well, even though we didn’t have a traditional tree up.

Natalie did most of the decorating this year.

I also put them on the wreath!  I can’t believe how well the wreath is holding up – I may have to turn it into a Valentine’s wreath. :)

On Monday I took more than one picture of Natalie that I liked.

And this one I like both in color and in black and white.

This is almost the same as the one I posted but a little different.  And still lovely.

The day I took that picture of her eye, I was playing with my close-up filters, and I took this one of her mouth too.

This was outside at my grandma’s house on enchilada night.  There are a lot of prettyish places around my grandma’s house.  I keep saying I’m going to bring the kids (one kid?) over and take some pictures.

On Thursday the Js helped me wrap Natalie’s presents.  I figured James wouldn’t be able to keep the contents to himself (I was right.), but Joanna and I just pretended he was crazy and making stuff up.  And it worked.  :)

I love the happy surprised faces!

A pretty ice skater shirt I found that made me think of my Natalie.

Another surprised face – love it!

She’d been asking me for some footie pjs (harder to find the older you get!), but I happened upon some (and even Hello Kitty – a favorite) at Wal-Mart one day.  She was so excited!  Sadly we have to wait for it to cool off a little before she can wear them though.  Ha!

One more sweet face!

A tea set!

I’m with you James – drink it right out of the pot.

I left with James to do a Target run while the girls got to go see Frozen with some friends!  Lauren and Linda, sweet friends from church, needed some kids to take to the Disney movie.  Works for me!  They had a great time!

That afternoon Natalie got to help me make pizza for dinner.  She was SO EXCITED to help!  (Side note: I know I should let them help more in the kitchen, but man, it’s hard.)

Buttering the cookie sheets:

She was very thorough, and those pizzas didn’t stick one bit!

She let Joanna help her help me.  :)  They did great shredding cheese.

And she loved sprinkling toppings on the pizzas.

They turned out great!

One of her many birthday calls:

I love that bow tied in the back!

We had a great, laid back day celebrating our girl!!  I’m soooooo happy that all three big kids’ birthdays are on Saturdays this year.  Wahoo!!

This last picture doesn’t have to do with her birthday, but I’m throwing it in here.  I printed a few (ahem) pics of Natalie and Hootie this week and wrote about their adventures in Hootie’s journal.  How fun that she got to have Hootie over her birthday week!

Now we just have to remember to bring her back to school on Tuesday…

Seven Days of Natalie

Another photography project I’ve got going this year is to photograph each kiddo the week of their birthday.  This is going to get very busy come October, but for this month I got to start out slowly with my Natalie.  I tried to focus on portraits of her this week.  I didn’t always get zingers, but I could tell a difference when I was intentional about taking a picture of her each day.  I thought of things I wanted to do with her (and sometimes I got to do them!)  These are in order from Sunday to Saturday, and you may see some of them again when I post more about my FIVE year old.  For now enjoy these seven pictures and a few things about my girl.

My sweet girl still sucks her thumb.  It’s a soothing habit for her, but I’m hoping five is the age it goes away.  :)

She is a pretty easy-going girl, but when she gets tired… watch out!  Although when she is tired, she pays attention to her body and tries to get some extra rest. She doesn’t worry about things like Joanna and I do.  She’s happy to let life come and enjoy things in the moment.

The child can entertain herself with just about anything you’ve got.  She loves playing with all sorts of toys, and gives everything a personality and a backstory with seemingly no effort.  I love her imagination.  She also absolutely loves drawing and coloring.  The work I see her do is amazing.  I’d love to get her some training in art at some point.  She has skills, that one.

We joke that she lives in Natalie Land because truly I have trouble figuring out just what’s going on in that amazing brain of hers.  She comes up with the craziest things that I think are really the result of a lot of thought.  She amazes me.

This time last year she was my middle child and I could never have guessed she would leave that roll behind so very quickly.  Now she’s one of the oldest and holding her own there quite well.

Sometimes she seems so young, refusing to do things and throwing fits.  But so often I hear “of course” and “yes Momma” from her.  And she is genuinely happy to help.

She is so beautiful, inside and out.  She surprises me all the time with her kindness and heart.

I love you sweet Natalie.  Happy birthday.

How long ago was Thanksgiving?

So, in the busy of life, I never got around to blogging Thanksgiving. (May I take this moment to say that for the first few weeks after the babies were born, I never thought I’d be able to really blog again.  I’d sit there, holding babies all day, looking at the computer, thinking of everything I wanted to write.  Phew!)

Some of these pictures are from my camera, and some are from David’s.

The past few years my side of the family has started having Thanksgiving on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  It works so well, especially since Matt didn’t have Thanksgiving off this year.

Joanna with a couple of cousins.

Mom, Aunt Gail, and Aunt Pat.

Gran with the boys.

Aunt Pam with Michael.

Me, Matt, and Jim.

My cousin Kara with Michael.

Me with Thomas.  (Side note: he no longer fits in that outfit.  Sigh.)

Puzzle time!

I’m thinking these pics aren’t exactly in order.  I think my camera did not “fall back.”

Kim brought supplies for making Native American headdresses.  Fun!

Keelan:

Jade:

Joanna:

Natalie:

Behind the yummy spread you can see Mikey.

My plate, which I got to eat using both hands while other people held my babes.  :)

James!  He was a big fan of the marshmallows in the fruit salad.  :)

Now she’s got Thomas!

There must have been an outfit change for Thomas at some point.  Oh!  I remembered we went back over on Sunday, so these next pictures are from then.

I sure look tired.

Uncle Andy’s getting some good practice holding Michael!

The girls love gadgets.

He looks so bitty!

Must be time to go.  :(

I sure don’t travel light.

I love when Matt’s with us and can carry the buckets.  They’re heavy!

Then on Thursday we went to Matt’s brothers house for another Thanksgiving dinner!  Matt had worked a ton of hours Monday through Wednesday so he could go in early on Thursday and then come home early and come with us.  The weather was lovely so we walked over.

More family to hold babies!  Mindy with Thomas and Steven.

Cousin Kurt

I went over and asked them to smile for me.  Instead they hid.  Ha!

Man this post is making me hungry.  Yuuuuuuuuuuum!

The boys had their dinner while most everyone was in the other room having theirs.  You can see a foot poking out behind me.  :)

Kurt’s girlfriend Alyssa brought her bunny over.  The kids loved it!

James is being a bunny here:

Thomas in Mamma’s arms.

Cousin Jenny holding the fusser later on.

Kurt and Alyssa took turns holding Michael.

It was a lovely time with family and wonderful food.  Happy Thanksgiving!  :)