Recent fun and garden miracles.

We played at Lisa's house today while it was icky outside.

Emma just loves little Natalie. My guess is that she was putting this drum lid on Natalie as a hat. But who knows. :)
Natalie was all over the place at Lisa's house -- she was very excited about all the toys and things to climb on. I know it's low, but look how she's pulled herself up! Anna in my sunglasses -- very stylin'

From earlier this week, I just love the drama queenishness of this face. So cute! (And tragic, of course)

So we've lived in this house for almost 3 years, and this rose plant has NEVER BLOOMED before!!! We even transplanted it when we filled in that area on the porch. It's always grown, but never bloomed, until now!

These are close-up shots, but it's about 4 feet from the house. I've been extremely lazy in pruning, and the rose vines have been growning out searching for sunlight I guess. This one grew and grew and grew, then formed a little bud! I'm so excited to see this little yellow rose. It smells so sweet!

My roses:

I have been in computer withdrawal this week. Mine's been out of commission since Saturday night. :( My mom let me use hers this week for work (and I managed to get some blogging, surfing in as well!) which was so nice of her, but since I finished yesterday afternoon, we've been computerless around here. A day is not so long to go without, but I've missed it! I'm blogging a lot today, and even scheduling some posts to appear in the next couple of days, just to spread things out a bit. I haven't heard from our computer guy, but I know he gets busy. I left him a message today, and will bug him tomorrow if I don't hear from him! I really don't need it until Tuesday for work, but my mom will be working then, so I really do need it then! I'm sure I can figure out something to do if it's not ready by then (or if it's permanantely dead), but I miss my little Dell. :( There are plenty of computers at the church, and even a couple with the programs I need, so I'm sure I could computer-hop during people's lunch hours or something. Or maybe the congregation would be interested in a hand-written bulletin this week. :) He he.

It still amazes me.

Do you know who this is? It's Joanna -- last April. She's 13 1/2 months old.
This is Natalie -- a few days ago. She's almost 8 months old.

Natalie is 8 months old today!

We didn't have one of our regular photo sessions today, mainly because of the icky weather, but I caught a few cute pics of Natalie today!

Today was the first time I found her sitting up in the crib after her nap. She's usually still on her belly when we go in to get her. Cute sneaks, huh?!
At playday today:

Tonight after bath... I noticed she still had some food on her nose. :) Natalie got some meat for the first time tonight. She's getting more jarred stuff than Joanna did, including pureed meat. Mmmmm... She had a jar of Sweet Potato/chicken/apricot/rice. She liked it, too.

Cutie pie girls! Oh, and she cut her 3rd tooth yesterday -- her top left front one. Big girl!

First Day of School!

Today was both girls' first day of school for the fall. Natalie is in the infant class with Miss Debbie and Miss Mimi. Joanna is in one of the 2 year old classes with Miss Brooke and Miss Laura. They were both very excited this morning (okay, I could tell Joanna was excited; I just assumed Natalie was, too).

Trying to get a cute "ready to go to school" shot:Girl and Backpack:
Piggie Tails! She actually kept them in until she got to school and for a good part of the day, I think. I found her pony tail holders on her nap mat, so I'm thinking they may have even made it through lunch -- AMAZING!

My mom actually stopped by on her way somewhere this morning, so I got a picture with my girls!

I'm sure a lucky Momma.

Joanna likes pulling her backpack -- yay!

In her class, ready to say goodbye. She does so great when I leave her -- big girl!

Natalie's probably wondering what all the fuss is about.

So what, mom... you leave me here all the time.

Miss Suzy was helping out on the first day -- she and Natalie are buds.

I grabbed Natalie and nursed her at about 11:45ish. She'd eaten a huge lunch and was about to go down for a pretty good nap. I think I'll start sending her in pants -- it's chilly in the room! I saw all the babies in the big stroller so I know they went for a walk. Her teachers said she liked exploring the room and "meeting" her friends. What a contrast to Joanna's first day in the infant class -- Natalie seems so much older than Joanna was... even more than the 6 weeks difference that's there.

Joanna didn't nap. :( But it sounds like she had a lot of fun. She's been talking about her teachers since "meet and greet" last week. She's in a room that I actually pass by when I'm working some, so I got to peek at her once today. I don't want her to see me, but I just love getting a glimpse into her school world!

I went to two meetings, got some additional work done, delivered my computer to the computer guy, and still had a good hour to clean/pick-up my house. It was a good day!

Joanna was manic this afternoon from her no-nap day. What I wouldn't give for just 1/967th of her energy! She crashed about 6:30 or so into a mash of sadness and grumpyness and clingyness. We got her to bed as quickly as possible. Natalie crashed in the car about 6pm for a quick snooze. She only had one proper nap today, and that's very slim for her, even if it was an hour and 10 minutes! I think we'll have to figure out how to squeeze in one more little cat nap for Natalie on school days. She'll survive, I think! I'm just really hoping that Joanna not napping at school won't affect her naps at home. She's had incredible (or at least present) naps all summer, and I know it's been because we're sticking to essentially the same daily schedule. I just don't think she's going to nap at school (I haven't given up all hope though), but if she'll nap the other 5 days of the week, I think it will be okay. Her little body just isn't ready for no-naps-ville yet, and 2:30 is too late for her to come home and nap, especially after having "rested" on her nap mat at school. Enough rambling from me -- I guess I just needed to "talk."

I have more cute pics of the girls to share, maybe I'll be doing it from my computer soon!

In withdrawal...

My computer's been infected!!! Sadly, malware and spyware are running rampant on it. I was messing around with it most of yesterday, trying to corrall the evil junk, but I think I just made things worse. It's hiding and multiplying in my operating system files. Ick. Finally I just shut it down and will call our computer guy in the morning. Hopefully he can fix it! My mom is in and out the next few days and is going to let me use her computer to get work stuff done. Yay Mom! So, if you want to talk to get ahold of me, you might just have to pick up the phone and call. :)

I've got lots of great pictures to post, but I have to get home to my little family! Oh, and very fortunately, I believe all my picture and video files are fine. I have an external hard drive as well as CDs as well as my mom's computer. Because I used her's the last few months, everything is on there as well. The only things that aren't backed up are the last few weeks of work stuff, but I'm not even sure I'll miss it. Phew.

Feet, mostly

In this post there are some pics from Monday, before I got sick as a dog, and some from Thursday and today, after I felt much better.

These are after our shoe shopping trip on Monday. We actually ended up with the same kind of shoes as our friend Anna! Joanna really loves them, and can put them on herself! These are size 7 1/2. All the other shoes she has are size 6. Oops.

Snazzy, huh?!
Not to be left out (and it was BOGO 1/2 off), Natalie got some Robeez. She likes 'em. The only Robeez I had for Miss Joanna were her giraffe ones. Natalie will wear them (once I find them) but these are a little more trendy and neutral. Those giraffe shoes will always say "Joanna" to me!
Natalie is very in to pulling up these days. She's pulled up on higher things, where her balance wasn't quite as nice as this, but she tends to fall backward hard -- ouch.
See Joanna's lovey on the bed? Natalie managed to grab it before falling backward after I took this picture. She fell in the corner where the dresser meets the wall, but only hit carpet -- phew! Didn't faze her a bit!
Thursday afternoon my friend Candice hosted a Piggies & Paws party at her house. If you've never seen these handprint and footprint works are art, they are sooooo cute! We'll get ours in 6-8 weeks and you can come check them out. The artist was set up in the kitchen, and Joanna spent much of the time just waiting to get her feet painted. It was cute, and a little sad since I didn't pick out a design that would include her footprint. However, the lady was sooooo nice to indulge Joanna and paint her foot and print it on a piece of scrap paper.
Wasn't that so nice of her? I ordered one for each girl, just for us! I won't describe them yet, you'll have to wait until I get to see them! Basically you pick out an design you want to do. For example, you might pick to have a baby's foot made into a bumblebee, complete with embellishments of paper and fabric, or your toddler's hand made into a garden of flowers. I picked out a footprint design for Natalie, since she's too little to do handprints, and a handprint design for Joanna, because that's what I found that I liked! It was soooooo hard to choose -- there were two giant books full of ideas, and she could customize a little bit (like helmets of different colors for different sports teams). Anyway, we figure we'll be doing this again next year if we just love what we get -- there were so many cute options to choose from! Click here to check out the website. There are artists all over the place. This lady that came to Candice's house also comes to Merry Go Round in Kingwood a couple of times a year.
This morning we decided to spend a lazy day at home. Our playgroup friends were headed to the Woodlands for shopping and play, but I had a feeling that would tucker me out too much. I was so sick this week. Did you guys have enough fun to do it again another week?
I got the girls dressed this morning (I think they went through 3-4 outfits each today) and we spent some time taking pictures in the bedroom. It was a little crummy outside or we would've gone out -- the lighting's not great inside, especially on a cloudy day.
Natlie worked very hard to get this bonnet off, sadly she popped herself in the face with the elastic band first. Oops. She won't be wearing that again! I wish I'd had my camera on me when I first put the bonnet on her -- she looked around and around at it, with her head up, kind of like she was looking at a slow-moving ceiling fan. It was hilarious.
Oh, by the way -- this big girl can get herself into a sitting position from her scooting one. She amazes me daily. I think she's been able to do that for a few days. I was kind of in a coma some of that time. :) She also has started really wanting to crawl on hands and knees. She hasn't figured out how to really move like that, though, so she gets on her belly and slides! Joanna liked the bonnet.

"Yeah, I'm more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal, mom."

I think this is the first time I've put her in jeans -- so cute!

"Hi"

I love this shot!

Joanna's turn -- she was just cracking up for me -- makes for very cute smiles!

Pictures of them both looking at the camera are few and far between.

I was trying a new angle, where there feet were really in the foreground (Natalie was getting a little grumpy by this point). First, Natalie did this.

I guess Joanna thought it looked fun, because then she did it.

Whatever.

I'll leave you with this one. I wish I could say she was gazing outside or listening intently to someone or some classical music. But, no. She was watching Gilmore Girls on TV. :)

In fact, we'd DVRed it (I know, they're all old), and it was this episode where Kirk has made a short film. In it he begins to break dance to this catchy/odd music. Joanna wanted to watch that part over and over and over again! It was hilarious! Actually, there's a lot of music in Gilmore Girls, in between scenes, accompanying things, etc. I usually see one of my girls dancing along. I need to get a video of Natalie dancing. She's got her father's moves, just like Joanna. :)

Ode to Chicken Soup

Oh, chicken soup, how I love thee.
You are so chicken-y and yummy.
Whether made with noodles or not,
Oh chicken soup I love you a lot.