Wordless Wednesday :: Natalie's Baptism

On Sunday, October 9th Natalie was baptized.  We had a wonderful celebration at our house afterwards with our friends and family.  We are so very blessed!!

Hanging with Daddy before the baptism

Maggie Grandma & Grandpa (my parents)

Riley Grandma & Grandpa (Ryan's mom and step-dad)

All the aunts, uncles and cousins

Our great cakes made by my friend Lisa

Happy 6 Months Natalie Sue!

These first six months have passed so very quickly and Natalie is doing new things daily!!  Here are some of her 'major accomplishments' to date:

• She was baptized this last Sunday!  (more to come on this, but since it's very special I had to include it on this post)

• She is a rolling master!  When she first started rolling from back to tummy she would roll back the opposite way from tummy to back and really not go anywhere.  She now knows how to get places by rolling.

• She has begun to army crawl and gets up on her hands and knees occasionally.  I am now 'on duty' while she is on the floor at all times.
• She enjoys playing in the exasaucer/jumperoo combo more than just the jumperoo

• Claire is the person in the family that makes Natalie laugh the most and often can distract her when she is upset just by talking to her **awww**

• Natalie has recently started eating food.  She did not care much for rice cereal.  She has tried green beans, peas and sweet potatoes.  So far sweet potatoes are her favorite.
• She jabbers a ton, but becomes much more vocal when her sister isn't in the room.

There are two milestones that I am anxiously awaiting:

• Sleeping through the night.  I think it may actually be getting worse.  I am going to start the sleep training soon and not looking forward to the process.
• Cutting those two bottom teeth - she is a drool factory and is constantly gnawing at her hands/toys.

Coming soon...

I will post more later this week since Natalie was baptized and turned six months old today, but for now here's a photo I couldn't resist sharing.

Top 5 Saturday Laughs

Thank goodness for Saturday!  It has been a LONG week here and rather eventful.  Here are the top five laughs from our house (that I actually wrote down or remembered).

5.  Claire has been really into playing games lately.  We are trying to teach her how to play, but most of the time she does what she wants.  We were playing Chutes and Ladders one night after dinner.  Claire looks at me and states, "Mommy, you're too old to play this game!"

4.  I had to work late on Monday this week so I asked my mother-in-law to pick up the girls from daycare.  Grandma lives next door (about 1000' from door to door if you take the driveways/road) so Claire rides in the passenger seat or on the center console on the way home.  Natalie is still buckled into her infant seat.  She must have been really tired and fell asleep before we hit the driveway!

3.  The favorite movie at our house is Disney's Incredibles.  It has been the choice of the car DVD player as well as the 'show' of choice.  Now Claire plays that she is Violet and puts on her mask.  She runs through the house chanting, "Go Violet, Go!"  The rest of us are part of the movie too.  Natalie is baby Jack-Jack, Dad is Mr. Incredible, I'm elastagirl and our dog boomer is Dash.  I love her imagination!!

Violet with the secret identity of Claire

2.  Natalie is becoming more vocal these days.  She says the same thing most of the time, "ma-ma-ma-ma" but her inflection changes.  When she's hungry, it's more of a complaining sound followed by lip smacking.  When she's tired, it's whining.  When she's happy to see me, she kicks her legs and says it in a high pitched voice.  It's amazing how they learn to communicate so early!!

1.  My favorite story of the week came in the morning of all times :)  We were getting ready to leave the house and I had just strapped Natalie into her infant carrier.  Claire walked up to Natalie, pet her on her cheek and says in the sweetest voice, "I wub you Natalie."  I exclaimed, "awww, that just melts mommy's heart."  With that Claire proceeds to open up my denim jacket and look at my chest.  She asks, "where is it melting Mommy?"  I had to explain that meant that it made me very happy that she was so sweet.

Now it's your turn, tell me your favorite Saturday laughs!!

Who do they look like?

This is just horrible to admit out loud, well write about, but I remember at one point or another during each pregnancy thinking, "I wonder if this baby will be cute?"  After having two babies, I now understand that you never think your baby is ugly.  Ever.  I do however, look back at  newborn photos of the girls and think they are much cuter now.

When we were pregnant with Claire we didn't find out what we were having and while the cute question crept up every now and again, my bigger question was, of course, "Will the baby be a boy or girl?"  Followed second to "I wonder who the baby will look like?".  We had joked around if we were having a girl, we hoped she looked like me and acted like Ryan.

When Claire was born, there was NO DOUBT who she looked like, she was nearly identical to Daddy.  It was so strange how a little girl could look so much like her dad, but she did.

Newborn Claire

Newborn Ryan

I was feeling a little jipped, I mean, I carried her for 39 weeks and she didn't have an ounce of my looks at all.  As she got older, I only heard the occasional "I think she's got your eyes" or "She's starting to look more like you" but this was primarily from mommies who had kids that looked like their dads too. I think it was all for sympathy purposes.  These pictures will illustrate why I felt this way:

Not only does Claire look like her dad, she acts just like her mom.  Go figure.  

Fast forward almost 2 years.  While we were at the 20 week ultrasound for Natalie, Ryan pulled up Claire's ultrasound pictures on his phone so we could compare baby profiles.  I was shocked at the profile resemblance at 20 weeks!  So I left the ultrasound convinced that this baby would look like Claire.  We toyed around with the idea of finding out the gender this time around.  We even had the ultrasound tech put the gender in a sealed envelope so we could open it on Christmas morning as our gift.  We never did open that envelope, but considered doing so multiple times.  It never just felt right - I know, this sounds so strange.  So the second time around, our question became, "Should we open the envelope?".  My question of cute-ness never came up, since we had settled on the fact that Baby #2 would look like Ryan/Claire. Since Claire has always had red hair, I anticipated baby #2 would have red hair, so I bought green stuff for baby to wear home from the hospital.  Green with pink flowers for a girl and green frogs for a boy.   

I was so excited when Natalie was born that Claire had a sister.  For those of you with sisters, you know that special bond that sisters have.  Since I have a little sister who I am still close with, I desperately wanted Claire to experience this.

Natalie didn't look anything like Claire when she was born.  Her hair was thick and dark, her skin was a different completion and her face structure was slightly different.  However, when my parents came up to the hospital they couldn't stop talking about how much Natalie looked like me as a baby. I figured the resemblence had to do with the hair, since I had a head-full as a baby.  When we got home from the hospital, I pulled out my baby pictures and was shocked and elated, she actually looked like me :)

Newborn Natalie

Newborn Heather

However, as she has gotten older, I think she is starting to look more like her sister.  It helps that most of her dark hair has fallen out and her new hair is lighter.  I think pictures tell this part of the story better than I do anyway:

2 Weeks Old

Claire

Natalie 

1 Month Old

Claire

Natalie 

2 Months Old

Natalie

Claire

3 Months Old

Claire

Natalie

4 Months Old

Natalie

Claire

5 Months

Claire

Natalie

So we will see as they grow how much they look alike.  Either way, the special sister bond is apparent already and that makes this momma very happy!

Wordless Wednesdays :: Daddy's Girls

I have been blessed with a wonderful husband who is a phenomenal father to our little girls.  Here are just a few photos of Ryan with his girls.

 

Wow, a blog award!!?

I'm pretty new to this blogging thing.  I don't know how to make a fancy background, a cool graphic header or even a button to link to my page or connect to me on twitter or facebook.  I just like to write (blame it on my days of yearbook back in HS) and I like to talk - a lot.  This blogging thing is both, so I really enjoy it.

I was very surprised when a new friend of mine from twitter gave me a blogging award.  She has all those fancy things in a blog, including fun giveaways and advertisers.  I even had to ask her what I was supposed to do with the award, that's how new I am to this whole thing.  Here is a little bit about Melissa.  She has two kids that are very similar in age to Claire and Natalie so it is fun to hear their stories!  Her blog is http://www.the-mommyhood-chronicles.com/ make sure you go check it out.

So these are the awards that I was given:

After asking what I needed to do to 'accept' these awards, I discovered that I had to tell 7 things about myself so here it goes:

1.  I am recently addicted to twitter, it has surpassed my facebook on my most frequented sites on the Google Chrome browser.

2.  I have a degree in mathematics and a statistics minor, however I sell brick and stone for a living.  

3.  My favorite part of my job is putting all the colors of an exterior together - so un-math like.

4.  The hubs and I have been together for 12.5 years and married for 7.

5.  I buy my girls clothes because I hate shopping for myself since nothing fits and their stuff is SO much cuter.

6.  I don't tighten caps on anything and it drives my husband crazy.

7.  I have a hard time taking me-time.  I have horrible mom-guilt about working full time so any time away from work I want to spend with my girls.

Now I get to pass these awards on to some other bloggers who I love to read, make sure you check out their blogs :)

http://www.fillingourbucket.com/

http://nobryan.blogspot.com/

http://confessionsofamagnoliamom.blogspot.com
http://melissadell.com/

Thanks again for the awards Melissa!!