A day in the life of Natalie

Scenario: eating dinner in the kitchen-
David: " ohhhhhh, my back really hurts... can't clean up"
Natalie: " oohhhhhh, back hurts, can't eat."

Scenario: In Home Depot, choosing paint colors. Natalie has been pulling out the paint chips and "getting in trouble" for about 20 minutes. 30 minutes past bedtime.
Natalie: Pulls out all of the purple paint samples and drops them on the floor
David: "Natalie, you are being a bad girl, Momma and Daddy have asked you not to touch these."
Natalie: Still pulling out paint chips.
David: "You know what? Sit down, right here and no touching."

Natalie: Sits down in the aisle with her hands in her lap

Random Man: walks down the paint isle, not paying attention to Natalie
Natalie: "Hi. I in time-out"

Scenario: Waking up in the morning- Natalie calls for Mommy.
Natalie: "Mommy????!!!!""
Whitney: "Coming honey!"
Natalie: THUMP
Whitney: Opens Natalie's bedroom door, Natalie is standing next to her crib.
Natalie: "Waaaaa. I fall out crib"
Whitney: "You fell out of your crib or you climbed out of the crib?"
Natalie: " I climbed out crib."

Just thought I'd give you a little snippet of a day in the life of Natalie Sowle. What a funny kid! We are currently under construction AGAIN!!! (have we ever not been under construction?) Two weekends ago we tore down the back deck and prepped the house to be painted in the next few days and have the roof replaced. We have the new front door back, but it's not installed. It's in my living room. We are currently marking up landscape designs as well. I'm excited to see how the property is going to look when it's all cleaned up! We are planning a camping trip this weekend to South Lake Tahoe to get away and have a nice birthday weekend as a family. We are planning to throw Natalie a park barbecue party for when Grandma Jill is here. A little late, but it will be nice that Grandma can be there and that I will have extra hands! I recently printed a bunch of updated Natalie photos to send out to family and friends, but I haven't gotten to them yet... I also just had her official 2 year pics taken so I may wait until their back to send out all the pics. Here are some pics of her at Easter. Our friend Kevin Young took them and I think they look great. Hopefully I will be able to post some Natalie birthday camping pics and pics of the painted house with a new door next week!

fun videos

Easter and Grandmas and Grandpas

Look at me Uncle Mike!!! I love brushing my teeth!!!
Our great friend and old neighbor Jason visiting at my work Easter egg hunt

Hunting for Eggs

Natalie's mom is so cool. What a great snack.

Like her smile?

I hope you all enjoyed the "Tinkle Tar" video. We are recovering from a fun filled week with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Scott and Grandma "P" (another Mary was too confusing and Pezzetti was a nightmare!) and Grandpa John. Natalie began running a temp on Saturday of last week, and was sick the majority of their visit. Not too bad, but enough to be up at night a few times. I was up with her as well, and so inevitably by the end of the week, I was starting to feel sick too. Bummer. I am slowly coming around, and apart from an occasional cough and a runny nose, Natalie is on the mend as well. Mary and Scott were such a big help with the house while they were here (and Natalie!). Scott got some plumbing and wiring/electrical done for us and Mary helped me unpack ALL of my leftover boxes. Yay! We didn't work them too hard though, they had time to set up and play with Natalie on her new swing set, take her to Fairy Tale Town and go wine tasting on Friday. Oh yeah, the Easter bunny also came while Mary and Scott were here, Natalie found her Easter Basket and looked out the window and saw Eggs in the yard. I was outside watching her from the front window and I could see her screaming "Eggs, I see Eggs Momma!" Pretty funny. She loved her Easter egg hunt and found all her eggs with only a little help. Natalie certainly enjoyed having her Grandparents and Great Grandparents around last week. We miss you all already! We are caught up on laundry and awaiting our front door's arrival! We purchased a new front door and it is being stained and finished as we speak! I'm so excited! I will post pics as soon as we have it installed. Enjoy some of the new pictures- I we did take some of Natalie in her Easter dress, but it's on Kevin and Tracy's camera and I still need to get the pics from them. I will post as soon as I have them.

Tinkle Tar

Talkin in the tub

Spring Time!!!

We have been getting some very nice weather here in CA and we have been taking advantage! We have been busy ripping out some more dead trees and bushes and burning them. We're close to having all the dead foliage out. We have been spending time outside playing on Natalie's slide and throwing sticks for Maizie in the creek out back. We have been taking trips down to see Pilot the horse to feed him apples. We had a very nice visit with Grandma Mary. I'm sure she was ready to get back home and rest after her weekend with Natalie! We enjoyed our trip to Fairytale Town, a park geared toward toddlers. Natalie had a GREAT time. She especially loved the "shoe" slide at Fairytale town! Natalie is doing AWESOME on her potty training. She has had a few days at daycare where she has been dry all day long and days with only one or two accidents at home. She even was able to go to the park with no accident, ask for potty and make it to the bathroom in time! What a big girl!!!

We also had the opportunity to help a friend pick out a puppy. It was Natalie's first time seeing puppies and it was pretty funny. She seemed to like them, but wasn't too cure when they were climbing and biting her shoes. I also finally finished Natalie's stepstool. Here are some pics. Enjoy!

Gettin' ready for Grandma Mary!

Grandma Mary will be here in less than a week! How exciting!!! We are looking forward to it as we haven't seen her since November.

We just began working toward a huge milestone for Natalie... Potty Training!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH! Actually it's going ok. we've been going strong for a week now. We began last weekend on Saturday and she started off great with a number one and two in the potty. We kept her in big girl underoos all weekend so she could get the feeling of being wet and associate it with feeling the urge to go. A little messy, but not bad while sitting on the potty every hour. She did fairly well and likes her rewards- M & M's and stickers. She is slowly getting the idea and recognizing the urge. By Sunday afternoon, she was tinkling just a tiny bit in her undies, but would come tell me right away and we'd go sit on the pot and she would go. Then two nights ago at dinner, she grabbed her pants and looked at me and we ran to the potty and.. no accident!!! We made it to the potty! Same thing tonight- so she was able to recognize the feeling and hold it long enough to get to the potty! YAY!! We're getting there. What a big girl!other than that things have been pretty normal around here- we went down town to look at front doors for the house a few weeks ago and had some time to kill before we were supposed to meet friends for dinner so we headed to the Sac Zoo. Not very many animals were out and Natalie was having opposite day. Consequently David was melting down because Natalie was "Miss No" girl. Yeah, it was fun. LOL. It did turn out to be a nice evening though, a friend's mom watched Natalie and we went to a crab feed. Fun! OH yeah, so I failed to mention that the weekend we began potty training, Natalie was also having opposite days then too. You would ask her to come to you and she would run and hide between the coffee table and the couch, ask her to put something away and she would do the opposite. You would ask her if she wanted a time out and she would say yes. You would tell her she was going to get a time out and she would say "time out, ok". It was a little trying to say the least. So earlier this week, I was talking to a colleague who said something about ignoring her when she is doing things like that, and she will come right around because she just wants the attention. DUH, I thought why didn't I think of that, Ive worked with kids! So I decide to try in at home that evening... After bath time, I'm trying to get her lotion'd up to put her diaper on and PJ's and she runs away, out of the bathroom buck naked. (she had gone potty 30 mins or so prior) I call her and ask her to come back to get her stuff on and she doesn't come. So I leave the bathroom and do something else. Sure enough as I walk by the coffee table, there she is, wedged between the couch and the table, bare bootie in the air. I ignore her and go do something else. What does she do? she runs into the other living room and pees in the corner. AHHHH! the moral of the story is... if you are going to ignore your child, make sure she has a diaper on. LOL. Enjoy the pics!