These are a few of my favorite things...

Over our Christmas vacation to Iowa, we were watching The Sound of Music, which Natalie thoroughly enjoyed (and even tried to sing along a few times). Well, just when I thought that I had gotten all of those songs out of my head, I was sitting in my office this afternoon and I start to hear the voice of Julia Andrews, and what do you know, one song still remained...

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things..."

I started thinking about all of the favorite things that Natalie has in her life right now, and I thought I would share it with everyone.



First of all, Natalie loves juice. But then again, I guess what kid doesn't love juice. We never give her juice "straight up," but usually mix it with 1-2 times as much water. You would think that she would care what percentage of juice she actually gets, but she really doesn't. It either has juice in it, or it doesn't. We used to be able to fool her a little and just give her water when she asked for juice, but there is no fooling this kid anymore. She will let you know that she knows she isn't getting juice, and just won't drink it. So, we usually take it, and add a small splash of juice to a full sippy-cup, and she is good-to-go.

The second thing that Natalie loves right now is puppies. Every time she sees, hears, thinks about, smells, you name it, a dog, she gets real excited and keeps saying "puppy, puppy, puppy." Kristin even gave her a puppy purse and she sleeps with it, and will kiss it on the nose. Just this week she started saying "oh, puppies." Kristin and I get such a kick out of it, I hope technology will help me out and let me play it for you:

Oh Puppies!

And just in case you are wondering when we are going to be getting her a dog...it won't be anytime soon because it wouldn't be fair to the dog living in a town home. Once we get a nice yard, we can "think" about getting a dog.



The third thing that Natalie loves right now is ice cream. Whenever we have ice cream, she always has to have a little. We usually just give her little bites out of our bowl, and she is very happy with that. She doesn't sit down and eat the ice cream like we do, she almost uses it as an energy source in the middle of her playing or running around the house. She will come into the living room, run to either Kristin or me, look at us and say "iise creem? iise creem??" She takes her little bite, and before she can swallow it, she is back to running around the house or playing on the floor. I guess we only have to worry about us gaining weight from the ice cream and not her.

The fourth, and the last one I am going to mention today, thing that Natalie loves right now is shoes. She has always had an affinity towards shoes. Maybe this is something they put in the vaccinations for girls when they are born in the hospital?! Probably not, but I am going to go with that for now. The first thing she wants to do (right before getting juice) in the morning is to put on a pair of shoes. Not just "any" shoes, but a matching pair of shoes. Again, two words, girl vaccine. Anyways, the last thing that she takes off every night is shoes. Sometimes she doesn't even take them off. She has a pair of white slippers that she wears to bed.

Here is a picture of Natalie doing her best to try and get a pair of Kristin's shoes on me. I tried to explain that they wouldn't fit, but she had to keep trying. I finally had to get a pair of my own shoes on so she would stop trying to dress me in drag.



Natalie says hi to everyone.

Landon