More Birthday Cake

Based on the request from G-Dad, Kristin baked Natalie a chocolate cake for her to enjoy at the house for her "real" birthday (her party was a week early). Tonight we had the cake, 2 days after her birthday so Grandma could be part of the celebration.

Natalie has started to get good at using her fork and spoon lately, but there is just something about cake and toddlers...nothing can really prevent a mess from happening. As you can see from the pictures, she had a great time.

Because it was Mother's day, I decided to take a few pictures with Mom and Grandma as well.

Enjoy...

Natalie trying to blow out the candle:

Finger licking good...

Gardening with Grandma

Natalie had a blast with Grandma today. We started the day by going to church and then out to eat for Mother's Day. We ate at Ruby Tuesday, which is in the same parking lot as Lowe's. So after lunch, we headed to Lowe's to get some plants for our front porch. Grandma has the greenest thumb that we know, so we had to use her talents while she was in town.

After naptime (which was a short 30 minutes today), we headed outside to do a little work. Grandma bought Natalie some Dora gardening gloves:



Natalie soon ditched the gloves and decided to grab the nearest tool she could find, which was a weeding tool. I selfishly hoped that she already knew how to use it:



Grandma, Kristin, and Natalie worked on getting a few plants in pots and then showed them off to me:

Video from Natalie's Birthday

Here are a few videos from Natalie's birthday party. Sorry if they are a little long...

Natalie Turns 2!

Well, Natalie is officially 2 now! We celebrated her birthday in style last week with a Dora party. If we thought that she had enough Dora DVD's and toys before, she REALLY has quite the collection now. She absolutely loves all of her new toys, and has been playing with them non-stop for the past week.

Natalie had several friends come to her party, which was held at Tumbleweeds, a local toddler tumbling business. All of the kids enjoyed running around for a couple hours, and then filled their stomachs with sugar so they could go home and continue the fun.

Here is a link to all the pictures that we took during the party: link

There is one more picture that I want to include on the blog, which is a picture of Natalie's birthday cake:


Kristin was brave enough to make the 'Dora Cake' at home, and I think that it turned out wonderful! It was tiring enough just to watch her make it, I can't imagine what it was like to actually do all the work. Although, I did get to participate in the cleaning of the kitchen, which one could argue was half of the "fun". I guess Kristin has set the bar for the next birthday party...I can't wait to see what disney/noggin/nickelodeon/etc. character will be Natalie's favorite in a year!

I feel like a stranger to my own blog, and it is hard to believe that it has been a month since I have posted anything on it. Life still continues to go at lightning speed here in Philly. We are excited that it has started to get warmer, although it has been in the 50's all week and rainy.

Kristin's mother Terri is in town from Iowa this weekend, so hopefully I can post a few more times while she is here.


Landon

Happy Birthday Aunt Kay-Lynn!

We would like to wish Aunt Kay-Lynn a Happy Birthday today! As you can see from the pictures above, we did get Natalie to participate for 1 good picture, and then she "lost it." The last picture had to be "southern Engineered" to include Natalie in the picture. I could have tried to photoshop her into the picture, but I don't have photoshop, and I wouldn't know how to do it even if I owned it.

We asked her to write her name on a sheet of paper, and this is what she made for you:



We hope that you have a wonderful day!

Landon, Kristin, and Natalie

Bakin' Cookies and Trombone Playin'

Natalie got into a cooking mood this week, and wanted to get her apron and hat on, and play in her kitchen. She enjoyed pretending to cook so much that later in the week we decided to get her involved with baking cookies. It was tough to keep her from eating the cookie dough, especially when I wanted to eat it too. But under the constant watch of the Salmonella Nazi, Natalie and I refrained...well, at least Natalie didn't have any.



We are continuing to get the basement in order, and get the house exactly the way that we want. I was putting my trombone into one of our basement closets, and decided to get it out and play it. I don't think that Natalie has seen me play it before, but she was INSTANTLY intrigued by the noise and the way the slide moved. So much so that she wanted to play as well, ghee, I didn't see that one coming?!

I tried to teach her how to make the noise come out right, but she was more interested in singing through it. It was actually pretty entertaining to say the least.

Same Zoo, Different Year

A few years ago, when Natalie's cousin Mary Alice was a little younger than Natalie is today, my sister and her family came to visit us in Houston. They lived in Lubbock at the time...the good old days I guess we could call it.

One of the days they were with us, we all went to the Houston Zoo for Mary Alice. I wanted to post a few of these pictures last week when we were back in Houston and at the zoo with Natalie.

Mary Alice in 2004:






Natalie in 2008 at the same petting zoo. The animals might/might not be the same:




Well, we are finally back at home. I don't know what it is about our flying problems lately, but yesterday ranked towards the top of the "this is why I hate to fly with a toddler" list. Our flight from Houston to Philly was scheduled to leave at 1 PM. We knew that it was going to be delayed by an hour, but of course you need to be at the airport for the originally schedule time just in case you are cleared to leave. So, as the good passengers that we are, we were through security by noon.

The 1 PM flight was moved to 2 PM. Okay, fine.
The 2 PM flight was moved to 3 PM. Not okay, but we can deal with it.
The 3 PM flight was moved to 4 PM. Really not okay, but what can we do??
The 4 PM flight was moved to 5 PM. Seriously, there must a mistake, you can't really mean 5 PM???

During this whole time, we start to notice that Natalie is feeling warmer and warmer. We think that she is getting sick, but the best thing for her is to get her home.

We get on the plane at 4:30, but the plane doesn't take off until 6. Luckily, we found an extra seat so Natalie could have her own space (we were being cheap and listed Natalie as a lap child...which we can't do in 1 month anymore!). Unfortunately, our seats were at the back of the plane, so we were serenated with toilet flushing the entire flight...oh, and the smells, let's not forget that!

Anyways, we make it to Philly around 10 PM, and home a little after 11. We checked Natalie's temperature when we got home, and it was 103.5-104, not good. We got her cooled down a little bit, and she went right to bed, and so did we.

She is still running a fever today, but we are keeping it down as best we can. She isn't acting sick, as she was playing in her kitchen, playing in our kitchen, singing along to Diego and Dora...not sure what she has, but hoping she will kick it soon.

Landon