20 Months and Counting...

Dear Natalie,

I can't believe how fun this past month as been with you. You are amazing and surprise me with something new every day...and sometimes with a whole day full of new things!

I am absolutely amazed at how much you have learned this past month. Here are a few of these things:

• Earlier this month while taking a bath you put two of your toys on the bathtub edge, counting each one as you put it down. I was awestruck! Not knowing you even knew how to say ONE or TWO, you said them and used them as you COUNTED! Wow!
  

• A couple of days later you counted to THREE. Again, I was shocked. Either you are absorbing everything like a sponge or Grandma is really doing some good work with you while I'm at work.

• About a week after that we were at Grandma's house swimming and you just randomly started counting and actually counted up to SEVEN! What? Seriously, where are you coming up with this? We haven't even been practicing it - which is cool but embarrassing on my part because I should have been! So doing this is absolutely amazing.
  
  
  Later that day you counted to TEN. Since that day you count to TEN all of the time. I can point to things and we count them. I can ask you how many items you can see of something that we are looking at and you can point at them and count them one by one.
  

• Since this bout of counting we started working on the alphabet. You can sing along with me, singing parts of the song with me or even before we get there. You did this even on the first time we started working on it.

• You, as always, wanted to play with Dad's laptop. He got out your laptop (Dad's old one we let you play with). Dad told you that his laptop was "Mine" and your laptop was "Yours". You then pointed to your laptop and said, "Mine" and pointed to Dad's and said "Yours"! We couldn't believe you understood possession like that! Amazing!
  

• This past week you have been copying EVERYTHING I say. Last night we were at Old Navy and you brought me a fancy swimsuit top you pulled off the rack. I said to you, "How fancy" and you went around the store saying "fancy". It was hilarious. So cute. However, also confirming that I will really need to start watching what I say.
  

• You are also saying two word and sometimes three word sentences. Almost everything you say is at least two words together which makes it a lot easier to understand what you want. Of course there are days where you are trying your hardest to tell me something and I can't understand it. What a frustrating moment for the both of us. However, it is so cute to see you repeat yourself over and over again with an expression on your face like I'm dumb because I don't know what you are saying.
  

• You have always been super loving to your dolls. This month you started rocking them and singing "Rock A Bye Baby" to them. It is absolutely adorable!

• You have also found a new love for Dora. It might have started after I bought you an oversized Dora doll. You love her and ask to watch her show every morning. You are even choosing that show over Yo Gabba Gabba! I ask you if you want to watch "Gabba" and you say, "No, Dora." You are also watching other shows like "Max and Ruby" and a bear cartoon - I can't remember the name of it.
  

• We've been sneezing a lot around here lately because of all the allergens in the air. We always say "Bless you" after each sneeze and you have now started saying that. It is so cute.

• You are a true caregiver. We were at one of our indoor soccer games and your Aunt Becca, Shalyce and Uncle Nick were watching you. I guess Lucas started running off and you ran after him saying "Lucas" and looking behind you at your Aunts and Uncle with the expression on your face like Lucas was in trouble and you needed their help to get him. Apparently it was hilarious! You LOVE Lucas. You always ask for him. You even love Nixon, even though he doesn't share the same enthusiasm. There has been several other moments where you were concerned about Nixon and where he was when we're out in the front yard. You call Nixon and look around all worried about him. It's adorable. I can just tell that you will be such a good older sister!

• You kiss and hug us all the time. You hug and kiss dolls and even Nixon (when he lets you). You are so loving and affectionate. It makes me so happy!

• Dad finally finished the second semester of Law School and has started going to work. When you wake up in the morning you always ask where he is. I now say, "He's at work." and you respond, "Go see!". It is so cute. You frequently say "Go see!" when you want to see someone.
  

• We listen to some fun kid CDs in the car and you know your favorite songs. You ask for them, too! "Shoo Fly", "Shine", among other songs. I have to find them on the CD for you and as we search for it you can recognize how the song starts and you tell me "No" when you hear the intro of the songs until we get to the one you want to hear. It's really funny!

• You are really good at recognizing circles and ovals. You point them out frequently when you see them. When you draw, you draw circles and say "Circles" while drawing.
  
  We were even cleaning the toilet and you looked in and said "Oval" pointing to the oval part down in the bowl. (Don't worry, you are really good about not touching the toilet. You even say "Yuck" as you look at it!
  
  When you were with Grandma at her house, you were out back by the pool splashing around. You noticed that when a drop of water hit the water in the pool it made a circular ripple. You pointed at it and said "Circle!" You are so observant. Again, you amaze me!
  

• Your hair is getting pretty long and I'm having so much fun putting it up in pony tails and french braids. Thank you for your patience!

• We are always "eating" you and say "Yum yum yum" when we do it. You now do the same to us. It is so funny!

• You demand to dress yourself. When you want to do something by yourself you say "Do it!". It's in a voice that makes you sound like you are an Italian from New York. "Do it, do it!" We copy you all the time because it sounds so funny! You're a doll!

• When you are mad at us you say, "Go!". That is not so cute, but it's still funny!
  

Well, as you can tell, this month has been one amazing display of your intellectual development after another. You are a blast to be around. I couldn't love you any more than I do at this moment - yah right!

Thank you for being such a joy in my life. I don't think I could have imagined the joy I receive from your sweet personality. I LOVE LOVE LOVE you. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE being your mom.

Love,

Mama

More Design Work

I've been working on some Young Women designs for my boss today. She was just called as YW president so I am now back to doing "church" work for my job...and I LOVE it! :)

We decided to use the theme and design from our 2008 Regional Conference "Gathering of Winners" that I designed for their YW in Excellence program in November. She had me change it up a bit (from the conference brochure to a YW one) and here's the first proof. She'll see it tomorrow. I like it!


Their girls camp is also the first week in June. They are doing some sort of X-Men theme and making their girls into superheros. Here's something I put together for her. I like this one, too. It was really easy though - I just bought the picture and changed it up a bit.


Anyway, I'll soon be posting on my day today with Natalie. We went swimming at Grandma's and had a BLAST! Among other amazing things Natalie did today, she actually counted up to SEVEN all on her own. I had no idea she knew how to count past three. I was pretty much floored. It was so cool!

Lazy Saturday

Yesterday was Mike's first official day off after finishing up his first year of Law School. Yeah!!!! Natalie and I couldn't be happier to have him home and NOT back in the office studying. We didn't do a thing but lie around all day long. It was AWESOME!


I thought it would be fun to have a little family picture of us loafing on the couch. Here's the first shot. Not to great. I needed to move it a little to the right so I wouldn't cut myself off as much.


Second try. Um, I adjusted it in the wrong direction. And even still, not a great picture of me AT ALL! Of course, everyone else looks adorable. Oh well, let's try that again.


Third try. Honestly, this picture CRACKS ME UP! Natalie obviously was tired of trying to make this picture work. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that this picture totally shows off her personality. She's hilarious!

"Ay, ay, ay, Mom. Give it up already!"

Last try. Mike and I are looking alright, while Natalie is sporting her forced cheesy grin. Gotta love it! :)

Self Portrait

Natalie LOVES to play with my camera. Here's her latest round of photos she enjoyed taking of herself - really, how could I delete any of these!?!

Mother's Day Continued...

Here are some photos from last Sunday - Mother's Day - that I didn't have a chance to post yet.

Natalie and Lucas sure love their Grandma!

And why wouldn't they, when among many other things, she lets them break
the Sunday rule of no swimming!

After eating and swimming there needed to be some Rock Band(ing).
Natalie is really pretty interested in anything music related.


She was trying to copy her Great Aunt Vicki...

...and her Aunt Shalyce.

After the guitar session, she decided to squeeze in a few minutes of drum practice.


Natalie knew she needed to perform well for
the serious Rock Band players out there...like Grandpa!


Here's a little clip of Natalie's drum practice.

We had such a fun evening together. The dinner party included the immediate Narducci family, both of Mike's Grandma's, Mike's Uncle Frank, Aunt Vicki and Cousin Emily, Becca's husband's parents and two brothers and wife, Nick's wife's parents and grandparents, and Jared Jarvis (the unadopted son of the Narducci's). There was a lot of people there to enjoy the amazing meal that is always had at the Narducci's. At the end of the night, Mike, being the sweet husband he is, watched Natalie so I could play some Quiddler. If you haven't played that before, you should look into it. It's a pretty darn fun Scrabble-like game! I hope you all had a great Mother's Day, too!

New Energy Drink?

I love (diet) Rockstar but have recently felt that I need to switch up my routine and try something new. Watch the commercials below and tell me if you think I should switch to this new drink BRAWNDO! Of course, if you have tried it already let me know what you think.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's been exactly one year since I started my "Mommy Blog" which has really turned out to be a great way to document the life of my beautiful daughter and the amazing experience it is to be a mom. Looking back, it is easy to see how much we both have grown this past year!

May 2007

April 2008

I'd have to say that being a mom has to be the coolest thing I have ever done. I absolutely LOVE it...even though I often talk about how hard it can be. :)

Here's a photo that Mike took - with no flash so he wouldn't wake up Natalie - as I was putting Natalie to sleep. This picture is one of my favorite, despite the poor quality. When I look at this picture I can see the "Mother" in me and I absolutely love it. I'm doing what I've always wanted to do - be a Mother.

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

And now that I have a little taste of how much work goes into being a good Mother, I want to thank my Mother for all the work she did for me. It is amazing to me that she did all the work I have done thus far as a Mother x 7 (seven kids) over the past 40+ years! Wow. I'm so grateful for all the sacrifices that she has made in behalf of all her children. Thank You Mom!

The phrase "working mother" is redundant. ~Jane Sellman

I also want to thank my "other" Mother, Sally. She is an amazing Mother-in-law. And she is an even more amazing Grandma. She works so hard to do so much for us and I couldn't be more grateful to her. I don't know what I would have done without all the help she has given our family, especially after the birth of Natalie. You are incredible, Sally. Thank You!

Motherhood is priced of God, at price no man may dare to lessen or misunderstand.
~Helen Hunt Jackson

To all the mothers out there - keep up the good work! I know the more effort we put into the mothering of our children, the better this world as a whole will be. I absolutely believe that as a woman the most important thing you can do with your time and talents is to share them with your children and/or the children you come in contact with.

To Lead a Girl to Womanhood

Open her eyes
to the blessings around her
Show her that beauty and
goodness surround her.
Help her to trust in the future, not fear it.
Teach her that dreams are the winds of the spirit,
Guide her with wisdom and gentle persuasion
For she is God's pleasure
-His flower of creation.

- Author Unknown

Happy Mother's Day!

Have Parents, Will Travel

My parents, who live in Provo, Utah, decided to make a trip out to beautiful Arizona to visit 3 of their kids (Lee, Alisa and Me), and to enjoy some great Spring weather.

They spent Friday with me, Saturday with Alisa, and Sunday with Lee. It was the perfect plan. Unfortunately finals started the following Monday so Mike was unable to spend much time with them. It was unfortunate, but what can you do!?!

Friday was my day. We went out for lunch to Pita Jungle - one of my favorite restaurants. Mike took a small break from studying to join us, which made it an extra special treat FOR ME!!!



After lunch we came back to our house and just relaxed. We spent most of the time in the back yard enjoying the BEAUTIFUL 80 degree weather.

Natalie really warmed up to my parents, which was awesome to see.



Natalie even pulled my mom off the chair and onto the trampoline! It was so fun to see her play with her "other" grandma and really fun to see my mom have a chance to play with her, too!




Here's a quick video of my mom and Natalie jumping. So cute.

My dad played with Natalie AND Nixon. He had a great time throwing the ball to Nixon and was very impressed with Nixon's skills to catch the ball in the air.



After an awesome relaxing afternoon, I took my parents to my Gilbert City League indoor soccer game. Our team is made of the usual Monday/Thursday soccer group - Lee, Seth, Sean, Shem, Nick, Shalyce, and me along with several coworkers of Lee's. His work sponsored our team. Thanks Berge Ford! I think my dad really enjoyed watching us and enjoyed coaching us after the game. I wish I had some pictures. The field is top notch!

After the game we went back to my house and visited a little more - Mike included - and then they went to Lee's to sleep.

After visiting Alisa on Saturday we met up at Lee's for dinner. It was past Natalie's bed time and I really didn't want to take her to a restaurant, so I stayed behind with the kids and ordered pizza while Lee, Mandy, Alisa and my parents went for sushi at our favorite restaurant, Sakana.

The kids and I had fun staying behind. After the pizza arrived we went outside in the back yard and watched a movie in the gazebo. Perfect night weather. Great time!

Sunday my parents went to church with Lee. We met up again with them Sunday afternoon and I took them to the Narducci's for dinner. It was fabulous. Just before we left, Natalie was singing for the Rock Band game I posted about. I left Natalie with Mike (who soon went home to go to bed for a final in the morning) and went with my parents back to Lee & Mandy's house. We had a great time just talking. At almost midnight, I finally decided I had to go home. It was sad to end a great weekend with my parents. Thanks for visiting Mom and Dad! It was a ton of fun to have you here. This definitely needs to happen more often.

Rockstar

Yes, it's my favorite drink, but now it's also what I call my most favorite person in the world! Here's Natalie showing us that she knows how to sing while playing a little Rock Band with her uncles Sunday night. Seriously, I can't believe her chubby little body isn't between my teeth right now.





I'm so sorry my camera makes such dark movies. Although it's only 35 seconds long, you'll wish it was longer because she is so stinkin' cute in it!