Thursday, April 22, 2010

Shake that booty...

Natalie's latest dance move:


Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Natalie Sayings...

Here are some of the things that are making me smile and laugh lately - and a bit of potty humor, so be forewarned...

-------------------------------

Natalie was in the bathroom, breaking wind, well, big time...

Natalie: How did that happen? How can such a big fart fit in such a little but?

-------------------------------

We were reading books at bedtime. We use a timer to make sure that bedtime stories takes the approriate amount of minutes (and not hours, as Natalie would prefer...). Natalie looked at the timer, then:

Natalie: There's "E" minutes left.

Me: That's right, there's three minutes left

Natalie: No, "E" minutes, like in my name!

The timer


Natalie's name on the wall in her room - notice the "E" is a mirror image of the "3" on the timer!
-------------------------------

We were reading a book. We always read the first page where it says who wrote and illustrated the book:

Me: ... Illustrated by Ronnie Rooney

Natalie: Did he have a runny nose?

-------------------------------

We were walking around outside when I ended up with at little bit of bird droppings on my jacket.

Natalie: Mommy, why did the bird think you were a potty?
----------------------------

When Natalie get's a piece of candy, or get's to do something out of the ordinary, we often tells her that she "get's away with one". It took me a little while to figure out what she meant the other night:

Natalie: Can I have a "way-with-one"?

I guess she was looking to get a treat...

Monday, April 19, 2010

Springtime party at daycare

On Friday, Daycare held their "Springtime Social". There were many fun activities:

Making a necklace.


Playing a boardgame with Mommy and Daddy.


Hotdogs and chips and punch.


Of course, with Natlie doesn't really like hotdogs, so she just had a bun and some chips dipped in ketchup (yes, both the bun and the chips got dipped).

Tattos and stamps.


Face painting.
This was a big hit. She got a flower on one cheek and a butterfly on the other. And the best part:

Natalie painted on Mommy's cheeks, too!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Princess Natalie

Yesterday, Natalie had to be dressed as her favorite book character for daycare. She chose to be a princess. So on the weekend, we invested in a real princess costume along with tiara, princess wand, and princess shoes.

The tiara, shoes, and wand didn't get added until after she got there, but just seeing her in her dress was pretty priceless. Especially when she was dancing to the theme music from that mornings episode of Superwhy:

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Natalie Stickerhand

The other day, Natalie and I went to the post office to send a couple of letters. Natalie was very good, helping pick the stamps out and giving the money to the lady behind the counter. So the lady behind the counter gave her a sheet of stickers. Not just a sticker, but a whole sheet of them. Natalie was so happy and proud.

All the way home in the car she was singing, and playing with her stickers. When she came home, she immediately had to show her latest art project to Daddy:

Look, it's Natalie Stickerhand!

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Springtime bubbles!

This picture is a couple of weeks old. I wanted to post it anyway, though - I think the bubbles make it look so pretty and spring-like:

Springtime bubbles!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Easter Egg hunt at the Zoo

On Saturday, we went to the annual easter egg hunt at the Zoo. Natalie was so excited about going. When I told her that we were going, we were both still in our jammies. I told her we both had to get dressed before we could leave. I went to get dressed myself, and she went into her room. I assumed she was just playing around (I could hear the happy sounds from in there), but then I turned around and there she was, all dressed and ready to go. She had picked her outfit out of her dresser and gotten herself dressed faster than I could get myself dressed! So I guess she really, really wanted to go.

She was smart this year, bringing two baskets with her. The thing is, the easter egg hunt is set up so that the kids are to find easter eggs, then trade them in a different colored stations for candy. The pink eggs at the pink station, the green eggs at the green station, etc. So, she had two baskets, one for the eggs, and one for the candy. Pretty smart move!

Lookit! Eggs AND candy! How lucky can one girl be?

One of the (many) things I adore about Natalie is how she isn't just in it for the candy. She took her time, making sure she stopped to see all the animals. Here, she's looking for the penguins - though they actually weren't there, the water had been pumped out (for cleaning?) and the penguins were on the other side of the exhibit...

Where did all the penguins go?

Of course, we had to make sure we had time to play on the playground. Because who can say no to a turn on the swings?

Whee!

The easter egg hunt also included breakfast. The pancakes with whipped cream (or beep-beep, as it is nicknamed here in our house, because, well, that's a long story...) were a big hit:
Pancakes! Yummi.

It wasn't until a while after this breakfast that Natalie asked to open some of the candy. I'm soo proud of her, and how she just enjoys everything about a trip like this, not just the candy.

It was a very tired and very happy girl we brought home for naptime on Saturday!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Scenes from an Easter morning

Sunday morning was all about quality time. When Natalie woke up, we spent some time in her room cuddling and reading her stack of letters (she get's a lot of mail from her family, and we read each and every letter many, many times).

Then she got her easter basket, which conveniently contained a movie... Which she watched some of while we made breakfast (she helped make cinnamon rolls with yummi, gooey icing). After that, a bath was in it's place, and it was soo nice not to have to rush. We must have spent more than half an hour just playing with all her toys and having a teaparty while she was in her bath.

Then, we made these: Birds nests.

Or more accurately, rice crispy treats, green (food colored) roasted coconut "grass", and peeps and robin eggs. So much fun. Of course, we had to sample the goods a little while we made them.

After that, Natalie got a little easter surprise - a little bottle of bubbles with a bunny on it. Look, easter bubbles!

We went outside to blow bubbles and ride her trike, and we went for a walk with her in the stroller.

Now that's a great morning!

Monday, April 5, 2010

The Easter Egg hunt, stormy edition

Today, we had an easter egg hunt right in our back yard! Natalie was soo excited about it! It was very, very windy, though, but that didn't stop us from having fun...

Look, a purple one!

She thought this one was really funny, with the stick sticking out of it:
Lookit, there's a stick coming out of this egg!

I love this "action shot", with Natalie running around next to the tree that's actually smaller than her:

No time to waste!

And she didn't miss any spots:
Maybe there's an egg under this tree?

Natalie was such a sweetheart, sharing her eggs with Daddy and making sure he had one of each color:
Here, Daddy, you can have the pink one...

Another "action shot":

Run for it!

Since it was so windy, we decided to wait until we got back inside to open up the eggs.
Look, a sucker! Who would have thought?

I must admit, I had so much fun planning this out for Natalie. On Friday, I went to the local party outlet store to pick up little things that would fit into the eggs, like stickers, little bracelets, a small stamper, etc.

Now, of course, I counted the eggs before I hid them (during naptime). I counted them twice and came up with twentyfour eggs both times. And, of course, we only found twentythree... I must confess, I can't remember where the last one is hidden, or what was in it. So I guess there's three possibilities: I counted wrong, one blew away in the wind, or we'll find the last egg sometime later this summer...

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Happy Easter!

This picture is from a couple of weeks ago - easter fun can easily take up a couple of weekends!

Look at the pretty eggs we colored!

Happy Easter, everyone!