Such a big girl

Last weekend, we finally put Natalie's last baby toys away, like her music table and her excersaucer. Though she did still play with them once in a while, she was really getting too big for them, and they were cluttering up the place a bit much.

Natalie did great with it. She helped pack the items up and put them in the basement. She helped take the batteries out. We used a real screwdriver to open the toys so we could take the batteries out, and I tought her to go "leftie loosie" and "righty tighty". She must have said "leftie loosie" at least a hundred times while she was working with the screwdriver - she's the daughter of two geeks, after all...

It was kinda weird to see these things go. I remember how much she loved them when she was a baby. But she is definitely not a baby anymore, and that's okay too. She's grown into such a little person, so full of personality. And so much fun to be around.

But still, sometimes I wonder how it happened so fast...

How did this little sweetheart:

Turn into this adorable, sassy little person:

Breakfast at the farm

Today, a nearby farm had an event called breakfast on the farm:

Yummi!

Natalie had a chance to see a baby cow up close. She didn't really want to pet it, though, and who can blame her - after all it was about as big as her:"I'll stay here with Mommy, just to be safe..."

We had so much fun. There was music, and lots of animals to look at (goats, alpacas, ponies, and lots of big, big cows). And there were some ultra-light airplanes flying over the parking lot. And Natalie got at (fake) tatoo - she chose a smily face, which looked super cute! And there were a lot of old tractors. Natalie got to ride many of them:

Vroom, vroom, here comes Natalie!

Of course, at a dairy promotion event, there also had to be icecream - Natalie chose the blue one:

I hope it's the blue icecream, she's a little young for blue lipstick and eyeshadow just yet!

Puddles...

There's nothing better than a pair of rubber boots and a big puddle:

Natalie's beloved yellow rain boots were getting way too small, so guess who just got a new pair of (orange) boots:

A preview of the teenage years?

Just lounging, watching TV...

Cowboy Natalie

I caught this picture of Natalie the other day. She was just playing around, when all of a sudden she put on her pretty summer hat, rode her elephant, and told me that she was a cowboy! It looked so cute and funny that I tried to catch it on video. She didn't say it again, but the video still turned out pretty cute if I can say so myself...

Random acts of kindness

Last weekend, I had numerous great experiences of people just being kind and considerate.

When we were at the amusement park, Natalie needed to use the bathroom. Of course, we needed to wash our hands afterwards, and of course I didn't have a stepstool for her (someone should really invent one that would be small enough to fit in a diaperbag, but that's another story), so I was lifting her with one arm, trying to wash both her hands and mine at the sink. The lady in front of us noticed, and before she left, she made sure that there was enough paper towel hanging out of the dispenser for us so we didn't have to fight with the dispenser. A small thing, maybe, probably something I would not have thought of doing myself for others before I had Natalie, but still something so very important and kind - from a perfect stranger.

The next day, we were at the grocery store, picking up something from the bakery isle. There was a lady filling up the displays, and when she saw Natalie, she went in to the bakery to get her a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie. Yes, it's a good PR trick, but it was still very sweet (not just the sugar in the cookie, but the gesture also).

Then, outside of the grocery store, we were putting our cart away in the cart corral when Natalie noticed that there were two "little dogs with big ears" in the car parked next to the carts. She looked at them with great interest thru the carwindow. Then the owner came out to the car, and she asked if Natalie wanted to pet one of the dogs. She held the dog up so Natalie could reach. Again, a perfect stranger, doing something nice for us and for Natalie.

I am so grateful to those people. Not only did they help give Natalie some great experiences, but they also helped teach her - by example - how to be kind to and considerate of others. I will try to remember that in the future, so I too can show her by example how a simple gesture can mean so much to someone else.

One cool ride!

On Sunday, we needed to pick up a few things at the local grocery store. Natalie had the luxury of riding in a racecar! At first, she made sure she was stearing us in all kinds of directions, but after a while she decided to chill out and enjoy the ride: