10 Months, Etc

Life seems to keep getting in the way of my blog posts...oh well. December was a fun month for Natalie - her first Christmas! We took a trip to Des Moines for the Syverson Christmas party and Natalie experienced her first non-family member babysitter - a Delta Gamma of course! Natalie and got to play with her friend Quinn's toys while Mommy and Daddy had a great time with their friends.

Unfortunately, December brought some sadness as well. My uncle passed away on December 16th after a long battle with cancer and various other illnesses. It was a very sad time for our family and definitely put a damper on Christmas for everyone else. Of course we're glad that his suffering has ended, but its unbelievable that he's no longer here. It has been a major loss for the family.

Christmas managed to go on, although a little more sad than usual. Natalie of course received a crazy amount of gifts and even got to sit on Santa's lap. Grandma and Grandpa Olson stayed overnight on Christmas Eve and after opening gifts from Santa, we had a big brunch and spent some quality time together.

 

 

New Years Eve marked Natalie's first official sleepover away from home. We partied with our friends the Birkenholz's and Natalie went to Grandma and Grandpa Olson's house for the night. I'm sure they stayed up all night doing hair and telling ghost stories. The new year got off to a great start when we vacationed in Mexico! Natalie had a group of wonderful babysitters while we were gone - Grandma Sandy, Auntie Brianna, and Grandma/Grandpa Olson. She did suffer a bout of RSV while we were gone which had us a little scared but she fully recovered and is completely back to health now. Overall it was a great trip!!
 

It is hard to believe our little girl is almost 11 months old! She seems like such a big girl now, she has 5 teeth, going on 6, pulls herself up on EVERYTHING, laughs, babbles, and knows what lots of words mean like baba, daddy, mommy, and of course - no. We are looking forward to planning Natalie's 1st birthday party! How time flies.....

8 and 9 Months

There is no excuse for my delinquency. Unless you count my job, the house, the holidays....the list goes on. Anyway, Natalie is now marching towards 10 months!! In about a month and a half, we'll be talking about planning Natalie's birthday! So hard to believe.

The past couple of months has been very busy for us. Natalie celebrated her first Thanksgiving! While she didn't participate in the cribbage tournament (yet), she did have a brief encounter with a large turkey leg. I think she was a little overwhelmed at first with the number of people at the house, but she warmed up and had a good time.

We had our first night away from Natalie for our friend Andy Selby's wedding. It went well! Good to gear up for our trip to Mexico when we'll be away from our gal for 5 days!

December will bring Natalie's first Christmas! You can rest assured that Santa will bring her lots of gifts :). We're excited to see how much Natalie will learn in the next month - she has gone from not crawling at all at 7 months, to crawling everywhere and pulling herself up to standing position at every opportunity. It's definitely getting more interesting watching her! You can't let her out of your sight for a minute. She's babbling like crazy and is making the sounds for "dada" and "mum-mum" - although to make myself feel better I think she's saying "mama".

7 Months (and some 6 month pics - belated)

Natalie is 7 months old already! At times it seems like only yesterday that she was a brand new baby in the hospital, and at other times it seems like she's been a part of our little family forever! She's growing like a weed. She sits up and plays by herself without toppling over, and is very eagar to crawl but can't get there quite yet. She has two whole teeth and we think she'll be getting some more soon. Best of all, she is a really happy baby who brings us so much joy every day!

Here is a link to our picture website with some updates for Natalie's 6 month photo shoot and other miscellaneous pictures from October. Enjoy!

http://nataliemaxine.shutterfly.com/pictures

Six Months!!

Natalie recently celebrated her half birthday. We can't believe how big she's getting! She rolls over now (sleeping on her tummy of course), has TWO teeth, and loves her bouncy chair. She sits up in her big girl high chair and eats oatmeal and a small variety of fruits and veggies. She is growing up so fast!

This month we enjoyed a trip to the Fair and a visit from Natalie's godmother, Jillian!

Natalie also came to Mommy's work to visit co-workers and see Target!

Every day with Nat Max is more fun than the day before....we live for the weekends so we can spend even more time with our little lady bug!!!

Photo Website

Just a quick note to any blog followers that I've posted some new pictures on the photo website so check those out. I'll be posting a 6 month update soon! There's also a new video on the website as well.

http://nataliemaxine.shutterfly.com/pictures

5 Months

Natalie is 5 months old - time flies when you're having fun! She's getting much better at sitting up and will probably be able to do it on her own soon. She's eating a few solid foods now (mostly oatmeal, carrots, sweet potatoes, and pears) and seems to really enjoy it! Her favorite activity is jumping in the exersaucer. She's getting a little better at sleeping through the night and we hope by 6 months she'll be sleeping all night long :). She's also "talking" a lot more lately and we just know she's going to be an extrovert like her mom and dad. She's keeping us constantly entertained and we're loving every minute!

Natalie loves bath time at night!

Although she gets a little distracted, she likes a good story when Papa reads it.

Four Months Old!!

On July 2nd Natalie celebrated her 4th month on Earth. She can sit in her Bumbo chair, grab her feet, chew on her hands and belly laugh! I can't believe that in just two short months she'll be eating solid foods! The time really does fly.

This has been a big month! I started back to work after Memorial Day and Natalie started at daycare. She loves her teachers at daycare - especially Miss Debbie, Miss Renee, and Miss Kathy. They sing songs together, go on stroller rides, and she even gets to have some group playtime with the "older kids" (by that I mean, 12 month olds!). Natalie's favorite friend so far is Madeline. Madeline is a year old and loves "Baby Natalie" so much that she cries when we leave for the day. Madeline likes to bring Natalie all of the toys in the entire infant room and set them next to her head. Someday Natalie will actually be able to play with all of those toys Madeline!

We are starting to get somewhat of a routine established now with work and daycare and "free time". It is definitely a lot of work and we cherish the hour or two that we get to spend together after work and school each day. None of us are sleeping through the night yet :( but hopefully soon. Natalie has contracted something new from her school friends just about every day since starting at daycare. Thus, she has been subjected to multiple forms of medicine and home remedies to try to cure her and therefore her sleep schedule has been thrown off a little.

On June 4th our new friend, Brooks Merrill was born! We haven't gone to see him yet but we're going to try soon!

We celebrated Chris' first Father's Day by going to brunch together with Grandma/Grandpa Olson. We made Chris a fun picture of Natalie for his office.

Finally, on the 4th of July we went to our friend Molly Brackett's house to enjoy a little R&R. We had so much fun and got to fly our own little American flag to celebrate!