Natalie...15 months (and a day)

By Tiffany George

First of all, I need to thank KJ for putting up pictures of my cuties along with the photos of Anna, because I have been seriously delinquent in that department. We got a new computer and need to get a device to put our camera card into, so for now, this post will be photo-free. Sorry!

Oh, I just wish you all could see Natalie Jane in action. She is such a little blessing. She is the happiest, friendliest baby you could ever see. No matter where we go, she waves to everyone and won't stop until they wave back. She also says "hi" which is just priceless. We went away this past weekend to Lincoln, NH, and after breakfast one morning, she walked along the entire restaurant, waving good-bye to every person at every table. This is just typical Natalie in action. She also LOVES to run around in a mall, grocery store, or anywhere with open spaces and lots of people. Aside from babies, she also adores dogs. Go figure!

Her hair is really growing in now, and it is CURLY. It so so sweet! The curls are mainly in the back, but the hair growing in on top is curly as well. We have appropriately started calling her Curly Sue, and Andrew has picked right up on this. If he's not calling her Curly Sue, he calls her NaTaLEE (which he can now pronounce correctly in its entirety), baby, or beautiful.

Andrew and Natalie still absolutely adore each other. Andrew is so nice to her almost all of the time. He doesn't mind if she lays on him, pulls his hair, or steals his food. I can't imagine him being a nicer, more kind boy. Last night before bed, Natalie kept grabbing onto Andrew's jammie shirt while she dragged him all over the place. He just giggled and giggled, making her giggle all the more.

And while Natalie loves to blow kisses to anyone departing, she is quite stingy with giving out actual kisses, though Andrew gets them all the time. She has started this new thing, where very rarely, she'll just look up at me with her beautiful little face and put her lips out just a tiny bit...melts my heart every time.

Natalie also loves reading books now, or should I say flipping pages. Key ingredients to a good book in her perspective are: pages to flip, babies, doggies, or fuzzy things that she can touch. She insists that she be in your lap if you are going to read her a book. She comes right up and steps one foot inside of my crossed legs, then turns around and parks her cute little bum.

She is also really starting to understand what we are saying, and it is so cute. If I say "go get a snack cup out of the drawer" off she marches! She also thoroughly understands when it's time for bed. I will be holding her, and when I hollar to Pete to come get her for bed, she instantly starts to snuggle me. Lucky me! We do this a few times just so I can get additional love!

Her vocabulary is also expanding by the day. She can say many words, ranging from Momma and Dadda to cheese, please, and nose. Her new favorite word is duck, which she quickly picked up this past weekend when she admired the ducks in the pond at our hotel. She's got a few animal sounds down (sheep, doggie, horsey, and dinosaur, of course) and knows most of the parts of her body. She loves to go up to people and say "nose, nose" while she points a finger at their nose...most people are afraid she's going for the eyes, but it's honestly only their nose. While she does avoid other people's eyes, she has a penchant for touching her own eyes. She's given herself bloodshot eyes on 3 occasions already. What a crazy noodlehead!

She also just recently discovered her shadow. This morning as I was getting breakfast ready, she went over by the door to the deck and just sat down, then kept waving and saying hi. The little cutie was waving and saying hi to her own shadow. It doesn't get any cuter than this folks!

Natalie is also Miss Adventurous. She has absolutely no fear. I need to be right by her side every minute of hte day or she will end up with a battle wound. Her most recent injury came the other day when she was running around Andrew's room, tripped, and took a header directly into the edge of Andrew's open bifold closet door. It left a nice straight bruise and a little blood...but have no fear, Andrew instantly ran downstairs to get her a boo boo bunny.

Natalie has also learned to yell. As one person once told me, she does have a good set of lungs. We are in the process of teaching her to ask or sign rather than yell, and thankfully that appears to be working out! She's happy when she's getting what she wants, but when she doesn't, she's not too happy...but who is??? :o)

These two cuties certainly keep me with my hands full...but my heart is so full of joy and love too!