Phoenix Zoo

In the midst of our chilly AZ winter weather, we were blessed with a warm weekend of which we took advantage and went to the zoo with some of our good friends!

Natalie still loves riding on Daddy's shoulders! At least she doesn't pull on his hair anymore.

Looking at the orangutans with the Moorheads.

Natalie wanted to do everything the girls did, including hanging from the bars. She could do it! (Brian's just spotting her)

 

Emma does wonderful helping and playing with Natalie. Natalie really likes her.

Look who's a joey!

Climbing on the ropes was the most fun of all! All of our friends' kids liked helping and including Natalie in their play. Upon closer inspection, I think Milo is showing her his watch in this photo.  :)

19 Months Old

One of Natalie's many silly faces!

Natalie thinks it's hilarious to sniff rapidly - probably because I did it to her once.  :)

Natalie came to my classroom while I got things ready at the end of Winter Break. Here she is coloring in a desk that's way to big for her!

Now that she is 19 months old, she is definitely starting to whine in order to get her way. We are trying to stay strong and either ignore the behavior, redirect her attention to something else, or encourage her to use her words to communicate. I know she is just testing what's acceptable and what's not, but it is so annoying! Regardless, we love her and she is actually pretty tame compared to some other kids we've experienced in public.

As I was reading articles related to toddler discipline, I came across this interesting piece of advice:
No matter how frustrated you feel about your child's misbehavior, don't vent about it in front of him. "If people heard their boss at work say, 'I don't know what to do with my employees. They run the company, and I feel powerless to do anything about it,' they'd lose respect for him and run the place even more," says Pearson. "It's the same thing when children hear their parents speak about them in a hopeless or negative way. They won't have a good image of you as their boss, and they'll end up repeating the behavior."

I never thought of it that way! I tell ya, I could cruise these baby websites for hours - there is so much useful information! Right now I'm mostly reading up on discipline strategies and nutrition, but I'm sure something else will come up that needs attention.  :)

Snow at the Cabin

For New Year's Eve and Day, we took a trip up north to Strawberry, AZ where my family owns a cabin in the woods. Natalie slept for most of the drive, and we stopped by Walmart in Payson to pick-up some snow pants and boots for her. It snowed on the way up, which made us nervous about the travel, but luckily all the roads were plowed (except for the cabin driveway). 

Our cabin covered with snow!

 Natalie couldn't wait to get out and play in the 18" of snow! 

Here she is playing on the back deck of the cabin. We decided to put my brother's old jacket on her, even though it was a little big:

Look at those rosy cheeks!

11 Years of Marriage

Brian and I started dating - 1999

Engagement picture - 2000

 

 Wedding Day - 12-29-2001

The Thye's Wedding - 2002

The Zajdzinski's Engagement Party - 2003

The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps Banquet - 2004

Hawaii - 2005

A friend's wedding - 2006

The Parker's wedding - 2007

 Kauai - 2008

Professional photos - 2009

Hawaii - 2010

We are blessed with a baby girl - 2011 

Elise Kaprolet's birthday party - 2012

Brian and I have been together for 13 years, and been married for 11 years! It all happened so fast. In that time, we have lived in 2 houses, owned 6 different cars, adopted 2 dogs, and had 1 child. We still get along great, always look for the best in each other, and help each other be our best. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to us! We celebrated by getting a babysitter for the evening and going out to Claim Jumper - yum!

18 Months Old

At 18 Months Old, Natalie weighs 26 lbs. and is 34" tall! Still in the 99th percentile for height! She can use a spoon and fork all by herself, and her favorite foods are grapes, oranges, bananas, berries, eggs, and teddy grahams (she calls them "teddy bears"). She is also talking up a storm! She has quite the quirky personality, and makes us laugh all the time!

After climbing out and falling from her crib several times, we decided to make the change to a day bed (Brian just changed the side railing). She loves it! It took a couple days to learn to stay in bed once Mommy and Daddy put her to bed, but thanks to Super Nanny's strategy, Natalie quickly learned that nap-time means that you stay in your bed until you fall asleep. She's such a good girl! And we are so thankful that bedtime isn't painful, for us or for her. In this picture, Natalie is modeling the new PJ's that grandma made her (I also have a matching set!) Too cute!

Natalie has become very fond of her Disney princess castle (Thanks Aunt Dee!) She enjoys making the princesses dance and hearing them sing their trademark songs.  :)

The weather has become quite chilly, which means we have brought out the jackets and hats for playing outside! Natalie also has some adorable mittens.

Natalie really enjoys using Mommy's blowdryer:

Here is a picture of Natalie with her girl friends, the Werner girls! We had a lot of fun celebrating my birthday at Joe's Farm Grill. They take such good care of her when they play. Free meal + good friends + cuteness = good times!

Christmas 2012

Christmas was at our house again this year. Both of our families came over, including the McAllisters. We are so blessed to have family close by! 

We started off the morning by opening the presents in our stockings! (I left Natalie in her PJ's for the morning since they're so darn cute!) She quickly learned how to pull the fox's tail to make the music box inside play lullabies, so I'll hear it playing over and over again on the baby monitor when I put her down for her nap. When the music stops, I know she's fallen asleep. Thanks Annie!  :)

No, Natalie, that pacifier is for the baby, not you!

Little People Disney Princesses! (Little did she know she had a castle arriving later to go along with it - thanks Aunt Dee!) 

Crayons (or as Natalie calls them - "colors") are so fun! Thanks Uncle Jon!

Natalie needed a little help opening her presents, but did really well for the most part.

Natalie loves dancing to the Santa playing the piano! 

These glasses allowed you to view certain images when looking at Christmas lights (Santa faces, snowflakes, or snowmen). Clever! We bought them at Lowes.

The whole gang! Natalie woke-up from her nap halfway through lunch, so we took this picture after she joined us.

Then we opened more presents!

Daddy got Natalie a pink trombone mouthpiece to practice buzzing into. She loves her new Minnie Mouse doll, too! She also had fun playing with her Little People Nativity set (shown below, including the Disney Princesses). It was so adorable when she would say "baby Jesus" and kiss the little plastic baby!

Here she is walking in Daddy's shoes (a favorite pastime of hers, but Mommy's shoes are better), and giving milk to Minnie Mouse.

Here we are reading her new favorite book Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar? She wants to have it read to her every day, and counts the cookies on each page. Thanks grandma and grandpa!

Here she is beaming with joy over the new car she received! She doesn't like to be pushed around as much as she likes just sitting in it, playing with her toy cell phone. This car was more work to assemble than Brian originally thought it would be. But he is an awesome dad!

And the big finale - an outdoor playground! She loves slides, and immediately ran right over to it!

Here she is a little later, playing with the homemade bubble set that Uncle Jon made for her. So cool and creative! Also, love the matching sweaters, guys.  :)