Fun Things to do on the Weekend

It's hot here in Arizona, and that really limits some of the fun things you can do on the weekend, especially if the plan is to stay at home.  Swimming is always good, and we seem to be deviating from our norm and swimming at odd times, like 9:30am for instance.  Ok, that started with jumping in a puddle, and then splashing in the negative edge trough, then stripping down and swimming in the negative edge trough, and then finally progressing to the actual pool.  :)

Riding bikes in the garage is fun, albeit short because of the heat.  And now we need to find a way to have Natalie join in.  So, red wagon, here we come!

And after that, we only have indoor activities - playing dolls, watching movies, playing computer games or other games on the iPad (an Alli/Daddy favorite), playing with "whatever" in the green room...

Our Little Dancers

Today was Alli's first day of dance season.  This year, the teacher said the hair needed to be pulled back for class.  I didn't get to drop Alli off, but I asked Molly to please put her hair up.  When I went to pick Alli up from dance, I found this beautiful dancer with her hair in a bun!

Ok, after adding this post, I realize I should have taken a picture of her head from the side too.  Oh well, next time.



Natalie can't take dance til she's at least 3.  I know she will be in dance because every time she hears any type of music, she dances.  And her dancing has been changing because of all the dancing all of us have been doing with her.  Right now when she dances, her shoulders are going.  She's going to put Alli's shimmy-shimmy-shake to shame before she can even walk!!

The Kindergartner and the 10-Month Old

Today was the first day of Kindergarten in Fountain Hills.  Alli announced that she wanted to be early for school every day, so of course, both kids slept in later than they have in 3 months!  The morning was a rush, but we got lunches made, breakfasts eaten, teeth brushed and still had time to snap a few pictures of our big kindergartner!  I don't think Alli was nervous because she's in the same school that she's been in for 2 years of preschool.  When we got there, we saw lots of friends (kids and parents alike) and teachers that we knew.  We are hoping she has a great time and learns a lot this year!

And wouldn't you know, the same day Alli starts Kindergarten, Natalie turns 10 months old!!  She has been crawling for 3 weeks, but that clearly wasn't her goal.  Lately she's been pulling herself up to standing on anything and everything, and trying to venture out now to take some steps (holding a hand of course).  I think she'll be walking very soon.  She is also teething again, but I can't tell which tooth.  She has 7, so maybe it's the match for the one bottom tooth that came in, or maybe it's the molars.  Either way, she's drool baby again!


Our Kindergartner:

Our 10 Month Old:

Alli and Natalie on the slide

The Great Communicator

Ever since we started Natalie on solids, we've been using some sign language.  "more", "all done", and "milk" are my big 3.  We sorta gave up on signing "milk" when she started verbalizing it with "mmmma", but the others we use all the time at the table.

Natalie has apparently decided she doesn't like any of our signs, so she has created one and only one sign.  It's similar to "all done", but she has chosen to put both hands above her head and start waiving them.  At the dinner table, we have found this can mean "more" OR "all done", and when sitting on the floor this means "up".  I'm not sure I know how to break her of this mi-communication, mostly because it works.  She waives her hands, and we all respond.

The challenging part is when we are eating.  We don't know if she wants more or if she's all done, so we take a guess.  If we guess wrong, we get a bunch of high pitched screeching and more hand waiving.  :)

It will be interesting to see if the great communicator will learn our language anytime soon!

Natalie's 9 Month Checkup

I'm a bit late in posting this, mostly because we had the checkup and then left for a camping trip soon after.  And since the camping trip came with a lot of rain, we then spent a few days cleaning everything up from all the mud.  :)

So, Natalie is very healthy.  She now has 7 teeth (yes, we are waiting for the other pair to come in for the odd-ball bottom one.)

Her stats are:

Height:  29" (88%)
Weight:  18.13 lbs (41%)
Head Circumference: 44 cm (46%)


She is crawling all over the place, which is fun.  She is trying to communicate, but she uses her own language and doesn't really seem to be picking up ours.  Baby sign language is escaping her at the moment.  There is no "more" and "all-done" seems to be waiving both hands in the air.  It's actually quite cute.  We believe "mmma" is milk and "ma-ma" does seem to come out once in a while, in appropriate context, so that might be a word as well.  Natalie is a music/sound person for sure.  Any song (or jingle) that comes on and she is dancing.  It's sooo cute!  And her taste in music is pretty much anything!  Rap, rock, soft rock, classical, mommy singing...

We just lowered her crib due to the fact that she is pulling herself up to at least her knees, and because she is so tall, we are afraid she will actually make it over.  So safety first!

Officially Crawling!

Like her rolling over, Natalie just decided today to crawl.  So she crawled across the room and keeps crawling around like she's been doing it forever.

Yesterday, I kept telling Kim that I swore she moved one knee and then the other, but then she was back on her belly like normal.  So I wasn't sure I saw her knees move, or was hoping that her knees moved, or whatever.  Today confirmed she moved knees!


So that Alli could see her crawl, I put Natalie on the floor in the bathroom and then Alli and I got into the shower.  It didn't take long before we had a visitor with us in the shower, and Alli got to see her crawl across the room.

We are excited, and this weekend we will be buying new plug covers and rubber bands (for our cabinets).  :)

Alli's First Nail Salon Pedicure

I've been painting Alli's toenails for a couple of years now, but yesterday I decided to take her with me for a real pedicure.  Unfortunately, time ran out and I didn't get one, but she did!  It was hard to judge if she liked it cause she was very quiet and just had this bewildered look on her face the whole time.  And I love how short she was on the chair.  Check out the picture:

But that night we got a babysitter, and Abby told us that Alli told her 3 different times that she got a pedicure "from a professional".  :)  I guess she liked it!

Baby Birds

I have a rule around the house:  tear down bird nests that are close to the house, unless they have already laid their eggs.  Well a couple of months ago I kept seeing this bird hanging out by the patio.  It took a while, but we finally found its nest and went to tear it down, but it had eggs.  So we let the family stay and they had about 3 beautiful babies (that we could tell - they really hid the nest well under our patio roof.)  Once the babies flew the coop, I told Kim we needed to get the nest down, but then he went on travel, and we didn't think much of it.  But one of those babies (I think) decided to reuse the nest for their own family.  Grrr...    So here we are going through round 2 of babies, only this generation is not doing well.

Last week, we found a dead baby bird on the patio under the nest.  He barely had feathers.  Poor thing. Then last week, Kim was on travel and I found another baby under the nest on the patio.  This one had some feathers, but very sparse.  Definitely couldn't fly, and it looked injured.  Natalie was sleeping and it was just Alli and I.  I was sad.  I was going to have to kill the baby so it wouldn't suffer.  I've never killed anything except bugs!  Ugh.  Alli wouldn't go in the house, she wanted to watch.  I explained to her why I had to kill the baby, hoping she wouldn't get too upset.  Then I got a shovel and chopped its head off, and immediately started crying.  Alli asked why I was crying and I told her I had never killed anything like that before.  She said "That's okay mom.  You had to do it.  And it's good, because then they will make more baby birds and then we can eat them!"  Oh my gosh.  I was a bit shocked at the lack of emotion, but she'll make a great hunter or rancher someday!  haha


The last baby fell out of the nest this weekend.  It could flutter, but not fly.  It had all feathers, and actually survived a whole night on the ground.  Bagheera apparently discovered the baby bird the nest day, so Kim closed the gate so he wouldn't be able to get the baby.  But after coming home and checking on the baby, all I found was a patio full of feathers.  We have no idea what got the baby, but that was the last of the family.  We really need to pull that nest down.  It is clearly not safe anymore!

Father's Day 2013

This was a Father's Day (weekend) to remember.  The stars and planets must have aligned, cause we just don't get weekends like this often.  It started with chores, or lack there of.  We didn't have much on our list of things we needed - a couple of errands and laundry.  That was it.  So Saturday we knocked out a lot of it, and then went swimming.  This was the start of the fun.

When we swim, I usually take Natalie and Kim plays with Alli.  Natalie and I only hang for about 20 minutes cause it gets cold just sitting in 88 degree water.  But she enjoys splashing and we do that til we are cold, and then we get out and warm up in the 108 degree air and watch Kim and Alli.  Kim and Alli were really funny and have made up several games.  Alli's swimming is getting better and better, and so playing games with her is more and more fun.  Natalie and I went inside to shower up and Kim and Alli stayed playing - for another 30 minutes!

And then we did something super unusual for our family.  We went out to dinner.  (If we don't cook, we usually grab take-out.  But this time we actually went to a restaurant as a family!)  We had a great meal and the kids were awesome, and mommy and daddy got to enjoy an adult beverage to boot.  Hurray!

Sunday the kids started the day by giving daddy the best gift ever - sleeping in!  Natalie woke up at 5:30am and when I nursed her, she fell back to sleep.  So we got to sleep an extra hour (on the chair).  Alli came in to the bedroom around 6am, crawled in with Kim, and fell back to sleep.  They got to sleep til 7:30am!!  This is a small miracle in our house!

Once we were all up, Alli got Daddy's gifts and presented them to him.  (See picture below).  Then we made home-made waffles with sides of bacon and sausage.  And with no real chores to do, we all went to the green room to play.  Alli and Mommy had a dance recital for Daddy and Natalie, and house was definitely played.  (I know as I did laundry later in the day I saw Kim, Alli, and Natalie all in the house in the green room.)  We just played and played, and that just made the day so special.

We got a call from the Belt's and headed over to their house for our dinner and swimming, so Kim and Alli got to play in the pool with lots of kids, and I still had Natalie.  :)  Everyone was exhausted by the time we got home, but we had smiles on our faces and just kept thinking about what a great weekend we just had!

Daddy's gifts: