well, today was officially her 2nd trick or treat night as we took her last year when she was 4 months old. She enjoyed it more this time 
We took her to the zoo on Friday night for the trick or treat there, where she decided she didn’t want to ride the carousel about 3 seconds into the ride. Fortunately I had picked a horse very close to the seat section so we were able to sit down for the rest of the ride which she seemed to like. Then she and Lynn went walking around the zoo a little while I stayed up by the entrance. My back was hurting from cleaning the basement the previous 2 nights and still a little sore from falling down the stairs. She saw a few animals and got 2 pieces of candy which was a prep for tonight. Tonight we started by handing candy out at home first. She was interested in the kids coming up until she saw one kid with a black robe and a scary orange mask. That sent her running to Mama scared. But after she calmed down, we put her costume on and went to the houses on our street. She seemed a bit overwhelmed at first and kind of aprehensive the whole time going up to the doors. We got a little candy and returned home to hand out the rest of our candy. She liked dropping the candy into the bags of the trick or treaters that stopped at our house. After a while we decided to go over to our friend’s house (Kim Kurt and little DJ) where we got a few more candy bars. We also visited Tim and Terri, where Terri and her daughter were making Natty take a bazillion candy bars. I made her stop after she got 5 
We also stopped by Ethan and Logan’s grandparent’s house where the boys’ grandpa gave Natalie a bunch more candy. I think we scored more in those 3 houses than we did at the 6 or 7 on our street we went to
Here are some pictures from tonight’s fun:
Natalie saying cheese:……………………………………An attempt at a smile but distracted:
Checking out the score:……………………………………..What is this stuff anyway?
Another attempt at a nice smile
After we got back from trick or treating we hung out in the living room and played. I had gotten a pillow off of the couch to support my back when I laid down, and when I got up to move the phones out of the reach of little hands I came back to this face who had stolen my seat:
I had her sit there while I got the camera to take the picture, but that was pretty much the exact look she had on her face when I went back to sit down. “Oh, you were sitting here Papa????”
Well after seeing a face like that I couldn’t make her move so I sat down next to her and Lynn told her to lay down on the pillow so we could take her picture again. After several attempts, here’s the result:
This was kind of a long update, so thanks for reading it. Again, comments are appreciated, so I know you’re out there 
I have a list of several things to add to the blog for later dates. I email myself things to write about so I don’t forget them.
This Saturday, Lynn went and met my dad’s wife Julie at the Fireside for the Christmas show. My dad was hunting in South Dakota so Julie had an extra ticket. Grandma Julie bought Natalie a very cute hat and mitten set at the Fireside gift shop. Here’s a shot of my little model.
With Lynn gone for the day, that meant a father-daughter day for me and Natalie. We started the day when Natalie woke up at 11 am….that’s right…bed at 9:30 the night before and up at 11….gotta love it… After breakfast, we decided to go outside for a while. I figured she could play while I took a little time and got some yardwork done. I raked some leaves into a pile for her to play in and snapped some pictures.
Here she is when I first put her in the pile:
Standing up to get a better angle on pushing the leaves around:
Waving her arms and sending leaves flying:
“Helping” Papa rake the leaves back into the pile for more play:
I’m going to try to update this blog more often. I realize I haven’t been doing it as much as I intended. Thanks for reading and keep checking back. You can make comments on any of the entries by clicking on the comments button.
Natalie continues to amuse us and amaze us. Last night she brought over her map and wanted to work on states some more. So we learned Idaho and Iowa (still getting them confused because they sound so much alike).
She did something that had Lynn and I literally crying we were laughing so hard. I went to go wash my hands after wiping her nose, and I left the remote in her reach. Lynn just watched her to see what she’d do. I was in the bathroom washing my hands when I heard channels changing. I said “I hear channels changing” as I walked back to the living room….Natalie started running from her position up by the tv back to the couch to replace the remote she had commandeered, giggling like crazy. Lynn told me later that she had grabbed it and was pushing several different buttons. When she hit the channel button she got a huge grin on her face and kept pushing it until she heard me. Then got an “uh oh” look and sprinted back to the couch, which I saw in mid flight back to the couch.
She also has this little pop-up tent type thing that has a couple of short tunnels that can be attached to it. it has holes on 3 sides and the top. She always wants one of us to go in it with her, so last night when I got it out, after playing hello/goodbye with one of the flaps, I laid down on the floor and had my head through one of the side holes. She came in the tent and sat down. I stuck my arm up over the top and reached my hand in through the top hole and grabbed her head. This sent her scurrying to Lynn laughing. I told her to come back in the tent…(which she did) so….”THE ITSY BITSY SPIDER CAN GET YOU” and I would reach my hand up over and tickle her belly or pat her butt. This would send her screaming and giggling back to Lynn. This went on for about 15 minutes or so. Fun stuff.
it’s been over a week since my last update. I figured it was time again. Natalie continues to amuse us. She’s learning her letters now. She can recognize M, N O, P, A, B, G, and Z and we’re working on more. We also continue to work on her states. She has a little book with a map of the US in it, and I printed out a map on my computer for her. If we ask her to point out a state, she can get Wisconsin every time, and is pretty good with: Maine, Florida, Minnesota, California, Texas, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Idaho, Iowa, Illinios, Michigan, Montana and sometimes Ohio.
She did something really funny the other night. We were watching one of the baseball games on TV, and she was playing around with one of her empty water bottles (one of her favorite toys.. ) she would pretend to drink from it and say “ahhhh” after drinking…..she then went and held it up to the tv by the baseball player and went “num num” and then “ahhh” Lynn and I were rolling.
Natty is also developing a favorite word….NO she repeats it continuously and is starting to use it in context. Just what we need…
We had some friends in town over the weekend and Natalie got to play with their 3 kids: Joshua (8) Abby (3) and Beth (2) We all had a lot of fun.
I will try to update with some pictures later this week.
I will be posting Natalie’s letter to Santa on the site for relatives that may be planning on buying her Christmas gifts. She doesn’t want much….just expressed interest in everything in the Fleet Farm toy catalog…
Some explanations of what I left off with yesterday:
bath time: she LOVES bath time/shower time…I started taking her in the shower as soon as her umbilical cord stump fell off to get her used to it (partially to save water and it’s easier to clean her that way) she’s always loved the water, but the last couple months she’s really grown to love it more. She splashes and shouts and sings and splashes….whenever Lynn gives her a bath, the whole bathroom is pretty much soaked. Sunday night she had her first bubble bath, which she found to be a fun experience.
the pull my finger game: anyone who has a husband/father/brother/son/grandfather/boyfriend/guy friend or is one knows what the “pull my finger game” is…..the funny twist to our game is that after she pulls my finger, and I drop…she gets the look of concentration on her face and most times will work one out herself…and then giggles….that’s my girl!!!
hand holding fiasco: Natalie doesn’t mind when Lynn and I give each other kisses or hugs…and when we do, Natty will come up and have to give each of us a kiss or hug….what she doesn’t like is when Lynn and I hold hands or I have my arm around Lynn, or my hand resting on her leg…if Natalie is nearby and notices it, she’ll take my hand and jerk it away…last night after jerking my hand away she started swinging her arms and chanting “NO NO NO” too funny!!! We’re not quite sure why it bothers her…she doesn’t try to hold either of our hands, but if we persist on holding hands after she’s seperated us, she gets quite angry and will start to cry….:D
some pictures from Sunday night at the park:
we were awaken this morning at about 6 am by the sobs of a little girl…..I went in and she was standing up in her crib….she’s had a cold for the last few days and we think she’s getting some more teeth, usually we just let her cry herself back to sleep, but occasionally we can tell she won’t so that’s when we go in…
I picked her up and wiped off her face from the tears and snot.. and then we rocked in the chair while I patted her back until she calmed down….we were there for about 10 minutes or so….then I asked her “are you okay now?” she let out a little squeek that sounded a little like “yeah”…..then I asked “do you want to go back to bed now?” another squeeky “yeah” so I put her back in bed where she fell back asleep for a couple more hours….
we went to Target this morning where she got some more Mega Bloks to play with….which she did once we got home…..she is starting to wake up from her nap now so I’ll update more later……
here’s a picture of her and I playing a game she loves
we all had an adventure tonight. Lynn and I took Natalie to the Butler Inn to meet the Espinosas for dinner. They are the friends of our with the twin boys who’s blog you can read by clicking on the link at the right. Dinner was fun and pretty uneventful for having a 16 month old and 2 10 month old boys….:D
we did have a couple move from the table next to us to a different table after Natty and Ethan started to squawk at each other from across the table……Logan pretty much stayed out of it though…..we’ve found that tipping can be expensive if you are nice and compensate for the mess made by the kids…;)
after dinner, we watched the Elmo movie that was one of the 2 we rented last night. Natty was glued to the screen….even lost interest in her bottle prompting me to bring her on my lap to make sure she’d finish drinking it….I’ll try to put up more pictures this weekend
tonight was a father-daughter night…..Lynn went to help out Auntie Theresa at her office, while Natty and I hung out. I fixed dinner, and then after we ate, we went to Blockbuster to get a movie or two. Normally I don’t advocate using videos as a babysitter, but with sinuses stuffed to the point it felt like my head was going to explode and a little girl who got up this morning WAYYYY too early, I figured one night of movies won’t be too big of a problem..:D
we got the movies and headed home……Natty and I watched Follow That Bird……a fun Sesame Street film…..I give it 5 stars for holding children’s attention
after the movie, we got ready for bed and hit the hay early….since she’s decided to get up earlier, she get’s to go to bed earlier….we have fun on father-daughter nights…:)
I’m not sure how much I’ll be updating here….it could be as frequent as several times a day or as infrequent as once a week…(I’ll try to do it at least once a week.)
the Natalie’s World title comes from the fact that my daughter is an Elmo addict…..she loves the movies and characters and will be Elmo for Halloween this year…(pictures will be posted)
Last night while Natalie was doing something funny, I thought: we need to start writing these things down…so I got a notebook and started to write and thought…wait a minute…I’m a computer guy…I need to geek this up a little…so I decided to add a blog to my website for Natalie. The main purpose of this will be to keep a track of new things she learns and cute things she does….remember, I’m a computer guy not an English teacher…so if this seems disjointed or full of spelling errors…..deal with it…;) for anyone just finding this, Natalie is 16 months old and is a sweet little girl. She is smart, strong and curious about everything….she started walking at 8 months old and is ahead in cognative development as well…(I’m not a proud dad am I? :D)
here’s what happened last night:
I play in a kickball league in the Milwaukee area and had a game last night that Lynn and Natalie came with me for. We got home about 7:45 pm which is bottle time for Natalie….I said to her “guess what time it is”….Natalie looks at the tv and shouts foobow (football….I love my girls….both are huge sports fans…:D) lynn replies “no honey it’s kickball night…kickball…kick the ball….” so I started saying kick the ball, at which point Natalie proceeds to her toybox and grabs her mini football…puts it on the floor and starts to kick it around the living room… too funny
here’s a fairly recent picture of my girl and me with our “mean football faces” on…:)
here’s one any computer guy dad would be proud of
