This morning, I woke up to a little girl crying. When I went into her bedroom, I asked Natalie what was wrong, and she told me and pointed to her bed at which time she also proceeded to get sick again. After I got her and her bed cleaned up, she seemed wide awake and doing pretty well. I got her to lie down for a little while longer, but then she was up for the day. I brought a “puke bucket” upstairs and explained what she was suppose to do with it. A couple hours after she woke up, I was impressed that she actually used the bucket correctly. I made the mistake of giving her some juice because I wanted her to drink something and knew that this would not be a battle. It promptly came back up, and there was no time to make it to the bucket for this one.
Thankfully, this was the extent of the gross part of my day. I didn’t stray too far from her today…just in case she needed my help. By the evening, she was almost begging for food. We did get some liquids into her, and a piece of toast stayed down too. Hopefully, Nate will have a little girl who is on the mend since he is working from home tomorrow.
Our family enjoyed a very nice Thanksgiving holiday. We thank God for all of the many blessings He has given us this year. Natalie, as always, continues to make us smile.
On Thursday morning, while we were watching the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I made a comment about seeing Santa and the reindeer. Natalie thought for a moment, and then stated, “Uncle Gary and Uncle Mark were looking for reindeer.” She made the connection that these two uncles were “looking for deer” when they went hunting a couple of weeks ago.
While were were eating our pie for dessert on Thanksgiving, Natalie asked everyone sitting around the table, “Is everyone’s pie okay?” She sounded like she was the hostess for the evening. 
Friday, we had a nice day of traveling as we went to see Nate’s side of the family for Thanksgiving. Natalie had a fun day in the back of the van with her two cousins Nicholas and Hannah.
Breakfast with Santa was on Saturday. Natalie wasn’t as willing to sit on Santa’s lap this year - even though she knew what she wanted to ask him to bring her (a baby doll with all the accesories - crib, car seat, high chair, clothes, etc). Nate finally convinced her to stand with him and talk to Santa…so we still have a picture with her and Nate near Santa. Natalie had another great few days with her cousins - Zach, Ella, and Caden. It is so fun to watch all of them interact. We can only imagine the fun they will continue to have as they get older.
We have been gearing up for the holiday season in our home. The catalogs and stores have helped to prompt this. It is also nice to get a jump on the gifts before the huge crowds hit the stores. With all of this talk around our home, Natalie has been asking to decorate both the inside and the outside. (About a week ago, she saw some Christmas lights in the basement and Nate hung them down there for her to see.) Recently, she has been asking to decorate the outside of the house. Nate thought that sounded like a good idea, and since our gutters on this house are lower and more manageable for putting up lights, he decided to buy some strings of lights the other night. Tonight, Natalie was Daddy’s little helper as she would bring the clips to him while he was putting up the lights. It was very cute!
I have a few cute stories from today. The theme for the first two is watch what you say around 2 year olds. I have really cleaned up my language over the last 2 years, but sometimes I’ll say something “rude” and Natalie will pick up on it. Sometimes she’ll scold me and say “that’s not nice”, but today wasn’t one of those times.
I was walking into the bedroom this afternoon to talk to Lynn. Natalie was right behind me. I walked around the bed to go sit in my chair and Natalie kept coming right behind me. I stopped and she ran right into my butt and then bounced off of the bed, giggling the whole time. I jokingly said to her “you’re a moron”. She replied back with “you’re a moron”. Now I know, it’s not a good thing to call your kids dumb or moron, but she knows when I’m goofing with her, even at two.
Next story. We were getting ready to go to the park and Lynn sent Natalie in the kitchen (where I was) with her coat and hat, presumably with instructions for me to help her put them on. Natty handed them to me and I proclaimed “I don’t want this crap”. She immediately bolted down the hallway to the bedroom where Lynn was getting ready and handed the stuff to her saying “Daddy doesn’t want this crap”. 
This morning she told me that she had to go potty, so I took her in the bathroom and sat her on. I then proceeded to roll up her shirt so it wouldn’t hang down too far hence getting dirty. She asked what I was doing, and I told her I was rolling up her shirt. She says to me “rolled it up like ham?” (I gave her some lunch meat rolls for breakfast this morning). I was laughing very hard at this point. So later today when she was on the potty, we have our little joke with rolling up her shirt, like ham.
Last story for the evening. Earlier this afternoon, we were all sitting together in the living room. Lynn was on the couch and Natalie and I were on the floor wrestling. Natalie started getting worked up as she is prone to do, and I was laughing at her as I am prone to do. I stopped harrasing her just as Lynn yells “why do you two get each other going so much” Natty stops cranking and looks at her and says “Daddy was just being funny!” I about hit the floor laughing. The two year old gets it.Â
Today, we had a fun afternoon with Natalie’s cousins - Zach, Ella, and Caden. Since Caden is only 6 months old, he had to do a lot of observing, but soon he will be running around with all of them too. Zach, Ella, and Natalie had fun playing hide and seek all around the house. The two girls gave us a wonderful recital on the piano with all of their beautiful songs and singing voices. Zach did a good job of beating up on Auntie Lynn with his PS2. What a fun day of playing!
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Natalie and I also got a chance to hear all about Grandma and Grandpa’s travels to see Uncle David and Auntie Rhoda. It is always fun to play with the castle at their house!
Thursdays, Natalie and I “stay home”. This fall, we started attending a play group at church on Thursday mornings. I guess that I shortened the name of this event to group, and that is just what Natalie has been calling it. This morning while she was on the changing table, she asked me if we were going to “group”. I explained that I wanted her to be feeling better and not coughing anymore. She accepted that answer…I just think it’s kind of funny that she calls her morning at church with other children “group”.
Tonight, Nate and Natalie had some more quality time together. Nate explained what they’d be doing, and Natalie seemed quite excited. A special treat for Natalie is when Nate inflates our camping air mattress, sets it up in the middle of the living room, and Natalie gets to go nuts jumping from the couch to the mattress. She did this fun activity for at least an hour tonight. I think we started this madness after we came back from our trip to Minnesota this past summer. She loved the outdoor trampoline that we all had fun jumping on.
Curious George made a showing at Mayfair Mall tonight. I saw the ad for it this past weekend and decided that it would be a fun night out.  It is amazing how many other parents thought the same thing! He made an appearance with the Man in the Yellow hat from 4-6 pm in the Time Warner store. When I got to the mall a little after 5, the line to see these two was outrageous. Since we were there, I decided to take my chances and stood in line to wait. Thankfully, I had a snack and something for Natalie to drink. After standing in line for about a half an hour, one of the store employees came out to say that we were part of the line that most likely would not have a chance to see Curious George. I explained to Natalie that we might not see George, and she took it very well. I decided to take our chances at that point. We finally made it into the store a few minutes before 6. We were able to get to see George, and we even got a picture out of the whole deal. :) The positive note to this long story is that Nate decided not to meet us at the mall. He would not have been a happy camper in this whole ordeal.
Totally unrelated to the last story, is how Natalie has been wired at about 8pm, the last couple of evenings. Monday evenings, I tutor until 8pm. Typically, Natalie has been put to bed and is asleep by the time I get home. Last evening, I walked in the door, and Nate saw a flash of purple run past him and into the kitchen. Natalie was excited to hear me come home. I thought it was pretty cute, so I put her back to bed in a couple of minutes once I got myself settled. An hour later, after singing and talking and giggling in her room, she finally went to sleep after some stern warnings from both Nate and me. Tonight was quite similar in her wind up mode once we put her to bed the first time. She was telling us funny stories from her bedroom, being very goofy, and making us chuckle…even after we told her it was time to settle down and go to sleep. I believe she may finally be asleep now. We’ll see… Hopefully, this wind up mode will not continue to be part of our nightly routine.
Tonight, Nate was leaving to go grocery shopping. I made a request for the apples that I like, and Natalie piped up, “And milk…” It was so cute how she chimed in her request too.
Friday night, I put in a new Veggie Tales video for Natalie. She loved it! After the short video, Natalie found her second wind. She stood in the middle of the living room twirling her “nose rag,” otherwise known as a burp cloth. As she was on center stage, she put both hands in the air like a conductor, and put on a good half an hour show for Nate and me. Natalie would say things like, “Everybody sing a silly song,” or “Everybody stand up and dance.” She went on asking/telling us to do certain things like this while she was dancing and singing around the room. Nate and I both thought that this entertaining evening was priceless.
Last evening, we met some friends and had a fun night at Chuck E. Cheese. I had been itching to take Natalie there for the last year. I knew that she would enjoy it…considering she loves playing video games with her daddy.
Natalie started out the evening dancing. She looked like she was having so much fun under the disco lights on the stage near Chuck E. Cheese. She even took a few minutes to eat a little. After we were finished eating, we took her to the game area. We all had fun there. I’m looking forward to our next experience there. I highly recommend going on a week night.
Today, Natalie got some much needed play time outside! :) We are definitely taking advantage of every nice day. Last week, she helped me “rake” the leaves. Since one of our rakes broke, I gave Natalie her shovel which was more her size. She had a lot of fun! I just hope this enthusiasm for helping continues for many years to come.
We had some good friends over for lunch and play time. Natalie had a good time tearing apart her room as she showed her friends her toys in her room. I knew I had to go see what the 2 two-year olds were doing when I heard “one, two, three…” Natalie and Joshua were attempting to open her toy box which is somewhat difficult to open. What teamwork!
Natalie has kept us laughing this weekend. The things she says are so cute. I am leaving this fairly open since Nate has promised to update the blog soon.
