Happy 2nd Birthday Natalie!

I can't believe that we already have a 2 year old! Nobody can prepare you for how fast your baby becomes a toddler and then a big kid! The morning of Natalie's actual birthday

We had a birthday party on December 15th with family and friends....of course it was a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse birthday party! It was a little hectic so I don't have many pictures, but everyone had a blast!

Mommy made your Toodles cake and I think you asked for Toodle cake every single day for a month! We had a ton of family and friends over and it was a great time, but I think my Natalie got tired and needed a nap. I am not sure you actually saw any of your birthday presents because you were so tired!

23 months

We started out this month going to Boo at the Zoo at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo!  Natalie was "Tigger the Tiger"!  She loved walking around telling people, "I'm Tigger the Tiger!" 

You weren't really happy about the person dressed as a tiger, but I realize that being a parent includes making you do things you don't really want to do!

Looking at yourself in the bathroom mirror with doodlebops on!

 

On October 23, 2012 we were so lucky to welcome a new member to our family!  Jack David Francis was born at 2:48 am at 8 lbs 1 oz and 21 inches!  We are going crazy waiting to meet him! 

 

Gigi went down to Dayton for 10 days to help out Marie, Mark and the kids and of course to spend some time with Jack and we were lucky to have Papa watch you a few days, Aunt Amy one day and Grammie/Daddy the other day!

You and Papa had a blast the two days he watched you!  You were filthy the first day, so I know you had a good time!

Jumping in the leaf pile!

Sitting in your leaf chair

Hallelujah!  That is what you and Papa were yelling when you threw the leaves in the air!

Surprise!  Hiding behind the leaf pile!

Standing in the leaves

 

Crawling through the leaves

Mommy and her pretty girl!

Daddy, Natalie and Mommy

 

Covering Natalie with leaves!

Painting pumpkins for Halloween

You painted a pumpkin for the new baby and a Natalie pumpkin!

The finished pumpkin for the new baby

 



Working hard on your pumpkin

 

 

 

Our finished pumpkins!

One cool girl: Kitty jammies, orange sunglasses and doodlebops!

Ready for Halloween in the skeleton jammies!

Waiting for Aunt Ashley, Uncle Tom, Liam, Declan and Papa to come over for Trick or Treat

This year our Trick or Treat was absolutely miserable.  It was rainy, cold and very yucky.  Somehow Natalie and Liam talked Daddy, Uncle Tom and Papa in to takiing them to a few houses, while Aunt Ashley, Declan and I stayed home!

Tigger the Tiger!

Doing the jump to get our boots on!

 



Tigger and Spiderman

Playdoh necklace

Peanut butter and graham crackers!  Yummy!

 

Peanut butter all over

 

We went to Caden Martinka's 1st birthday party and Natalie's outfit got a little diva-esque!  She added the sunglasses and posed by the front door for a picture!

I am glad I took these pictures when I did because Natalie broke her sunglasses on way to the party.

Exhausted after the birthday party and missing naptime!

Legs crossed, just like Natalie was on every ultrasound picture when I was pregnant

It is nice to know that nothing has changed! 

 Mmmmm spaghetti!  So delicious!

 

 

Your favorite books this month: Toddlerobics, Cinderella, Little Rabbit's Baby Sister, Big, Bigger, Biggest, Tickle Monster, Waiting for Cookie, the Peekaboo Books

You talk in sentences at all times and rarely, if ever, get frustrated trying to get us to understand things. You are obsessed with bouncy balls! Crazy obsessed! You LOVE puzzles! Your favorites are the Under the Sea Puzzle, Numbers puzzle, and Alphabet puzzle. You have mastered the Under the Sea puzzle (24 pieces) all by yourself!

This month you learned to "spell" your name: you sing N-A-T-A-L-I-E, Natalie, Natalie, Yeah!

Letters you know: A, B, C, D, E, G, M, N, O, P, S, and T. You can count to 14 and can count things, depending on how excited you are, to ten kind of accurately.

You are big into questions right now. Your favorite question is "Momma, whatcha doin?". "Where is Mommy?", "Can I see?"

 

We are having a hard time believing that in a few short weeks Natalie will be two, although there are moments when it feels like the twos are upon us!

22 months

If we could slow things down just a little bit, mommy would be so happy! 

We were lucky to go to the Cleveland Zoo with Gigi for the day and we ran into this monkey!  You absolutely loved the lions, elephants, monkeys, giraffes, rhinos (we even got to see Juba the new baby rhino at the zoo!), and the flamingos!  We were lucky that the flamingos were just being let out of their inside enclosure so they were very active for us!  You loved that!

Papa even met us for lunch at the zoo which was a great treat!

The weekend of mommy's birthday we went to Patterson Fruit farm to see the pumpkins with Papa and Gigi, unfortunately Daddy was out of town for work, I think in Tenneesee.

You love seeing and touching all of the pumpkins!

Trying to "borrow" a pumpkin to take home!

Walking with Papa

Mommy still can't believe that we got you in jeans, you hate wearing anything jean right now!  I think it doesn't give you enough room to move and play!

Swings!

Your favorite books this month are: Cinderella, Stuart at the Library, Alice in Wonderland, Toddlerobics, Little Rabbit's Baby Sister, Under the Sea,
You love blankets all of the sudden!  Anything can be a blanket -- towels, washcloths, changing pads, baby blankets, afghans, kitchen towels, pretty much any fabric you can find!  And you have started to wrap up your baby dolls in the blankets and rock them and sometimes you sing Mary Had a Little Lamb to them!
You can now count to 14 without much difficulty.  You know A(apple), B(baby), C(cookie), D(daddy), G(Gigi), M(mommy), N(Natalie), O(octopus), P(Papa), and S(snake).  You have learned all of your colors and name them all day long when you see things!  Mommy is so proud that you know so many shapes already: triangle, square, circle, rectangle, octagon, star, dice (cube), and sometimes pentagon!  You love to play look for the red octagon when we are in the car!  You also know that red means stop and green means go.