Natalie's Birthday Party

Natalie's Winter "ONEderland" Party was a success with lots of hard work and help from Bobby and my family!

I had been planning her birthday party for months and by the time it got here, I cut out quite a bit of food/ideas because I just didn't have the time nor energy. I had a ton of fun making decorations for her party. Bobby thinks I'm nuts because he says Natalie won't remember this, but she'll have this blog and pictures to remember it by! By the time the party was over, I was exhausted, but it turned out well and Natalie was good the entire day, except for the fact that she didn't want to go to bed that night...I'm sure all the sugar from her cake had nothing to do with it!

In total (including Bobby, Natalie, and me), we had 38 people come to her party. We had lots of people from the South Bend area (a 4 hour drive that some even made the round trip of 8 hours just to come), Natalie's great-grandparents from Tennessee (about a 4.5-5 hour drive) and others from Indy and the Terre Haute area. Natalie, you are definitely loved and have great people in your life that were willing to make the long trips just to see YOU!  At our house, we had 9 adults (NOT including our little family of 3) sleep in the basement on 3 air mattresses and a bed, as well as our couch. Plus, we had 4 dogs (including Rusty)! At our old house, Aunt Julie, Uncle Promise and their 3 kids stayed. Then, Bobby's parents stayed at a hotel.

Needless to say that we had a long, crazy, busy, fun (and well worth it) weekend for Natalie's birthday!

Natalie took about an 1.5 nap right before her party, so she did great during the entire party. She was not scared one bit of all the people and definitely was not shy about digging into her cake. I've been to some parties where the kids cry when they are sung 'Happy Birthday' and have to be enticed to dig into their cakes, but not Natalie. She was all about everything her birthday party entailed. Her attention didn't last long to opening presents, but she sure is enjoying all the toys/clothes she got. She is definitely not spoiled...not one bit...haha!

Birthday Girl:

Decorations (I made most everything and had a lot of fun doing it):

Food:
Hot chocolate bar with from scratch hot chocolate that was sweet but good (much better than the instant in my opinion)
Polar Soup (potato soup)
Eskimo Snow (white chicken chili...got lots of raves about this one)
Mini Snowman Delights (PB&J in the shape of snowmen)
Snowman Noses (baby carrots)
Keep Your Piggies Warm (mini pigs in a blanket)
Hot Cocoa cups (made from large marshmallows dipped in chocolate with a candy cane handle)
Cupcakes from a box that I made (I forgot all about the ice cream, so we have a gallon to eat all to ourselves...haha)
Smash Cake for Natalie (I ordered)

It was a lot of work, but I am so thankful that my family helped out!!!!  I don't think I would have been able to get it all done by myself!

Cake time (she wasted no time digging in and she didn't want to share even with her Daddy):

Clean-up time:

Presents (mounds and mounds...like I said before, definitely not spoiled!) As you can see in the pictures, she would have been perfectly content with a water bottle...haha:

We just want to thank everyone that came to Natalie's party to make her 1st birthday so special!  She is so loved and we just can't thank you all enough, especially those of you that drove such great distances just for her!  Thank you and we love you all!

A very special thanks to Aunt Amanda for being our photographer for the day!  She did a great job and there is no way I would have even taken 1 picture!

Happy 1st Birthday, sweet baby girl!

Happy 1st Birthday, Natalie!

Our baby girl is now ONE year old!  I cannot believe it!  It flew by!

Everyone always tells you when you are pregnant to enjoy every moment because it will go by fast, and they are not kidding. I think we have definitely tried our best to enjoy every little moment/achievement about Natalie over this last year. I have tried my very best to capture every important moment in this blog and I hope Natalie can look back at these posts and have some great memories!

We love you to pieces, Natalie Lynne and cannot imagine our lives without you!  You have brought lots of joy, happiness, and love to our lives. I hope you continue to be the sweet little girl with lots of spunk and energy!

Bobby took Friday (Natalie's birthday) off work so we could get ready for her party and spend the day with her. I'm so glad he did because I wouldn't have been able to get everything done by myself, especially while watching Natalie. We took time out to go to lunch and meet Rebekah, our old neighbor.

Taking Natalie's pictures for her 12 month photo session was trying and I had to do it twice since she was not very cooperative since she moves all over the place. I really wanted to get her pictures professionally taken, but Bobby wasn't keen on the idea due to the cost...maybe one day! I may just have to make an appointment sometime and take her without his knowledge :)

It was also my mom's 50th birthday, so we waited for my parents, sister, and Matt to get down to Terre Haute so we could go out to dinner to celebrate. We went to Mogger's and had a good meal with a yummy Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake. Then, once we got home, my family helped to continue to get ready for Natalie's party.

Natalie at 12 months:
1. She has 8 teeth (4 on the top and 4 on the bottom)
2. Still no walking, preferred mode of transportation is walking on her knees! She can take steps, I've seen her take as many as 5, but just won't do it consistently!
3. She is wearing mostly 12 month clothing with the exception of a few 9 month clothes.
4. She seems to be saying the same words.
5. She likes to feed herself over being fed, which can be quite messy at times.
6. Her favorite food is banana and will eat an entire one by herself, but usually only if she can take bites from the whole banana instead of picking it up in pieces off her highchair.
7. Her newest face is a "fishy" face.

Perfect Valentine's Day

Natalie was decked out in hearts today for Valentine's Day!

She got lots of yummy treats from her friends at daycare.

Yesterday, Bobby came home and surprised me with some pretty flowers, with an extra rose from Natalie :)

I helped Natalie make this for her Daddy (thanks to Pinterest for the idea):

We stayed home for Valentine's Day and together made a great steak dinner with salad, roasted asparagus, roasted potatoes, mac and cheese. We also had chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Natalie was really good throughout dinner and ate well. She ended up going to bed around 6:45p since she only took a 30 minute nap today, so we had a very nice, relaxing, quiet night in. It was actually great because Bobby was home and didn't have to run anywhere (literally)! The night couldn't have been more perfect. What a great Valentine's Day!

I love you Bobby and Natalie (baby girl #2 and Rusty, too)! Happy Valentine's Day!

Old House...Sold?!

This weekend, I had intended on getting a lot more done than I did!  On Saturday, I was not feeling the greatest...not so much "flu-like" but just more "pregnancy-like." I think I could have stayed in bed all day if I could have.

However, around 2p our realtor called us and said we had gotten our 3rd counter-offer back and we needed to accept or reject. They had come back with a counter $400 less than what we had countered them, so of course we took it!  I think what helped is after we countered the 2nd time to them, our 3rd counter was the exact same number as the previous, so they knew we were about done negotiating!  We are not "counting our chickens before they hatch," but we are so happy that FINALLY we will be selling our old house after having it on the market for almost 8 months!!!  I'm hoping 3rd time is really a charm (we had gotten 2 previous offers in months past that didn't go through). Now, we are just crossing our fingers and praying that everything goes well with the inspection and we close around March 12th. We will be so relieved to have this house out from under us!  We will have to bring a couple thousand to closing, but at least we won't have to upkeep it during the spring/summer months! We almost didn't keep it listed for the months of January/February but now we are so glad we did! Please pray very hard for us that everything goes smoothly from here on out!  This couldn't come at a better time with only 3 months left in this pregnancy and so many things we would like to get done at our new house that include lots of money: fence, start finishing the basement so Bobby's office can go downstairs and baby #2 can move to his current office, landscaping, and lots of odds and ends!

My intentions for the weekend included cleaning the house for all our guests coming into town for Natalie's 1st birthday party on Saturday, as well as get some last minute things around for her party. I did manage to get some stuff done today, but not a whole lot of cleaning. Luckily, Bobby has Friday off as well to help out with getting things ready for the party, but I also want to have some fun with our baby girl since Friday she turns the BIG 1!  I seriously cannot believe it. I have been making a picture/video compilation to show at her party and it just seems like yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital. So tiny and precious!  Now, she is much more of a handful as she's getting older and pretty soon we will have twice the fun!  Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that I would be pregnant with only 3 months left when our first baby girl turned 1!

Since Valentine's Day is Tuesday, I made a treat for all the kids that will be at daycare that day (not like I didn't have anything else to do). I think they turned out pretty cute...a little time consuming though, but I enjoyed making them.  They are supposed to be robots...I got the idea off of the website, Pinterest. Hopefully the kids at daycare like them!

I am getting a little overwhelmed with the party planning for Saturday, but I think it will all come together just fine. There are way more people coming than I anticipated, but that's okay because I wouldn't have invited them if I didn't want them to come. I just hope everything goes smoothly and Natalie enjoys it (not that she'll remember though). However, I'm sure there will be MANY pictures to come regarding her birthday party!

Bye-Bye Bottles, Hello Flu?!

Starting on Friday, I decided it would be a good time to take away Natalie's bottle since I would have the whole weekend to "deal with her." I was not dreading the change, but was highly anticipating a fight. Surprisingly enough, Natalie didn't complain at all and took right to the soft sippy cup that we have been using at meals with no problem. She also started sometimes using a harder spout and a more cup-like sippy cup with water during mealtimes. Since we switched her to whole milk, daycare still makes us provide it until she is off her bottle, so that was another reason I wanted to try to wean her off the bottle. I can't get over how easy it was!

Our weekend was full of entertaining: on Saturday, Alison (a friend of ours) and I co-hosted a jewelry party for a girl from church we know. Natalie was good and we had a good turn out. On Sunday, we hosted a last minute Super Bowl party with friends. Natalie didn't get to see much of the game because she went to bed around 7p.

Today, I watched Abbey's daughter, Allison for a bit. Both girls were good, but definitely kept me on my toes!  I don't know that I'm ready for 2 of my own all the time :)  Natalie ate good today, actually, better than ever really because she ate her whole meal. Her afternoon nap got interrupted by Rusty barking at the Duke Energy man that rang the doorbell. This is one of those days I should have made a sign about not ringing the doorbell because a baby is sleeping!  I was so mad at Rusty because he goes absolutely bonkers when he hears a knock or doorbell. It's really annoying!

So, Natalie took a later afternoon nap from around 4-5p. However, Bobby hadn't been home long when she woke up screaming. Bobby went in to get her, and I hear on the baby monitor, "Brandi, she threw up everywhere." Poor girl had thrown up everything from 5:15p or so and didn't stop until probably at least 9p. You could definitely tell she didn't feel well because she would just lay there with you, mostly with her Daddy. Plus, we didn't want puke everywhere in the house, so we mostly kept it to a trash can, on us, and on her. I had just gotten an email from daycare saying that a few kids had stayed home today because of this "bug" going around. I think the email jinxed us!  I'm hoping Natalie gets some sleep and the vomiting has stopped for now!  Tomorrow, she'll be home with Bobby and then me when I get done with my couple patients.

I just hate when she is sick!  At least maybe she is getting the "bug" that has been going around out of her system so she is nice and healthy for her birthday which is less than 2 weeks away! Bobby was so good with her tonight, he was a great daddy!