New Toys, Same Bath

For Natalie's birthday, Grandma Narducci bought her some bath accessories and toys. As soon as I put the fish on the faucet she wanted in! Who wouldn't? Isn't it cute!


Today Natalie discovered that she can bend over and get a drink when she's thirsty.


She also discovered that when she does, water goes up her nose. Believe it or not, she actually did this a few more times. Sweet, sweet baby...I think I'll have you for dinner!

Fire in the Sky

Check out this awesome sunset! This was taken out in front of my house last night. We were headed out for our nightly walk and were amazed when we came out to this! I love AZ summer night skies.
I made Mike stop for a photo with Natalie. He was pretty "put out" by the request...darn Karla taking pictures of EVERYTHING!!! (Side note, Natalie isn't sleeping, I just caught her with her eyes closed.)

Strange Sleeping Arrangements

This is Natalie's new preferred way to be entertained and take a nap. Mike toted her around yesterday and she fell asleep in it, and the same thing happened today! We have previously pushed her around in the stroller (in the house) but now she's found something she likes even more! Can this little girl be more spoiled?



We put the tote down so she at least was lying down for her afternoon nap. I'm also assuming that it would help prevent the kinked neck that looks inevitable!


Here's Natalie today. Freaking funny! I love this little girl.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

What a fun day for my little birthday girl! We started the day with a morning walk to the neighborhood park. Both Natalie and Nixon enjoyed their time entertaining several school girls waiting for the bus while I enjoyed just watching Natalie - my little ONE year old baby! I took close to a billion photos, but here are a couple of Natalie in her cute little jogging suit.

I tried to convince Natalie that a swing is fun, but couldn't...at least not yet! So, I just took a few more pictures of her sitting in it.

A while later we had some lunch. Here's Natalie dropping food onto the floor...

...and then in classic Natalie fashion asking me "where is it"? (As if she doesn't know-haha!)


Unfortunately Natalie was still suffering from her cold, so I took her to the doctor to make sure it wasn't developing into something worse. Here she is playing with the (germ infested) office toys.


And looking at the COOL fish!


And looking at the WILD Bearded Dragon!


Good thing we wasted some time there...well, at least I found out she was okay! :)

Natalie's B-day party started at 6:30 pm. Unfortunately, I wasn't ready for the (23) guests and spent most of the night preparing food as they ate it...and if it weren't for the much needed help from Grandma Fern, Christa, Sally, Aunt Vikki and Noni, no one would have eaten a thing! Nevertheless, by Natalie's request, we had all of her favorites- Appetizers: Ritz and Cheese sandwich crackers and pizza bites. Dinner: Gnocchi (both red and cream sauce), cornbread souffle, zucchini and cheese and (garlic) bread. Dessert: Bing Soo, a Korean dessert made of fresh fruits (we had blueberries, strawberries, apples, grapes, kiwis, mangos and pineapple), ice cream, shaved ice, condensed milk and fruit puree - Natalie LOVES fruit. We also had, of course, her birthday cake, as seen below. I pulled teddy bear cake creations off the internet to get this idea. Alisa (my sister) and Noni (Mike's Grandma) helped me put it together. We did this while everyone was eating dinner and fortunately finished it just in time! I also made cupcakes with a peppermint patty and three huge chocolate chips to make a paw print on them. I can't believe I don't have a picture of it! (Maybe Mike's mom does...I'll have to get a copy of all the pictures she took that night.)


Here we are, enjoying Natalie blow out her birthday candle and eating some birthday cake. This was the highlight of my night! I can't believe I have a baby celebrating a birthday! This is happiness.




Notice, I took her clothes off before I let her dive into the cake...heaven forbid she gets her clothes dirty on her birthday!





We decided to put her in her highchair so she could enjoy her cake a little more...check out her hands! Eating all that cake made her pretty thirsty, too.


Here she is trying to share some with Dad.


Let's pose for a picture...nope, she's still thirsty!


What a day! It went fast and was more work than I could have EVER imagined! (I hear it only gets worse, and now understand why cooking-and-cleaning-free-party-places like Chucky Cheese stay in business!) But all the work was worth it! Happy Birthday my little yet big girl! Your Mom and Dad LOVE the snot out of you!!!

Sad Baby...

Natalie caught the cold that has been floating around. It is so sad to see her sick! When she coughs, she cries because it hurts her. Her nose runs down her face constantly. I just hope that she feels better for the big birthday party on Wednesday! Here is the invite that I made. It was so fun to do. I LOVE photoshop!



Well, the next day and a half I will be party planning (and probably too busy to blog). Any suggestions on what to do that a one year old would love...and the guests :)

Hearty Appetite!

After carefully cutting up and feeding Natalie some pizza, I caught her pulling the pizza box on our kitchen table closer to her so she could have some more. (She actually pulled all that pizza out of the box and onto her tray.)

So what does any good mom do? Give her some more!

Go Natalie!

Well Worth the Mess

After a dinner like this...


A bath is mandatory...

Seriously, can she be any cuter!?!

Peacock Baby

I know, Halloween isn't for another month, but here's Natalie's Halloween costume courtesy of Grandma Narducci (she actually had it shipped 2-day air to get it here faster!!). Well, it arrived today so she rushed over so we could try it on Natalie.


Okay, seriously, could Natalie (and the costume) be any cuter?!?!?! I am so excited about this costume. I don't think I have ever seen one that I have liked more. There are orange tights that go with it, too. We got it from Babystyle. I highly suggest this company for THE BEST costumes, ever! ;) I guess I'll have to go trick-or-treating this year!




This was taken while Natalie was looking at herself in the mirror. It was the only way we could get her to be interested in having the hat/head part on. Grandma Narducci couldn't stop laughing the whole time Natalie had the costume on because she was SO cute!


How cute is the back!


I love this picture. Natalie is sucking in her mouth and it looks like she is trying to make her mouth look like a bird's beak.


Happy (early) Halloween!

Colorado: Day 3

What a great day! We started this day off by going for a 45 minute walk on a paved trail throughout Diana's neighborhood and park. Because it was cold the day before, there was still a cool crispness in the air which made it perfect for our morning stroll. Here are the girls all bundled up so they could enjoy the walk with us.

After we returned from our walk, we got ready to go to the Butterfly Pavilion. It is a small local museum of insects, spiders and some marine life. We all had a great time! Although Natalie was a little young to really appreciate what she was seeing, you could tell that she still enjoyed herself.

We started off in a room that housed all sorts of creepy crawly critters. We saw HUGE scorpions, tarantulas, cockroaches, grasshoppers, and millipedes and various other scary looking critters.

There is a HUGE black tarantula to the left of the green plant in the back of the aquarium. Can you see it? Natalie was pretty interested in looking at it.

Eeek! I'm holding a tarantula! Her name is Rosie. She was very sweet, tame and VERY lightweight. Surprisingly enough, this experience wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.

This is a HUGE starfish. Natalie couldn't really see it, or was uninterested in it, but I thought it was cool...so I forced her to "pose" for the photo. :o)

And now for the best part of the museum, here is the butterfly pavilion!

Here's a little video I took in an attempt to show you all the butterflies flying around us. It was amazing!

While Diana and I were in awe with all the beautiful butterflies the girls thought this puddle of water around a drain was more interesting. (Don't worry, I used a LOT of "wet ones" to disinfect hands throughout the afternoon.)

Just around the corner from the puddle sat the cutest turtle! The girls were very interested in checking out this strange looking animal.

As we left the butterfly sanctuary there were several display cases of various kinds of butterflies. I thought it was so awesome that Natalie and Maggie were so interested in looking at them.

At the end of all the exhibits, there is a fun room with gigantic moving bugs and play area for the kids to run around. I think this was Natalie's favorite part. She ran wild from one thing to another. I took a billion pictures here, but will only force you to view a few. :o)

Diana also took a bunch of photos with her camera. Click HERE to view her post of the field trip.