First Birthday

September 20th was a big day in our house.  Natalie turned one!!  It was a weekday, so we celebrated after work, just the four of us.  We had dinner together and then we let Natalie open her presents from us.  This was the first time Natalie had encountered presents (other than when she was 3 months old at Christmas).  This was also the first time Nathan had encountered a pile of presents that weren't for him!

Nathan eying the birthday girl's bounty.

Recently Nathan has really gotten into talking on the phone. His little voice is so cute, and it's hilarious how accurately he mimics the body language that Todd and I use when we are on the phone!  Here he is telling Grandma Nancy a story.

Natalie couldn't believe that she was allowed to touch this intriguing pile of goodies!

12 Months Old!!

Better late than never, right?  Even though I'm posting this when Nat is 13 months old, I did actually take these photographs on time!  She is such a fun and funny little thing! She's still fairly reserved around people she doesn't know, but at home and school she is assertive, adventurous and loves to imitate lots of words! She consistently says Dada, meow, Isaac (one of her little buddies from school), has a word for apple (ah-puh), and understands a ton of what we say to her.  As you saw in a previous post, about a week after turning one, Natalie started walking.  She also is getting into climbing--Todd found her on the couch, she's gotten onto the low windowsill in the playroom, and she can crawl up stairs!  Ahh!  We have officially reached that stage where we can't really take our eyes off of her.

She got a clean bill of health at her 12 month check up.  Here are her stats:

Height: 26.75" (36th percentile)

Weight: 20lb, 8oz (60th percentile)

Head circumference: I can't remember the measurement, but it was in the 80th percentile! Definitely my offspring. ;)

Natalie's Tree, Year One

Just in time for her first birthday, we purchased and planted Natalie's tree!  Since Todd got to pick out Nathan's tree, I got to pick my favorite one for Beanie.  I chose a Redbud tree for her.  It's vibrant pink flowers in the early spring always fill my heart with joy.  Here is my sweet girl meeting her tree for the first time:

Knight Rider

Right now I am in the midst of travel season for work, which means that I am traveling more than I am at home for about 6 weeks. Ugh. I actually like having a job where I travel, but if it were up to me, it would be more evenly distributed throughout the year rather than heavily concentrated throughout the year.

Todd is my hero during travel season, holding things together at home and doing solo parenting duty like a champ.  One of the ways he made it more fun was to introduce Nathan to one of his all-time favorite shows:

This is what Nathan thinks of the show:

A talking Trans Am? Mindblowing. He's officially in love. :)

Walking!

Ok, I have a bunch of posts in my draft folder, including birthday party details and Natalie's 12 month update, but I just had to share how cute our little walker is!  She started taking a few steps at a time about a week after her first birthday, and gets more confident by the minute. Now Natalie is about 60/40 with crawling and walking, but I know she'll be running before we know it!

I had to capture her cute little early walking style, and her big grin!

First Train Ride

Several weeks ago, we took the kids on their first train ride!  Dad arranged for us to go on the historic Coopersville-Marne train, an hour nada half round trip journey on a train built in 1919.  It was a gorgeous day, and all of us but Natalie had a ton of fun.  Apparently when you're almost one and feeling squirmy, a cozy train car is not the ideal place to be.  Thank goodness for Grandpa John, who spent a good chunk of the trip walking around with Beanie.

Playtime

Natalie watches everything that Nathan does, so naturally she has made it a priority to learn how to play with cars--I love that she even mimics the engine noises that Nathan makes.




I got myself a new toy to use on travel season this year--an iPad!  It's the cheapest one out there, but it's still pretty sweet.  There is a certain preschooler who has decided that it's a pretty fun tool for him as well.  Nathan of course was almost instantly comfortable with the technology and loves to play games and look for more in the app store, tapping and swiping away like a pro.  Crazy!