The Haircut!

Uncle Luke came to visit. We noticed that Steven's hair was getting a lot like Uncle Luke's hair. Daddy said, "No way! We need a haircut!"

Haircuts are a tearful moment in our household... Until now! We learned the tricks we needed to make them much more fun. Give Steven a sucker and play with the clippers until they are not as scary.

After the haircut, Steven jumps in the bath. Then he makes a break for it while wearing his towel.

Before:

After:

Smiles

We got Natalie's first smiles when she was three weeks old!! I thought smiles were going to come early from the time she was born, because she was smiling in her sleep even then. However, I couldn't get the pictures until now!

Natalie's First Tub Bath

I am alone handling the kids bed time tonight since Nate has summer league basketball. Steven and Natalie were in desperate needs for a bath, so I thought to kill two birds with one stone and put both of the kids in the tub together. Steven was game, but Natalie freaked out! Natalie was in my arm the whole time, but, nonetheless, she was screaming (which is not very common for her). Steven was fantastic. He got down in Natalie's face and gave her a big kiss. When Natalie saw him, she immediately calmed down. It was wonderful!

I quickly got Natalie washed up and wrapped in her big baby towel. While Steven played in the tub, I sat in the bathroom and nursed Natalie to help calm her down. She was still wrapped in her towel. Steven asked where Natalie went ("Na-ee go?") since he couldn't see her. I said, "Right here!" He thought that was a fun game and we played it about 15 more times!

Everyday Steven astounds me with his love for his sister. I see moments of jealousy, but it's never directed towards Natalie; it's always directed towards me. That makes me so happy. (Not that he's jealous, or even that he's directed the jealousy towards me, but that he is not directing it towards his sister.)

When She's Fussy...

You should try several things. Watch while Steven demonstrates...

The first thing is to try a bottle. Steven just happened to find one downstairs! (Now, keep in mind that Natalie has only had this one bottle just a few moments earlier. She's not exactly bottle proficient.)

If that doesn't work, try the bink. That always works for Steven, so logically, he assumes it should work for Natalie, too!

Smart kid!

Cute Kiddos

I didn't know what else to title this post except the obvious, because I plan to put a lot of pictures of my cute kiddos on here!

I don't know if I showed how Natalie spent her first aquarium visit in the aquarium post, so here it is now:

We missed Steven's usual nap time because of our aquarium trip, so at four o'clock, he couldn't stay awake any longer

Just a cute picture of a girl and her daddy

Extreme Natalie closeup

One of my favorite things to do with Steven was to watch him as he watched his mobile. Natalie has Steven's mobile (because at $45 dollars a pop, she can certainly share!); she is just as enthralled as Steven was. Already she can track one ball in a complete circle!!!

Me and the girls went to tea at the Brown Palace. We had SO much fun!

(from left to right, Jill, Cece, Kim, me, and Natalie)

One Month Old

Today Natalie is one month old! I'm going to post a picture of Natalie in the same chair every month so we can see her grow! (Thanks for the idea Allison!) I've also scheduled this to post at 10:03 am, when Natalie was born!

Two and Under are Free

Which means I have just two weeks to enjoy the fact that my son can get into the rather pricey aquarium for free!

The aquarium is SO much fun and we saw a whole bunch of fun animals.

This wild cat is training to do shows during the summer months. The shows don't start until next week, so they do random practice runs with her for now. This means that we were very lucky to get to see her!

Steven wanted to point everything out to me! I could barely get a picture of him because he would run to one exhibit to another

Recognize this fella? If not, check out the first time we went to the aquarium.

Silhouette

A few cool animals:

Tiger

Macaw

Shark

Posts, Posts, and More Posts

This is just a warning... Be sure to read down a LOT farther, since I'm doing the massive post-a-thon. I wanted to organize each section by keeping it in its own post, so don't miss anything... Click on Older Posts when you reach the bottom of the page or you will miss stuff!
(I've added eight (!) new posts, not counting this one).

On a side note, I've just discovered how to do "labels." At the bottom of posts, there will be a link to other posts of the same topic. I've always wanted to do this on my blog, but just figured it out today! So, check it out. I've only just started organizing my posts and only have four active labels right now, but keep checking back. It may take me a long time to get it all organized because I currently have 405 posts to search back through!

Night-Night

In the middle of the morning! Steven told Thomas, "Night-night," but I heard nothing more from him. Upon investigating, I saw Steven had fallen asleep in his chair yet again! He's feeling better today, but clearly not 100%. Along those same lines, I caught a cute sleeping infant as well!

Natalie's Baptism

We had Natalie baptised today. We wanted Trevor to be her god-father, so we scheduled the baptism while he was home! :)

It was so beautiful. I love giving my daughter to my Father!!

After church, we celebrated by having a BBQ at our house... Two BBQ's in one weekend and it's not even Memorial Day weekend, not bad!

The only drawback was that Steven was sick. While he was feeling a little icky at Trevor's BBQ the day before, he was outright sick today! He finally gave up the battle while sitting on his little chair watching Cars.

Trevor's BBQ

To celebrate Trevor's leave and his birthday (July 23, but he won't be home), my mom threw an awesome BBQ! The only draw back... Steven had (has?) croup. He was definitely not on the top of his game.

Christian was awesome with Steven yet again!

Trevor, Natalie, and me

Natalie and Trevor

Nate and Nat (although some of the dialogue is hard to hear because of the background noise, there are two things you should take from this video...

1.) Nate is, as always, teasing Katie about being from Iowa

2.) Nate is having this most amazing conversation with Natalie and she is just hanging on every word!

te

Orioles?

I saw this exquisite bird sitting in my tree! I quickly grabbed my camera and started taking pictures. When I looked up the bird on the Internet, I surmised it was an Oriole. Typically, we don't have this bird here in Colorado, so I'm not officially sure. If anyone knows, let me know!

Picture Time

I just wanted to catch up on some really fun and some really great pictures that I have. I've been taking pictures, I've just been bad about uploading them!! Some of these pictures were "stolen" from my mom's myspace page (one of the easiest ways to keep in contact with Trevor while he is in Afghanistan).

A slightly cuddly Steven (in retrospect, he was getting sick)

Julie and I inspect Natalie an hour after she was born

Yup, that's my purse the boy is carrying!

An Easter picture (okay, technically this was a week before Easter when we celebrated Easter at my aunt's house on Palm Sunday)

On Leave

Trevor is on leave from Afghanistan for a few weeks! We are so happy to have him home for a little while! Trevor, the kids, and I decided to meet my mom downtown for some lunch. It was a really nice afternoon.

Steven and Grammy smell the flowers

Then Steven tells Grammy all about it (whatever "it" may be!)

Getting a good shot of these two was a bit challenging... They were in a perpetual state of motion!

Oh wait, there's the money shot!

Natalie with Uncle Trevor

Aunts and Uncles Visit

Aunt Freda and Uncle Bob came to visit us one beautiful afternoon. We spent the time outside.

Aunt Dar and Uncle John came to visit on another day. They were on vacation when Natalie was born, so they were excited to meet her.

They found a really big pencil for Steven and Angelo. Steven loves it!

Happy Birthday, Christian

We celebrated our cousin's 12th birthday! He has become such an awesome young man! It is so amazing to watch him grow through the years. One of the most amazing things is he is SO good with Steven. Here he is, a twelve year old boy, yet he takes time to play with and hang out with a not-quite two-year old!

Natalie and her Family

Steven, Great-Grandma, and Grammy

Christian lets Steven play with his Trucks

Grammy feeds Steven some watermelon

She also lets Steven lick the icing from a candle. From there, Steven tries to bite into the candle. Yummy!

First Bath

I love the first bath!! I had a suspicion that Natalie wouldn't like the water as much as Steven does. I was wrong. She may not love it as much as Steven does, but I think the love will come. Natalie looks like she's crying in many of the pictures, and she is, but it was because she wasn't being held on to and she felt unstable. When I was touching her, she was fine!

Natalie - 2 Week Stats

Height: 1 ft 9.5 in -- 88 percentile
Weight: 8 lb 14 oz -- 69 percentile
Head Circumference: 14.17" -- 50.94 percentile

Penny's Reaction

When we brought Steven home for the first time, Penny investigated, but then spent the remainder of her time somewhat avoiding Steven. She remained a fixture in the background (always in the same room as us, but never playing with Steven) until just recently. So, how would she react to a brand new baby?Initially, Penny was laying on Natalie's lap. I moved Nat since I was a little worried that Penny might be too heavy.

Sleepiness

One of daddy's favorite things to do with the kiddos? Gather them on his lap and take a nap! Although Steven is awake, he was barely awake, so I think this counts.

Transitions

I was reluctant to make this transition on the heal of the huge "I'm the Big Brother" transition. However, with Nate going back to work tomorrow and I being unable to lift heavy things yet, this transition became necessary...

Steven helps to transition his crib to the toddler bed

Steven's new bed

So far, Steven has handled this remarkably well. During nap today, he stayed in his room (no gate). He played for a bit on the floor. Actually, it was really funny to hear the pitter-patter of his feet on the floor. He did come downstairs to get Gordon the train, but promptly returned upstairs. After about a half hour, he got really quiet. Nate and I checked on him to find a sleeping cherub!

The start of nap

The actual sleeping!

MAY?!?!

Yes, in fact, it's May 1!!