6 Months Old

Natalie is 6 months old today!  

Her latest trick is flinging her toys.  Of course (like a monkey), I pick them all up and give them back to her....about a hundred times.  What a fun game (for her)! 

She's eating some solid foods now.  Still just rice cereal, but she likes it!  She reaches out with her mouth open and then uses her hand to push it in as fast as she can.  This is surprising because I tried it and it tastes like a bland paste.  Yummy!  

The other day I was rocking her and humming to her, desperately trying to get her to take a nap.  She promptly reached up and plugged my nose.  She's no dummy.  "Stop making that awful noise, Mom!".  She's also tried to cover my mouth when I sing.  How rude.

I finally decided to quit my job to stay home with her for a while.  I am so happy and so fortunate!

We're excited for Christmas this week.  I'm sure we'll take a zillion pictures so I'll post again soon.

Here are a few videos we took recently...

Santa!

We took Natalie to see Santa last week.  We weren't sure what she'd think of him, but she was all smiles...

Arctic Blast

Well, they weren't lying...the Arctic Blast has arrived.  It snowed all day yesterday and its COLD.  This morning it was 19 degrees!  

Here's our house yesterday afternoon.  The snow was so pretty!

Our backyard.  You can see the accumulation on the fence tops and the bird feeder.

The thermometer this morning...

I think our Christmas lights look especially pretty on a snowy night.

Don't Do It

I had to blog again tonight to share something funny.  We love Natalie's little voice and all the funny noises she makes.  The 3 of us were sitting together tonight and clear as day she says "Don't Do It".  We both looked at each other with surprise and laughed.  Dang, our kid is smart! 

So, we're here buckling down for the "Arctic Blast" that is supposedly coming our way.  The local news is always so dramatic.  I hope all of you in the Portland area have stocked up your food supplies and have your snow shovels and tire chains ready.  Apparently, we're in for a whopping "dusting to 3 inches" of snow tonight.  We'll see about that....

Our Tree - Part II

Here's the beautiful tree that Justin brought home...

Natalie is checking out the ornament that Dad bought for her 1st Christmas

Our Tree - Part I

We went to cut down our Christmas tree last weekend.  If it were up to my husband (and everyone else it seems), we'd have a plastic tree, but I'm not ready to give up that tradition yet.  So we went out to a little farm that Suzy found and bundled up our little kiddo for the search...

This is me putting on her fleece suit.  Check out the shirt she's wearing.  I love it!

See, we really were on a farm.  It was actually a beautiful sunny morning.

Suzy and Sam found their tree right away.  I didn't get the focus quite right, but I still think its a cool picture.

Check out Mimi's sweatshirt, classic Peanuts Christmas!

I love this picture...

This is on our way back to the car.  Unfortunately, we didn't find our tree here. 

Natalie decided she didn't want to go to another place, so we went home and Justin got the tree without us.  Stay tuned for Part II where I'll post a picture of the final result....

Thanksgiving 2008

We had Thanksgiving at our house again this year and it turned out to be a great day! Somehow I got out of cooking entirely...yet another thing to be thankful for!  :)  Here are some pictures from the day...

Justin, Riley, and Jenni

Jenni, Justin, and Suzy

Rachel making her famous rolls.  I've decided they're my favorite part of our meal.

Sam carving the turkey

Riley has the biggest blue eyes

Justin and our parents at table #2

Natalie and Justin

Peyton's sweet face

Suzy and Natalie