VISIT to OMAHA!

Hey Gang!

Well, we finally got a chance on July 22-24 (my days off) to fly Erica, me and the Natty-bug up to Omaha to meet her new cousins, William and Mallory Loftus (http://mrloftusfamily.blogspot.com/). We'd been meaning to make the trip to visit my cousin Renee and her husband Mike ever since the twins were born, but I guess four months late is a little better than....well....Okay-at least we made it :) !

We let the little muchkins hang out together on Wednesday night (with a sitter of course!) while the "big people" went out and got caught up on what's going on in Omaha and Dallas.




Then, On Thursday morning, we took the kids out to the Henry Doorly Zoo. It was awesome! The Aquarium is really amazing. So is the new Desert and Kingdom of the Night exhibit. The babies were wide-eyed and having lots of fun.
Nat's sportin' the faux-hawk!

Mallory and William entranced
Nat's trying to find Nemo WOW - what a difference 7 months makes! Nat (11 months) looks like a big tan Godzilla baby next to Bill and Mal (4 months)! Don't worry though, she didn't eat them.


After the Zoo, we just spent some great time hanging out at home and enjoying a visit from Aunt Maggie. We had a huge dinner and ate the best fresh sweet corn ever!
Nat loved Aunt Maggie!

Newbie Parent support group?

We had a blast while we were there and it went by way too fast. We hope to make a return voyage very soon, but until then Natty-bug says "Bye-Bye!"

Yum......CUPCAKES!!!!

This week, Natalie had her first cupcake (for Leiland's birthday party). Thanks to Amy who caught it all on camera, we're able to show you how much she enjoyed it.

Stage 1 - not sure what this stuff on my fingers is all about

Stage 2 - Ok, I'm going to try it but I'm not sure about this

Stage 3 - ok, I've got it in my mouth - hmmm not too bad

Stage 4 - ok, i think i like this frosting stuff

Stage 5 - this cupcake thing ROCKS!!!

Hairy YETI

This posting is for Matt - thanks for teaching me how to Google images tonight!!

Natalie's 1st steps

YEAH!!! Natalie took her first steps last week at 10.5 months. She's been cruising really well for a month or two and she loves walking if we hold her hands. She hadn't tried to stand up yet or take a step out but we could tell she was on the verge so we sat down on the flow and played the ole "walk to mom, walk to dad" game. It worked!!!!

Here's video from last week.

Swim Class

Natalie and I have been going to Parent and Tot swim class at the Carrollton city pool. We had class every day last week and this coming week. On Thursday, Matt was able to join us and got some pics.

Everywhere we go, Nat seems to be the youngest kid in the group and swimming is no different. She's 10.5 months now and the next kid is 18 months (most are right at 2yrs). They are teaching them to blow bubbles in the water (Natalie just drinks the water - gross!!!), kick on their stomach and on their backs, hang off the side of the pool and do group sing-alongs in the water (ex. old mcdonald has a bunny that "jumps in the water").
here we are blowing bubbles and the next pics are me dunking her.
She's not a huge fan of kicking on her back.

July 4th

This was Natalie's first 4th of July celebration AND Matt has the weekend off so we had a lot of family fun yesterday. It started with family hugs & cuddles around 7am (when natalie woke up), we had pancakes for breakfast (she and Matt love them!) and then we went over to play at the mall. After the mall, we came home and took naps - yeah!! We went swimming in the afternoon (Natalie and I start baby swim lessons on Monday) and finished the day off with hanging out with friends and watching fireworks. This was Natalie's first time to see fireworks and she loved them (it was 1.5 hr past her bedtime - she was soooooooooo tired but she did great!). Unfortunately it was too dark to take video of her watching the fireworks, but she was clapping her hands and jumping and she kept saying "boom". It was too cute!

This was the beginning of the night and she was already tired - look at that sweet face!

We watched the fireworks in the Costco parking lot. Matt's truck bed made a great play area for the girls.

Natalie really liked riding around in the car.

All of the fireworks wore Natelie out!!! sleepy baby

The Mall is FUN!

New York City

I had to go to New York for a couple of days last week for work. JcPenney's is opening up our first store in Manhattan and I have been very involved in the design of the store. It was my first time away from Natalie and while I missed her and matt, it was also alot of fun to be in NYC with my favorite coworkers and just be tourists. Here's a couple pics of us on a "walking tour" one night after work (one of the guys who used to live in NYC took us on a walkabout the city and the 30 minute walk turned into a 2 hour walk!) Most of the pictures are at Times Square and Rockfeller Plaza.

Messy Nat

I let natalie feed herself the corn and rice side dish and she just got crazy with it. It tastes like fran's yummy corn casserole and matt is so proud (because this is his favorite dish).