Giving the audience what they want...,

....more pictures of Natalie! :) Over my birthday weekend, Nick had a confirmation retreat, so we went over to Tampa and saw Aunt Elaine "LaLa", Uncle Dick, Logan, and Loren.




Bella is my sweet little shadow, and is very good around Natalie. Here are the girls hanging out while I was getting ready for church.




She is definitely a girl of many expressions!





She certainly doesn't lack in the fashion department, and this has got to be one of my very favorites.





Finally, the Slingling is AWESOME. I have used it quite a bit when Nick is not around and Natalie needs to be close. Here I am getting my lunch around for the next day when Nick came home.


She is growing like a weed. It really IS amazing how fast they grow. She is still working on giggling. She gives us little ones here and there along with the greatest gummy smile ever. :)

Thanks to all the moms for their great advice! Natalie has been going down to bed pretty easily most every night and wakes up between every 3 to 3 1/2 hours and 6 hours on a great night, so we are doing pretty good I think.

Sigh....

Well, Natalie's days of sleeping through the night seem to have passed for the time being. For the past 4 or 5 nights, she has started waking up to eat. It's about every 3 to 3 1/2 hours which equates to about twice a night. I sure got spoiled, because I am TIRED now. I'm getting mixed signals as to whether or not this is acceptable 3 1/2 mo old behavior. Some things say that you "shouldn't start bad habits", while others say it's normal for babies that slept through the night early to start waking up around 3 months once they become familiar with their surroundings. I've read/heard you can't start "sleep training" until about 5 months. At first, I thought she was going through a growth spurt, but now I'm not sure. I don't want her to go hungry, but I don't want her to form bad habits either.
What do all you moms think?

3 Months Old Already!

This weekend we went and had Natalie's pictures made, and took our first official "family" shot. One of my co-worker's has a daughter who works at Sear's Photo in town, and she was able to cut us a little bit of a deal. Pictures are so expensive, but I know that it is one thing I will never regret spending the money on. Erica took some great pictures, don't you think? :)





























































There are so many good one's it was hard to choose what hard copy prints we wanted! So we just got a viriaty. :)

She seems to be growing by the minute. This past week her appitite has really increased. I guess she is going through a little growth spurt. The down side to this is that it has been messing with her schedule. Instead of waking up at 6:30ish, she has woken up at 5ish to chow down. You can see from a couple of the pictures how well she is holding her head up! She is a mover. She scoots and wiggles when you hold her and scoots and wiggles when you lay her down and in her crib at night. and she LOVES to kick and kick and kick. I'm sure she'll be crawling before we know it!
The only other news to report is that we said good bye to the sleepy sack on her 3 month birtday. She has been doing pretty good without it. It was AWESOME, and we will definitely be using it again when baby #2 comes along..., but that won't be for a while! I think it really helped her sleep and stay asleep at night - one of the best inventions ever in my opinion. Natalie also doesn't have much interest in her pacifier any more. If it doesn't have anything coming out of it, she doesn't want to have any of it! She is so funny. The only exception to the rule is that she will usually take it for about 30 seconds at a time when we are trying to put her down for the night.
For those of you wonder what a couple who has a new baby does on Valentine's Day, here's a little synopsis:
Wake up at 5, feed Natalie.
Go back to sleep until 9:30 (yea for Saturday!)
9:35 Make Coffee! and feed Natalie
10:00 Start on the eventually 5 loads of laundry that have piled up over the week.
12:00 - Eat mixed berry pancakes (homemade) and sausage at the request of my hubby
12:30 - 4 - Play with Natalie, feed her, do more laundry, clean out old clothes from the closet
4 - Grab a quick shower
4:15 - feed Natalie while Nick cleans up
4:45 - go for a beautiful 2.5 mile walk in one of Lakeland's parks where we saw a bald eagle! Very cool and very beautiful.
6- 7 - head to Lowes and Sams, feed Natalie
The rest of the evening was spent doing our little "tradition" of grilled steaks, bruchetta, and salad with a glass of wine of course, feeding Natalie and putting her down.
We watched half of a movie before Natalie woke up and wanted to eat again. By the time I fed her for the final time, we were both so tired we just went to bed. Maybe we can finish that movie tonight.... :)
It was a different sort of Valentine's Day, but wonderful none the less. There was much love, and much to be thankful for this year. God has truly blessed us.

I hope you felt love this weekend and always. Have a wonderful week!

The Homeland

Ah Texas. My homeland. Even if I never live another day as a Texas resident, I will ALWAYS be a Texan. If you've never lived there you think I'm crazy, but if you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It was so wonderful to be able to spend cherished time with my family. I am so thankful for all the time -10 whole days! Here (finally) are some pictures of the trip:

Aunt Courtney and Natalie


Papa and Natalie taking a snoozer


Natalie with Great PawPaw


Natalie with Great Gran


My cute little butterfly outfit:





Natalie and Mommy


The Twins - JoJo and JeJe


JeJe and a sweet sleeping Natalie Shea


My mommy, daddy, and baby girl


The Ladies


Me and my sweet baby



Sisters!

Running a Marathon

Ever feel like you are running a marathon? Every day this week has seemed like a blurr. I get to the end of the day and think to myself, "Whoa. What just happened?!" This is my first week back to work full time and Natalie's first week with Edi - our fabulous sitter. She spent her first day adjusting to a new environment and getting to know Edi. By yesterday they were good friends. She is such an easy baby and a joy to be around.
She continues to sleep like a champ. Last night was her longest sleep ever! Despite my attempts to feed her before I left for work this morning, she continued to sleep like a log. Nick called and said he finally woke her up at 10 because he needed to get to work! 13 hours! Man. She is her father's daughter. He'd sleep that long if I let him. She is also holding her head up more and more and better and better every day. Her smiles are more frequent and in response to our smiles vs. smiling randomly. I can wait to hear that first giggle! :) Natalie still fits into most of her 3 month clothes, but she is a long one and some of her sleepers are getting a little short.
A couple months ago when we got our new TV we decided to let ourselves get sub-basic cable (about 20 channels - the main networks and PBS and such). We have never had cable of any kind before - just what we could pick up on the bunny ears. Along with that we also went nuts and got Internet service at our house - also something we never had previously. We decided that we could swing $30 a month for BOTH (I know great deal, huh?). Anyway, when they hooked us up, we of course got "free" channels for 2 months. That's how they try and hook you. It was really nice to have while I was on maternity leave. Well, the "free" ended on Tuesday. I must admit that I already miss Food Network and TLC, but I will learn to cope. :) What am I saying? I don't have time for TV anyway!
At work, my team is in their busiest season of the year and we are swamped! It seems there aren't enough hours in the day, but all we can do is all we can do. It's like this every year and comes as no surprise to anyone.
We finally got some Baptism pictures from my sister. We of course didn't have our camera and thus didn't have ANY pictures of the big day. Thanks to Courtney, we now have some. Hopefully, we can get a few posted before long. Better late than never I suppose....
It is COLD here. Now, before you start on us about living in Florida, it really has been cold the past few days. The highs haven't been out of the low 50's and this morning when I was driving to work it was 28! I actually pulled out my winter coat for the first time this winter. I know. Poor baby, right? Reminds me why I like Florida so much.
Update on Bella (our black cat). I don't remember if I mentioned this in an earlier post, but we thought we had lost her the middle of January, right before I left for Texas. Well, God heard my cries, and Bella did return a day and a half later - with a limp. Poor thing dragged herself home. We took her to the vet and were told that she had really messed up her knee - torn and/or injured the ligaments in her knee. We have been giving her meds to help her heal and she is doing much better. I tell you what. I am so thankful to have her back, though. She is my little lover kitty. She just follows me around the house waiting to be pet and curls up right beside Natalie and I when we are sitting on the couch.
All the while this is going on we are having a big crisis with our insurance company. Chalk it up to stupid first time parents - we didn't know we had to "formally" call and inform them to add Natalie. Well, we got our first bill and it said no insurance coverage. We called and they proceeded to inform us that we had not called and informed them within 30 days of her birth, therefore she would not be able to be enrolled until November 2009! Many tears, calls, appeals, and prayers later, we finally got her added. What a mess. Insurance companies are tricky tricky and it's always about money. The slogans that say they "care" about their customers are all a big pile of poo. Anywho, we praise God for the great outcome. We have learned our lesson for sure. Nick said he was going to call them every time his butt itched. That makes me laugh every time I think about it! :)
That should catch you up on the madness that is the Moss household. Hope your life is a little less hectic, but just as wonderful. :)

3 months old and 4 states

Hi all (it's Nick)
Well, it has been fun at the Moss house these past few weeks. Natalie is growing and changing everyday.

While Candace and Natalie were in Texas, I got a lot of stuff done at church but not so much at home. 5 Days after they got back to Lakeland, we got on a plane for St. Louis to visit our friends in Illinois. We spent 2 days in Spfd. with Jake and Tara and then went down to Hoyelton to stay with the Theilen's. Josh and Rebekah asked us to be Godparents to Judah Nicklaus Theilen. Yep, that's right, Judah's middle name is named after me. So I affectionately call him " J. Nicklaus." I think it will stick!

It was a great time to visit with such great friends. Candace and I are blessed to have so many great friends. Friends that we can count on to be there for us when things are going good or bad.
Here are a few pictures from the weekend. May God bless your week!

Candace and Natalie inside from the cold.

Natalie meet Mady


Baptism of Judah


What a crew!


Sunset from the Theilen's backyard


Natalie meet Judah