Saturday, May 30, 2009

Hanging in there

Well, Natalie has her first cold/infection. :( Poor little booger. She ran a fever for the first time on Friday, so I took her in to see the Doc. She is on some antibiotics and doing pretty good. Hopefully she'll be better in a couple of days. I guess 6 1/2 months is a pretty good run. Meanwhile I'm "sick" again, too. I am fine, I just can't stop coughing. Got me some Hall's and Tylenol Cough though, so that should help. We've had a productive Saturday - the house is clean and the yard got mowed. I'm happy. I know, it doesn't take much. :)
Natalie is sitting up so well by herself and is just so darn cute. I love this series of pictures:




Last weekend I got a wild domestic hair and decided to try out this super cute (albeit extremely labor intensive) desert - cupcake bites. After two days of working on them they did turn out pretty good:


I saw this on bakerella's blogspot. She's an amateur baker, but extremely talented. Her blog is lots of fun to browse.
Here are some fun pictures of Natalie from this past week. Here she is after a long hard play in her little jumperoo:

You'll notice she is still clinging to one of the toys. :)
Here's another one of our favorites. Just chillin' and smilin'.

Bath time is always fun. She does LOVE her bath, and who can resist a baby immediately post bath?

Finally, I leave a picture for Auntie Jo. Love Angel Baby. We can't wait to see everyone in just a few weeks!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Happy Memorial Day

Thank you for those that are and have served our country!

Last week we bought furniture for our living room. This is the first time in our marriage that we have bought furniture! We have been fortunite enough to beg, barter and, well...not yet steal. Her is our beautiful model to show off our new furniture:


















We also got back Natalie's 6th month pictures. There is a lady from our congregation that is starting a photography business, so we tried her out.








Natalie would like to say a few words:
kn . ,, , v n gb hbjhmbhll/o/k.;kp.bnmmnn m mn

Saturday, May 16, 2009

What a productive day!

I caught Miss Natalie Shea all smiles today. We sure had a big day! 6 month pictures in the morning, followed by shopping at Michaels, Dillards where mommy got a new dress for summer church and weddings, and American Eagle where daddy got some new flip flops that were long past due. We are so pathetic. We figured it had been over a year since we've set foot in a mall. It was successful, though - one dress and one pair of shoes check! Natalie was doing so well we decide to press our luck and peruse a local furniture shop. Nick and I have looked several places, but never found anything we really liked.
Well, I really hadn't planned on purchasing furniture today,but......WE DID! It always makes me nervous to spend that much money at one time, but I am really excited. It gets delivered next Saturday, so that means we have exactly one week to find a home for our old stuff. We made our first listing on Craig's List, so hopefully we get a successful inquiry. Otherwise, I have no idea what we'll do with. I'm sure we'll figure out something. So, we'll give you an update on our furniture when we get it. We ended up getting a sofa, "over sized chair" (more like a love seat), ottoman, 2 end tables, and a T.V. table. The only thing we have left to get is a rug, and we'll be set.
So that is the exciting news on our end! We asked Natalie what she thought about it, and this was her response. I think she's as excited as mommy and daddy:




Her newest thing is making tooting noises with her tongue. It's so cute! Her hair is really fuzzy right now and getting pretty long. I use her little baby brush after her bath now. It still sticks up most of the time, though. :)

I think her shirt says it all. :)

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Six Months Old

It's hard to believe that Natalie Shea is six months old already. What a joy she has been and continues to be. On this my very first mother's day, I feel blessed indeed. It's still weird to think of myself as a mom. When I hear the word mom, I think of my mom.
Well, I finally kicked what ever it was that had me. It's hard to fight infections when you really can't take anything but Advil, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Also, my work "drama" is FINALLY come to an end, and for that I am thankful. It was quite a learning experience, I tell ya. This coming week will be a fun one. It's "Associate Appreciation" week, and there are always fun things planned throughout the week. Wednesday is "Spirit to Serve", and I'll be volunteering at our city's nursery. I always like to get out of the office literally, so this is right up my alley. Friday is "department day", so I am going to have to think of something fun to do with my team - they sure deserve it.
The dinner auction went pretty well. You can definitely tell we are in a low economic time, though. I was excited that our basket went for $275! Gee, now that puts a lot of pressure on us to put on a good dinner party! :)
On to Natalie updates. We finally got some teeth shots. Look closely to spot them for yourself. She is sitting up better and better all the time, but still not quite solo. She is still apt to topple over sometimes. We really need to get a rug for the living room, and I really WANT some new furniture. Maybe before too long. I've been waiting patiently for 6 1/2 years.
She isn't crawling, but she does move. She scoots and shimmys and can do a complete 360. She also doesn't mind being on her belly as much any more.
On her menu at 6mos is "the leche", sweet potatoes, avocado, and banana. Starting this week she will begin getting some brown rice porridge. I already have it ground and it is ready to boil. Hopefully she'll do well with that also.
We hope to get some 6 mo pictures taken soon, but in the meantime, here are some that we took ourselves this weekend. Like any good parents, we took LOTS of pictures.









Natalie's Aunt La La and cousins Loren and Krystle got her some toys for a shower gift. We were finally able to break out the wagon with the blocks, and she had some fun with it this weekend.



And here's that toothy grin! :)

Finally, I feel inclined to talk about my baking skills. I'm beginning to think that I'm not such a bad baker after all. It appears that perhaps cookies are my Achilles Heel, but other baked goods are ok. My old boss turned 50 on Friday, so my gift to him (like everyone else at work) was to bake him the cake of his choice. I admit this has been pretty risky since most everything I've made has been my first go at it. Well, this past week I made my very first carrot cake. All from scratch, of course. Let me tell you. I guess I've never really had carrot cake before, so I can't say for sure how one is supposed to taste. All I know is that this was one of the best things I've ever made - ever. It was AWESOME. So, I had to take pictures of the masterpiece. Here it is: carrot cake with cream cheese icing. YUM!



Here's wishing everyone a great week!

Monday, May 04, 2009

My little Girl

Well (it's Nick again), it has been a crazy couple of weeks. Candace has been sick and dealing with work drama. I just had our Youth Room dedication and Youth Mission trip fundraiser. Candace is now starting to feel better and my events went well...so I thought I would share some more photos with you all.