Saturday, February 13, 2010

Full Plate

Lately, that's what my life can be summed up as - a full plate. You have probably noticed the lack of blogging. Well, let me just tell you what has been happening. 1) I signed on to read the entire Bible from cover to cover in 90 days. It's intense, and takes lots of sacrifice and dedication. I'm hanging in there, and it has not been what I thought it would be, but I think it is a great experience. You can really see how it's one long story and all the parts connect. Some things are making more sense now. This has meant, however, limited TV and computer time. Thus, the lack of blogging. 2) My new job has been stress city. I've got personnel issues out the wazoo. The people really are great people, it's just a long history of dysfunction that has created a bad culture that is going to be a challenge to change. I'm just going to leave it at that since this is the Internet and all. :) 3) The housing market down here in Florida is especially wild right now. It's definitely an awesome time to buy if you can. This got Nick and I thinking that maybe this would be a good time to "upgrade" and get a lot of bang for our buck. So about 3 or so months ago we started looking to see if anything struck our fancy. In January, we found something seemingly too good to be true. It's a short sell, so it will take a few months for the holding bank to approve our offer and such, but that gives us time to see our home. Everything is contingent on the sale of our current home, so keep your fingers crossed for us! We'll see what happens. While this is exciting, it also means we have to keep our house cleaner and neater than usual. If someone wants to see our house, we'll only have 24 hours notice. It's much more challenging with a 15 month old who we lovingly refer to as "the teeny tornado". :) Speaking of the teeny tornado, Natalie Shea turned 15 months old this week! I can hardly believe it. She has been her usual sweet and fun self, and, as our sitter says, has the appetite of a linebacker. :)
She loves "reading" her books and playing with baby and stroller.
Her vocabulary is still limited. Everything is babab baba unless she is hungry and wants food, and then it's mamamma mama ma mamamam. She did decide to say turtle last week which is SO cute - "ta ta".
She is very loving and gives lots of hugs a kisses.
She remains a wonderful sleeper, for which Nick and I are very thankful. We lay her down at night, and rarely hear a peep out of her until morning.
She likes to be chased around the house, but hasn't figured out how to chase back yet. It's pretty funny.
Her hair is getting really long, but she is not a fan of having things in her hair. Sometimes she will leave in her little clips.
She cut her final two teeth, so now they are ALL in!
Her diet is slowly expanding. She now will eat some meat, and sometimes some scrambled eggs. She loves pasta with meat sauce and bean, cheese, and spinach burritos. Above all she still loves her fruit. She's a great vegetable eater as well. Squash and carrots rank at the top of her list, but she also likes green beans and broccoli. She really isn't much of a picky eater, and has even surprised us with a couple of things she ate and liked - turkey peperoni and black olives most recently.
We enjoyed a quick visit from Nick's Aunt Lynne and Uncle Dale last week, and are looking forward to visits from both sets of grandparents next month over their spring breaks. This Monday come hell or high water, I'm finally going to get our New Years cards in the mail. That's me - a day late and a dollar short, embarrassed as usual. Hope you all can forgive me! I should have ordered Valentine's cards.... So, as you can see, we've been keeping VERY busy lately. Here are some pictures and a video for your enjoyment. In the video, that is her roaring like a lion. :)







Natalie has enjoyed her Valentine's Day cards!