Natalie is 8 months old

Our little girl is 8 months old today! She's becoming such a big girl! She's clapping all the time.

She still loves playing with her rings, blocks and balls -- they're definitely her favorite toys right now. She's lunging forward a lot more and does end up on all fours occasionally but then just falls on her belly. She pushes up on her arms and then goes backwards when she tries to go forward. :) Must be so frustrating!

Natalie looked so peaceful when I went to get her up from her nap (it was getting close too close to bedtime so I woke her up). I tried to snap a photo of her sleeping but my glasses hit the camera and she opened her eyes right as I was taking it. But she still looks so adorable!

Giggles and Claps

Natalie has started clapping.  It's the cutest thing.  We always clap and say "yay".  Now she's clapping and saying "ey".  :)

We love hearing her laugh too.  Something I try to get her to do daily:

YAY!! President Obama (and snow day)!

What a great day! President Obama took the oath of office! We tivoed the inauguration so that we could watch it when Emile got home from work. We thought it would be nice to have a photo of Natalie with Obama on this historic day. She's checking out her new President below:

Today it also snowed a lot for here in North Carolina! I think we got 6" or more. It was beautiful but North Carolinians are not equipped to function in the snow so most businesses were closed (except for GSK) and because they don't have snow plows, driving was not the easiest. Kinsey didn't end up coming in today. We did take Natalie out to see her first big snow fall. She was less than impressed :)


A favorite pastime of Natalie's is to tug on Emile's hoodie strings. Endless hours of fun for her.

Natalie is also making a lot of progress towards crawling. She's started lunging forward from a sitting position and when she's on her tummy, she'll push herself backwards.

Rhyme Time and Pro-Pics

We had 6 month photos of Natalie taken by Lisa at Real Life Images Photography (www.rliphotography.com) back in December. We got our proofs this week. They turned out great! Natalie looks so adorable. Here are a few of my favorites.

Here's a link to all of them: http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=32d95943b7&view=att&th=1220da3dd0c4f1e7&attid=0.1&disp=inline&zw

Natalie also went on her first outing with our nanny, Kinsey. They went to the library's Rhyme Time where the class instructor sings songs and such for the babies and toddlers (I think the age group is 6 mo. to 18 mo.). At the end, the teacher blows bubbles around the room. Kinsey took a few photos. It looked like Natalie was very curious and enjoyed the outing.

Swim Time

Natalie and I started a swim class on Saturday. Given how much she loves the bath, we thought she'd really enjoy being in the pool. We were right. She had a blast. She didn't splash as much as she does in the bath (probably because it was new to her) but she seemed very happy with being in the pool -- and she fell right asleep in the car on the way home. Two women I met on a NC baby chat line are also in the class with us with their two little ones (Nate and Liam, who shares a birthday with Natalie). Ignore how funny I look with half wet/half dry hair.

Last week, we also introduced Natalie to Teddy Puffs. She enjoys trying to pick them up and put them in ther mouth. We've recently switched her over to organic cheerios which are a little smaller and I think easier for her to handle in her mouth. She's still working on trying to get the smaller cheerios into her mouth efficiently!

Natalie and Papa catching the last Viking game for the year.

Natalie's cute little two-teeth grin. The top two are coming in so her grin's going to change again soon.