Natalie is 11 months old!

Natalie is 11 months old today! In one month she'll be a toddler -- that is amazing to me! It's almost impossible to get a photo of her in this chair anymore. This is the best I could get without her trying to crawl out of chair.

Here are some cute photos from today with her playing with her books -- her favorite thing to do right now.

We got her a swing for the backyard which Emile put up today. She loves it!

She is becoming such an independent little girl! She only wants to be held for a few seconds and then she pushes away to get back on the floor to crawl around to explore. She wants to hold her books and turn the pages while you read to her which usually means the story is not read in order. She loves to open and close doors and cabinets (those that don't need to be child-proofed) and if you try to help her, she insists on doing it herself. I have a feeling she's going to be a pistol when she's older! :)

A few weeks ago Natalie and I played out in the backyard on a blanket. I got some cute photos of her. I used this one for Natalie's birthday party invitations. I love this photo of her!

First Zoo Trip

We took Natalie to her first zoo visit today at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro. It's about an hour and 45 min from our house (only zoo in NC). Natalie did pretty well on the ride there, and managed to get a nap in both ways (although shorter than usual). It got up into the 90s today (and it's not even May!) so we went early. We arrived at 9:30 and toured the Africa side of the zoo (there is also a North American side). By 11:30, we were all pretty exhausted from walking in the heat. We met up with a few of my friends from the NC baby board for lunch in the picnic area -- it was great seeing everyone! All the little babies are getting so big!

I think Natalie had a great time. She got a chance to see some chimpanzees, gorillas and elephants. I'm sure she'll love it even more in a year or two!

When we got home, Natalie hung out in her new swim pool. It fills up with water and then squirts out the top in little streams around the perimeter and in the middle. She first tried out her new pool yesterday with Kinsey. Here are some shots from then.

Because it was so hot today, Natalie hung out in her cloth diapers for a little while after going in the pool. She's got such a cute fluffy butt in diapers, although about 3 times bigger than her naked butt!

I keep forgetting to mention that Natalie has been eating solely table food now for a month. She does so well with it. I think she probably could have transitioned from purees to table food earlier but I was more nervous for her than she was! She loves Emile's chili and chickpea stew! She's so used to eating food with spice in it that now she won't eat anything plain! Here she is feeding trying to feed herself. Her laugh is wonderful!

Although she first started waving the normal way (palm facing away from her), she's now stated waving backwards (palming facing her) which I think is because she's mimicking us -- it's adorable! She now will start waving hi to people when we go for a walk and in stores even before they say hello. We think she's pretty close to saying "bye-bye".

Natalie loves playing with her Poppper. She pulls the balls from the bottom and tries to put them into the part where the balls come out. It's so neat watching her lean over the top to see if the balls are coming out. This video doesn't capture it the best but it's still fun to see. This was the last time she wore this outfit -- I realized while watching her that it's a bit tight! Opps.

Natalie's First Easter!

We spent Easter in Minnesota visiting Natalie's Oma and Opa. We arrived on Friday and flew out on Monday. Natalie did great on the flights. On the way out, she feel asleep while I nursed her and slept for over an hour on the plane. On the way home, although she didn't fall asleep, she did great and didn't cry or fuss.

I brought Natalie's Easter basket with to Minnesota and Emile's parents got her a basket also. They got her a Easter bunny. We got her a new dress, a purple elephant stuffed animal, three Easter books, a little watering can to help Emile garden over the summer, and some place mats for when we got to restaurants.

Unfortunately, Natalie got sick on Easter so she wasn't as thrilled with everything as she normal is.

The weather was pretty good on Easter so we decided to still try an Easter egg hunt with Natalie (of course, it amounted to us showing her where the eggs were). She did like playing with them and putting them in her basket.

Natalie spent a lot of time playing with Papa and Oma.
On Saturday, we took Natalie to the Richardson Wildlife Preserve near Emile's parent's house. In addition to having an Easter egg treasure hunt (not something she could participate in at this age), they were going to have bunnies. I thought it would be cute for her to see some bunnies for Easter. Well, she was not at all interested in the bunnies. Instead, she loved looking at the turkeys -- her Easter turkeys!

Reading the newspaper with Papa:

Bath time with Oma:

A few family photos:

Attempt at an Easter Photo

I tried to take a few photos of Natalie in her Easter dress with her Easter basket and the bunnies my parents got her before we leave for Minnesota tomorrow. It was almost impossible -- she was all over the place! At least she looks adorable!