I love you!

Natalie is now saying "I love you" although it comes out more like "I lub boo". It is the most adorable thing ever. Combined with "nigh nigh" when we put her down for bed, it just melts your heart. I love hearing her say new words. She also tries to say our cats names, Ashley and Picus, although Picus comes out more like "ba ba" but she's definitely trying to say it. Other new words that she says include hot, help, and rain.

Natalie also now pretends to blow her nose and wipe herself with toilet paper. Of course, this means the toilet paper roll gets pretty unraveled.

Natalie likes to try to close the blinds. She watches me do it every night before she goes to bed and wants to imitate it:

She also likes to lay on blankets and pillows and pretend she's going to sleep:

She also loves to sit in a chair near her window and watch what's going on outside or read her books:

And of course, Papa has to get his little Viking fan ready for the season:

We got Natalie a stroller for her baby dolls. She loves it!

Today we spent time outside. The weather has cooled off a lot and it was great getting to explore outside without sweating a ton. She's such a little girl now compared to an infant. It's so adorable!

Natalie enjoys walking up with me to get the mail and then reading through it on our front stoop:

Learning New Things

It amazes us how much Natalie understands now. She has no problem telling us when she does or doesn't want to do something using her body language or the few words that she can speak. She knows when it's bath time or nap time and doesn't want to stop playing. She easily tells us when she wants to eat and what she's hungry for. Not to mention when we're playing, if you ask her to do something with her toy, like take her doll into Papa to see if he wants to give her a hug, she does exactly that! It's wonderful watching her communicate and interact in this way.

Below are a number of photos and videos we took over the last month which show all that Natalie does now. We still need to get a video of her asking to get up on the window bench or saying "oh, oh".

One of Natalie's new favorite places to read her books - her nursery glider. She can now get down off of it and the couch without much help.


Looking at the fish with Papa:

Kinsey was about to put Natalie down for a nap. Natalie got pretty quite playing on the floor with her toys. Kinsey went around the coffee table to see what she was doing and saw she'd fallen asleep on the floor! First time she's done this. She looks so adorable though!

She likes to pile up her toys in different locations. This time it was on her playroom chair.

Natalie finds the pop-up farmer in the Peter Rabbit book to be funny so Emile made it into a fun game for her. She now wants him to flip though the book over and over.

Natalie had a fun time being pulled around by Papa on one of her blankets.

One day we noticed that Natalie had figured out how to get on and off her red rocket she got from Nana and Grandpa, and to propel herself forward on it. This happened randomly one day - we hadn't seen her even try to go forward before this. Now she rides it all around the downstairs.

Natalie kept trying to tip a cup with a straw like her other sippy cups versus trying to suck out of the straw until we offered her a strawberry shake to try. That changed everything!

Natalie's Auntie Kendra got her a bunch of play-dough which she loves to play with. She's really into doing lots of artistic projects - drawing with crayons and markers, painting, and play-dough.

Emile thought it would be fun to record me reading Natalie a Dutch book that has animal sounds -- I apparently say them differently than they're supposed to be said (such as "knor" for a pink).

One of Natalie's favorite words to say is "Papa".

Natalie now knows where her belly, hair, eyes, ears, nose, toes, fingers, cheeks and tongue are. We were able to get on video her pointing to a few of them. It cracks me up that to point to her belly she has to lift up her dress.

We decided to try giving Natalie a spoon to attempt to feed herself. She took to it right away with her oatmeal. I then got her some toddler spoons (bigger spoon area than the infant spoons). She immediately was able to eat about 90% of her meals on her own -- she only needs help with the last few bites left in the bowl. Of course, now she doesn't want any help eating anymore even when it's items she can't get on her spoon. She's definitely an independent little girl!

Emile got me a bunch of balloons for my birthday last month. Natalie spent a lot of time playing with them. Even now, we still have one that has deflated a lot but we all switch off chasing after the person who has the balloon.