Merry first Christmas!

Natalie's first Christmas was so much fun! I was so excited to share my favorite holiday with my sweet little daughter. She liked all the paper and boxes, and even opened up some presents. Some good friends of ours gave us their little playground toy that their daughters grew out of, so we put it together in the backyard for Natalie. She likes it a lot, especially the slide. I'll post some pics of it later.What a fabulous Christmas!


The tree at my parents' house on Christmas morning.
She is so excited to see her new train toy.

She got the hang of opening presents, but her attention span didn't last through all of them. My parents liked the photobook Melanie and I made of Brooklyn and Natalie.
After her morning nap we went over to Mom Simonson's house to open presents. Mark is showing Natalie his toy gun from his childhood that his mom took away from him and his brother when they were little for pointing it at each others' heads....or something like that. :-) She gave them back for Christmas! It was cute and caused the brothers to reminisce a little.
She's excited about the wagon toy from Grandma Simonson.

What a great day it was! I am already looking forward to next year. :-)

My Christmas dress

Here is my cute little darling in her Christmas dress. Don't you just want to squeeze her?

Sadly, she had another blow-out at church. This dress is now in the wash.

Christmas on the West Side

We drove over to the west side of the valley (about an hour's drive) to visit Mark's dad and stepmom Audrey on Saturday. They have a dog, Neeko, who Natalie LOVED. She kept saying "ruff ruff" and panted like a dog. Here is a picture of her delight.

Unfortunately Natalie had a blow-out diaper while we were there, and since I wasn't expecting a diarrhea episode, I didn't pack any extra clothes. Here she is in her half-nakedness. Don't judge her jacket's button job.
Don't worry, we had a blanket which kept her warm on the way out to the car and on the way home.
It was a fun evening. We visited, exchanged presents, and listened to some great music. The lasagna dinner was delish. Thanks you guys!

Santa

Ok, I finally found the camera cable thing to download pics. So, here are Natalie's Santa pics. These were actually taken by Bruce Barnes of www.bkbarnes.com.


She didn't even cry! We were so proud. Ho ho ho.

We've been elfed!

Yep, us too. Enjoy!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1539681336

Hello Family

Well, we are officially living with my family now. They are so nice to take us in. It has been pretty fun so far. The best part is that there is usually someone nearby to watch Natalie if I need to run upstairs, go to the bathroom, or unpack stuff. Today was a day of organizing and rearranging. Natalie took two really long naps so I made lots of progress. She was up last night from 1-5am so we were a little tired today...yawn. After repeated and failed attempts at lowering her into her crib while remaining asleep, I finally resorted to going downstairs to let her play while I ate a snack and watched Discovery Health. Just my luck, there was a show about a woman giving birth. Love those things. There was also a little clip of an upcoming show about a little boy from Russia getting adopted and the sight of him running to his new parents with this huge smile on his face made me get all weepy and teary. Natalie looked at me kinda funny and was like, "bee bee?" (baby) and I was like "yes, that's a baby." Oh, what a mushy mommy I've become! Anyway, like all bad nights, that one ended and we all ended up sleeping again. Whew.

Tonight we had a family Christmas party on my dad's side. It was really fun and Natalie got to see Santa ("dah-ta") in real life for the first time. She was so cute and didn't even cry! She just looked at him all curiously. I'll post some pics as soon as the camera batteries finish charging.

Well, I'm just rambling, because sometimes I get in a typing mood and I just love to type! Especially since I just trimmed my fingernails and my fingers hit the keys so nicely. haha, it's late....goodnight.

Exhausted

I always forget how much work moving is until I do it again. And it's even MORE exhausting with a baby/toddler in tow. We have been packing all week and moving day is tomorrow, yet we STILL have stuff that needs packing. Hopefully it will all go well....then I'm going to take a nap.

My first tag

Well, Amberly tagged me so here goes. I've never done this before and I'm a little nervous! haha.
Tag #1
1. Where did you meet your husband? in the Highland ward when I was 10 and he was 12
2.What was the first thing you said to your husband? can't remember, I was only 10!
3. Where was your first date? Phoenix Zoolights
4. Where was your first kiss? In my car outside my house
5. Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement? 3mo and 3mo, 6mo total
6. Where did you get engaged? at my house after an Easter egg hunt
7. Where were you married? Mesa Temple
8. How did your reception go? great but I was hungry (thanks Katie for sneaking me grapes!)
9. How was your honeymoon? Really great and not long enough (ran out of vacation days at work)

Tag #2
Four Places I've lived....
1. Anaheim, CA
2. Las Vegas, NV
3. Provo, UT
4. Gilbert, AZ

Four jobs I've had....
1. Piano/flute teacher
2. food prep for BYU catering
3. BYU custodian
4. Academic Counselor at Univ of Phoenix Online

Four things I'd like to do before I die....
1. get into family history
2. Visit Europe again including places I didn't go before
3. go on a mission
4. write a book

Four favorite desserts....
1. brownies (ditto Amberly) w/ chocolate chips
2. gelato
3. Strawberry shortcake
4. cheesecake

Four facts about me....
1. I can wiggle my ears
2. I gave birth without medication and plan to do it again
3. I trained for a marathon in 2003 w/ the longest run being 16 miles (then I quit due to injury)
4. My right hand has a crease that is a straight line called a Single transverse palmar crease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transverse_palmar_crease)

Four favorite TV shows....
1. Everwood (sadly, it's over now)
2. The Cosby Show
3. Mad About You
4. Everybody Loves Raymond

Tag #3
6 facts/habits about myself...here's the good and the ugly!

1. I'm one foot shorter than my husband
2. I brush and floss obsessively yet still get cavities
3. I have walked into men's restrooms twice in the last year
4. I'm nearly blind...Mark laughs when I have to literally stick my face in the drawer to find something if I'm not wearing my contacts.
5. I also still struggle with acne....so much for that ending with the teenage years!
6. I am a packrat trying to deny my packrat tendencies.

Whew, that was hard! I had to think a lot. I tag Karlie, Jennie, Stephanie, Crystal, and Brandis. Have fun!

The update

So, we're moving next Saturday the 15th. We decided to go with a property management company recommended to us by some friends, and they prefer that the house is empty to take pictures, show, be available, etc. Get ready Barnes family, here we come! We will be living with my fam-da-bam until law school starts to save our moolah. Wish us luck. ha. Love you guys!

There are more posts below with pics. I just can't resist taking so many pics of my little gal. I hope her younger sibs get as many as she does!

Tiny Tots with their Eyes All Aglow

We put up our Christmas tree and other decorations, even though we didn't know when we would be moving. Natalie approached it cautiously, checking with me oft to make sure this foreign foliage was safe to touch. She looked at it for a while, poking here and there while I showed her different little ornaments. She likes it, and has yet to pull an ornament off, crawl underneath, or knock it over like I thought she would. When I say, "where's the Christmas tree?" she smiles gleefully and races over to it. Here are some pictures of her wonder and awe.








I wanted to capture the reflection of the lights in her eyes. I don't know if the blogger pics are that detailed, but they're there! Ta ta for now.

Like mother like daughter

I found this picture of me at about Natalie's age. I had never really thought that she looked like me, but I think this picture looks like Natalie! I included a pic of her to compare. The shape of our eyes is the same. Crazy!