A day at the beach...

This Memorial Day weekend we took our first real family vacation. After a brief stay in Monmouth visiting Grandma and Grandpa Yost, we took Natalie to the Oregon coast for the very first time! How exciting! 

We arrived in Lincoln City and our first stop was Mo's for a chowder lunch (the line proved we weren't the only ones with that idea!). But we got in eventually and had a tasty time. Next we walked down to the beach and introduced Natalie to sand. I though she would be a little freaked out by it but she wasn't at all! She instantly started playing with it and squeezing it in her hands. She liked having her feet buried in it. Then she decided to see what it tasted like. What a mess! It was hard to keep her sandy hands out of her mouth, but I think I minded it more than she did. She also walked a bit in the ocean. It was really warm on Sunday which was a nice first introduction to the Oregon coast. 

We did a little shopping at the outlet mall (of course!) and then after checking into our hotel and a brief nap, we went out for a pizza dinner (yum!). She did really well in the hotel and stayed all night in her portable crib and we all slept like rocks to the sound of the ocean waves. 

This morning we went to Newport to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium. We saw lots of neat things and Nat really seem to have fun (although she spent just as much time watching the interesting children as she did watching all of the interesting sea creatures). What a fun place!

We had a longer trip home than we anticipated, thanks to the holiday traffic, but overall, it was a very fun weekend! We got a lot of great pics, so I'm going to bore you with several...

Oh, and by the way, Natalie turned 10 months old on Sunday. She was at the doctor's for a checkup on Friday and here are her stats: 28-1/4" tall, 16 lbs, 13 oz. While her height is pretty average, her head circumference and weight are in the lower percentiles. But the doc said she's developing just perfectly so nothing to worry about. She's just a petite little thing! 

xoxo

A new video!

Due to popular demand (namely, Grandma and Grandpa Walters!) here is a recent video of Natalie's fun filled Saturday afternoon. It shows a lot of her newer big girl talents including crawling, pulling herself up, dancing, clapping and making her noisy toys work. Enjoy!

A weekend full of exciting firsts...

This weekend was quite busy. First, Natalie attended her first political rally when Senator Barack Obama visited Bend on Saturday. The excitement and noise of the crowd was a little upsetting to her at first but by the end, she was a supporter--if only she could vote. Great great Aunt Julie came over for a quick trip to attend with us. It was very inspirational and we felt very proud and fortunate to be Americans. 

Today we celebrated my first Mother's Day. It was very nice. I received pink roses and fresh doughnuts for breakfast! Then we went to a great new place for lunch. I'm a fan of this holiday!

Natalie also clapped for the first time by herself this afternoon. We were driving home and I looked back at her in her mirror and she was clapping away. She was of course watching herself and seemed to be quite pleased with her newfound talent. 

Tonight I was making dinner and Nat crawled through the kitchen, through the dining room and through the living room. When I peeked out to check on her, she was crawling up the first step of the stairs! Guess it's time to bust that brand new baby gate out of its box! Anyway, she proceeded to climb up the stairs and only stopped short on the second to last step to the first landing. Of course I was carefully following her up each step. Jeramy and I were shocked at how easy she made it look! And she giggled with delight on each step. Yes, she's officially hot stuff.

And in case you haven't seen her in a while, you might like to know that her bag of tricks also includes giving kisses, waving bye bye and dancing. She amazes us every day! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Immune system finally defeated!

It was good while it lasted. 9 months and 5 days without being sick. Both Jeramy and Natalie came down with a nasty 24-hour stomach flu on Thursday. It was a very rough day for all of us but luckily it didn't last as long as it could have. Natalie had a hard time keeping anything in and it just zapped her of any energy. Daddy was in even worse shape and even called in sick to work for the first time since I've known him. At least I was able to really test my new washing machine's fancy "sanitizing" function. I didn't get it as badly as they did but I did feel yucky on Friday. But everyone seems to be on the mend now... 

We were in a hurry to get everyone feeling better because this weekend we were celebrating Grandma Sandy's 50th birthday. We rented a fabulous house in Sunriver (thanks Brian and Lisa!) and the whole fam damily was there. Boy, was she ever surprised! 

We had a great mini-vacation with the whole gang. Natalie played a lot with her cousins Chloe, Jared, Saleena, Alex and baby Kendra. She gave kisses to everyone that paid attention to her (which was pretty much everyone). She even went swimming in the hot tub with Grandma, Saleena and Chloe. And she had fun playing with Grandma's balloons after the helium failed! These are the only pictures I snapped all weekend. The rest are on Grandma and Grandpa's camera. 

One other (better) milestone this weekend. TEETH (yes, plural!) have finally emerged. Friday night when we were anxiously awaiting Grandma's arrival, Natalie put my finger in her mouth and bit down hard. I was shocked at the little hard bumps I felt. There are two tiny teeth poking out of her bottom gum. They are a little crooked (I see orthodontist bills in our future!), but they're the cutest little teeth I've ever seen. Once they fully come in we'll try and to get a picture of her new beautiful grin. 

Have a nice week!