Our girls... the models

Anyone who has ever taken a child to have their picture taken knows that its an adventure. Since we are camera-happy parents who had our first child's picture taken at a studio monthly, the bar is sat rather high for how often Hallie will get her picture taken. You'd think this would have made Natalie a champ at posing for the camera... not so at all. (Note: 1. We did not take out a loan to pay for all those pictures- most of them came from Sears where you can get a package of pictures for $10... I showed restraint and did that for most of the months her first year. When we want to spend a fortune, we go to Portrait Innovations. You can't leave that place without enough pictures to wallpaper a room in your house. At least I can't. 2. People told me I was crazy for taking her every month because I'd never manage to get that done with a 2nd child... now I'm determined to prove them wrong!) Anyway- many of Natalie's photo sessions have been disasters, so taking both girls to have Hallie's 1 month pictures taken along with a few sister shots was a little disconcerting. We started talking about it days ago, to prep Natalie, and she seemed excited about having her picture taken with Baby Hallie.

When we got there we didn't have to wait long, which was good because the longer the wait the worse the pictures in my experience! Our photographer was really good with both the girls, and to my astonishment, Natalie was more cooperative than I could have imagined. She is still 2, so there were a few things the photographer wanted her to do that she didn't want to or wouldn't try, but she did awesome. Hallie did her part just by being awake and not crying, what more can you ask at 1 month old! So, the pictures we got are BEAUTIFUL- which isn't hard with our beautiful girls.

Natalie is a child of obsessions. She moves from one to the next every couple of months. One of her first ones was her Larry and Bob CD just before she was 2, then she was hooked on Madagascar for a long time and carried her Madagascar toys everywhere, then the princess phase began (which we are really still in). But the current thing she is hooked on is watching Disney videos on YouTube. They have all the songs from the classics on there- Lion King, Little Mermaid, etc. So, even though she hasn't seen any of those movies (she's a fraidy cat and I'm afraid the villians in them would scare her half to death), she knows all the songs by heart, and randomly sings them when she is playing on her own. So precious. She doesn't quite understand all the words. For example- a line in one Little Mermaid song says "I've got whos-its and whats-its galore" and she says "whos-its and whats-its a-glore". The one that made me about fall over laughing last night was when she told me she wanted to watch "Supercaliexpidocious" and "A bowl of cereal"... The first one I could figure out, but it took me until I looked at her YouTube playlist to see that by "A bowl of cereal" she really mean "A spoonful of sugar"... not sure how she made that mistake, but it was pretty funny. I corrected her, but this morning she was still asking for "A bowl of cereal".

She did it!

Natalie did it! She walked down the aisle by herself as the flower girl at Uncle Eric and Aunt Christina's wedding. It was awesome! Now for some details.

We got there on Friday night around 8:30. The trip was uneventful and for our first trip with a 3 week old and a two and half year old it was a breeze. Hallie started crying about two minutes from Cindy and Charlotte's house where we were staying. The good news is that the crying didn't bother Natalie at all. In fact she said "Uh oh, baby Hallie is crying. Why is she crying mommy?" When we said it was because she was hungry Natalie said "It's okay, baby Hallie, don't cry." Once we got to the house we needed to start the process of winding down so Natalie would go to bed. Of course she didn't want to, she just wanted to play. Guess who won that battle? That's right, for one of the few times of the weekend, mommy and daddy won that one.

Saturday looked promising. Natalie slept in pretty late and was in good shape to be on her best behavior for the rehearsal at 11:30 and lunch afterward. Boy was she ever. She did great although she wouldn't sit still at the rehearsal...which didn't bode well for the wedding. The worry was quickly becoming what to do with her once she walked down the aisle. It was apparent that she would indeed walk down the aisle, but how could we contain her and keep her quiet for 30 minutes. This was not good. When it came time for Natalie to practice they said first the bridesmaids will come in, then our flower girl, then Christina and Natalie stepped up to the pastor and said "I'm the flower girl!" Sara and I were impressed. She walked to the back and grabbed her basket full of flowers. She walked down the aisle and placed a few handfuls on the ground. When she got to the front she realized that she had more and she wasn't going to be done until ALL of them were on the ground. Note to self, at the wedding don't put so many petals in the basket. Here is a picture of her at rehearsal doing her thing.



At rehearsal dinner she and cousin Hannah had a wonderful time playing together. This gave me an idea. Maybe if Hannah sat next to Natalie during the wedding Natalie would see how a big girl is supposed to act and stay quiet....hmmm. After lunch we went to Aunt Emily's for a nap and to relax for a bit. It worked out well because she lives only four blocks from where we had lunch and so Natalie stayed awake until we got to Em's house and then fell asleep. Perfect!

On Saturday night we made her go to bed early and she still slept until 7:45 in the morning so again we were in good shape, the question was how would she be at 2 when she was supposed to walk down the aisle. I mean 2 is precisely the time she normally goes down for a nap. We got to the church about 12:15 and got Natalie changed into her flower girl dress. She was beautiful!


As the time drew near Sara and Aunt Em took Natalie upstairs to the room where the girls were all waiting. Sara came back down and we went to our seats. It was judgement time. Unbeknown to us at that time Natalie was upstairs saying "Come on big girls, you go first and Aunt Christina you go last." as reported by Aunt Emily who was ushering Natalie until it was time to go. So down came the first bridesmaid, then the second, then the third, then the maid of honor....then it seemed like forever.....and ever....and ever....and ever...but then there she was, standing at the back of the aisle holding her basket all by herself.

She came down the aisle and wasn't dropping any petals. A cousin (we think it was Abby) told her to drop some petals. She reached into her basket and....nothing. She panicked. She got a look on her face that said "Oh my goodness, where did all of these people come from, it wasn't like this yesterday" She spotted Sara on the aisle and walked down to her without fussing. Success! No petals, but no crying either!

Now for my plan. Would sitting her next to Hannah work? I sat her down and gave her some juice. That was good for awhile. Next in line was a few (and by a few I mean four bags worth) fruit snacks. She was quiet and moved a little bit, mostly to my lap and back to her seat. She did wonderful, thank you Lord!

After all of that it was time to let loose and have a little fun! That she did, holy cow. She danced and danced and danced some more.


And after all of that, here is what you are left with on the ride home....


Here are a few more pictures from a great weekend. First is Hallie in her matching dress to Natalie.


Our family


The new version of the Hunt Family (welcome Christina!)


And finally one last shot of my sweet sweet flower girl

I need to be better

I really should update this site more than once a week and I definitely need to add more pictures. I will try to do better. I have no excuses, I owe it to all 10 of you who read this to do better. I appreciate that you care about our family and hope you will keep checking back, you never know when something new might come up.

Hallie is doing amazing. She eats about every three hours and is awake at just the right times from about 8:30 - 11 in the morning and from about 8 - 11 at night. Then she sleeps in her basinette unlike her big sister. We could never get Natalie to sleep in that thing, maybe one or two nights is all. Hallie on the other hand sleeps like a rock in there and usually gets up somewhere between 2-4 depending on when she gets her last bottle before we go to bed. She eats and USUALLY goes right back to sleep about 30 minutes after she gets up. Sometimes she has the hiccups or a dirty diaper that keep her awake a little longer, but she has only had one or two nights with a 3 hour marathon in the middle of the night.

Natalie is so excited about being a flower girl. Just this morning we asked her where we were going tonight and she said "You tell me" which is her form of "I don't know". We said "Kansas City" and she said "For the wedding! I am going to walk down the aisle". I asked her what she was going to do walking down the aisle and she said "drop petals out of my basket." This might just happen. We'll see. :) She has also started the "Why?" phase. I am sure all of you moms can relate to that one. "Natalie pick up your toys please?"...."Why?" "I have to go to work now"....."Why?" "You need to eat your dinner"...."Why?" "We don't pick boogies and hand them to daddy."...."Why?" You get the picture.

This weekend we had a bit of a dilemma. If we go out of town usually one set of parents is home to watch Wrigley for us. Well they are both going to the wedding this weekend and we didn't know who to ask. That's right, we are bad neighbors and didn't even know any of them well enough to ask. I eventually asked the 8th grader next door if she would do it and she said she would love to. They have four dogs, so we know they love them. Wrigley has met her all of twice so it will be interesting to see how that goes. I hope my dog behaves herself.....

It will also be interesting to come home on Monday and see how many ants we have in our kitchen. They get worse and worse every day. It started with just a couple. We thought we saw where they were coming in and so we sealed it up and thought we had 'em beat. Wrong. There were more. Saw where those were coming in from, sealed that spot up....wrong again. This morning was the worst. It was something out of a horror movie. I am just glad they weren't giant ants. Luckily I had a can of Raid and some bait traps. It took awhile to get them all but I got 'em...for now. We'll spray again before we leave and leave the traps out and pray. I am just hoping there is no sequel when we get home on Monday.

Well, we are taking our first trip as a family of four tonight. It shouldn't be too bad since we will have SO many people up there willing to help. I will try and update this a couple of times over the weekend and let you know if indeed Natalie walked/ran/crawled/cried down the aisle. :)

Back to work

Going back to work has provided me the opportunity to bond with Natalie.  Sara and Hallie sleep until I leave a little before 8.  However Natalie has decided to get up earlier than normal the last two days and so she and daddy have had plenty of time in the mornings to get things figured out.  I make her breakfast and explain to her that pancakes aren't on the menu every day, sorry it just isn't going to happen.  She asks for videos on the computer and I have to break the news to her that that also is not going to happen.  She isn't too happy with me at this point but I think she's okay with it.  While I make my lunch we solve the world's issues.  Just today we decided that Tigger and Pooh are funnier than Little Einsteins.  Yes indeed it was a deep discussion.  Then as I was getting ready to leave she said "Oh, let me get the door for you."  And with that, my two-year old opened the door and told me to have a good day.  I think I just might. :)

One week down...

Life as a family of four is off to a flying start. It has been so good and Sara and I are feeling truly blessed. Hallie is an amazing baby. She sleeps for three hours at a time during the night and goes right back to sleep after taking a bottle. So she is only up for about 20 minutes which means more sleep for mom and dad...we love that. Out of the first six nights she has only had one night where she didn't want to sleep and it took a double team to make it through that one otherwise we have alternated nights and get 8 hours of sleep every other night and 6 on the nights we are "on duty". That is all about to change though as I go back to work on Wednesday. It will be interesting to say the least.

Hallie had her check-up with Dr. Mitchell on Friday. She is doing so well that the doctor said she doesn't need to see her until two months, we can skip the one month appointment unless we feel like we need to bring her in. She said that Hallie has really good muscle tone and is strong for a week old baby. A little jondace but nothing to worry about, definitely not as bad as Natalie was. Speaking of Natalie, she has been AWESOME! She hasn't been jealous one bit and we aren't fooling ourselves in to thinking she won't have her moments but for now she is great. She brings her stool out of the bathroom and in to Hallie's room so she can "help" change diapers. She helps give her a bath every night and she always, always, always has to have baby Hallie read stories with us before bedtime. While helping change diapers she often looks at Hallie and says "Don't cry baby girl." "It will be over soon baby Hallie". "Hi baby Hallie, how are you?" She is loving being a big sister.

I wish I remembered more stories about Natalie, she says some of the cutest things. We will have to start writing them down so we will have them documented and can share them with you all. Here are a few pictures from life at home:

Big sister gives her baby a kiss


My girls :)


Natalie likes to show baby Hallie videos on the computer


Doctor Mitchell gives Hallie a good report

Natalie helps get Hallie undressed

She doe NOT like bath time