A Squatter's Feast

You might think that having no furniture might keep one from hosting Thanksgiving...well, think again! We inherited this piece of furniture from Aunt Jackie and Uncle Mike recently and it (along with some Target folding chairs) seated 7 of us quite comfortably and stylishly for a Thanksgiving feast. It's just the coolest piece of furniture. This is how it looks most of the time...

And this is what it's capable of turning into...

It's just the coolest thing...it was my great grandmother's piece and most of the time it looks like a sideboard, but it's capable of expanding into a table that seats 11 or 12 people. The leaves of the table are stored inside and the front of the piece separates from the base and stretches across the room to create the base of the table. Can you tell I'm totally into furniture?...I am so excited about this thing I've almost devoted a whole blog post to it.
So, back to the feast...we had a great time and Natalie entertained us as usual.


After dinner she talked to the Michigan group while wearing Grandma C's shoes (on the wrong feet)!

Giving her new pony a kiss (a very cool gift from Grandpa C that has pony sound effects (you know, trotting and "neighing") and a "swooshing" tail)!

It was a fun couple of days and we thank Grandma and Grandpa C and Aunt Ashley and Uncle Matt for travelling to spend it with us. It was a Thanksgiving without a parade or football (no cable), without fancy dishes or serving pieces (in storage) and without coats or scarves (no need) but we still had the best time celebrating!

Happy Thanksgiving.....

We want to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. We had quite the feast today and I'll post more pictures of it tomorrow, but I just had to share this little shot of Natalie Ann with all of you. We are so thankful to share our life with this happy, healthy, growing, opinionated, loving, imaginative, creative, sensitive, inquisitive, talkative, all around adorable little girl.

Hair Accessories, Anyone?

Natalie's hair continues to create a quandary for her mother. I just don't know if we should trim it or leave it and just keep trimming her bangs. The reason I'm hesitant to trim it is that her beautiful little curls are only at the bottom and if I have them trimmed off and they don't come back I'll be devastated.

So, that brings us to hair accessories.....the only way to keep her hair out of her face! I found these cute little bow clips at Target and Natalie promised she'd wear them if I let her grab them off the rack and play with them in the cart (yeah...like she knew what she was agreeing to!...she'll say "yeah" to anything if it involves me taking something off a store shelf and handing it to her). Well, little did I know how serious she was.

This was the hair plan...one cute little clip holding back her hair in front.....



This, however, is Natalie's idea of wearing hair accessories....she wanted them ALL on at once. Good grief!


She's been sick all week, poor little peanut, so I wasn't about to take the excess clips out and make her upset...so, off we went to the post office...just like this!

"Seeol"

Natalie's breakfast of choice these days is cereal, or "seeol" as she says it! She eats a bowl of granola cereal every morning and finishes off every last drop of cereal milk! I think this is her new favorite food, because everytime I ask her if she's hungry, she starts repeating, "seeol", "seeol", "seeol", regardless of what time of day (or night) it is!

Stickers!

Natalie is crazy for stickers. A sheet of stickers can keep her busy for anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes, depending on the day! She received this sheet of stickers in a really cute Halloween card from Grandma Betty and Grandpa Franc the other day and she had so much fun decorating herself, as you can see!

Girls Weekend!

Yet another fabulous weekend! Cousins Aimee and Emma and Aunt Ashley all came to our house this weekend to celebrate Emma's 6th birthday! Corey was studying and working most of the weekend so, in addition to being a 6th birthday celebration, it was pretty much a girls weekend that we've all been craving for a long time!

We had such a great time....on Friday we lounged around at the pool where Aimee and Emma were staying and it was beautiful. Aunt Ashley was such a good sport...she could have stayed with them in their nice hotel room but, instead, she camped out in our living room with minimal amenities. (Thank you, Ash, we love you and your good sport spirit! We promise to have furniture again someday....and at the very least, an extra blanket before your next visit! She froze, poor girl!)

On Friday night we went to the Rainforest Cafe and I was so afraid all the jungle animal theatrics would freak Natalie out, but, in pure Natalie fashion, she loved every minute of it. She even said "boo" to the gorillas that were near our table when they started moving and then proceeded to do her version of their gorilla dance!

On Saturday we had a 6th birthday pizza party with an ice cream cake and I think Natalie had just as much fun with Emma's presents as the birthday girl did. By Sunday night when everyone left, Natalie was sitting at the front door saying "Emma", "Emma" as they drove away. She just loves her older cousin so much!

What a great weekend....thanks so much for coming to town, girls!

We can't wait to do it again! Love you all so much.

 

A whole latte drama!

I'm learning more and more about toddler hood everyday....

1. A tantrum is no fun if no one is paying attention.

2. If a food is being refused for any reason (even if that food was the absolute favorite the day before) an often successful solution is for the parent to pretend to eat it (or actually take a few bites) and then act like he/she doesn't want to give it up! This seems to make the toddler suddenly HAVE TO HAVE IT!

3. Quiet is not good....ever....unless the toddler is sleeping!

Today's lesson:

4. "Giving in" to the screaming fit might not be the best long term message or solution, but it's often necessary to save the sanity of the parent and the relationship with the neighbors.

Natalie's latest obsession is my iced latte cups! When the rare opportunity arises for me to treat myself to an iced latte at a drive through Starbucks there is a major protest in the backseat. I've started ordering an extra straw because I thought that's what Natalie wanted.

Well, today she was beside herself, even with the extra straw to play with. She screamed all the way home and once home, she didn't stop screaming. I put her little straw in a cup of water.....that didn't work. I added ice cubes to her water to further resemble my latte....that didn't work. She was screaming and begging for my latte. So, I decided to drink it fast, empty the ice out of my cup, rinse it out and fill that with water......in an instant the tantrum was over and Natalie happily wandered out of the kitchen with her water in the Starbucks cup drinking out of my straw!




After I filled it up about 4 times, she set it down by the back door, went outside onto the patio and, before she started playing, turned around and pointed her finger at me and from her tone the best I can figure is she was instructing me not to take her latte cup away while she was outside.




Good grief! I wonder if Starbucks will take pity on me next time and give me a free cup of ice water with a straw to give to Natalie so that I can actually take my time enjoying my overpriced treat!

Weekend in Palm Springs

We decided we needed a weekend away....so we went to Palm Springs to visit Grandma and Grandpa C. and had a WONDERFUL time. Their house is so great and makes you feel like you're staying at a bed and breakfast (down to the shampoo and conditioner samples left over from their hotel owning days!)...but we were just happy to sit on an actual sofa and watch cable again and spend lots of time in their pool and hot tub! It was a quick trip, but Corey and I were able to relax a little and Natalie enjoyed 48 hours of undivided grandparent attention, pool time, and breakfasts out with Grandpa and Corey (and family friends, Barry and Paul, who were also in town for the weekend)....so, we all left feeling great.

Natalie spent a lot of time in her Halloween costume, but even being dressed like a kitty didn't intrigue mom and dad's cats enough to venture out from under the bed any time Natalie was awake. They were the only ones happy to see us go!




We spent Saturday morning at my parent's friends Doug and Donna's house. Doug loves to collect little rocks he finds and he places them on bigger rocks throughout their landscape. Natalie shares his passion for little rocks and had so much fun re-arranging and re-arranging them!



Thanks for a great weekend, Mom and Dad!