Natalie’s Blog

Here is Natalie giving her Great Grandma Wachs a kiss to wish her Happy 95th Birthday:

I’m not sure it gets any sweeter than that….

Auntie Jodi is our babywearing guru…here she is carrying Natalie at the mall in her ring sling:

In a whole series of pictures, there was not one in which Natalie had her hands out of her mouth. Maybe the final 4 teeth are on their way?

A week or so ago, I gave Natalie a bowl of cheese crackers or “teese datters” as Natalie calls them.

Natalie looked at the bowl and longingly said, “share?”
I asked, “who would you like to share your crackers with, honey?”
Natalie declared, “Clara!”

I think that makes them BFFs, don’t you think? Of course when Clara visited over the weekend, there were plenty of things Natalie wasn’t too happy about sharing with her friend Clara.

Check out how intensely they are concentrating in these pictures—it’s like parallel play in action:

I absolutely love this picture of Diane holding Natalie!!

And this one of Clara!

We actually went to this carnival back on June 20, but only recently got the pictures because we were using a friend’s camera. Natalie had lots of fun looking at all the flashing lights, going on her first solo carnival ride, and riding the carrousel with Chris.

We were lucky to have sunny weather almost the whole time we were camping. On the one day it rained, we took the opportunity to visit the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, MA. When we arrived, it was pouring rain and we got all wet. We left the galleries to discover the sun had returned. Natalie enjoyed looking at all the art, and was only frustrated at times when she couldn’t touch it. She and I took a nap on a big bean-bag chair in a Jenny Holzer exhibit.

As parents, we don’t want our personal dislikes to limit the things that Natalie experiences. So, parenting has really encouraged Chris and I to do things outside of our comfort zones. On our camping trip, Chris took Natalie swimming in the cool lake water—something he normally hates to do. And I played with Natalie in the sand, the texture of which kind of disgusts me.

As you can see from these picture, Natalie loved spending time at the lake while we were camping, even with the cool water and gritty sand!

Natalie and David are at an age that makes picture taking pretty difficult. For most of the trip, they were much too busy running around the camp site to capture a photo of them together. But on the last day, I caught some of them coloring together in this amazing light.

And I couldn’t resist pulling out these pictures of the “driving cousins” from last summer for comparison’s sake!

Look how much they’ve grown and changed in a year’s time:

Natalie is a natural camper! We had a wonderful time enjoying the great outdoors at the DAR State Forest in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts. We had great weather and Natalie had a blast being outside all the time. Some photo highlights…
Natalie relaxing in her very own camp chair:

Generally being cute:

Eating a whole tomato like an apple:

Sleeping in Daddy’s arms:

Playing with hammocks:

Making funny faces in the woods:

Hanging out with Aunt Katy:

Saying “Good Morning Newts!” every day:

Chris & Katy enjoyed organizing the camp kitchen:

And Natalie loved standing on tree trunks pretending the be The Lorax: