I know, I know, its been forever!

After she finished climbing all the way up the stairs!

At our friends wedding

Natalie helped put up the xmas lights

She loves story time!

Sorry to everybody that ever checks our blog! I know it has been forever since I have put anything on here. Its just a lot harder to find the time to do this then I originally imagined:)
That little Natalie sure does take up our time.

I'm still not quite sure how my sister does it as well as she does!!!??? And with 2 kids too:) But she is the all-doing, mighty sister!!! She could probably cook dinner, update her facebook status, update her blog, change the kids....all at one time! And all while talking on the phone and emailing someone:) Your the best sis! And your such a wonderful mom! Keep up the good work:)

So what has happened since I last wrote on here......well everything probably. I guess I will just list a few of her accomplishments that she has done the last couple of months, if that is ok with everyone?

Well she is almost walking now! I know! She has always walked very well while holding onto our hands as we walk with her, so now we are tyring to make her walk by just holder one of our hands, so she can learn to balance better. She is getting it quite nicely too! She will 'transfer' from furniture piece to furniture piece quite smoothly:) She is a little dare devil this one!

She can go all the way up, and down the stairs now all by herself. She has been going up the stairs for about a month now, and just started coming down the other week. She is so funny how she like to do it too, she comes down forwards scooting on her butt until she 'plops' off the next stair, all while holding her fists very night, and making little groan noises:) We posted a video on our facebook page for all to see.

As for food, she is eating a little bit of everything, Joanie mixes up different concoctions for her on a daily basis. She seems to like most foods, but there are a couple that she will spit out. She loves Cheerios, (what kid doesn't? Or adult for that matter)

Mothers Day!

Well today was Joanies first mothers day! She had to work last night, so I had to let her sleep some when she got home.

She finally woke up about 1pm and we got our day started! She opened the card and gifts that I got for her and then we headed downtown to the saturday market..(which is saturday and sunday) Its a venders type market with lots of homemade/handmade stuff and good food. We walked around there for awhile and then got some lunch. Joanie got a tamale and I got a burrito, they where both fantastic!

We then drove to the pearl district of portland and walked around a nice little park and went into some shops there.

Next we went to 'YO cream' which is the best frozen yogurt that we have ever had! All heathly for you too:) Then we went and had sushi for dinner at 'hot pot sushi', and we ended the day with some shopping at Kohls!

All in all it was a pretty good and we got to do everything that we wanted to. Natalie did great tagging along with us and seemed to really like being outside!

Roll over!

So Natalie decided to roll over all by herself this past sunday! Joanie set her down in front of the fire place and walked away for just a second and when she came back she had rolled from her stomach to her back! We both where not sure if that actually happened so we put her on her stomach again and wa-la, she did it again!

She is changing so much everyday its crazy! Putting everything in her mouth now, and using both hands to grab stuff. She definatly seems to favor her right hand though, so maybe she will be right handed? I would perfer that since I know it can be harder to be left handed growing up, mostly not being able to use sissors or find a baseball glove that you want:)

Natalie tries to sit up every chance she gets now, if she is laying down and we are in front of her she tries so hard to sit up! Its so cute! So I just barely help her by grabbing her arms and she sits right up! She can also stand up very good with a little bit of help too! She loves to stand and shake her hips from side to side:) Looks like we have a little dancer on our hands!

Tonight Natalie took off the first 3 rings of that fisher price toy, you know the ones with the 5 different sized rings that you can put on and off, all by herself! Then she tries to put the whole thing in her mouth, which doesn't really work to well.

Natalie is growing so fast. She is now smiling a lot more. I am just waiting to here a little giggle. She is very observant and loves looking all around now. She had her 4 month appointment last week. She weighs 15.9 lbs and is 24 1/2 inches long. The Dr said she is a healthy breast fed baby! Natalie is getting so much fun!

Miah got to meet Natalie

Miah absolutely loved little Natalie. She wanted to hold her and would not let go of her hand. Miah will be a excellent big sister.

Visit from Grandma and Grandpa Baer

We have a very nice visit from Grandma and Grandpa Baer this week. They stopped by on there way back home to montana, they had been down in california visiting Aunt Kim.

This was Natalies first visit with grandma and grandpa! She seemed to really like them both! Joanie, Natalie, and Grandma took a quick trip to fabric depot to get some needed fabric I guess?? :) I don't know what else you buy at those places?

Then Joanie made a fantastic meal consisting of: stuffed shells..egg plant parmesan, french bread, and salad! It was all delicious!

After dinner grandpa and I took a trip to Lowes. Grandpa wanted to get some tomato plants so they could have some tomatoes early this spring.

We all just chilled out after that and watched some tv. And grandma and grandpa left to head back home on wednesday morning.

Natalies first night with just Daddy.....and Matix:)

Well the long awaited night finally came and went! It went really good actually, I made a couple mistakes that I will learn from, but for the most part we did good!

So Joanie left for work at about 10:30, and she fed Natalie at about 10:15 so she was good and full. We got her to sleep and Joanie was off to work!

I woke up a couple of time during the night because I heard some moving around...but I knew it was not time for her to eat yet so I was able to fall back asleep. Then I woke up again at 2:15am. Natalie was still asleep but was moving around a little bit. Now she has been going about 5 to 6 hours the first time at night before eating. It had been 4 hours and I decieded to feed her now before she started crying. (but after last night, I think I'm just going to let her sleep for as long as she wants to, and then feed her) So I warmed the milk up and pulled her out. She ate great for about 5 min, which was only about 1.5 oz. (she can usually eat about 4oz at a time) then she did not seem to want anymore? I tried some more to get her to eat it, but she did not want it. So I got a good burp out of her and layed her back in her bassinet. She fell back asleep after about 5 min and everything was great!

So then she woke me up again at 4:45, I could hear her kicking around, and sure enough I peeked into the bassinet and her eyes where wide open and she looked right at me:)

So since I had 3oz of milk left from the first bottle I decided to use the rest of that milk, well I had put the milk in a little cooler that i have by the bed so it would stay good. So the milk was nice and cold. (I am used to warming up room temperature milk which requires less water then cold milk in the warmer) So anyways I put the water and bottle in the warmer and turned it on. Natalie is very hungry by this time and she is letting me know.

The milk finished warming and I tested it....it was still very cold! So I added more water and warmed it again, but this time I accidently added twice as much as I should have! So now when the milk was done, it was way to HOT! Oh man I couldn't believe it! So I shook the bottle and opened to top to get it to cool down.....finally at 5:10 the milk was all ready for her! I felt so bad! But she latched right on to that thing finished the rest of the bottle!

I burped her again and layed her back down, she once again fell back asleep, as did I.

Then she woke me up at 6:15, she didn't seem hungry yet but seemed liked she just wanted some attention! So I pulled her out and layed on the bed next to me, she did good for a little while then it seemed like she wanted to sit up (like she was trying to herself) so I sat her up, and then sat her on my lap with my knees up so she could be up right and looking at me. She really liked that! I talked to her about her night, and asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, ect. Mom was due home at 7:20 which would be when she needed to eat again so all I had to do was keep her occupied until then.

Joanie got home right at 7:20 and fed her, and all is good!

So that was the first night....not as bad as I thought! And we will do it all again tonight!

Natalie 3 months!

The Beach!

Today was Natailes first day at the Oregon coast! We went to Sabbath School this morning at Vancouver SDA church then headed out to the beach, it was a gorgeous day there!

Joanie let me try out the front carrier pack. So I put Natalie in it facing outward so she could see the beach! She liked it, but was fast asleep after walking the beach for just a few minutes. We walked down the beach a ways, and then back, and Matix got all of his exercise by chasing other dogs around and running free! He loves the beach!

So tonight is my one practice night with Natalie! Joanie is going to sleep in the guest room and I will sleep in our room with Natalie in her bassinet. Hopefully she will take her bottle tonight and go right back to sleep after she eats! Thats the plan. Because next weekend there will be no help if I need it:)

I will let you all know how it goes!

3 months!

Well little Natalie is 3 Months old today!!! My how time flys! She is starting to use her hands a lot more now, sucking on them, trying to grab things, ect. She is very sturdy on her legs, and I think she might just skip the crawling and go right to walking! She is a very strong kicker too, so we have to watch out now when we are holding her and if she starts to cry those little legs just start pumping and kicking!

She has been starting to take some naps in her crib during the day now, Joanie will put her in there and she will sleep away! Hopefully she can get used to it, so when the time comes to put her in there at night, she wont be as scared.

She is still sleeping in her basinet next to our bed, and sleeping great at 4 to 5 hours stretches in between feedings.

So next weekend I'm offically 'on duty' Joanie goes back to work next saturday and sunday nights. She will be working from 11pm - 7am. We have been working on the bottle for Natalie, she is doing ok with it, but not as good as we would like. Hopefully I will be able to feed her a couple times during the night and then Joanie will be home! Wish me luck!

We are going to try out Vancouver church tomorrow, for something different. Then we are going to head out to the coast since it is supposed to be a nice day! We are looking foward to that.

Have a happy sabbath everybody!

Some pictures from this weekend

Natalie likes to watch fuel TV

Waterfront, downtown portland

Grandpa Jeff just left today to fly back east. He spend a few days here with us and Natalie was very happy to see her grandpa! Grandpa rented a mini-van which we used to go out to eat and drive down to the portland waterfront on sunday evening. We took a nice long walk along the waterfront, which Natalie totally enjoyed! The van was nice to have, but just to let everybody know...I will not own one of those things! Sorry but I would much rather drive a big suv then one of those! (fyi, big chevy,ford,and gmc conversion vans dont count...those are awesome:)

Today Natalie figured out how to get her binky back in her mouth if she looses it and it stays close. She uses both hands with her fists balled up tight and just shoves it back in there:) Its so cute to watch.

Did I mention that Natalie is now sleeping much better. She used to want to eat every 2 hours at night, but this past saturday night she decided to switch and go 4 hours! What a nice change. And ever since then she has been going 4 to 5 hours! Lets just hope that continues!

As soon as I can figure out the pictures I will try and crop those down to size, but at this point I cant figure out how to do that?

Sabbath School

Yesterday we took Natalie to Pleasent Valley sabbath school...it was her first time there! Since she was new she got a nice welcome and got to ride on the wood pony! Which she loved. She did excellent the whole time there and payed attention well. I think she will continue to enjoy herself there!

Natalie is very very alert, and it seems like she is trying to tell us things! We just wish we knew what that was.

She is starting to get the idea of 'hide and seek', but I think it sometimes scares her:)

We are getting her ready for church and sabbath school today at Pleasent Valley Church, in
Happy Valley Oregon!