Natalie's 3rd Birthday

Back in December, Natalie celebrated her 3rd birthday!  It's amazing that she's already 3.  We threw her a bubble party, and she had a great time.  Several of her friends came over to play, and I'm so thankful that they took time out of their busy days to help us celebrate!  They got to blow bubbles, play with colorful beach balls, and jump on bubble wrap.  It was a good time.  :)


Getting ready for the party to start:

I think this might be my favorite picture from the day of the party.

Party decorations:

The food spread.  I recycled the birthday banner from her first birthday, and Natalie picked out the balloon colors.

"Bubbles" hanging from the lights.

Celebrating:

Singing "Happy Birthday" to the birthday girl.

Blowing out her candles.

FINALLY getting to eat a cupcake.

During and after opening her presents (shout out to Cayce for these pictures!):

I have pictures of the kids playing, too, but don't want to post pictures of other people's kids online without talking to their parents first.

Our sweet "Natalie Princess" is excited to be 3!

Baby's First Christmas

I am a fan of the "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments that let you put a picture of the baby in it.  I'm a fan of pictures in general (obviously), so I love having some hanging on my tree.  I realized today that I never posted Natalie's first Christmas pictures on here for y'all to see!  I recently got some really great pictures for Aidan's ornament, so I figured I'd post them all together for you.

Even though Natalie and Aidan are only 25 months apart, their birthdays straddle Christmas, so Natalie's first Christmas was 3 years ago when she was 2 weeks old, and Aidan is celebrating his first Christmas this year (he'll be 11.5 months old on Christmas day).  Needless to say, their ornament pictures are quite different!  haha

I'm no newborn photographer, and this was my very first attempt at it, so I didn't get the perfect sleeping baby pose. Oh well!  Natalie was exactly 1 week old in these pictures.

{This is the picture in her ornament!}

I crocheted the Santa hat for her before she was born (free pattern here), and made the tulle skirt, too.  :)

I didn't make anything for Aidan's pictures because I just didn't have time (or red yarn), but I don't think he needed it anyway.  I'm still technically choosing which one to put in his ornament, but I have an idea which it'll be.  Which is your favorite??

   A                                                                           B

C                                                                            D

E                                                                        F

G                                                                             H

New Lens, Take 2

For Mother's Day, Travis gave me a new camera lens!  (It's a Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6.)  I'm super excited about it!  My last "new lens" was a portrait lens, but this one is more of a general purpose lens.  It will be great for travel photography!  (I'm excited to use it on our upcoming trips.)  It's really great just in the house, too.  I'm a lucky girl!  I'm mostly telling you about this lens to show off Travis' photography skills.  He took the following two pictures of our babies, and they are so great!  He's got the photog eye, don't you think?

Easter 2015

Each Easter since Natalie was born, we have been able to get dressed up and take family pictures.  I wanted to do that this year, too, but time and exhaustion got in the way.  We actually left on Easter Sunday for our vacation to Bavaria (more on that later!), and I'm still working on the whole juggling life with 2 kids thing.  Not to mention that I didn't know what I would wear in a family picture.....  ha!  I was able to get pictures of the babes, though, so I thought I'd share them with you!

This cutie didn't want to smile for me.  He's been doing that lately!  If my nice camera is in his face, he won't perform.  haha

{Adorable}

"Natalie, can I take your picture?" *sigh*

"Pleeeeeeease??"
"No!"

I was able to bribe Natalie to take a picture with Aidan by letting her hold the lens cap.  haha!  I think these 2 pictures came out pretty well!

Sweet babies. <3<3<3

Beautiful Natalie

I took this picture of Natalie just a few days ago.  I thought it was worth a blog post, don't you?

I think she is just the most beautiful, sweet girl.  She's getting so big!  Time needs to slow down!  (She is 27 months old today.)

Natalie's 2nd Birthday!

Two months ago our baby girl turned 2!  It's amazing how time flies.  We threw her a birthday party and invited some friends over, and Natalie had a wonderful time!  Unlike last year's party, this year the theme was more defined.  I thought it would be fun to throw Natalie a Garden Party!

My awesome friend Cayce helped my large, slow, pregnant self organize the house before the party started.  She hung these flowers, wings, and poofs up on the wall.  Didn't she do an awesome job?  She also showed me how to make the poofs and flowers, which I completed during nap times.  haha

{This picture was taken later that night. It was hard to take a picture of the flowers with the sun coming in the window during the party.}

{The table!}

What's a garden party without flowers?!?!

I made and decorated her cake.  I think it turned out fairly well, and it was much less time consuming than the cupcakes and smash cake were last year.

This beautiful girl melts my heart every day.  She is such a great blessing from the Lord!

The rest of the pictures came from my phone.  Sorry for the poor quality.

{Blowing out her candles.}

The kiddos played with toys and colored, but since they aren't MY kids, I didn't want to post pictures of them on the internet without talking to their parents.  Natalie had fun opening her presents.  Her "big" present from us were her Buzz and Woody dolls from the movie Toy Story (Natalie's favorite!).

Woody is definitely her favorite doll.  She still plays with him daily, and he's often her choice of cuddle buddy at night.

This sweet girl is a treasure!

2014 in Review

There have been so many things that I intended to blog about this past year, but I just didn't have the time (or internet) to do it.  I have promised y'all lots of pictures, and this post fulfills that promise!  haha!  Rather than post about each thing individually, I decided it would be easier for me to just do a year in review of sorts.  There are activities that have been left out, and many many pictures that I just didn't have the time or energy to edit and post, but I hope you aren't disappointed!  Some months had more activities than others, as I'm sure you'll be able to tell.  (I obviously didn't add anything that I've previously posted.)

If you want to get a better look at the pictures, don't forget that you can click on the picture and it will make it larger for you!  If any of you would like a picture or two, let me know which one and I'll be happy to email the individual picture to you.  Collages just seemed the easiest way for me to get all these pics on here this time.

So without further ado, here is our 2014:

January:

After months of planning trips to Muir Woods and then cancelling, we FINALLY made it out there! 

I accidentally brought the wrong lens for my camera, so I didn't get the greatest scenery pics, but that's ok.  After the hike, we went to the lookout point for the Golden Gate Bridge and enjoyed some awesome fog.

February:
We had a picnic at a park in Vacaville one sunny day!  Natalie had a blast running around in the grass.  Man, she looks so little to me in this picture!

March:
As previously posted, my baby brother came to visit us! On his last day we were able to go hiking at the Rockville Hills Regional Park.  It was beautiful weather and good exercise.  :)

April:
This month, Travis' dad and aunt were able to come visit us!  These pictures were all taken on the day that we went to the V. Sattui Winery in Napa.

May:
Travis' mom flew out for a visit this month, and we got to take Natalie to her first air show.  She loved those planes!

June:
My parents were able to come see us this month, and we took a long weekend to go to the Monterey Bay area.  It was gorgeous!

July:
We made the big move to Germany and lived in a hotel for a month!  Our first big sightseeing adventure was to Trier, Germany, which is about an hour from our house.  We had a good time looking at the sights until we got caught in a HUGE thunderstorm with no umbrella!  We hung out in a tunnel for an hour before the rain let up a bit and we attempted to make it back to our car.  Still plenty of things to do in that city that we missed because of the rain!

August:
We drove to Heidelberg, Germany, for the day to check out that town and castle.  We took the tour of the castle, but they didn't allow pictures to be taken inside.  Boo.  It DID rain on us this day, too, but we had already learned our lesson and had an umbrella ready!

September:
Travis had his first tour, and at the end of it we rendezvoused in Vienna!  It is our biggest trip so far, and was so fun!  We got to spend 3 days in the city, and saw some amazing sights.  These pictures don't even scratch the surface of all the pictures we took.  ha!

October:
I have been on quite a crochet kick lately, and this hat and scarf set was the first in a long line of projects that I've completed.  Natalie just looks so cute in it that I had to take her out for a little photo shoot!  Also, we were thrown an awesome baby shower for Baby Boy on the weekend of Halloween!  We got some matching shirts to make the occasion even more fun.  hahaha

November:
At the end of this month, we got to go to our first German Christmas market!  We decided to go back to Trier, and it was great fun.  Looking forward to more Christmas markets next year!

December:
This month Natalie turned 2!  But that is worth its own post.  We stayed home during the Christmas break, since it's so close to Baby Boy's due date, and I've been so achy that we haven't even done much in the area.  We enjoyed a nice, quiet Christmas at home, and watching Natalie open presents this year was so fun!  It has snowed a few times, which has been beautiful.  2014 has been a great year, and we're looking forward to all that God has in store for us in 2015!