Sweet baby Natalie is trying to grow up :(

Miss Natalie has just started to get up on all fours and is rocking back and forth.  It breaks my heart  that she is growing up so fast!

All her efforts made her quite tired so she just laid her head down and took a short nap.

Despite her teeth hurting her she is still her smiley self.

 

Trying again to crawl!

I am getting less and less opportunities to get sleeping pictures so I was pretty excited to snap this one!

Lynd's Fruit Farm with The Hague's.

Yesterday we loaded up the girls and headed out to Lynd's Fruit Farm to pick up some Amish goodies and go apple picking.  This is Jeff and I's favorite time of the year / weather so it was a perfect day to get out and enjoy it.

Uncle Nick, Grady and Samantha picking apples. (Golden Delicious)

Samantha loved picking the apples and putting them in the bag!

Aunt Mandy, Natalie, Grady and Chase in the background.  Aunt Mandy just loves holding Miss Natalie but pretty soon her arms are going to be full with her new little baby. (Due Feb. 2013)

Grady wanted to climb the trees just like spider man so Uncle Jeff got up there in the tree with him.

Me and my big girl!

Chase wanted to get up in the tree too!

Samantha in her element! Outside and roaming free.

We got the kids to stand still long enough to snap a picture then off they went!

Up in the tree picking an apple.

Showing off her apple picking skills!

Natalie's 6 month check up.

A couple days after Natalie turned 6 month's old we went for her 6 month check up.  She weighed 15.8 lbs and is growing just perfectly.  She LOVED tearing the paper and wading it all up. She really wanted to eat the paper so I had to keep taking it away from her. She thought the whole routine was a game!

90th percentile for Head.

90th percentile for Height.

50th percentile for Weight.

You can see her two little bottom teeth poking thru in this one!

Natalie is 6 Month's old today!

I should rename this post, Wiggly Legs. Miss Natalie was just so happy she could not keep her little legs still. So in every picture I took her legs are a little blurry.

It is so fun pulling out Samantha's old clothes for Natalie. It's exciting to reminisce about Samantha when she wore them and to see Natalie big enough to fit in them.

This was my favorite smiling face but it also has the blurriest legs!

Samantha's first day of School, 9/6/12.

On Thursday 9/6/12, Samantha had her first day of school at Stoneybrook Early Learning Center. This year she will go twice a week for 2 1/2 hours. We have been talking about her going to pre-school for the past few month's so when it was time to go pick out her new backpack she was thrilled! On Thursday morning she was so excited! She had no clue what pre-school was all about but she knew it was something new and exciting!

Since it was her first day, parents were invited to stay and see what the kids would be doing. Jeff and I both went and were able to take some pictures of her enjoying her first day.  She really liked this toy where you had to use tweezer like grippers to get the little balls off the caterpillars hands!

There is a play kitchen in her classroom and she met a little friend!

 

Everyday they will do "circle time" to talk about the day of the month and week and what the weather is like. This is also where they sit when Miss Lynne reads them books.  Samantha had to be front and center for all the group activities, I expected nothing different :)

The craft was to cut out and decorate little t-shirts.  She loved using the scissors and glue!

There were no tears (hers or mine) and she followed directions really well. I know that she will do really well in school. She is very confident and self assured.  Most of the time she didn't even care that Jeff and I were there at all.  This is just one more reminder that my sweet little girl is growing up. #tear

Samantha's new bed!

 Last week Samantha gave Jeff and I a 30 minutes dissertation of why she needs a big bed like Mommy and Daddy.  Since we already had the conversion kit to make her crib into a full size bed, and my mom (Gram) had a full size mattress / box springs to give us, we decided to go ahead and make the upgrade.  All we had to go buy was bedding and pillows!

I'd love to say that this upgrade was as easy at it sounds but it actually was a total disaster.  We bought the conversion kit 3+ years ago when we bought Samantha's bed room set and we never even opened the box until last night. So after spending 2 hours shopping for all the new bedding we got home and realized we were missing parts.  So Jeff went to Menard's and Lowe's to find the missing parts. But those parts did not fit correctly so this morning we went to Home Depot, with the bed rails, to make sure we got the right parts.  After getting the bed all put together we went to put the box springs on and the bed was less than an inch too big for the box springs so the box springs just fell to the floor.  So Jeff went back to Menard's to get rails to hold up the box springs. When he got home we realized the rails were cut 1 inch too small and they did not work. So he had to go back to Menard's and get new rails cut. Luckily the new rails work and we were able to get the bed put together! But now Samantha just wants to play on her new bed and not take a nap.  At least the project is done and Samantha is happy.

My little girl is starting to act like a big girl.  But no worries, she already promised me she would live with me FOREVER!  You hear that Samantha? You promised me you'll never move out :)

Today, Natalie got her first tooth!

 Miss Natalie in her crib! When I put her in here her head was at the other end of the crib and this is how I found her when she woke up! #wiggleworm

 

Today I felt in Natalie's mouth and a little bottom tooth has finally poked through.  It is still too small to get a picture of, but I wanted to document this milestone with it's own blog. I cannot believe it but Miss Natalie will be 6 month's old tomorrow.  It really just seems impossible for her to be that old already. Last weekend we moved her from her car seat (to sleep in at night) to her crib.  We thought the transition would be so hard and it was actually seamless.  She is still sleeping through the night and has seemed to like being able to sleep on her belly and stretch out.  Her leg strength is improving and she will support some of her weight on her legs but she is not trying to crawl at all yet.  Although she can get around by rolling and will end up across the room in no time.  She has been spending more and more time in her jump-a-roo and less time in her swing.  It's like her passive aggressive way of telling us she is growing up! Natalie loves watching her big sister and will laugh out loud when Samantha is playing with her!  She also really likes baby dolls.  Since Samantha has moved up to the big American Girl dolls, Natalie has claimed the Bitty Baby.  She loves licking her face and squeezing her to death! Jeff and I love watching her grow and do new things everyday. But there is still a part of me that wants her to stay a baby forever.  We love you Miss Natalie!

Sister pictures!!!

Oh my, I am 31!!!

On Sunday the whole family went to Genji to celebrate my 31st birthday.  Samantha was a little afraid of the fire but she was pretty brave! 

She loved eating the rice but didn't want the cook to put anything else on her plate. So the cook ended up loading my plate up, gotta love Genji leftovers!

On my actual birthday, Jeff made this little sign for the girls to hold in their "good morning Mommy" picture!

Natalie just wanted to crumple hers all up!

 

Summer Vacation!

This year we went on a "Hague" vacation. Dad, Nick, Mandy, Grady, Chase, "Uncle" Scott all came on vacation with us. We rented a house on Norris Lake in Eastern Tennessee.  The house was awesome and this is the view from our balcony.

The water was really clear and warm, it could not have been more perfect!

Dad rented a pontoon boat for the whole week and the daily routine was to wake up, eat breakfast, pack the cooler for a long day on the water.  Samantha loved riding on the boat and swimming in the water.

We bought her this Dora life jacket to bring with us since there were never a place to swim where you could touch the bottom.  Some parts of the lake are over 250 feet deep!

This picture was totally staged. Samantha went on the tube with me once and when I fell off she was terrified.  She never wanted to ride the tube again unless it was just being used as a float while everyone was swimming.

She did like playing on the tube with Grady, but she would freak out if she thought the boat was going to start moving with them down in the tube!  Grady on the other hand LOVED the tube.  I am convinced he would have spent the whole week in the tube had he been allowed.  He even loved being thrown out of the tube too! It was so cute seeing him get more and more confident riding the tube as the week went on.

Jeff on the tube!

Me on the tube! I am like Grady and could have spent the whole week on the tube!

Me being a show off and standing up in the middle of the tube!

Captain Dad!

"Uncle" Scott! Samantha thinks that b/c Scott is Grady and Chase's uncle, he is her uncle too.

Mandy (+baby) and Grady on the pontoon boat.

Daddy and his sun-loving girl!

Mommy and her shade-loving girl!

She is such a water baby!

One day we rented a speed boat to supplement the pontoon.  We got a second tube and what a difference some additional speed made! When you flew off the tube on the speed boat there was some pain involved!  One time I rolled at least 8 times on top of the water before I went in!  Jeff, Scott and I all tried water skiing but only Scott made it up (for 3 seconds) then we all gave up!

Jeff said, "You all are going to be amazed when I am awesome at this." That was before he tried 5 times to get up and couldn't.  Nick and I had a good laugh out of that.

Natalie likes to watch Baby Einstein on the iPad. So I had her laying down watching it when the other kids came over and somehow Baby Einstein turned into Toy Story and Natalie got a bit edged out.

But it was cute that this was something that all 4 kids liked to do considering they vary in age by 4 years.

Aye Aye Captain!

One day we rented a jet ski and it was a lot of fun too.  We could get it up to 54 miles an hour and took full advantage of that speed. Unlike the last time Jeff and I rented jet ski's on the Gulf of Mexico, this smooth lake water was a ton of fun.

Nick posing on the jet ski.

When Grady had enough of Nick riding on the tube with him, he kicked him off and I picked him up on the jet ski.

Natalie was really good on vacation and just went with the flow. She slept a lot on the boat and was in good mood most of the time.

Daddy and his surfer girl, or so her bathing suit says :)

 Sporting her "sunnies"!