Happy New Year!

It is really 2008! 2007 just flew by. It feels like it went by quickly, but I realize just how fast this past year has been when I look at my little Natalie. A year ago she was still a baby--not walking, saying just a few things and without any hair. Now she is turning two the end of this month, running and skipping everywhere, jumping any chance she gets, telling me "No I don't want to!", asking everyone in the family "How you doin, Mommy?" or "how you doin' Andew?" Picking up on EVERYTHING I say, even if it looks like she isn't listening in. She really is the queen of eavesdroppers. Last year she learned to walk, to talk, to sing, to jump, to tell a joke, to swim, to dance. She grew hair and passed the 20 pound mark (finally!). What a year for Natalie.

We had a GREAT Christmas and vacation week. John had mandatory time off--which means time he would never take off if he didn't have to. So we went to Utah for a whole week and he still had two days off when we got home. Heaven for me and the kids. We left for Utah Saturday the 22nd. Bad ride up. James wasn't too happy and I was tired. After 2 1/2 hours of driving we pulled off at a gas station because James had been crying for a little while. I took him into one of the dirtiest bathrooms I've been in to change his diaper. It was outside and cold. The floor was covered in wet dirt and grime patterns and paper towels were strewn about. No pull-out changing table. I had to put my coat on the dirty cement floor and luckily had an extra blanket/burp cloth because James had poop everywhere. So I put him on the burp cloth, took off all his dirty clothes and changed his diaper. It must have been 20 degrees outside so I wrapped my baby in his diaper in my coat and ran him back to the car. All his clothes were in a suitcase of course at the bottom of the overstuffed back, so we ended up finding a coat and some rattle socks. He wore those and a blanket for the rest of the trip. I tried to hide his attire when we stopped at Wendy's later on.

What a great week though. All my brothers and sisters were there. We played games, ate, went sledding, ate, played games . . . John got me a PS2 and Dance Dance Revolution for Christmas. I didn't think I was getting anything, so it was a very fun surprise. We borrowed guitar hero from a neighbor and played GH and DDR. My mom and dad even got in on the gaming ;-) Here we have the kids trying out GH. Andrew actually looks like he knows what he's doing. I don't think he got one note.
And these pictures sum up DDR nicely. JB had his pjs pulled up to his ears so they wouldn't get in the way.


I hardly saw Andrew the whole week--he was having such a great time with cousins. Natalie came down with pink eye and double ear infection--once I had her on an antibiotic she had a great time! And James basked in the attention of gma and gpa.

I don't know if my kids really got the Santa thing. Christmas night (after Santa had come) Andrew said, "Santa Claus is coming tonight!" I think he thought we were going to do Christmas morning all over again the next day.
Natalie's favorite thing of the trip was sledding. Andrew had a great time too, but it was Natalie that giggled the entire way down and said "again" every time she got to the bottom. She was so stiff in her snowsuit and boots. She couldn't walk on her own.

James got a Bumbo from gma and gpa. Or should I say I got a Bumbo. But James LOVED it. He loved being able to sit up and see what was going on. He even fell asleep in it once or twice.
We actually managed to get the little kids to participate in the nativity on Christmas Eve. Andrew was Joseph, Grace (Andrew's twin-cousin born on the same day, same year as Andrew) was Mary, Natalie was an angel/star, James was baby Jesus, my bro Jim was the donkey, John was a wise man and my sister Angela was a shepherd with Claire. They did a great job!
After all those sweet pictures, this one might be my favorite. Andrew and Natalie fighting over the star. It just seems to sum up how it really is ;-)