Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy

I swear it was yesterday I wrote this exact post about Marisa. Remember this? Flash forward two years and it's Natalie's turn!







Of course, Marisa wanted to show us that she can still bounce!

girls ALWAYS want to have fun

Marisa loves playdates.

And there is nothing better than having a cute little girlfriend to play with. Lucky her, as she grows up, even at my age, the playing still doesn't stop. =o)

Starting Solids

I didn't want to start Natalie on any kind of solids until she was at least 6 months old, so I can breastfeed as long as possible, but I was curious and I thought it would at least maybe (fingers-crossed) help her sleep better at night. So I gave it a try.

She reacted just as expected. Natalie was not to sure what to do or really think of it. She tried sucking on the spoon and every once and awhile she would make a face. Unsure about the taste and texture of rice cereal. Of course, it was really cute to watch!





It got kinda hard to feed her near the end because she would just turn her body and start sucking on the side of her bumbo. Maybe I'll have to start feeding her in her carseat...

Happy 2010!

For New Year's we went to St. George and Las Vegas to spend time with more family. We rang in the New Year with me nursing Natalie to sleep, and Tim putting Marisa to bed. Woo-hoo! So it was rather a quiet way to enter 2010. (Or a stressful way to enter?) Hopefully, the quiet entrance will be a foreshadowing for the year.
It was also Tim's birthday on January 2nd! Happy Birthday, love! The big 28. We celebrated in Vegas on the strip at PF Changs. We were treated as VIP there because we had our own fancy room, that was kinda hidden in the restaurant, with big glass doors to enter in and a large wooden table with beautiful ambiance surrounding us. haha That's how we roll, you know.
Before we ate, we stopped to look at the new CityCenter. It is the largest privately funded construction project in the history of the United States. It will be really neat once it is completely finished.


(I love this picture of Marisa and cousin Tanner. Besties holding hands around CityCenter. And if you look closely, Marisa has her whole hand wrapped around one of Tanner's fingers.)

Anyways, I'm excited for a new year. A fresh start, new goals, and new adventures with my family. Happy 2010!

A Very Merry Christmas

With Marisa being older and having more of an understanding of the holidays, this year has been extra special and fun. When I first told Marisa all about Santa and his reindeer, she was of course so excited. But cute little thing, she thought Santa comes to her house to play with her and her toys. You know, like Santa was a playdate. I had to further explain to her that Santa comes and brings toys to good girls and boys, and then leaves eating the cookies and milk we leave out and carrots for the reindeer. (Such a weird concept for a two year old I'm sure. And then, on top of that, I was trying to also explain it was Jesus' birthday.) So, sorry big girl, Santa doesn't come to play.

Throughout the whole month of December, Marisa would wake up every morning, turn on the Christmas tree, open a door on our advent calendar to receive two Hershey kisses (one for her and one for Daddy), and jump up and down counting down the days until Christmas. She loved singing Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and reading lots of Christmas stories. Marisa also loved how all the stores and the mall were decorated with Christmas. We saw Santa at the mall for the third time in her life and she was still scared. She was fine until she had to walk up to him and say what she wanted. She never told Santa what she wanted, but she did tell me while we were waiting in line that she wanted a big bear. =o)

We spent Christmas in LA this year with Tim's family. Marisa and Natalie enjoyed all the attention from Grandpa and Grandma to themselves. Grandma made a gingerbread house with Marisa where she snuck in candy into her mouth instead of pasting them onto the house. =o)







Grandma also took Marisa to Disneyland on Christmas Eve to meet up with her cousins, and according to Aunt Kari and Grandma, she would just cover eyes during every ride. When she came home she told us, "I don't want to go to Disneyland. It's too scary." haha Grandma bought her a baby Minnie doll as a reward for being such a trooper at Disney. Thanks Grandma!

Later that night we had a beautiful Christmas Eve dinner and program with me playing the piano (right hand only and playing from the Hymns Made Easy book) and Tim busting out his trombone after 10 years with Marisa dancing around to his music. haha It was hilarious. The girls of course got Christmas jammies. Matching jammies. I was probably more excited for them to open it than they were. =o) I mean, how cute is that??







Christmas morning we all opened up gifts and had a big breakfast. Marisa and Natalie must have been good little girls this year because they got a lot of fun presents! We then headed back down home to Orange County to the Call's house for more cousin fun! It was a very Merry Christmas!

I heart LA

Today we started our vacation break and Christmas festivities by going down to LA. And oh, how I love Southern California. Eating at a Malibu restaurant on the beach with 76 degree weather during "winter" season, can it get any better?








After a yummy dinner we shopped at The Promenade and then saw the Christmas lights at the Los Angeles Temple. Beautiful day.

4 month check-up

Weight: 12 pounds 7 ounces 25 percentile
Height: 24.2 inches 48 percentile
Head: 16 inches 30 percentile

Happy and healthy...check! That is all a Mommy can ask for, so I am very happy and grateful. =o)
So, it's funny to compare your children's stats and see how different they are. Compared to Marisa, so far Natalie is my little one. At this age Marisa was around the 75 percentile for everything, but her head was like in the 90 percentile. haha Natalie got my head and not the big "Hart" head like Marisa has. =o)
The only concern the doctor had with Natalie was that she is waking up too many times at night. He said she should be only waking up once during the night considering her size and age. I have to admit that I haven't been enjoying the lack of sleep either. So he gave me several suggestions for sleep training. So we'll see how it goes. I'm nervous, but hopefully in the end, she'll be sleeping better for me. Crossing my fingers!