Baseball Fan

Natalie loves to color. She also loves to spell. She is always asking me if she can color and asking me to spell things for her. She is very smart so I usually tell her to sound out the words to spell them. She is very good at it. On another note, whenever we watch the Cubs play baseball on TV the kids like to watch. Andrew has got them trained as to what the information means at the top of the screen - each team, their score, how many balls, strikes, and outs, which inning it is, and so on. Yesterday we were watching the Cubs play the Florida Marlins. At the top of the screen, it read: CUBS (their score) FLA (their score). Natalie knew right away which one the Cubs were but asked us what the other team was. She sounded it out just as it showed - I explained to her that FLA was short for Florida. She seemed happy enough and went on with her day.

This morning as we were getting ready for church, she asked if she could color. I told her yes so downstairs she went with some paper and markers. About 15 minutes later she comes upstairs and says, "Mommy, look what I wrote!" then proceeded to show me her paper:

Oh my sweet girl I couldn't help but laugh. What a memory these little kids have! She was very impressed with herself, as was I. Her daddy will be so proud of her - surely she will grow up to be a great baseball fan.

Still Alive

Yes, it has been a while since I've posted here - I am just really lazy so that's my excuse. I have some exciting news - I am pregnant! I am due January 3rd so I still have a ways to go. We are really excited for baby #3. We don't know what we are having yet and won't find out for a while. I am not looking forward to being prenant all summer long!! Natalie is so excited for me to have a baby and can't wait until he/she gets big enough to start kicking so she can feel them. So far things have been ok - I have been unusually nauseous with this prenancy so far. I never got morning sickness with any of my others but I seem to be sick all the time with this one. Hopefully it won't last much longer!

We are also working on buying our first house! We have been looking with our realtor for over a month now and it is starting to get really frustrating! The good thing is that there are a lot of houses out there for GREAT prices - but all the ones we are looking at are foreclosures or bank owned so the buying process is a little more stressful. So far we have put offers on 3 different houses - the first two we didn't get. There have been multiple offers on all the houses we have been interested in so that makes things really difficult. But we just put in a very strong offer on a house we love so we are keeping our fingers crossed! Hopefully by the end of the summer we will be moved into a new house!

Natalie starts school (kindergarten) this upcoming year. I am very excited for her! I haven't enrolled her yet because we are going to be moving most likely before school starts - so I don't know which school she will be going to yet! Ever since she turned 5 she has been asking when she gets to go to school. She is also very excited and I know she is going to do great. She is very social and friendly and VERY smart. She knows all of her numbers, letters, colors, shapes, can write her name and lots of other words, can count past 100 and even knows how to add and subtract!! I am so proud of her and know she is going to do great.

Tyler also can't wait until he turns 5 so he can go to school too. I think I may put him in preschool when Natalie goes to school. I'm sure he'll be bored at home all by himself. He is such a great kid and loves his sister. They get a long so well. He is still obsessed with trains and loves to play on the computer. He and Natalie play on the computer all the time and they are getting really good at it! He is growing so fast and it won't be long before he passes up Natalie - they are already the same size! Every time we go out I have at least one person ask if they are twins. I can't believe how fast they've grown.

Natalie and Tyler are at such a great age - they are developing the cutest personalities and pick up on the weirdest stuff. I could tell dozens of stories where they mention something to me and I have NO idea where they got it from. A few weeks ago my sister Diana came to town to visit for a while. When we first got to my moms house to see her Natalie asked, "Mom, where is Diana's car?" I told her that Diana didn't drive, she took an airplane. There was a few minutes of silence then she asked, "Mom, do airplane drivers say 'Next stop Grandma's house'?" I laughed so hard! Apparently, because they watch movies with train conductors saying, "Next stop, (wherever)", she things people who fly planes must say the same thing. It was really cute. Then a few nights ago I was on the computer and Tyler came walking in my room. I was trying to get him to go to bed and he says, "Mom, if you aren't in the hallway you need to turn the light off so we don't waste money." Wow. Good for him, I guess! Andrew had told him a while ago about keeping lights and water turned off to save money or whatever and he just hasn't let that go. All the time now things need to be shut off! But I'm not complaining!

We took Natalie and Tyler to the swimming pool a few days ago (first time for the summer) and they had such a good time! We had to BEG Natalie to finally get out of the water. She asks me every day if we can go swimming - it's going to be a long summer!

Andrew recently got promoted at work to the Manager of Loss Prevention. He had been just a supervisor for the last few years and when the previous manager left, he applied for the position. I am so proud of him - he works so hard and is so good at his job.

I think that's about all for now. I will try to be better about posting so they aren't so long and I don't miss "important" stuff (not that anyone probably reads this junk anyway). With me being prenant and all I have an excuse to do regular updates - lets see how long that lasts!

Pay It Forward

Okay, this is from Karen Scott, a friend of mine from church. We'll see, eh?

A very good friend had this tag up on her blog. I am anxiously awaiting my prize! So now it's my turn to host the game. Here we go! I am unlucky when it comes to winning contests...How lucky are you? I double dare you to accept this challenge. Here are the tagging instructions: The first three people to respond to this post will get something from me! You'll have to tell me what it is I can do for you because I can't come up with much off the top of my head - but I'll make it good! The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same on your blog. Thanks Karen!

Christmas

Apparently I haven't posted anything about Christmas, so I might as well do that - considering it is almost March!

We went to visit Andy's family for Christmas. We drove to Northern Wisconsin (which took 2 days) so stay with his mom. We were there for about 3 days, then we drove to Southern Wisconsin to stay with his dad (that took a day). We stayed there for a week, then drove home (another 2 days). I think we were gone 12 days total. But we all had a lot of fun. The drive gets better as the kids get older and they don't really get homesick while we are gone. Tyler loves dogs and everyone in Andy's family has at least 2 dogs. So he liked that. Natalie....not so much. She is not a huge dog fan but there was one dog that she did absolutely love. Andy's step brother, Kyle has a girlfriend who had just got a little bitty chiuahua. That thing was TINY! Well it was so small that Natalie thought it was the cutest thing ever. She just wanted to hold it and hug it. It was really cute.

I think the dogs name was Delilah. It looks like a toy!

Speaking of toys, the kids got a million things for Christmas, as ususal. Tyler got just about every Thomas the Train toy in existance and Natalie got a ton of Princess things. They opened gifts a total of 4 times, I think. Needless to say, they enjoyed it.

The day we left Las Vegas, it snowed. Later that day, my mom called us to see how things were going. At that point we were in Nebraska getting ready to stop for the day. We hadn't seen one snowflake the entire day. My mom was worried that we had gotten stuck somewhere because they got something like 8 inches of snow!!! IN LAS VEGAS! It was crazy. But apparently we just missed the bad weather, which was good. Actually, we missed the bad weather the entire trip. Every day we drove there wasn't a single drop in the sky. But as soon as we stopped, it snowed like crazy. The kids just LOVED playing in the snow. Natalie wanted to build a snowman and Tyler just wanted to throw snowballs. Buddy (our dog who we brought with us) did NOT like the snow. It was really funny to see him try to walk around in it. He would pick his feet up really high with every step - man that dog is spoiled!

So it was a great trip. Its good to see Andy's family since they live so far away - its the only time we get to see them, and the only time they get to see the kids! Hopefully this will continue to be our family tradition each year.

Tattoo

So its been a while since I've posted - I can't really use the excuse that I've been busy...just lazy. So here's a little update.

First off, a little something cute: The other day I was getting the kids ready for a bath. Natalie loves playing with tattoos and is well known for having many plastered all over her body. I don't really know where she gets them from - she did get a coloring book for Christmas that had a few pages of tattoos in it. Anyway, this particular day I had found out that they had played in the tattoos - I found little papers all over their bedroom floor. Tyler had been running around in his undies all morning. So they are getting ready for a bath and Tyler takes off his undies and is climbing into the bathtub and this is what I see:

and I just LAUGHED and LAUGHED! Yes, that is a monkey tattoo right above his butt. I hadn't seen it all morning because his undies covered it up. So I went and got the camera and took a picture. Well anytime I take a picture of the kids, they want to see it right away. Tyler seemed a little confused that I was taking a picture of his butt and when I showed him the picture, he got a really serious look on his face. Then he tried to turn around to look at his butt to see the tattoo. Apparently he didn't know it was there either! I can just imagine Natalie putting a tattoo on Tyler while he was sleeping. Oh my gosh it was so funny.

The other day I hosted Family Home Evening at my house for my family. Only Dennis, Stephanie, Will, Leigh Ann and the kids showed up. But we still had a good time. We had sandwiches for dinner, had a simple lesson, and then had some delicious dessert. I guess it was good that more people didn't show up because I have such a small house! But I'm glad those that showed up came. Hopefully next time more can make it.

Andy applied for a manager position at the Ritz-Carlton and we are so anxious waiting to see if he got the job. He is very well qualified and is the best candidate (as far as we are concerened)...but you never know. So we are keeping our fingers crossed.

That's it for now. I'll do some more updates later.

Tyler and Natalie

The kids have been doing a lot of funny things lately...I'm not sure what the deal is. Tyler is going through the "why?" stage and it is driving me absolutely CRAZY! Everything is why this and why that...from why is it dark to why is daddy going to work...sheesh! I don't remember Natalie ever going through that stage. I guess his curiosity is a good thing - I expect he is learning a lot.

Tyler also is SO HYPER!! It's been coming on slowly but he is all over the place all the time. I feel kinda bad because we don't go out and run around much because we don't have a yard and I'm really bad about taking them to the park. So I guess he has to wear off all his energy somehow. But he is such a sweet boy and I still love it when he comes in my room first thing in the morning to snuggle with me. He pokes my face and giggles at me. Some day he'll stop bugging me so much and I know I'll miss it. So I enjoy every minute of it now.

Natalie is becoming such a little adult. I just read a post that Karen Scott wrote about her little girl saying "actually" and its funny because Natalie has been doing the same thing. Some of the things that come out of her mouth are so funny! I can see how she is developing her own personality and how she is applying things she hears to her own situations. I love her so much and am so excited for her to start school next year. She is so smart and I know she will do so well. She is such a fast learner and is very good at following directions. Hopefully this won't change when she goes to school!

That's all - just wanted to gush about my kids a little.

Tyler taking a nap with Buddy

Natalie "painting her nails" while we were going for a ride

Thanksgiving At The Downer's

It is a Downer family tradition to have everyone over for Thanksgiving at my parents house. Most of us kids still live in Henderson/Vegas so it isn't too difficult to get everyone together. Diana and her three little ones were able to come to town (from NJ) so the only ones missing were Mike, Renee and their kids. Dennis and Steph were there; Will, Leigh Ann and their three Greg, Madily, and baby William; Diana and her three Cody, Katie, and Jessica; Tina with Zach and Bonnie; me and Andy with Natalie and Tyler; Tim and Ally; Daisy and Mike; Bonnie; Clara Anne (although she had to leave early because she worked that day...bummer); and Jimmy. We also had my grandpa there for a total of 17 adults and 10 kids. WOW! We set up two long tables in the formal dining room where the adults ate and all the kids sat by the regular dinner table. Talk about a full house! We had lots and lots of fun. It was great to be able to have just about everyone there - and I don't even think we had any fights this year! Also a few days after Thanksgiving my mom and some of my sisters and I got to go to lunch together before Diana went back home. It was so great to be able to get out - just us girls! Thanksgiving is BY FAR my most favorite holiday and I can't WAIT for next year!!

My mom, cooking...

Cody and the snack trays

The kiddie table

The adult tables

Watching Wall-E with full bellies