We made it! Whew!

Ok, first of all...MAJOR KUDOS TO NATALIE!!!!! She has been such a trooper so far. I am incredibly proud of her! We left NY at 4:30am and didn't arrive in Kill Devil Hills until 7:20pm. Talk about a long day in the car! YIKES! We hit a snag in the morning (which we won't talk about at Jeff's request) and lost about an hour and a half of travel time. We also hit traffic in Norfolk and that set us back a bit. For the record - I hate tunnels and bridges. Anyways - Natalie was a perfect angel!!!



We made it to the hotel and met up with my parents and sister and her boyfriend. Natalie played for awhile and then we put her to bed. Natalie didn't sleep that great in the hotel - I think she knew it wasn't that great. We got up Saturday morning - had breakfast. Natalie was a total ham - entertaining everyone! Every time she sees someone she waves at them! Then she thankfully took a little nap.

Here are some pictures of Natalie's first time seeing the ocean!! She was completely mesmerized.






Here are Natalie and Daddy taking a snooze before we headed off to our next adventure!!



We checked out of the hotel around 11am and then we went to Jockey Ridge to see the sand dunes. Those were SO COOL! Natalie didn't really join us for that part - it was too windy and I didn't want her to get sand in her face so my Mom and Dad and grandparents hung out with her. Here are a few pictures...










After that we drove to Rodanthe for some lunch and then went grocery shopping. We were a tiny bit frustrated with the Real Estate Company because they didn't call us to get into the house until 4pm. Their policies are a little screwy in my opinion - we were actually trying to rent the house a day early - on Friday, but they said we couldn't (long story) and then they didn't even make an effort to make sure we could get in by 3pm (check in) or earlier on Saturday! They said they had to inspect the house, etc - um, we're the first people to rent the house this season. Whatever, we got in around 4pm! Whooooo!

I was incredibly overwhelmed by the magnitude of this house. I still haven't figured it all out. It is MASSIVE! There are 9 bedrooms - a bazillion bathrooms. An incredible great room, loft, wrap around decks on every floor, gorgeous kitchen, media room, 2 rec rooms with a pool table and ping pong table, wet bar, flat screen TVs all over the place. It is just amazing. Our bathroom is seriously my dream bathroom. I haven't really taken any pictures yet, but I will later. I don't think they'll even come close to doing the house justice.

Yesterday was great weather, but a little on the windy side. Today is not so nice - it looks like the sun is trying to peek through. Its chilly though - high 50s I think. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't 76 yesterday!! Hopefully the temps will come back up, but it isn't looking so good. Natalie has just been amazing this whole time - I'm so proud of her. She's exhausted, but in a great mood. She slept great last night (even though my family is LOUD!!) and she already took a great nap this morning.

I think today we're just going to hang out - which is fine by me! I'm still exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well - I'm hoping Jeff can go get my some Unisom later today that I can take tonight. Hopefully at some point Jeff and I can take a walk on the beach too. So far it has been a great start to our vacation!!!!

We're off!

We leave tomorrow morning for our trip to the Outer Banks!

12+ hours in a car with an 11 month old? What was I thinking?!?!

Wish us luck for a safe and uneventful trip! I'll post pictures soon!

Outside!!!!

Yay! The weather has been so nice the past few days! We have finally been able to take Natalie outside to play. She doesn't do much, she just sits and watches the other kids outside playing. She also watched Daddy clean out his car.

She has a new favorite sound - BEEP BEEP! She thinks car horns are pretty hilarious. Jeff honked the horn at her while he was cleaning his car - it scared her at first and then she started giggling like crazy. We had her cracking up during dinner by saying "beep beep!" It doesn't take much to amuse them at this age, does it?

The only problem with playing outside is that eventually you have to come inside and Natalie isn't too happy when its time to do that!

Cake and a flashback

I decided to make a cake yesterday and for some crazy reason I decided I'd let Natalie have a piece. She looooooooooooves cake! Its a really good thing I thought again and stripped her down before I gave it to her - she was COVERED in frosting. Chocolate frosting, of course! We just had to share with someone so we did a video chat with Nana and Poppy! They had so much fun watching her smash cake into her face! Daddy didn't have quite as much fun washing the frosting out of her hair though!! LOL!

Now for the flashback...

I realized that some of you reading this blog have no idea who we are!

Jeff and I started dating in 2000. We actually met in 1998, we were in the same college orientation group! We didn't really talk to each other or get to know each other until we were introduced by mutual friends. Jeff's dorm room window was directly across from mine and my roommates all referred to him as "hot computer guy" because he was always at his computer.

We got engaged in 2003 and we were married November 6, 2004.

We moved into our house in Angola, NY in May 2005. Angola is a fun town in the summer because we are right on Lake Erie! Fun fun!

Natalie June was born on May 7, 2007 via C-Section and our lives have been turned completely upside down since!

Jeff works with computers and I am an aspiring School Counselor. Don't know if that will work out because the job market is awful where we live. I'm considering going back to school, but I'm not really sure about it yet.

No rush for more kids just yet - we're enjoying our time with Natalie June Bug for now!

EWWWWW!!! Natalie pooped in the TUB!!

YUCK!!

I think that was one of the grossest Mommy-hood moments thus far.

All I have to say is THANK GOD it was hard poop, so that made clean up a little easier. You other Moms know what I'm talking about.

I was being a bad Mommy and trying to multi-task cleaning the bathroom while giving Natalie a bath. She's at that stage where she's perfectly content to play in the tub, I might as well clean the toilet while I'm in there!!

So, I'm cleaning the sink and I hear her grunting, but don't really think anything of it. She's standing up, swinging a wet wash cloth all over the place - getting me soaked in the process. I get the feeling that maybe I should make sure she didn't poop. I look over the edge of the tub and there are a bunch of poop balls floating in the tub - EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

I pulled her out of the tub - she thought it was hysterical. I started draining the tub and cleaned the poop up the best I could with a mobile 11 month old. YUCK YUCK YUCK.

You want to know what the worst part of the whole thing was? I had just scrubbed the tub that morning!!!

New Baby!

No, not me!

My cousin Becky had her baby yesterday 4/4 - a little boy named Cyrus Jack! 8lbs 9oz, 21 1/2 inches long

Welcome to the family Cyrus!

Dat Doo...

Well, that's what I think she says anyways. Natalie hasn't said it for me exactly. Can you tell what its supposed to be?

Thank you. Hey - she was close. She's not even 11 months old, give her a break!

Our babysitter, Val, has been teaching Natalie to say "thank you!" What a great babysitter! Not only does she take great care of Natalie, but she teaches her cool stuff too. Natalie won't say Thank You to me though - I should probably get used to it. But at least she's working on her manners with other people.

T-minus 6 or 7 days until we leave for the Outer Banks. I'm a little nervous, but super duper excited to go. I need a vacation! But, I think driving down there will be a mini-hell if Natalie doesn't sleep. I don't particularly enjoy 12 hour car trips in the first place, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it with an 11 month old. What were we thinking again? We haven't even decided what day we're leaving yet! Sheesh. We're on top of things!

5 weeks until Steve and Sarah's wedding. I'm starting to get a better idea of what our itinerary is looking like, so I'm beginning to feel better. I just pray that Natalie can get some good sleep and be a perfect little angel for the ceremony and pictures! Then she can go have a blast with Nana and Poppy for the night. I'll have to post a picture of Natalie in her little dress - so darn cute!

Oh and check out the Mommy in Review blog I have listed - Laura is pretty darn funny so her reviews should be interesting. And its always nice to have products tested for us before we spend our hard earned $, right?