Wonderful Weather- Busy Weekend

I hope everyone had as nice of weather this weekend as we did.  It was absolutely beautiful all weekend, so we took advantage of it.  Here are some pictures from our weekend adventures.

Nat and I made a quick stop at the Duck Pond in Hershey

(yes I know these are geese not ducks in the background)

Swinging with Daddy at the park by our house

(notice what the shirt says "Mommy and I agree

 Daddy's charming)

Napping with Daddy

All the little girls at the pool- we all live within one block of each other, 

and the girls are so close in age.  Natalie is 3 months, 

Madison is 4.5 months, and Louisa is 6 months (but

they are all about the same size- my daughter is a giant!)

Natalie loved the pool today- she was in the pool for over 30 minutes

Dinner at Dukes!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, most of them were taken on our phones.  And sorry to Beth, I forgot to take a picture during our visit with you. 

It is amazing how much one can look forward to weekends- over 48 hours straight with Nat and more time with Gary as well (wish I could say 48 hours with him too but it usually doesn't happen!!!)  I love my life right now, being a Mom is awesome.

First Night Out

For those not on facebook, I thought I should post our pictures from our hot air balloon ride we wnt on this past Saturday.  Gary and I had our first date night since Natalie was born.  Mom and Dad came to visit for the weekend.  We went to the Arts Festival at Mount Gretna in the afternoon and then they offered to babysit Natalie for us for the evening.  Gary and I took advantage and scheduled our hot air balloon ride that his parents had got us for Christmas.  When we got there we didn't realize that there was a hot air balloon festival schedule for this Saturday so there was a rather large crowd gathered to watch us take off and other balloons in the air as well.  Our flight was over beautiful Lancaster County.  We saw horse drawn hay balers, tons of farm animals, fields and beautiful landscape.  We had a great evening which ended with a late dinner at TJ Rockwells in Elizabethtown, one of our favorite places during the summer.  It was so nice to get out but we certainly missed Natalie, we found we just kept talking about how awesome being parents is as well as how blessed we are with our perfect daughter!

Massive basket- 800 pounds, held 11 of us

Everyone in except us, we had to climb in 

once the basket was upright!

Huge balloon, the little black dot in the balloon is our pilot

Just before take-off

Beautiful Lancaster County

Another balloon getting ready to take off from festival

Looking down on the balloon now airborne

My wonderful husband and I

The view looking up

If you look hard you can see the three other balloons in the sky

Note the size in comparison to the people around

Again massive balloon, approx 250,000 basketballs would fill the balloon

All the Mennonite children that came to watch as we landed

Thanks to Mom and Dad for babysitting Natalie and Val and Steve for the hot air balloon ride!  It was a great date night for the two of us, though we realized we got old since becoming parents.  11 o'clock is too late to go to bed!!

Time with Daddy

Unfortunately Gary had a very busy week last week. He helped put Nat to bed Sunday night and the next time he saw her (awake at least) was Thursday night.  Fortunately he got to spend the day with us on both Friday and Saturday.  Natalie LOVES spending time with her Daddy and she loves her Bjorn.

Smirking at Poppop while eating her shirt! She will eat her hand, the 

Bjorn or her shirt like crazy, but refuses a pacifier!!!

On Saturday we met Mom and Dad at the Mount Gretna Arts Festival. We had a great time, the weather was beautiful and Natalie could not have behaved any better.  She loved being carried in the Bjorn, and even took a nap on Poppop's shoulder for a while.  We all go our Christmas shopping started and I am so excited about my new piece of pottery Gary let me get (more on this to come later this week).  It was a great afternoon followed by a great evening.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!  We certainly did- we got to spend it with family.

Natalie's Surrogate Cousins

For those of you back in Telford/Souderton area, I am sure you know who I am talking about. Over the past few years my parents have become "surrogate" grandparents (or so I like to call them) to the Hess's.  Even some of the elderly ladies at church know this.  One of them came up to me on Sunday and asked if Natalie was my parents first grandchild besides Livvie, Aiden and Taylor.  Any ways, Natalie got to hang out with her "cousins" this weekend again.  Even little Taylor got to hold her, Taylor just kept hugging and kissing the baby.    Natlie didn't seem to mind and had a great time hanging out with the Hess's.  Hopefully she will see her cousins again, maybe when it's applesauce making time.

Nap time with Poppop

Apparently my brothers and I loved to nap on my Dad's chest.  Natalie has taken a liking to this as well.  She slept on Poppop on the hammock on both Saturday and Sunday.  Both times Poppop took a nap as well.

Natalie awake while Poppop slept!

Two Month Pictures

Here is my attempt of getting some shots of Natalie at 2 months.  Unfortunately Gary was working so I was trying to get Natalie to smile, keep Sasha from laying aside of her and take the pictures all at once.  Not the most impressive pictures but nonetheless a cute little girl.

Half smile with a wink

Starting to look a little more like a combo of Mom and Dad

My favorite- so pretty and innocent

Taking after Mom

Yesterday was Natalie's two month check-up. We were very anxious to get her weight and length as well as her percentile. No surprise she is doing great and is a big girl. She was 10 weeks old yesterday (crazy huh) and she weighed 13 pounds 12 ounces and was 23 3/4 inches in length. That puts her at the 97 percentile for weight and 90 for height. She apparently has a smaller head circumference for a little girl measuring at about the 26th percentile. My mom recommended I get out my baby book cause she said I was a big baby but she didn't think as big as Natalie. It turns out I was bigger. At eleven weeks I was 14 pounds 14 ounces and 24 3/4 inches!! Apparently I was a really big baby. I will have to try to find Gary's measurements.

Otherwise Natalie did great. She had to get three shots and handled them well. Still no side effects, my fingers are crossed for a good day today.  She didn't even cry the whole visit until they gave her the shots.   A picture in the waiting room, the poor thing didn't know what was coming.