9 month portraits...

Today we did Natalie's 9 month portraits...wow is she a lot harder now that she's active and on the move! Just in the last couple days she has really started crawling so much more (and without Puffs or Cheerios as motivation!) and is just wiggly all the time! Just know that it took quite a lot of energy from us to get these pictures...but, of course, once you see them, all that effort was worth it!

-L










"Look how I can clap now!"





These ribbon shoes are SO much better when you untie them and play with the ribbon...I think Mom was getting a little tired of re-lacing and re-tying them on my feet!









"My beautiful dress from Papa Mike & Grammy Pam...I like the ribbons!"



"I can give a high 5 now...it's pretty fun!"




"I don't think I'm having fun anymore..."

Fun times in Houston...

We visited the Museum of Natural Science (after Jon, Natalie, and I got to visit with my college friend Meredith) and got to see the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit. Very amazing to see (but no photography allowed, so no pics). We also walked through some of the permanent collection, like the dinosaur skeletons and the gemstones. By the end, Natalie was so tired that she fell asleep while atop my dad (Bobo)!! It was so cute...

-L








We got to visit with my high school friends, Cecilia & Kelle, and meet their little ones, Kyler and Marley!





Everyone loves Natalie!

Natalie tries meat...

Since Natalie has been doing so well with foods, we thought it'd be a treat to give her a taste of meat (still the baby food jars) over Christmas. She tried lamb, turkey, and beef (lamb is pictured here), and it was pretty hilarious. Definitely not a favorite although she did a little better with it on some of the following days. On the other hand, Puffs cereal snacks are a HUGE hit and are what are getting her crawling!

-L

Christmas Day in Houston

We flew to Houston to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. My parents, sister Julie, brother Andy & his girlfriend Kate, and Aunt Polly were all there. We had a full house and it was so fun to be together for Christmas. Jon, Natalie, and I actually got to be Mary, Joseph, & Baby Jesus at the Christmas Eve service at our church. Christmas morning was quite fun. We had practiced with Natalie on ripping wrapping paper, so she was able to do some of the unwrapping herself, although it took her quite some time to get through all her gifts! She received lots of fun things and books and such. Eriksons gave her the "Elf Yourself" outfit that she wore most of Christmas morning. Enjoy some pics from the day!

-L

p.s. As a little update from the last post, we have recovered some of the pictures and we do have low res for almost everything, so all is not as bad as it first seemed with our own pictures. Yea!