Natalie turns 1 !!!!!!

It is hard to believe but my sweet little Natalie turned one on the 25th of August. Here she is in her birthday suit on her birthday in the bathtub.

Stats at age 1: 17 lbs 11 oz 29 inches long.

Natalie in her going home outfit. She had jaundice so yes her face is yellow it is not your eyes or the camera. Stats at birth: 7 lbs 13 oz 20 inches long

As I write this post and look at the pictures from the hospital I cry. It was such a beautiful day and it is wonderful to think about it. I have fond memories of all 3 of the birth days of my kids but Natalie's is a little different. I feel like Natalie is my little miracle baby. When I was about 8 weeks along they did an ultrasound and found that the pregnancy was viable but that my placenta was bleeding and so I had to be very cautious. For weeks I was not able to lift anything over 10 pounds (which meant Taylor who was only 2) or do any housework that would be strenuous or use my stomach muscles. (not too disappointed about that but it was very frustrating.) I am grateful to my Sister in Law Joycelyn who had just moved here from Utah and she wasn't working yet so she would come in the morning and help me get Nathan to his Kindergarten class and then come play with Taylor and help clean my house. It was a HUGE blessing. We had frequent ultrasounds to check the bleeding and I went to the hospital twice because of bleeding where I was told I was having a threatened miscarriage because if the placenta detached I would lose the baby. (Remember I had just been through my 2nd miscarriage a few months before this) I was terrified, I prayed ALOT and our family joined us in a special fast for this baby to make it to term. I went to the temple and tried to do everything I could to be prepared for the outcome. My testimony grew during this ordeal and eventually felt I was strong enough to handle whatever would come, including,but hopefully not, the loss of a 3rd baby. Well after the trial of our faith we discovered that the placenta had healed and that everything would be okay. We were all very relieved and grateful to a loving Heavenly Father. There were a few other hiccups with blood clots in my legs and of course the normal morning sickness but overall the pregnancy went well from this point on. Now we have our beautiful little Natalie Ann she is a pure joy to have in our family.

Here we are just moments after she was born. She was so alert from the very beginning. She still likes to just check things out that are going on in the room around her. She has a sweet spirit about her and we all love her deeply.

Natalie's Birthday Bash

Natalie's actual Birthday is tomorrow the 25th so I will do an official Birthday post tomorrow, but I wanted to post pictures from her birthday party. On Saturday we had the Grandparents,Uncles, Aunts and cousins(that were in town) on both sides of the family over to celebrate. We ended up with 12 adults and 9 kids. It was a full house and we really appreciate the family taking the time to come be with us.

First of all I LOVE this picture. I don't think I could've posed it better. It happened because I kept trying to take a picture with her with her Birthday crown on. I would put it on grab the camera and she normally had it off before I could get the camera to my eye. It is like she is saying hats off to me it is my Birthday Party. :-) As you can see we ate sub sandwiches for dinner.

After many attempts I finally got a picture where Natalie is actually wearing the crown.

Natalie and Preston posing before presents were opened. She received some great gifts. Thank you to everyone. She was really tired because she only had a short nap that day so she was pretty grumpy during the opening of the presents. She started getting a little more into it the more she opened. She has been playing with them A LOT the past 2 days.

The whole family posing for a picture. Once again Natalie is really tired and not very happy.

Natalie did enjoy her cupcake (mostly the icing)



After she had been enjoying it for a little while.

Our cute girls

These are some random pictures of the girls.

Taylor is really growing up. She is actually becoming a helper around the house and with Natalie. If we are ever going anywhere she likes to pack her backpack with random toys and I am always to put some sort of lunch (actually just snacks) in her backpack. This is Taylor ready for a morning of Visiting Teaching.

My kids have all been able to fall asleep in random places and positions. Natalie is no exception. If you look closely I think her pinky toe is actual blue from the weight being placed on it.

A random side note: As some of you may have known Preston was gone all last week for a security convention in Las Vegas. He got home LATE on Friday night. On Saturday morning we were all sitting around the table eating breakfast and I said. "Isn't it so nice to have Dad home and eating breakfast with us." Right after I said that Natalie says from her high chair. "Yeah" It was really cute. She was very cuddly with her Dad all that day. It was her nonverbal way of saying she really missed him and that now all was okay in her little world.

Preston's New Ride

Yesterday Preston (or should I say the Lock Shop) bought a new "work" truck. This will be the vehicle that we add our shop logo to. Also he will be putting a lift gate on the back to use for small safe deliveries, so they don't have to use the trailer all the time.

The truck is really nice. I am shocked that he bought a black truck to be honest, because that was the biggest thing keeping us from buying one of the other Escalades we looked at. Preston went and looked at it last week and fell in love with it. We discussed it and then he bought it on Monday. I didn't see it until he drove it home. It is pretty snazzy and I can see why he wanted it soo bad. It is lifted and has big tires so I had to literally pull myself up by the steering wheel to get in. I will not be getting in that thing in front of anybody until he gets a step added to it, although I am sure I looked graceful to any onlookers. ;-)
The nice thing is that it has a back seat so we can all fit in it if needs be. This way we can still have 2 family vehicles once we ever sale the White Escalade. He already took the truck on a road trip to Las Vegas for work. Hopefully he will still love it when he gets back.

FINALLY :-) :-) :-)

Taylor is letting me style her hair. I still get the occasional struggle to brush her hair but more often then not she lets me style it. Lately I have been curling it with a curling iron and she loves it and I have convinced her a couple time to let me put braids in it. I think it looks really cute and many (especially her Dad) make a big deal about it so she will want it done again. I think she is starting to like the pampering part. Here are some pictures from one of the times she let me braid and curl her hair.

Family Pictures

When we went to Eagar for the 4th of July Weekend Preston's Mom had arranged a photographer to take some pictures for us. They turned out cute. Here are a few of them. Just an FYI if you click on the picture you can see it bigger.

Preston's Parents (aka Nana and Grandpa) with all of their 8 grandkids. They were very pleased and proud to have all their grandkids with them for the weekend.

All the cousins on Preston's side of the family. We color coordinated the families with matching shirts. The kids ages at the time of this picture are 11, 8, 7,6,3,2, 10 months and 5 months. The little boy to the right of Nathan is Daniel he is 7 1/2 months younger then Nathan and they are really good friends. Daniel lives in Eagar and whenever we go visit they are inseparable and they get along great, never really even disagree.

I had to post this picture because it tells a story. These shots were some of the last ones we took. Nathan's face says "please get me out of here I am putting this smile on so this whole thing can be OVER!!" Taylor is ecstatic because she had been asking the whole time to hold Natalie in one of the pictures so we finally let her. Natalie's face explains why we were so reluctant. Once again this was after quite a few other pictures.