My Macy

As I indicated in my previous post, Natalie made a new friend when we were in Iowa, her cousin, Macy from Chicago. They weren't sure of each other at first, but then once Macy let Natalie borrow one of her swimmy diapers, they were inseparable :-) They played in the baby pool and sandbox, ate dinners together, took walks to the big weeping willow tree, rolled down the hill more times than we could count, sang "Ring Around the Rosy". Natalie constantly referred to her as "My Macy". It was so adorable and we hope we can get them together soon!

I also wanted to share a picture of GG with two of her great-granddaughters. GG is not a fan of getting her picture taken, so this is about the only one that Papa could sneak in. I'm sure she waa exhausted when we left, but this visit will be such a special memory for all of us!

Visit to the Hawkeye State

We recently took a last minute trip to Iowa to visit Josh's extended family. At first, we were just going to go with Grandma and Papa J, to visit Great-Grandma Connie (now known as GG). Next thing we knew, Uncle Sam was coming from California and extended family was coming from Chicago and other parts of Iowa!
We lucked out on both of our flights with an extra seat for Natalie, so it was nice to be able to spread out and have room for the new Dora backpack, baby doll, sticker books, snacks...you get the idea. Grandma, Papa and GG picked us up in Rochester, MN and Natalie took a nice little nap during the hour drive to Osage. After a fun afternoon of playing we ended the day with a couple ears of what Iowa is known for...corn!

Thursday started out with a trip to the local playground and lunch out with GG. After naptime, Uncle Sam, Aunt Cyndy and Uncle Bill arrived and we packed up and headed over to Josh's Uncle Dick and Aunt Renee's house to meet up with the rest of the family. Josh's cousin, Amber, has a little girl, Macy who is 6 months older than Natalie. As you can imagine, they became fast friends. Stay tuned for a seperate post about those two!

Friday was Aunt Cyndy's birthday, so the ladies (plus Uncle Sam!) headed to the neighboring town of St. Ansgar to enjoy lunch at a cafe owned by one of Grandma J's high school classmates. It was in an old Victorian house, so you can imagine my anxiety with all breakable objects about. Natalie was very well behaved and I was grateful to have so many extra hands to help keep her occupied! That evening the entire family came over to GG's house for a dinner and Natalie enjoyed exploring GG's backyard and hiding in the corn field with the birthday girl, Aunt Cyndy! Kaija had a nice evening out at the county fair watching the 4-H talent show!

Saturday morning we headed over to Josh's cousin's for breakfast and then to the county fair. We were disappointed to learn that the rides didn't open until the afternoon, but we enjoyed looking at all the animals just the same! In the afternoon we visited Spring Park, one of Josh's favorite places in Osage. The well spring flows with COLD water, which some partake in drinking, and others use it as a wishing well....we did the latter! Afterwards, we headed over to Josh's aunt and uncle's again for dinner and a bonfire where Natalie got to eat her first marshmallow, she loved it of course!

We awoke early Sunday morning for our 7AM flight from Rochester and arrived back in DC around 1PM, which made for a long day, but it was nice to be able to re-group before the start of the week. We had a great time during our short trip to Iowa and hope we can go back again soon!

Two Peas in A Pod

I just had to share this picture of Natalie and her friend, Lexi, from a recent playdate because it was so cute. Natalie and Lexi are in the same class at daycare and we are lucky enough to live in the same neighborhood, so we see each other at the park and pool quite frequently. They simply have the best time running around and playing together...we've even been asked if they are twins before (must be the slow growing hair...)! Natalie is definitely becoming more aware of her friends - whenever we get in the car she asks if we're going to "Sydney's house?" and when I say it's time to go to school it's "see Lexi, Grayson, Cooper?". What a social butterfly she is!

Swimming Lessons!

One of Natalie's favorite activities now that summer is here is going to the community pool. While she still frequents the baby pool, we spend alot of time in the kids pool with the water shooters and giant floating turtle. We started introducing Natalie to the water very early (she took her first swimming classes when she was 6 months old) which we think has made her very comfortable and happy in the water. However, now that she is old enough to take a bit more instruction we wanted her to learn some of the basic skills necessary to start "swimming", so we enrolled Natalie in Parent/Tot classes at our pool. Basically it's been alot of songs and games, but some of her bigger accomplishments have blowing bubbles, kicking her feet and arms, floating on her back and jumping off the side of the pool. She truly loved the class (especially since her friend Lexi was taking it with her) and we
can't wait until next summer when she can take classes solo!

Natalie's 2nd Birthday Party!

On Natalie's actual birthday, June 28th, we had a birthday party for her at a local children's gym (JW Tumbles) and had 11 of her little friends join us. We were already familiar with the gym since we took her there in the winter months to burn off energy and just love the owner, Mr. Mike. Kaija had to explain to Josh that every 2 year old birthday requires a theme, so we went with Blues Clues since it is one of her favorite TV shows. Once all of the guests arrived we did parachute play, bubbles, trampolines, roller coaster and train rides, swinging and much more! The playing portion of the party ended with all the kids going on the bee zip line, by far the favorite. We were so happy that Natalie jumped right in and started play, she can sometimes be very shy and reserved, but not that day!

Then it was on to cake - for the occasion Kaija made 2 cakes - both were the dogs from the Blues Clues show - Blue and Magenta. A big thank you to Kaija's step mom Donna for her artistic decorating help - they wouldn't have turned out as cute as they did without her. Natalie has learned to sing the first couple of words to the "Happy Birthday" song over the past couple of months for her best friend, Sydney's, birthday and Josh's birthday, but I think she was a little confused why everyone was singing to her. With the little help from Kaija blowing out the candle and it was on to eating. We were so happy that Natalie actually took a couple bites of cake because she normally does not like cake or ice cream - we're not quite sure where we went wrong :-)

After cake it was time to wrap up the party. Mr. Mike tried to dress Natalie up like a princess and walk down the red carpet to give out her gift bags, but Natalie wanted no part of it, shy girl came out! After we said our goodbyes to most of our friends, a small group of us (family and some close friends) headed across the street to our favorite pizza place, Sal's, for lunch and to relax.

Based on the 3 hour nap Natalie took later that afternoon, we think she had a wonderful time at her 2nd birthday party. We couldn't have been more happy to celebrate with her, but it just reminds us once again that our baby girl is a big girl now!

P.S. A big thanks to our friend Chris for these pictures. We'll have more pictures to post later, but with Josh working the video camera, Kaija directing kids and forgetting to download the grandparent's pictures before they left, these are the only ones we have to share right now!

Natalie's 2nd Birthday Pictures

Click here to view these pictures larger

Getting Ready For A Cousin!

The first weekend of February Kaija and Natalie flew up to Rochester to visit Grandpa Tom/Grandma Donna and attend Kaija's step-sister, Audrey's, baby shower. Audrey is expecting a little boy March 2nd and since it's already March 3rd, he is officially late! Natalie was a traveling pro -she walked right through the security checkpoint, sat quietly in her plane seat playing with a sticker book and baby doll and an hour later we were there. Saturday started off very early with Natalie getting adjusted to her new surroundings - Grandpa Tom and Natalie made french toast for everyone! That afternoon, during the shower Grandpa Tom and Uncle Cole babysat while Kaija helped Donna. They had a great time reading books, playing with Kaija's old Fisher Price Little People toys (so much better than the new versions!) and riding the rocking horse. Everyone stayed afterward for a pizza dinner including Cole's girlfriend, Brittany and Audrey's boyfriend, Bryan...it was nice having everyone together! Sunday morning started off with a trip to Kaija's favorite breakfast place, Simply Crepes and then Grandpa Tom took Natalie to the llama farm. Monday afternoon it was back to Virginia - Natalie was very excited to see her Daddy!

Snow Day!

We woke up Monday morning to about 5 inches of the white stuff on the ground. I know, our northern friends are probably laughing, but this amount of snow in Virginia pretty much shuts things down. Unfortunately, that did not include Josh and Kaija's offices or Natalie's daycare! Natalie was very excited to see snow, it's even a new word in her vocabulary (even though it comes out more like "no"). While Josh started to shovel to get the cars out, Kaija was really excited because she finally got to break out Natalie's snow pants and boots! Unfortunately, she wanted nothing to do with either, so out we went to "help" Daddy shovel with our sneakers and jeans. Oh well, maybe next year!

Dinner Party!

OK - so our definition of dinner party has changed a bit since kids came on the scene. It used to mean a long relaxing dinner with lots of wine. Now it has turned into parents eating dinner in shifts while trying to coax their young children to try a bite of the green veggie on their plate. Anyway, after Josh and I had a very low key NYE (think bed at 10PM), we got to celebrate the New Year with our good friends on Saturday night. Skye and Roger (with daughters Gabby and Mallory) were nice enough to host us for a stuffed shell dinner which all the kids LOVED. While our kids span the ages of 18 months to 4 years, they all play well together and there weren't too many sharing issues :-) We pushed the kids to their limits on bed time (8:00) and capped off the evening with a little Max and Ruby video marathon. Oh, and we even got a sip of wine in here and there!

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful 2nd Christmas with Natalie! She was blessed to have Grandma and Grandpa Dinse and Grandma and Grandpa Johnston come to Ashburn to celebrate as well as Uncle Sam from San Diego. On Christmas Eve Day we introduced Natalie to decorating sugar cookies - she did a great job picking the different sprinkles she wanted to adorn the cookies with. Surprisingly, she didn't like them as much as we thought she would, not sure if it was because we haven't given her that many sweets or it was just Kaija's cooking :-) Christmas Eve we enjoyed a lasagna dinner and then arranged our cookies and milk for Santa. Christmas morning Natalie must have been really excited because she woke up at 6:15! After checking to make sure Santa had visited and taking the annual picture at the top of the stairs, Natalie had her first look at the presents under the tree. She beelined for the baby stroller which promptly got taken for a spin around the house. After our traditional Christmas morning brunch we settled in to open the rest of the presents. The biggest hits were the piano from Grandma and Grandpa J, the baby doll from Mommy and Daddy, crocs from Grandma and Grandpa D and a tricycle from SANTA! We spent the rest of the day relaxing around the house and preparing the turkey dinner (can you tell we did alot of eating?). We tried to get a good family picture..as you can tell, hopefully we'll have better luck next year!

Getting In The Christmas Spirit!

This weekend the Johnston household dove head first into the Christmas season. Saturday we took our annual trip to Snickers Gap Farm to get our Christmas tree. Kaija envisioned a happy family frolicking amongst the trees - searching for the perfect one. What reality brought was a 1 1/2 year old that didn't want to walk or keep her mittens on in the freezing temperatures...maybe she'll appreciate it next year! Anyway, we did get a lovely tree which we spent the evening decorating. Natalie loved looking at all the different ornaments as Kaija explained the significance of each one. Her favorite ornament is the one that Grandma J gave her last year that has a picture of her on it - she just walks around with it saying "baby", "baby". Hopefully one day she will understand that it's her! Natalie particularly favored the "ball" shaped ornaments, which she proceeded to try and throw like her regular balls. We ended up with only one casualty and the tree has been toddler proofed...breakable ornaments on top and playable ornaments on the bottom.

Sunday morning we went to the Santa Breakfast at the firehouse. After Natalie devoured 4 pancakes (yes, 4!), we decided it was time to introduce her to Santa and Mrs. Claus. No sooner did we get up there than the clinging began, I didn't push it too much, little does she know we'll be headed to the mall later this week for the official Christmas picture! Later in the afternoon we had our good friends, John, Lauren and Emma Duffy over for football and chili. Natalie was very interested in Emma since she is a "baby" (10 months old). We are trying to teach sharing though, which she isn't very into yet - I guess it will come!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we headed up to Rochester to spend time with the Dinse side of the family. Natalie fell asleep right at her regular 7:30 PM bedtime, but woke up as soon as we arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's. Luckily, they were happy to entertain her for a little bit before we headed to bed. On Thanksgiving, Cole and Brittany, Heather and Audrey joined us for dinner. Much to Kaija's disappointment, Natalie was a bit overwhelmed with all the people and refused to eat turkey and mashed potatoes. Anyone who knows our little girl - she likes to eat! On Friday, Kaija's Aunt Marlene and Uncle Bob came for a visit. It was great to see them and they brought Natalie the cutest book - "Princess Baby"! On Saturday, Kaija had an afternoon out with Donna, Heather and Audrey to see "The Nutcracker". It was nice to get into the holiday spirit and get some adult time. After a quick pizza dinner back at the house we packed up the car and were off to Virginia again. Natalie fell asleep before we left Rochester, which led to a long night when we returned home, but at least we had Sunday to recover. We're looking forward to seeing Grandma and Grandpa D again at Christmas in Ashburn!