Christmas begins

We recently had the first of many Christmas events for the year, and this one was at our house. Grandma and Grandpa Flannery along with Uncle Brian and April came over to celebrate Christmas. As you can see Natalie got all dressed up to help play hostess.
This year Natalie is old enough to open her presents, but we still have the minor issue of her wanting to immediately play with any present she opens. Therefore it can take quite a while to make it through a few presents. One of the first presents she opened was a package of new markers. She of course had to test them out for a bit before moving on to the next present. Natalie also got a new cart to push around, but Dad had to assemble it before she could use it. Natalie is quite the slave driver, because she checked in very frequently to see if it was done yet.

Natalie also got a big bin of plastic balls to play with. There are 100 of them. You can tell that Uncle Brian isn't the one who has to pick things up after Natalie :-) Of course, Natalie loves them.
For those that we won't be seeing over the next couple of days, have a GREAT Christmas!

Surprise in NY

Manhatten is an interesting place. There are lots of interesting people and interesting things to see. There are also quite a few famous people there, so you never know who you might run into on the street.

Natalie learned this first-hand when we were walking down the street during our visit. Both Natalie and I were shocked to see none other than Elmo himself standing on the street corner near Rockafeller Center. He was quite friendly, and Natalie was thrilled to see him.

You'd think that Natalie would be afraid of a 6-foot Elmo, but she actually wanted to hang out with him. She was pretty upset when we had to leave, but we did manage to get a picture or two before we left. Natalie was talking about him for the rest of the week :-)

Trip to the east coast

Natalie recently took the third plane ride of her life. This time we went out east to see her Great Aunt Laura and Great Grandma Robinson in New Jersey. Grandpa Steve also came along, which Natalie was thrilled with. We all had a wonderful time! We got to see a Christmas concert, the huge Christmas tree at Rockafeller Center, and the Statue of Liberty. Julie and I were happy to make it out to the statue since we weren't able to visit it during our last trip to NY.

Natalie did great with our long, windy day in Manhatten, and she also made friends with Aunt Laura's dog Emma. At the beginning Natalie definitely wasn't too thrilled with sharing the condo with Emma, but by the end of the trip Natalie and Emma were getting along very well. Natalie was still talking about Emma even after we made it home.

Thanks to Aunt Laura and Great Grandma Robinson for taking care of us during our visit, and thanks to Grandpa Steve for letting us hijack what was originally supposed to be a nice, peaceful trip out east :-)

More fun in Indy

Hi everyone. Just thought I'd post a few more pictures of Natalie from November. It was a busy month because we went back to Indianapolis three times. In the first picture above, you can see Natalie and Grandma Ginny getting crazy. Natalie loves running up and down the hall at Grandma's house, and Grandma decided to join in on the fun this time around.

One of our trips back was to attend my cousin Ana's baby shower (congratulations Ana!). As you can see in the picture below, Natalie and Carina (my cousin Monica's daughter) got along pretty well together. Here you can see them relaxing and enjoying a popsicle. We had a great time!

Thanksgiving

We went back to Indianapolis to visit Grandma and Grandpa Robinson, Aunt Emily, Aunt Rachel, and Uncle Nick. She had a great time, although the only item from the entire feast that she really ate a decent amount of was the rolls. I think that she would have eaten the entire basket of rolls if we had let her. The desserts were a different story of course. She ate just as much of them as everyone else :-)

As you can see from the pictures, she also had a great time with everyone. Thanks for letting us visit Grandma and Grandpa!