New car

We bought a new car on Friday! This is the culmination of problems that started last summer - first with one car, then with the other. At that point, we decided we'd do the big fix on one, the cheap fix on the other, and then buy a new one once classes ended in December. Our timing was both sped along by a new, strange noise in the car we'd already decided to replace and my getting (repeatedly!) sick. Anyway, now that it's mid-January, we've done it!

We're the proud owners of 2010 dark gray Subaru Forester. We love it so far!
Now, to cue up the time machine . . . . here are some pictures taken before we owned the car. Why does that matter, you ask? Well, we drove to Dallas in the sleet to see these folks, close friends of my family, all the while wishing we had something a little better than what we were driving. To be fair, it was only raining when we left our house. An hour later, though, it was snowing, and, of course, hours after that, then sun was out and the temperature had risen so much snow was no longer a possibility. Aaaahhh, Texas.What else is new? Well, inspired by my grandmother's cardboard box architecture (and that of another friend in Seattle), I tried to make Natalie a "kitty house" out of an old box. So far, this is not been the primary use, but she is having fun with it.Natalie remains interested in tote bags:
This is a new thing Natalie's been doing: draping stuff over her head. I'm not super-sure what that's about, but she loves to take her pajamas or a t-shirt of mine, drape it over her head and walk around. A variation on this is when she'll put on one of our winter hats, pull it down over her eyes and walk around the house (pictures forthcoming on that one).In other developmental milestones, we've seen Natalie use a spoon! She definitely knows what a spoon is for, and if you put food on it, she'll even bring it to her mouth. For now, though, she's quite content to let us feed her the spoon-food, as long as she has some finger-food in front of her that she can feed herself. Here's the spoon-food that Mike and I have been eating, Mike's home-made gnocchi:Natalie has also learned to say please. This sounds much more like "puh-puh", but it's definitely replaced / complemented "again" as her request word. She'll even it say it in response to the phrase "What's the magic word?". Video of all this coming soon, I hope.In addition to "kih-kah", Natalie has also started to say "doggie" with great vigor. Her ability to identify which is which is still a little rough, but the words are there. As is the enthusiasm.Another thing Natalie is quite enthusiastic about? Daddy! She's definitely in a real daddy phase. Mommy is acceptable, and more so if Daddy isn't visible and/or hasn't had to make a departure. But if daddy actually leaves? Brace yourself.Natalie's emotions are definitely developing, too. We've had a few full-on temper tantrums (one brought on by running out of peppercorn cheese. I kid you not.), but more common is a short (loud!) outburst that involves her kneeling and putting her head on the floor. Mike and I call this "assuming the pose". Like a good student of social protest, Natalie has also learned to make her body go limp for those rare moments when she's assumed the pose in some place where we have to move her.(this book is not about social protest, but, hey, I write the text and then insert the pictures. We're lucky half the stuff lines up at all, okay?)
Natalie is headed to Michigan next week. She's already getting ready.Her future's so bright . . . you know the rest . . . .