This weekend we had guests again! One of Mike's childhood friends and said friend's wife came to town. We had a lovely time seeing them, and we hope they come back soon!
(These pictures were all taken just before they left for the football game, hence all the purple. Our guests didn't dress like that the whole weekend. Or maybe they did. I'll never tell.)
Our guests also took a brief side-trip to Austin while they were with us. They brought
these back:
(I did mention they could come back any time, right?)
Natalie isn't walking yet, but she does stand independently for longer and longer stretches of time.
Here are a few other action shots of her:
And here are some less mobility-focused shots (blah, blah, blah, all baby, all the time):
Cheerios remain Natalie's go-to snack:
Natalie's first word was definitely kitty cat. "Ki-cah" means kitty cat, but it also seems to mean all other animals, too. The other day, a friend's dog came over for a few minutes. We had the dog in the house and were supervising very carefully - the dog wasn't overly interested in Natalie, but Natalie kept wanting to crawl after the dog, saying "ki-cah, ki-cah". The next morning, as we were coming down the stairs, Natalie suddenly, hopefully said "ki-cah? ki-cah?" It was like she remembered the dog in our living room! How adorable is that?
We have, though, been working on teaching her "dog", which pretty much comes out like "dah". Our success has been mixed: yesterday, I was wearing a shirt with a photo of a dog on it, and she looked right at it and said "ki-cah"; however, today on our walk, we ran into three dogs and their owner - this got "dah, dah" over and over again, plus lots and lots of laughs.
As an aside, I'm realizing that it must be really hard to decode the various different images of the same animal and map them back to a master form - looking at the variety of ways in which Natalie encounters dogs and cats (different illustrations in picture books, photos, real live animals, video, etc.), I'm just in awe of her little brain!
The interest in animals, though, is no indication that Natalie has mastered "gentle touches" enough to be a good animal/baby companion.
I've been cooking a little, too. In preparation for our annual pesto ice-cube production (the way in which we've opted to preserve all the basil our garden produces), I've been cleaning out the freezer. I ran across some frozen pulped persimmons. These were left from last winter when my arm was broken and I wasn't doing much in the kitchen. What to do with them now? Some quick internet searching revealed a
recipe for persimmon bread. Our house lacks both bourbon and whiskey, so I subbed in what I had, which was brandy. It was awesome - and might be even better with a little brown sugar caramel frosting and some toasted nuts on top, if one wanted to go that route.
One more picture of Natalie. As some of you know, we're going to Hawaii this spring. Here's Natalie getting ready for the trip by wearing her sunglasses (yes, we put them on her; yes, she pulled them off 10 seconds later).
Later, dudes!
Here's a (blurry) shot of Natalie's Halloween socks.
The hat (to the extent that she'll keep it on) is also the gift that keeps on giving.
Mike was actually out of town for Halloween, but my mom was in town. So at least I wasn't the only one appreciating my pumpkin.
While Daddy was gone, we did some fun things with Grandma Pat. We went to the Japanese Garden.
And we took Grandma Pat for barbecue.
My mom and I also made some applesauce cake. The cake was fine, but the cinnamon cream cheese frosting was amazing. Also, the cake took forever to cool - so long that I actually went to bed and frosted it and ate it the next day. Guess what I dreamed about that night?
And here's Natalie with her belated birthday present from Grandma Pat. Is this not the cutest little ride-along / push-along toy?
In closing, someone asked me if Natalie was always so good-natured. Mostly. However, I present to you two pictures, taken two minutes apart.
I know! So sad, right? Rest assured, she quickly recovered. I won't leave you on such a cranky note, though. Here are a few more pics.
(I especially like how this one shows off both the sweater knit by my grandmother and the hat knit by me [years ago, in Japan, when I was teaching myself to knit - who'd have thought I'd ever have such a little doll to wear it!])
