fun at the library

this morning was lap sit storytime at the library. natalie had so much fun seeing all the other babies and also singing and reading some books. her friend bryce also came to join in on the fun. here are a few sweet moments that i caught during our time there...

clapping to the "hello song"

listening to baby beluga

dancing to the hokey pokey

i think bryce and natalie wanted to dance together : )

playing with her new friend at the book basket

she had so much fun!

i think this is her "why do we have to go bye-bye" face!

oh, i could just eat her face off : )

stay tuned for our valentine's day craft post!

daddy's birthday

happy birthday to you

happy birthday to you

happy birthday dear daddy

happy birthday to you

we love you so much!!!

love, natalie and me

p.s. make sure you check out his gift

almost the big ONE

little love,

you are 11 months old today! we can't believe it, in just a few weeks we will be singing happy birthday to you and celebrating your first year of life. you have truly grown up this past month. you are becoming more vocal and now that you have started crawling, you are non-stop. we absolutely love your little girl squeals and when you say mama and dada. you also love to wave and say bye-bye. when you blow kisses to us it melts us over an over again. you are so cute when we ask you if we can see your toe, and you instantly lift up your foot for us to kiss them. you aren't sure yet how to point to your nose, but you know where mommy's nose is. it seems that every inch of you is ticklish, but you are especially full of giggles when we get your belly, ribs, and those squishy thighs.

a few of your favorite things are bath time, books, music, and of course- getting into everything...

we now have to keep the bathroom door closed because if we don't you quickly crawl towards it saying "ba" over and over until you pull yourself up onto the side of the bathtub. you are now taking big girl baths every other night. another thing you love is books. you really enjoy me reading to you when you are drinking your bottle. (it would be very helpful if mommy had 3 arms when i fed you!) i think your favorite books are your touch-and-feel ones, but you also like silly sally, the foot book, mr. brown can moo, and the farm book. if music is playing - you are dancing (bouncing) to the beat. it can be a cd, a record on daddy's new record player, or even something on tv, but what really made us laugh out loud was when mommy was washing your bottles one day. you were sitting in your bumbo in the kitchen and you stared bouncing when you heard the bottle brush scrubbing your bottles up and down! and lastly, now that you are crawling so fast - you are all over the place- opening cabinets, emptying out your toy basket, and pulling up on things. we have really had to baby-proof our apartment this past month to keep you out of trouble.

when daddy comes home after work, his favorite thing to do is play in the floor with you. when you hear him come in the door you can't control yourself. you crawl so fast towards him for him to swoop you up and kiss all over you.

mommy's favorite time with you is when it is almost bedtime. you finish your last bottle around 8:30 and get changed into a fresh diaper and your jammies. then, we cuddle in the rocker beside your crib. every night we say our prayers thanking Jesus for the things that happened that day. you usually babble a little bit and play with my face and hair, then you tuck yourself into my arms and i just sit and rock you as your blinks get slower and longer. then right before you doze off i kiss your sweet face and put you down for the night.

we love you so much,

mommy & daddy

"hey, let's listen to some music"

"i think i need to pull out some more records"

"wow, too many to choose from"

"no daddy, not john mayer again"

"i think i found one that's just my size"

"now, if only i was a little bit taller!"

pigs and ponies

it has finally happened... natalie can now sport cute little pig tails and even a pony tail! her hair just hangs in her face if i don't pull it back with a bow - but, since she has now discovered how to yank her bow out... i have been pulling it back with a little hair elastic and then pinning her bow to that (making it a little harder to pull out!)

so appropriate - she's playing with her pony!

... i had to post this last one just to prove that little miss does have a pouty face!

aunt lauren

one of my very best friends in the world, lauren, left for malawi, africa this past wednesday. she will be doing missionary work there for the next two years. i am so happy that she was able to come visit us last sunday and spend some time with us before her big trip. i also had the privilege of taking pictures for her prayer card this past summer - you can check them out here.

we love you lauren and miss you already.

"trust gives me sanity"

that is the quote that stephen said the other day to me as he vaguely described his week, and it has stuck in my head like crazy...

let me rewind for a minute - the week before christmas little miss natalie decided that eating wasn't on her agenda. she would literally kick and scream whenever a bottle came near her, and when she did open her mouth for me to stick it in, she just sat there with her jaws locked on it and wouldn't suck. let me reiterate that i absolutely love staying home with her while stephen pours into his job during the week, but the week before christmas wasn't making me very excited to stay home and especially feed her.

it seemed like my days revolved around feeding her, because by the time she would attempt to finish her first bottle it was time to start her next bottle. she is on a pretty tight schedule because of her slow weight gain. i didn't have a life. i felt house-bound because there was no way that she would take a bottle out in public if she wouldn't even take one at home.

there were tears, lots and lots of tears. thoughts of "failure to thrive" crept in the back of my mind, and her weight-to-age stats clearly marked her as a FTT baby. i mean, what mother can't feed her own baby? when stephen would come home i felt so guilty because i would throw my frustrations out on him. i would try so hard not to blame myself for her actions, but i kept carrying the burden of her not wanting to eat on my shoulders. i knew that natalie couldn't help it, she never felt that hunger urge - so it had to be something i wasn't doing right - right?

that week i kept calling and waiting on a returned phone call from a specialist that our pediatrician referred us to whose main focus is pediatric nutrition. i really, desperately wanted to get an appointment booked with her that week before christmas, because i knew that their offices would probably be closed for the holidays and the week of new years also. i finally got in touch with them and they said that their first available appointment wouldn't be until feb. 1st! are you kidding me, that was over a month away! but, we took it and called out regular pediatrician and told her the dilemma. she made some phone calls and it turned out that they really were booked that far ahead.

however, to ease the frustrations of natalie's feedings, she decided to go ahead and prescribe a medicine that is supposed to increase appetite. we were so relieved and anxious to start natalie on it to see how it would do....

ok, so long story long - natalie had a huge turn-around. she ate so well for me about a day or so after the medicine got into her system. we took natalie in two weeks later for a weight check and she had gained 10 ounces! we were literally jumping up and down! she still isn't the easiest baby to feed, but it is worlds of a difference better than what it had been.

ok, so fast forward to this week. i look back to realize how selfishly i had been praying during that time. i wanted to fix the "problem". i wanted to know why i couldn't get her to eat. lately, i have prayed to trust that the Lord would fill her belly up, that He would find some way to get the nutrients in her that she needed. i still pray that each time i approach her feedings. i literally laughed out loud last night at natalie. i still sneak a "dream" feeding in around 4 a.m. and usually natalie will still be in a light sleep and i can get some extra ounces in her very easily. well she woke up and i just knew that she wouldn't eat for me. she proved me wrong - and when i took the bottle out of her mouth, in the darkness of her room, she looked me right in the eyes and blew me a big kiss. i couldn't contain myself, i laughed and kissed her right back.

all this to say - i never want to doubt her, i never want to doubt God, i never want to doubt myself. i trust that the Lord will move in my life and that gives me sanity to be a better wife, a better mother, and a better person. sanity is a precious gift that i never thought i would so desperately need.

oh how i love her, and her squishy thighs that have made a comeback!

ALL girl

top 5 of 2009

last year stephen and i listed our top ten of 2008, so to carry on the spirit of remembering, here is our top five of 2009...

5. nattiejane.com:: last year stephen bought me a nikon d60 camera. after some months of really learning and studying photography, i wanted to be more serious about taking pictures. my first (pro-bono) client was my little girl, natalie. she really sparked my creativity to take pictures. i slowly spread the word to my family and friends that i love to take pictures and that circle of people told their circle of people and that is how nattie.jane became official.

4. my new job:: for the past three years i have loved being a third grade teacher. however, this year my new job doesn't require me being in charge of 20 eight year olds - my days are now consumed with being a stay-at-home-mom! being home with natalie has definitely been a huge change from my regular teaching schedule, but after a few months, we finally got on a daily routine. i feel so blessed to spend this time with her and to watch her grow and change each day. i will probably go back to teaching in a year or two... that is, unless business starts booming with nattie.jane! : )

3. moving:: in mid-september stephen, natalie, and i packed up our home in greenville and moved to a city that we said we would never live in -- columbia, sc. we've heard all the nicknames and cliche's about this capital city, but truth be told, we are loving calling it our new home.

2. stephen's dream job:: most of you already know that in june stephen was offered a job to be the worship leader for newspring church for the new columbia campus. we are so happy to be a part of a church that not only sets the standard for excellence in their worship environment, but also understands that we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities.

1. our little love:: february 26, 2009 will always be a day that we will celebrate - the birth of our little girl, natalie jane cope. i still cannot believe sometimes that i have a little girl. she wasn't only the highlight of our year, but the highlight of our marriage. as parents, she has taught us the magnitude of God's love for us. this is a #1 that has changed our lives forever.

on the move

i had to share this with you! natalie's papa took this with his phone the other day. as i said in the previous post - she is a crawling machine now. she is doing so good, but her poor little knees are getting so red from carpet burn.

christmas whirl-wind

snow, pediatrician visit, road trip, 5 christmases, toys, snow, family, crawling, toys, husband throwing back out, toys, growing baby, more toys.

in a nutshell, the list above describes just a glimpse of our christmas holiday.

for christmas we stayed up in n.c. with stephen's parents and also visited my family. it snowed there the weekend before - almost 11 inches. we were so excited because it was looking like we could possibly have a white christmas! this past wednesday i had to take natalie for a visit to her awesome pediatrician who prescribed her some medicine to boost her appetite (long story for a later post)- so far it is working wonderfully. we go back in two weeks to re-evaluate how she is doing on it.

since natalie's appointment was in greenville, we decided that it would be best for us to go ahead and drive to n.c. therefore, i wasn't able to be with stephen at newspring columbia for our amazing christmas eve services. if you didn't get a chance to see it, you should check it out.

i'm sure you're wondering what the whole '5 christmases' is about... well, we were able to celebrate (exchange presents) with 5 different parts of our family:

1) the three of us!

2) stephen's family

3) my family

4) stephen's extended family (nanny, aunts, uncles)

5) my brother and his wife

this was so much fun and it was amazing to see how spoiled natalie is (not that we needed to be reminded) ... did i mention that she got a "few" new toys? i am still wondering where all of them are going to go.

i love love love the gift that stephen got me this year. he got me a kodak esp 7 printer. in other words "a freaking awesome picture printer"!!! and on the other hand, i surprised him with a vintage record player and his all-time favorite album on vinyl... john mayer, continuum! needless to say, he was speechless. but, my absolute favorite present this year was from natalie - she truly started crawling on christmas day. over the past few days she has really been into the army crawl/roll crawl, but she finally got the hang of "real" crawling on friday... now she is all over the place! stephen and i love to see how she is growing before our eyes.

our little girl turned 10 months old on saturday. some other new things that she has been doing is blowing kisses, getting into the sitting position from laying down. pulling herself up in her crib in the blink of an eye (we are lowering her mattress a.s.a.p.), repeating certain words that we say, waving and saying "bye bye" whenever anyone gets off the phone or leaves, becoming familiar with the words "no ma'am", giving the shy look when she meets someone new, showing signs of fearlessness, and she is also getting so close to the 13 pound mark!

and lastly to wrap up our christmas holiday whirl-wind... on saturday stephen somehow threw his back out doing the most simplest thing - picking something up off of the floor!?! he has been in some pretty serious pain these past few days. i am hoping that it isn't anything serious and that some rest and relaxing will do him good.