Bedtime Songs

Today, Natalie started showing symptoms of the cold that Nate has been battling the last couple of days. I believe it was one reason that falling asleep at nap time took a little longer. The later nap time has also led to a more difficult night of falling asleep.

Nate tucked Natalie in bed about an hour ago. Since then, she has asked us a number of random questions. We have always encouraged her to sing herself to sleep if she is having a tough time going to sleep. Tonight, as Nate and I are sitting in the living room listening to Natalie attempting to go to sleep, we have heard a number of songs coming from her room. The one that really intrigued me was the following song, "Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust." After I heard this refrain numerous times, I asked Nate to go down and ask Natalie where she heard this song. Natalie said that she heard it from one of her religious children's CD's that Nate had her listening to the other day. I think I will be listening more carefully to what is playing on her stereo.

Friends and Basketball

Natalie and I have enjoyed our visits with many of our friends lately. The other day, when Joshua was getting ready to leave, his mom made him use the bathroom before they left. Joshua was taking his time, so I had Natalie go down and tell him that he needed to get going. Natalie did as I asked, went down and knocked on the door, and told Joshua the following. "Joshua, your mom is ready to leave. If you don't go with her, you are going to have to stay here, and then you are going to be my brother." Julie, Joshua's mom, and I had a good laugh at this one. :)

We have gone to a few basketball games recently. Last night, Natalie cheered her cousin Nicholas on as he played a tournament at a school nearby. She had fun yelling, "Get the ball, Nicholas!"

Packer Rationale

Natalie watched the end of our 2007 Packers season with Nate and me last evening. Today, she was telling me that she knew the reason why the Packers did not win the game yesterday. Natalie took the blame because she only wore her Packer t-shirt with a Packer G on it. She said that she should have worn her entire Packer outfit. :) What a Packer fan!

Car Seats

Since we have been traveling around a bit lately in the last few weeks, Natalie has taken the liberty to tell me about how she wishes to have a different booster seat. She would really like a booster seat that reclines, but is still very similar to her current seat. Natalie brought this subject up again last night as we were driving home from my brother's house. As she was informing me about her wishes again, she also added a piece of helpful information to direct me where I ought to go and look for a seat with her specifications. She told me to look at boosterseat.com. I thought that was hilarious! :)

Tonight, I wanted to get Natalie out and moving around so we headed up to a place called Ke-West Sports. They have a neat playground that we played on for a little while. Afterwards, Nate wanted to shoot some pool. Of course, Natalie wanted to give it a try too. I tried showing her, but I didn't want to mess her up for her entire life since I've always shot left handed. So Nate let her have fun by showing her the right handed way and also with the use of the bridge cue. Natalie seemed to enjoy her success as she did put a couple of the balls in the pockets. Imagine which color ball was her favorite -- the purple one. :)

Eddie the Raccoon

The nap time routine in our home consists of reading a Bible story, devotion, and library books before it's time to say sweet dreams. Today, Natalie picked out her 2 books. One of them was an easy reader book, and I was so proud of her as she read most of it to me. I had to help her with some of the vowel sounds, but for the most part, Natalie sounded out the words and did a great job.

Happy New Year

We have enjoyed the beginning of 2008. Nate took vacation time this week, so we took advantage of that to travel around and see family and friends. Natalie met quite a few new people, and had a great time playing with lots of new friends.

When we got home yesterday, we had a lot of mail to sort through. Natalie wanted to open the "pretty pink envelope" which happened to be mine. I knew what it was so I told her that it was mail that wanted me to explain why I was not teaching right now. She proceeded to tell me that she knew the reasons. Natalie said that 1) I was taking care of her, 2) I did not want to, and 3) I use to take care of "the boys". I think she can fill out this form for me from now on. :)