Penn State Chics Dig Nerds

Today, Lilly Breon is staying with Natalee and I while Angie is at work. Natalee is such a big helper. She helped to soothe Lilly by starting the vibrations on her chair. Natalee: " What a good baby!" Natalee loved her second cousin so much that I had to set Lilly up during her nap. Natalee would not leave Lilly or her chair alone. She's been sleeping peacefully for the past 3 hours+. How nice is that? Wow, I was lucky when Natalee took a 1/2 hour nap at this age....

This morning, Natalee ran laps around the table multiple times. Each time, she could hardly wait to circle the table. She was so excited to run back to me! Even when she fell, she played peek-a-boo through the chairs.

This weekend, we traveled to Blairsville, PA, to the Buckles home. It was Lilly's first birthday. Natalee and Lilly had fun playing with the new and old toys. Here, they are playing with the fake food and kitchen utensils. Trying to eat the fake cheese: Lilly got to open a lot of presents, both at the party and at home. Lilly showed Natalee the game of "Bibs". (i.e. pull all of the bibs out from the bin onto the floor) After the bibs were all taken out, Natalee changed the game to "hot pads". After such a fun weekend, Natalee is exhausted. She fell asleep in my arms in the living room this evening!

Sunday, for Fathers Day, we went to Doan's Bones at Whipple Dam . It was really good BBQ. We definitely recommend it! Following lunch, Jesse and I went to Coopers Gap for a mountain bike ride. We did not ever ride here before, so we were checking out some of the trails. We did not know that we were living right by one of the mountain bike destinations of PA. One of the trails we went on was entirely too rocky. You could not look around much for fear of hurting yourself. I guess that's why they call it Stone Mountain. It was a shame that we could not look around much, because the Mountain Laurel was BEAUTIFUL. I did crash one time, but luckily, as I was headed down the hill, the Mountain Laurel caught me. In fact, I never hit the ground! Also, it was fortunate that I had the camera and not Jesse :) The second trail was less rocky and a lot more fun! Unfortunately, we cannot take Natalee along biking yet. I want to take her on some of the state forest roads and other back roads...

Today was Naomi's house contents auction. One purchase was some ceramic garden skunks (not my purchase!). Natalee found these skunks very interesting. Especially the one--until we had to take him away so that we could fix his tail. (She dropped him and the skunk lost his tail.) I got a corner cupboard, a rocking chair, a painting and a squirrel. That's right, a squirrel--a stuffed squirrel. After the skunks tail was broken, she went to carrying one of Jesse's shoes around instead. She likes to carry things over her shoulder like a purse. Natalee is walking by herself with a lot more confidence now. She is taking more risks going from person to person to object. She's not completely on her own yet, but very close.

She has been walking for atleast a month with just one finger--barely one finger. She does not really use that finger, it is just a comfort. However, this evening Natalee took her first steps on her own (when she actually realized what she was doing--we've tricked her a few other times). She walked her own steps many times. Of course, we did not get the best ones on video, but here is a sample of her walking progress. Before the video, she walked over to me to get her graham cracker. During the video, you will see she forgot to pick up the graham cracker, so she has to go back for it. Then, she walks to Grammie.

Natalee loves these little people that I played with when I was little. Here is Natalee's newest fun thing. Do you know how big Natalee is?