walking and puking

Natalia is growing up so fast. She took five steps on Sunday! Then on Monday she got sick. Totally unrelated events. She had her first stomach bug. She threw up all her food Monday at Grandma's house and then she was sick again on Tuesday. It was heart wrenching watching her struggle to keep her food down, put at least she was more cuddly. She was nice enough to pass it on to me. Wednesday night after my Young Women's activity, I spent some quality time hunched over my toilet bowl. Natalia is doing better. Thank goodness...no puking in two days for her and I am on the mend. I really hope she does not get sick again. It makes me so sad.

Cute Girl!

I stole these pictures from Krystale's blog. She has taken some really great pictures. This is my new favorite picture of Natalia. And this very well may be my second favorite. It is a race to see if Natalia will walk or crawl first. She has taken up to three steps before she topples over, but she can only really walk if she has something to hold onto. She is really good on the couches. She can practically run along them. She does not really crawl, but she has her own creative way of getting to what she wants. If she sees something enticing on the other side of the room she either barrel roles over there, scoots on her butt or army crawls like she is a quadriplegic. All three ways are rather funny to watch. Natalia loves to be outside. Hector's parents have a swing set across from their house and Natalia loves the swing. This is Natalia swinging on Easter morning. This last picture just makes me laugh. What a chunky monkey!

Fun Weekends

We have had some great weekends over the last month. We took Krystale, Hector's sister, to see "In the Heights" at the Hippodrome in Baltimore for her birthday. It was her first Broadway Musical. Hector and I love the theatre and we were really excited to have an excuse to go. The show was great! The evening was quite an adventure as well. We left at 6:00. Baltimore is an hour away and the show started at 8:00 so we thought we had plenty of time. Traffic was terrible and it took us the full two hours to get there. We were afraid that we would not be allowed in the show until intermission if we were late. We parked at two minutes to eight, ran to the theatre, picked up our tickets at will call and then ran to our seats. We of course can only afford the cheapest tickets, so we had to run up three flights of stairs. We went through he doors, just as they were dimming the lights to begin. Aah, we made it and enjoyed the show. Our church meeting time has been changed! We now go to church from 3-6 in the evening. It is really late for church. All the kids are cranky and tired (glad I do not teach primary). This is what Natalia usually looks like by the time we get home. Even though we only have a five minute ride home, she has enough time to snooze. Natalia had her first swimming lessons a month ago. Auntie Krystale teaches the class, so we get to go for free. Natalia really liked swimming the first time we went, but she has not been much of a fan the two other times we have gone. I think the water was too cold last weekend. She cried most of the time. She is really cute when she starts splashing and we have dunked her. She makes the funniest face when she comes up out of the water. We forgot our camera the first time we went. Both Hector and I got in the water with her. These pictures when taken during the second swim lesson. I was at a volleyball tournament. I have been playing lots of volleyball lately. My team uses a city league in place of practice. We were the league champions as we won the championship game a couple weeks ago. We also play 2-3 Saturdays a month. It has been so fun to play competitively again. The weather has been so nice lately. Hector got a new bike (a really nice one) and he has taken it out for a couple spins. Natalia is not quite big enough to go for a ride yet, but she thinks the bike is pretty cool. We have also done some yard work on the weekends. It is so nice to be outdoors after all the cold weather we had this winter. Natalia is such a great sport. We put a blanket out on the lawn and she is happy to sit and watch us weed and prune trees. Life has been good to the Noriegas.