The Noriega Family

Natalia has started to learn how to take her own clothes off, but she still has a way to go until the art is mastered.  She got her shirt stuck on her head and could not get it the rest of the way off, so she just ran around the house like this.

Natalia is also supper silly in the evenings.  When she gets tired, she gets funny.  She laughs about everything.  She does silly dances when she is waiting for the bath.  She loves to walk and make funny kicks or she tries to walk with her legs straight.  After the bath she likes to be wrapped up in her towel...supper tight...and then she just wants to stay in the towel.  She gets a little upset when we try to take the towel off to get her ready for bed.  I guess this is not entirely surprising; this is the child that we swaddled until she was nine months old.  Basically, she still likes to be swaddled.  She will such a wiggle worm, but if she is wrapped up in the towel with her arms at her side, she does not move a muscle; she is as happy as can be.

And then there is the snow.  I am convinced that if Natalia had to pick between snow and her mother...she would pick snow.  She puts on her little mittens and snow suit and goes crazy in the white stuff.  She loves to pick it up and throw little balls of snow.  She loves to fall over and roll around in the snow.  She loves to stomp in the snow and she is also quite fond of eating the snow. 

Hector gets to do most of the snow playing with Natalia.  I just step outside to take a few pictures and then head back into my nice warm house. 

2011 is off to a good start.  It is hard to believe that we are already three weeks into 2011.  I remember as a kid thinking that 2000 sounded so far off.  2011 did not even cross my mind.  The year is already going well and we have so many exciting things to look forward to this year.  We will welcome baby number two.  (Name still pending).  I will turn 30 this year.  I am excited to see what exciting thing Hector has planned for me this year.  I told him a year ago that I wanted something special for my 30th birthday.  I told him it didn't matter what we did as long as he did not wait until the night before to plan something to do.  I am not really a present person, I prefer a good experience, so I am excited to see what he has up his sleeve (p.s., this is also serving as a friendly reminder to Hector that I only turn 30 once)! 

Last Saturday Krystale came over and spent the day with us.  Hector and Krystale planned a weight loss competition.  They have 11 weeks to see who can loose the most weight.  They made fun posters to help remind them to stay on track.  Natalia had fun helping them color the posters. 

Natalia discovered that she could take all of her stuffed animals out of this bin and then fit herself in there.  She had so much fun getting in and out.  I told her to smile for the camera and she is not afraid to strike a pose.  She gets silly when I get the camera out.  She knows to smile and sometimes she even sits in funny little positions trying to pose just right for the camera. 

Natalia is such a girly girl these days.  She loves to carry purses around, wear necklaces and bracelets, put on chap stick and dance.  She got to take a bubble bath for the first time this week.  Now every time she gets in the bath she points at the cupboard under the sink where the bubbles are. 

We both had Martin Luther King Day off on Monday, so we spent the morning with Hector's family and then spent a couple hours in DC.  My nephew is doing a project for school and he needed a host family for a character from a book he is reading.  He sent us a flat paper man in the mail and we got to dress him and take him around with us.  I dressed him like an FBI agent and he spent the day with us in DC. 

Kyle named the paper man flat dude, now that he has spent time in DC, he is Agent Flat Dude.  This is Hector and Agent Flat Dude looking over the river from DC to Arlington Cemetery on the other side of the bridge. 

Me and Agent Flat Dude with the monuments behind us.  In the next picture we are in front of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.  The security guards kept staring at me trying to figure out why I was taking pictures of a paper doll.  The guards starting staring and moving closer and then they laughed.  Good times.  I thought it was funny. 

It was really cold, but we had fun looking for good places to take pictures.  We got back home and started our week long project....read about that in the next post. 

Natalia has been a busy little lady these first couple weeks of 2011.  Natalia has some favorite things.  She loves to read books and to have books read to her.  She loves the three beginning reader books that my mom gave us for Christmas.  She really likes to keep all three of them together.  If she looks at one, she will look at the other two.  When she is done reading them, they all have to be stacked together.  If she puts them on the bookshelf, then she wants them to be together.  She has discovered that she can have her own space in the bedroom if she goes behind the rocking chair.  The Chair is in the corner and only someone Natalia's side can fit back there.  She prefers to be wearing her flower necklace and feather boa when she reads to herself.  She goes and sits in the corner, looks through the book and them comes out and exchanges her book and the whole process begins again.  She is really cute back there. 

Natalia loves jewelry.  She understands that it is something pretty and not something to play with (I am glad she finally learned this because she broke several pieces of my jewelry before she learned my necklaces were not toys or food).  She loves to put on necklaces...as many as she can find to wear.  She loves bracelets and purses as well.  She still loves scarfs.  It is cute because now I can see her pretending.

Natalia also loves to dance.  She has quite a few dance moves. She learned that she can walk backwards a couple of weeks ago.  She looks like she is doing the moon walk.  She has also figured out that she can spin in circles.  She loves to do this now.  She will spin until she is so dizzy she falls over...then she laughs.  She loves to be chased.  She loves to be tickled and she loves to play with her Dad.

Natalia also loves arts and crafts.  She amazes me at how fast she picks it up.  She knew exactly what to do the first time she painted, she has always loved stickers, she loves to color and she loves to be creative.  Natalia went to a birthday party last weekend.  She was the youngest kid there, so the little craft the kids did was geared toward kids a little bigger than her, but surprisingly, she knew exactly what to do.  She has never used a bottle of glue before, in fact, I do not think she has ever seen a bottle of glue before.  Yet she put the glue on the little craft pieces all by herself and she did not get any glue on herself.  I hope that she is this detail oriented when she gets older.  I am thinking her bedroom will always be clean (I know...wishful thinking).