The Crazy Chapmans

Jordan, Emily and Natalie

At the beginning of August we went to St Louis to go to the temple and the zoo. Natalie was almost a month old and she did really well for the long trip. We stayed the night in a hotel with the Budds, and Ryan’s sister. It was really, really hot that day and it was the first time I had to feed Natalie in public (outside of home and church). It was really hard to find places to feed her, but we eventually found an air conditioned room that was nice to feed her in.

Natalie started smiling big in her sleep. (we whisper that we love her)

I love elephants!

Family Picture (That is a really unflattering picture of me)

I loved seeing the elephants, it was so exciting! This was right before the elephant jumped in the water.

It is funny that the sign says flesh made

I like that these owls stand on one leg.

I liked the baby and mom giraffes

We had a really good time at the Zoo and have gone since. I can’t believe how fast babies grow and how different she is.

Natalie is 8 months old today! We can’t believe how fast time is flying and how quickly she is growing up.  We sure do love our little girl and are so happy for her to be part of our family.

Jordan’s Parents came to visit July 27 to August 1 (Jordan’s dad left July 30). We were so excited to have them come visit and meet Natalie.

Natalie got lots of cuddle time with Grammy Chapman.

and Grandpa Chapman

Daddy and Grandpa’s wedding rings

We played lots of games

We went to Dixie Stampede on Friday night and Natalie slept the entire time we were there (even through the fireworks at the end). She woke up when we were leaving. I need to scan the picture in, because Jordan’s parents bought the picture from Dixie Stampede, and it is the only one we have together.

Jordan and his parents at the airport.

I love their faces in this picture.

Grammy Chapman gave Natalie a bath.

Jordan’s mom was able to go to Natalie’s blessing. It was really nice that we could have her here. My parents bought us a beautiful blessing dress for Natalie. Natalie looked like a little angel. One funny thing that happened was that Jordan held Natalie on her on his arm (stomach down).

Family Picture

Grammy and Natalie

All of us together

We couldn’t get Natalie in her carseat with the dress on, so I took a picture of her.

We took some pictures of Natalie in her dress. She got tired of it very quickly.

She really wanted to be done with pictures.

We were so glad that Grammy and Grandpa Chapman could come visit. We had so much fun and look forward to the family reunion this summer.

Well, We are so behind, but I’m going to try and and catch up. Here are pictures from Natalie’s first bath. Her umbilical cord stump fell off when she was about a week old, so we gave her a bath. I can’t believe how big she has gotten.

She liked to copy my face.

I love this picture of Jordan and Natalie.

We’ve already had lots of fun things happen this year, and we’re s behind! A couple of exciting things that we will be blogging about in the next couple days will be: my birthday (Emily), visiting Nicole, Nate, and Katie in Chicago, Valentines Day, Crafts, and what else, Natalie.

Until then, here are cute pictures of Natalie:

She lets us know when she doesn’t like something.

And she lets us know when she does.

I hope everyone has a valentine as cute as ours .

After our doctors appointment on June 30th, Jordan and I were pretty confident that our baby wasn’t going to be born on her due date (July 4th was our original due date, but it was changed to the July 11th after an early ultrasound). My doctor said that most first time moms are overdue anyway and that after my next appointment (July 6th) that we would schedule an induction date for after the 17th because he was going on vacation. Thank goodness she was born before that!

Because my doctor seemed pretty confident that our baby wasn’t going to be born, we decided we were going to have a July 4th party. We invited the Armstrongs, Brawns, Budds, Gees, and the Wards. Jordan worked on the retaining wall outside and I got stuff set up for the party. I kept forgetting things and I swear I went to Walmart 4 times that day. We always forget to take pictures of food, but we had some great grilled food thanks to Eddie’s grilling skills.

All of us bought a TON of fireworks, and the fireworks were awesome because in Missouri you can have any fireworks. A lot of our neighbors set off fireworks too so it was like one giant firework show. Some of our neighbors even caught a field by our house on fire. We got some cool pictures of the fireworks and sparklers with the kids. The Brawns had to leave early because Veronica had to work an early shift at the hospital (in labor and delivery).  Everyone had left our house by about 11pm and we decided that we would just go to bed and clean everything up the next day. Needless to say that didn’t happen…. Heidi and Ryan were so kind and cleaned our house when we were in the hospital with Natalie.

Yay, caught up through June!

The first fall we lived in our house we planted tulips in one of our garden boxes then the following spring we tore them out so we could plant vegetables. Last fall we didn’t plant any bulbs because we were too lazy and we didn’t want to take up space in our garden where we had other plants planned. So last year we started digging against the back of our house to make a planter box for tulips, other bulbs, and perennials. We didn’t get very far besides clearing the grass away (which quickly grew back in the spring). We both got tired of looking at the start of a project, that Jordan decided to do something about it. We even bought an entire pallet of retaining wall stones and half a pallet of toppers. Did you know the Home Depot will deliver pallets of things like that to your house for a small fee? We decided that option was easier than loading a rental truck or our little Corollas up with stones and having Jordan stack them somewhere in the backyard.

Starting in Fall 2010

Working in July 2011

Jordan worked on it and Ryan came over to help him finish. It was a super hot day and they got it mostly done, we just needed dirt in it. I’ll take some pictures of the finished product when the flowers have bloomed in the spring. The wall itself looks great, but it will look even better when the box is serving it’s purpose. Jordan liked it so much that he made another one on the side of our house around the AC unit so that we could plant some bushes and not have to weed wack around it.

I bought a boppy pillow but it only had one cover, so I decided to make another because they are ridiculously expensive for something that is easy to do on your own.

I used this pattern.  I made some minor modifications. Ignore the weird zipper thing the pattern has, just cut out two of the basic shape and sew a basting stitch about 1 inch in from where the zipper should go. Make sure to clip the fabric around where the curved parts are, it will help the fabric lay flat against the pillow.

Also, if you want to make it, just print everything out and tape the pieces together, it works, I promise.

The zipper:

Two weeks after going to the baseball game with the tickets my boss gave us was the annual DairiConcepts Family baseball game. We had dinner at Jordan’s work then everyone went to the baseball field to watch the game. Our seats were not as good as they were the last time, but we still had a pretty good view of the game. Our seats this time were also in the middle of a LONG row, which is not the best thing for a very pregnant woman (38.5 weeks at the time). I’m pretty sure everyone in the row understood why I kept getting up to use the bathroom, but I’m also sure it didn’t make it any less annoying.

The game this time was a lot less exciting. The Cardinals dominated, but it was still fun to watch. This game was also on a Friday night, so there were fireworks again.

Jordan, looking good again:

More Fireworks!