My Craft Shows

Hey all - I wrote about my craft show and about my business on my Whimsical Creations blog, so if you want, you can click on my blog to the left of this post to find out how I did. It's been a while since I updated on the family, so here goes. Natalie just cut her 9Th tooth yesterday and 10Th tooth today, which to some may seem like no big deal, but for her it's huge! Most toddlers have their full set of 16 closer to 13 or 14 months, but Natalie is almost 19 months and she eats more than any child her age and can barely chew her food! We joked that for Halloween she was our Jack-O-Lantern. We are so happy for her. She is speaking small sentences now, but you really have to know her to understand her. It's cute though to finally have her communicating with us. I just wish she would stop her whining! This weekend she finally started watching TV. Bella at one year-old would sit and watch almost an entire episode of Sesame Street, but Natty just realized the TV does more than turn on and off and it was cute to witness. Bella was watching cartoons and Nat walked past the TV and then stopped, sat down, then layed down and put her hands behind her head and watched the rest of the show. I couldn't believe my eyes. This week we finally had to put a lock on the pantry doors. All day long she cries because she is hungry and if I don't feed her every half hour or sooner, she brings me cans and boxes from the pantry to let me know what she wants. I was getting so frustrated. I hate locks on the cabinets, but it had to be done. The other cute thing that happened in the last month was Natalie wanting to hold hands with Bella when we pick her up from pre-school. It brought tears to my eyes. Bella has been getting ready for her Christmas pageant at school and she has a speaking part that she's practicing and I can't wait to see it. She started Awana this fall as well and she is now in the cubbies class. It focuses on the kids learning Bible verses and she gets patches on her vest if she learns enough verses. She got three already and I'm really surprised at her memory. She retains the ones she has already learned and gets ready for new ones. I was never great at memorizing, so I'm pretty proud of her! She still loves school and her best friend Isabelle and she'll be in her first ballet class this winter. She talks about that a lot. We leave for our Australia trip in one week and I'm already worried that I'm going to miss the girls too much to enjoy myself. Please pray for our safety and for the the girls. Please pray for my friend Shannon who will be caring for the girls - she'll need it - they are so busy!