1/30/12: Sally: The last week or so Natalya has been very emotional. Last week when I would pick her up from daycare, she'd be in the room crying. Then this morning she cried during dropoff. I hate seeing my baby upset. It's still so hard to leave a crying child. I just wish I know what was wrong. Last week she said it was because she missed me (I know, doesn't it break your heart!).

1/29/12: Sally: Finally had Natalya's kid birthday today. It turned out great. She had picked bowling ("where Sarah had her birthday"). She invited Nadia, Grace and Madded (and Alexa got to bring a friend, Abby). The kids did great. Just as they were getting bored of bowling, pizza showed up. Then more bowling and then presents and Dora cupcakes. Then just as it was getting old again, the lights turned off, the lazer show started and the music was blasting. The kids then spent the last 20 minutes dancing, running around and taking a last few rolls. Natalya ending up having the highest score (85) of the day between the six kids. Jason and I were so pleased about how well the party went. There was no crying. Everyone got along. Everyone seemed to have lots of fun.

1/28/12: Sally: I completely forgot to write about Natalya's big girl bed. The day after Christmas Natalya got her big girl furniture. Unlike what we did with Lulu, left her bed and crib up for six months before she finally switched, we took down the crib that day. We had talked to Nataly for weeks about her new big girl bed coming. She did great sleeping in it. She has still yet to get out of bed. I assume in the next few weeks I will suddenly wake up and a wee small child will be starring at me next to my bed and it will scare the living crap out of me, but until then, I'm loving that she loves her big bed.

1/21/12: Sally: Upon seeing first real snow of the year (about 2 inches):
Alexa: I'm TOTALLY going outside when we get home.
Natalya: I'm totally NOT going outside when we get home.
It describes them both perfectly.

1/18/12: Sally: I have found myself doing more and more laundry these days since Natalya wants to wear a dress or a t-shirt that has a frilly skirt on it every day. She loves to twirl. She's also wearing necklaces, rings and braclets everywhere. Such a girlie-girl. Yesterday Alexa said she wanted to be called "Diamond", so I asked Natalya what she wanted to be called and she smiles at me and says, "Poopy". So for the rest of the evening I called her "poopy". She would laugh and say her name wasn't poopy, it's Talya!

1/12/12: Sally: Natalya is so excited that she can almost snap her fingers. The sound is soft, but it's a snap sound. She has been practicing so much.

1/10/12: Sally: Talz had her 3-year check-up today and all is good. She did have an ear infection, but we kind of figured that would be the case. According to their little computer, Natalya should grow to be 5-foot-10, plus or minus 2 inches. I would be good with that. They managed to do an eye exam on the right eye and then she got bored and didn't want to do the left eye (I will agree with her, the test was too long). They never even tried the hearing test. No shots, so that was nice.

1/9/12: Sally: It's been a while since my last update and a ton of stuff has happened, so here goes:
Natalya turned 3! We spent the weekend celebrating all things Talz. On Friday she wanted Hello Kitty cupcakes for her "party" at Primrose. She was very excited to bring them. She wanted to be sure she got a blue one. Then on Saturday, we hit the zoo and had mexican for lunch, where they sang to her (she was embarrassed and shy). On Sunday, we went to The Water Park of America (I forgot to take pictures). Both girls had a blast. Natalya went on all the slides, but what she wanted to do most was swim in the pool, jump of the side and be throw up in to the air. She must have told Jason and I how much she loved up and how we were the best mommy and daddy ever about 100 times. It was really sweet. Finally, that evening we had Myra, Dan and Sarah over for dinner (Dad wasn't back from South Dakota yet). I crimped the girls hair and they ran around like crazy kids the whole time. The weekend was very fun and Natalya loved it. We will be doing a kids bowling party towards the end of the month (I wasn't organized enough to get it scheduled sooner).

Christmas. Christmas was another good time for the kids. We did our traditional stuff, which consists of xmas eve doing skype with the California folks, xmas morning with just our family, xmas lunch with my family. The girls, of course, got way too much stuff, but they have played with it all. Natalya got to "meet" Santa and she wasn't scared (Primrose did a little thing). We decorated cookies and made holiday houses. Natalya is still talking about how Santa drank the milk she set out for him.

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