Natalee Ann

For a while now I've been thinking that I never have shared the meaning of Natalee's name with you all...and then yesterday my mom told me that they are doing another scrapbook page with Natalee on it and they wanted to know the meaning of her name...so I thought this would be the perfect time to share it with you. Let's see...how did we come up with the name Natalee. First of all, it was just a name that I came to love. I was watching the Today show and they have Natalie Morales on there...and I thought to myself...Natalie...now that's a name you don't hear too often yet it's so pretty...I think I really kind of like it :) But I already had a name picked out for my next girl so Natalie was going to have to wait until later. After Emmalee died I was pretty set on making her name the middle name of our next girl...and so I had a first name that I thought sounded perfect with the middle name of Emmalee. But before I could use it another family member chose the same name...and not that I couldn't still use it...we just chose not too...anyway...so I brought up the name Natalee to Jon when we found out that the little baby we were going to adopt was a girl...he liked it, but as always, we couldn't just have one name picked out...just in case the baby didn't look like a Natalee....but when she was placed in our arms we took one look at her and realized that she did look like a little Natalee and so that's what we picked! I'm sure you all can guess why we chose the lee spelling on the end of Natalee...we did it for the same reason we did Emmalee...Jon's mom is Maralee and so the lee is for her...and then we decided to give Natalee the middle name Ann after my mom...we also thought this was a good way to give Natalee something that was her sister's as well...I know a lady who gave both of her girls the same middle name...a bond for them...and I always thought that was a neat idea...'cause they won't always have the same last name :) And I really liked how in Emmalee's name we were able to get our two mom's in there to make it have an extra special meaning so I was happy that I could also do it with the name Natalee (even though I know that she will never find anything with her name on it...I never did either with having only one l in Alison...I never thought I would do that to my own kids...but oh well...she'll live...I did...I'll make her something with her name on it! :) ) We decided to leave the Pearl for just Emmalee...something special that is all her own :) After all...she was our little Pearl :) Now that's how we first chose her name...but let me tell you some of the other meanings that came out of her name that we weren't aware of at the time, but it truly shows how God worked in all of this! Part of Natalee's name is also part of her birthmom's name...I won't say which part for privacy sake but when we found that out we thought that was pretty neat...as I think her birthmom did too...and to add to that, Natalee also has another member of the birthmom's family in her name as well :) Pretty cool! And lastly (and this makes me smile when I think of it)...remember how some of you were praying for a Christmas miracle for us...why you all chose Christmas (and I did too) I don't know...it was almost as if God was placing that time period in all of our hearts...well we did learn of Natalee's arrival right before Christmas (December 9th) and we all knew that our prayers for a Christmas miracle had been answered! Then Natalee made her arrival on January 25th, 2010...one month after Christmas! After we were home and getting settled in I thought it would be a good idea to look up the meaning of her name...and do you know what I found?

Natalee:

Meaning - born on Christmas

Now how cool is that?!?! Our Christmas miracle...even though she wasn't actually born on Christmas day :) God is so good...all the time! Well I hope that you enjoyed getting to know the meaning of our Natalee's name! I'd love to hear how you all came up with your kid's names! :)

4 Months and...it's FINAL!

Okay so I neglected to get her 4 month old pictures on here so here they are!

What a big girl she is! :) She's weighing in at 15.6 lbs and is 26 inches long! She's very healthy and can I say...I so enjoy being able to write that she IS 4 months old instead of "she would have been..."! Ahhh...it's so refreshing! :) She can't sit up on her own yet and she has yet to really roll over...she has rolled over when she's been on her side but no rolling from the back or tummy positions yet. She is constantly trying to lift her head up so that she can be sitting straight up and she is talking more and more all the time. She usually sleeps from 9 to 7...which is wonderful! Now the nights that she doesn't (which are few) are torture! :) Let's see...what else...she is almost always happy and when she wakes up from a nap or from bedtime she is usually talking and not crying...she talks all the time...did I mention that already :) She takes after me in that way! ha! And...as I eluded to this in my title...on Friday, June 4th, we went to court and before a judge and we testified that we will love and take care of her forever and the judge signed the papers and so now Natalee is officially ours...FOREVER!!!! So...we let the celebration begin by going on our first "official" family vacation...which is why I wasn't on here to announce her court stuff earlier! :) We headed out to the Black Hills on Friday after our court date and spent a few days out there. It was so much fun...I love it out there and so does Jon...if you've never been you have to go! Well I have a lot of pictures for you so I won't continue to bore you with any more of an update :) Thanks again for all the prayers for Natalee and our family...it's so nice to finally have it all done!

Natalee on her big day at court

Us with the Judge...it's signed...it's done!

Our Court audience...thanks for coming!

Our adoption attorney

All of us outside the courthouse (except my mom...she was taking the picture)...don't we all look so happy!

Granny Annie and Natee

Here's the start of our trip pictures...Crazy Horse...the thing still isn't done...I don't know if it ever will be...but can you see all the people standing on it...I guess once a year they open it up for people to climb up there...we decided not too...I think Jon would have but climbing didn't sound like much fun to me...especially with a 4 month old.

Feeding the wild donkeys...I wonder how much crap these things eat...they got licorice and pretzels from our car! :)

The buffalo (or Tatanka!)

Calf...so cute!

Here was a huge Tatanka out in Custer State Park...he wasn't even close to where we saw the other buffalos so I don't know where he came from...but he went right by our car and I thought he was going to ram us at one point! He was pretty cool looking but I wouldn't have messed with him!

Natee and her daddy at Mt. Rushmore

The next face of the mountain :)

If you've never been to the lighting ceremony at Mt. Rushmore we'd highly recommend it! It was soooo cool and very patriotic!

Natee taking a splash! She loves the water...unfortunately this pool water was pretty cool so she didn't last too long!

She's worn out...ready to go home...this was our last night and she was just sitting by me and all of a sudden she got very still and I looked down and she was out :)

Picture Perfect

Hi everyone! So sorry! I'm a bad bad blogger! I have so much to catch you up on but since I've been working on re-designing the blog (almost) all day I don't have much time to write tonight! What do you think of the new design? I love color if you can't tell and when I saw this rainbow background I knew it was the one I wanted to use for the summer! I love rainbows (we just had one outside our window 2 nights ago!) and I love that they represent a promise that God made to us...that never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life (Genesis 9:8-17 for those of you who would like to look it up!) :) And I like the quote from Dolly..."The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." I'll put up with the rain any day...if we hadn't had the trials that we had, we, for one, wouldn't have Natalee, and two, we wouldn't know how to treasure each moment with her and each moment in our lives! So...bring the rain! Anyway...I got a few pictures for you tonight...hopefully one of these days I can give you a full update on our lives :) We went down to my cousin Andy's wedding this last weekend...he married his sweetheart, Lindsay (congrats to you two by the way!)...the day was beautiful and so were they. The day also lent itself to some great picture opportunities...I love this picture my sister-in-law Britt took:

because it captures us the fun that we were having! So here are some of the products that we got from that day...I still want to Photoshop them a bit, but I think they turned out great for just pointing and shooting...enjoy!!!