What a beautiful day!

Today was a rough day for Natalie. After our morning walk, she had a 15 minute nap and then her physical therapist arrived. Natalie was very tired throughout therapy, so the therapist quit early, which gave Natalie 30 minutes for another nap before going to CHOC. At CHOC, she was barely keeping her eyes opened, but did manage to drink a little.

After CHOC we came home and had lunch and I fed Natalie a little more but could tell that she was ready for an early nap. I put her to bed, then asked Lukas to put himself to bed after Sesame Street was over so I could nap, since Natalie's occupational therapist was coming this afternoon. This is the first time I've asked Lukas to put himself to bed, and he did it! I woke up after almost 2 hours and both kids were asleep. Natalie woke up just before the OT arrived, and she had a great session this afternoon.

I'm not sure if her need for more sleep (in the past, she's done great on a 15-20 minute nap in the morning and a 30 minute nap in the afternoon) is due to the roseola she had last week, the innoculations she had on Monday, or a growth spurt. I wouldn't mind if she needed longer nap times, since it gives me more time to do things around the house, but I need to change our schedule if she's going to sleep more during the day.

After the OT left, we went out to the front yard to play. It was a beautiful day, all day. No June Gloom, just blue sky with puffy clouds. This afternoon it was quite windy for our area, and it was great to breathe the clean air. Here is another Natalie swing picture, and here's a pic of Lukas pedaling on his tricycle for the first time. Tom's parents gave him the trike for his birthday, and he's used it on and off, but he doesn't spend a lot of time on it (he'd rather be putting sprinkler pipes together). But today after his engineering project was completed, he got his trike out and just put his feet on the pedals and pedaled! I was so proud of him, because he kept on saying he could go faster by pushing with his feet on the ground. That's the stubborn boy we have!

I was nervous about taking the pic of the kids together in the tree. Lukas is fine sitting in the tree, but Natalie would have to be held by Lukas to make it work, and I didn't trust him completely to hold her. I was actually holding her with one hand while I was taking the picture with the other...but Lukas was certain he was holding her (and he was!) because when he got tired, he said emphatically, "Hold her, hold her!" So she was very well held!