Girls Weekend!

Since Daddy recently took a new job he sometimes has to work on weekends.  On those weekends Mommy and I have fun doing girls stuff.  One recent weekend was jam packed with a bunch of fun stuff.  We started our Friday evening by relaxing at home and watching a "chick flick."  We watched The Princess Diaries.  I really liked it and I was very excited to find out that Mary Poppins was in it too. 

Saturday was a perfect day for shoe shopping in the morning and then in the afternoon Mommy and I did some cooking.  We made play dough!  

These are my new shoes!

Playing with my homemade play dough!

There was beautiful weather on Sunday so we decided to visit the local pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkins!  

At the pumpkin patch!

I took this picture of Mommy!

FOOTBALL!!!!

The football season is upon us.  I have been looking forward to this Sunday since the Olympics were over.  I was excited to cheer for my Packers, unfortunately it wasn't enough for the team this week since they just lost to the 49ers.  We always have next week.  Go Pack Go!!!!

Tiny Dancer!

Before class started.  I was
so excited!

The other big news of the fall is that I have started taking dance.  I am very excited about learning ballet and tap.  Last Thursday was my first day of class and I was super excited.  I can't wait to go back this week.  We learned about stretching by pretending to make a pizza, we learned first position and called it pizza feet and we even learned a little routine to show our parents.  

This is the routine we did at the
end of class.

Practicing my "nice" waves.

Pre-K & Campus B

The start of the school year was a big transition for me.  Not only did I move into the PreK classroom, I also moved to a whole new building at All About Kids, Campus B.  I have been excited and ready to move to Campus B since my birthday.  I would have moved sooner but the classroom was full.  Instead I waited until the start of the school year and transitioned with a lot of my friends and classmates.  

Toledo Zoo!

In July we met up with our friends the Riches for a visit to the Toledo Zoo.  We had a very fun day and it was good to see Carrie, Doug, and Bella.  (And Happy Birthday to Bella!  She just celebrated her birthday a couple of days ago!)

Dancing before we headed into the zoo.  There is
a little monkey statue next to me.

The Polar Bears are a favorite feature of any zoo.
Thanks Mrs. Rich for the great pictures!

Here I am getting my face painted!
It was a special treat!

Bella got her face painted like a penguin!
She was adorable!

Bella and I are checking out the penguins!

The Toledo Zoo even has a baby elephant!

Bella and I were enjoying a ride in the wagon!

Family picture after our fun day at the zoo!

Fair through the years!

Every year we go to the fair, we have our picture taken by the cardinal statue!  Here they are!

2012

2010

2009

Meet me at the Fair!

 Once again I went with Maria, Sarah, Aunt Debbie, & Uncle Bob to the Ohio State Fair!  We had a lot of fun and watched a band concert, saw horses, pigs, one cow.  

This is Smokey the Bear, he is awesome.
He knew my name was Natalie and talked to me.  

We watched a concert for a long while, I
enjoyed the music they played.  

Here is the (1) cow that we saw.  It was for
sale and I wanted to buy it.  He couldn't fit in
the Portman's van, so we left him at the fair.

The piglets were waking up their Mom for lunch.

Here is a picture I took of the sheep!

Lastly, no trip to the fair is complete without seeing the
annual butter sculpture (and having some ice cream.)  The
cows are celebrating Columbus' 200th birthday.

Thank you Portman's for the fun adventure.  I hope I can go back next year too!

Zoo Camp!

This summer I participated in my very first Zoo Camp! I have been looking forward to this for a couple of years now. Aunt Debbie has been taking Maria and Sarah since they were my age, so the last couple of summers I spent with Aunt Debbie I helped her take the girls, Alex, Gabe, and their friends to camp. It was a very exciting week! Not only did I go to Zoo camp every afternoon for a week, I also spent nights ar Aunt Debbie's and Uncle Bob's for the whole week! I wasn't alone though, Gabe and Megan spent the week too.

Our stay at the Portman's started out with a visit to Graeters's Ice Cream.
We were really excited to enjoy our sweet treat in baseball helmets,
especially since we just went to the Reds game.  Aunt Debbie later
decided ice cream wasn't the best idea when we refused to go to bed!

Zoo Camp this year was in the afternoon. So that meant we had time in the mornings for things like visiting the park and Panera.

I am being brave climbing the rope ladder!

Lemonade and chocolate chip bagels!

Our afternoons at Zoo camp were filled with a lot of excitement! Everyday we went go on a Zoo hike to visit an animal. We visited the giraffes and fed them giraffe crackers, watched the elephants have a bath, visited the new Night Hunters exhibit and much, much more. Back in our classrooms we had activities and crafts and usually got a visit from another animal. My favorite animal visit was the armadillo! He was very funny, he kept knocking his head on the the little cage.

One day Aunt Debbie brought home a couple of hedgehogs!

And a turtle!

We enjoyed Zoo camp so much that  in the evenings we
would "drive" ourselves to Zoo camp!

One day during Zoo Camp Mommy took the day off from work to go to the zoo with us.  She learned our routine for the trip.  After our morning of fun at the park or playing outside Aunt Debbie packed our lunches and we ate them in the car on the way to camp. Gabe was very helpful, he helped open our chips or waters, collect trash and throw it away when we finished.  We were in good hands with Gabe helping Aunt Debbie.

Gabe and me eating our lunches!

Every day Gabe held our hands and
walked us to our classroom.  Sometimes Megan and I
took Gabe to his class first.  

Here are Megan and I sitting on our carpet squares
before camp starts for the day.  When we went
on our zoo hikes we were each other's buddy!

By Friday morning I was pretty TIRED!

No visit to Aunt Debbie's is complete without a trip to the Sprinkle Park. It was a busy week so we decided on Friday night to have a picnic at the park and run through the Sprinkle Park.

Gabe and me feeling good and hungry!

I was a little nervous my first day of Zoo Camp, but in the end it was a great time and I can't wait to go back next year!  Thank you very much to the Portmans for letting me stay at their house for the week.  And a great big THANK YOU to Aunt Debbie for driving us all down to the zoo, packing our lunches, and taking such good care of us.  I am looking forward to 10 more years of Zoo Camp!

All the happy zoo campers!  

Go Reds!

Back in June the whole family celebrated Grandma Zirkelbach's birthday with dinner and a trip to a Reds game. It was my first ever Reds game and I was a lot of fun. I even got a new Cincinnati Reds dress for the occasion. Our seats were in the outfield and we had a great view of the field.

Our view of the field!

Watching the game from
Daddy's shoulders.

Here I am watching the game.
The rest of the group went out
to get a snack.

I'm Not Scared!

Just chilling with a snake on
my shoulders.

A few weeks ago we had visitors to school. A group called Cool Critters brought animals in for us to meet. There was a baby alligator, tortoise, and both a mommy and baby snake. For those us that wanted to, we could pet the animals. And if we were feeling very brave we could hold the snakes.

As you can see I was very brave.  And it was good that cool critters came to school when they did because it helped get me ready and excited for Zoo Camp.  Stay tuned for a future post about my Zoo Camp adventure.

Memorial Day Weekend

For the Memorial Day holiday we took a trip up to Mendon, OH to visit Grandma and Grandpa Knapp. The Rillings were camping nearby for the weekend and the New Jersey Knapps were in Ohio for the weekend too. It was fun to have everyone together and to play with all of my cousins. We decided to spend the night at a hotel and that was fun because it had a pool!

Having fun kite flying!

Hanging out with Edwinn & Amelia!

Pool time!  

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On April 24, Mommy and Daddy celebrated their 8th wedding anniversary. We decided to all get dressed up and go out for a nice lunch. It was originally our plan to go to the Montgomery Inn, but we didn't know that it didn't open until 3:00 pm on Sundays. So since sometime plans change, we decided to go see some butterfly's instead. It was our first time to the butterfly show at the Krohn Conservatory. It was really neat to see all of the butterflies flying around. Some landed on our shoulders and I tried my best to catch one on my flower, but the butterflies were being shy. I can't wait to go back next year and try again!

All dressed up and in my new "party" dress.
Mommy even curled my hair!

Waiting patiently for a butterfly to land!

Butterflies sitting on the flowers!