Vacations and Dancing Hampsters

We're on the east coast right now, so that's why I haven't had much of a chance to update the blog. Sabine has had a wonderful first vacation, although it's been a little over-stimulating at times. Here are a few pictures from a quieter time, when she and Tatum spent a rainy afternoon exploring daddy's dancing hampster. I'll post vacation pictures once we're back.









She's made some wonderful new friends: babies, other kitties, and adults (including Great-Grandmom, with whom she seems to have had an instant bond) but we're excited to get home to our old friends and daddy, too. We miss you!

Happy Father's Day

Daddy's little girl. In so many ways.









Happy Father's Day to our favoritest daddy ever.

So Many Things!

Sabine has had quite a week of firsts. They just seem to keep coming, it's amazing to watch. She's standing for longer and longer on her own (I think we're up to about 10-15 seconds); she's able to pull herself up to standing in her Pack ' n Play, which has made getting her to lie down to go to sleep a bit of a challenge; she has distinctly said "bear" a couple of times, parroting us. She's had a vowel-y "Eeeh" sound for "tree" for a while now (although we define "tree" very loosely around here. Anything green and leafy-ish is "Eeeh.") and we think there's an "AH!" for "cat." But just this weekend a b and an r appeared out of nowhere, and while there doesn't seem to be an association to anything other than very excited reactions from mom and dad, there's now a hint of language to come.

Sabine's new favorite game is pulling all the books off of the bookshelf.



I like to think it's the beginning of an active literary career of some sort.



She's also finally learned how to go from a crawling position to seated. That makes life much less frustrating!



And my very favorite recent development, the proto-running. She's gotten even faster, but I managed to capture it on my camera just as she was starting to do it.




It is pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Social Butterfly

Sabine has had quite a few fabulous visitors recently. Two weekends ago one of my very dearest friends from college came to visit with her husband. Melissa was a natural with the baby



but if you're wondering what Sabine's looking at, it's Mel's husband, Phil, who unxpectedly stole the show. And Sabine's heart. Sabine spent the entire weekend doing this:



Gazing adoringly. I am just glad she's too young to know how far away Phil lives. And too young to understand Mel has dibs on him.

Then this weekend Sabine's friend I.B. came up to visit. (Along with her parents, who are good friends of ours.) I.B. was born just two months before Sabine, so we are excited for our girls to grow up together.



So far they seem to have had the most fun gumming toys together. We're hoping I.B.'s sweet, calm demeanor will be a good influence on Miss Go-Go-Go over here.

Cruisin'

When in doubt, turn the camera sideways.



Sorry these are so short, I'm taking these from my phone and it won't let me upload any larger files.

I did upload one more of Sabine walking on her toy, but it's sideways.



For the record, she definitely cannot walk unassisted yet, and the hardwood floor is too slick, the push-toy goes too fast and she can't keep up. So the only use the push-toy is getting right now is on the carpet. Still, it's exciting to see her become more and more mobile.

Sabine is trying more and more different foods, we're now onto stage II baby foods, so there are combinations of things when we give her jar food. So far squash, carrots and tomatoes, and nearly any fruit combination are raging successes. Peas, green beans, and an ambiguous green "Summer Vegetable Medley" have not gone over quite as well.

Sabine does like to eat, but she doesn't eat much at any one time. This means we're feeding fairly frequently (every three hours or so) and she's still taking three naps a day, on average. That doesn't leave a lot of time for getting out, but we're trying to get out more often since we have a trip to the east coast coming up pretty soon. It's definitely going to be an adventure.

A Whole New World

Mommy has (kind of) figured out YouTube.



Next up: Figuring out how to rotate the image.