Turkey Day

Sabine was off from school the whole week of Thanksgiving, and we had a great, cozy, week all together. It started off with a dinner with some of her old preschool friends and families, as well as her old teacher.



Many of the younger siblings have already started to attend Louisville preschool, and Aspen will be there soon enough!



Grandmom and Grandpa spent the night with us before Thanksgiving, because we weren't sure how much snow we were going to get. They got up bright and early to help us watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. There was one obvious, favorite balloon for our dragon-loving girl!



She and Coral also coordinated their Turkey Day outfits.



Sabine also helped make the pies this year, along with Knuffle Bunny, who is featured prominently in several pictures, because as a school project Sabine brings Knuffle Bunny along with her all week long and documents what they do together to go in a binder. Knuffle signifies that she is the Person-of-the-Week, which includes getting to be the line leader at school. It was pretty thrilling that she got to keep him for the whole Thanksgiving break!



And her pies turned out pretty well!



Everyone headed over to Aunt Dani's and Nana Lin's for most of the day. Aspen and mommy joined a little later, after Aspen's nap, and found out she wasn't the only one who needed a nap that day!



Dinner was a success, with lots of different and delicious dishes.



Everyone pitched in!





The day after Thanksgiving, Sabine and her neighbor went ice skating at the newly re-opened Louisville rink.



I think it's going to be a good season!



And then nothing would do but to follow up with a horse-drawn carriage ride. Purely for the Knuffle Bunny photo op, of course.

21 Months

Aspen turned 21 months old, yesterday. She continues to grow in every way. Her speech is getting clearer, and more complex. She strings two words together all the time, sometimes three or four. Her favorite song is either "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" or "Happy Birthday" (which she calls "Happy Cake.") She has started adding a "-y" at the end of a lot of words. "Up" has become "Up-py," and "Rabbit" was a "hop-hop," but is now "hoppy." As of Halloween night, we are no longer "mama" and "dada," but now "mommy" and "daddy." Sabine is officially "BEAN!" and, if possible, more loved than ever. Aspen waits all day to go get her from the bus stop.



Aspen successfully uses her potty seat a couple times a day, and has just started to occasionally alert us to when she has to go, and then waits to get to the potty! That's a big step. We have started letting her wear underwear for a little bit, every now and then, and that's a lot of fun.

Aspen is a very picky eater these days. Her tastes change daily. Usually I can get her to have some smoothie, and hummus is usually welcome. Pirate Booty chips are the only real guarantee. Everything else is pretty hit-or-miss...mostly miss.

Aspen has also pushed her naps back. She is now going down around 12:30, which is a big shift from 11:00 AM, and really frees up our mornings. We can even sneak in an early lunch, now. That came about with the fall back time change.

She's been on a couple of her own play dates, recently



(often at a coffee shop for mommy's convenience)



And we had our first snow day. Both girls were thrilled to see the snow in the morning.



And we immediately had to get suited up and head out, because it disappeared quickly. Sabine broke in her new skis



and Aspen was really upset that she didn't get a turn. We hear "MY TURN!" a lot these days.



They also tried sledding together, which Aspen later described as "snow! Whee! Bean! Lap!" but she wasn't really interested in trying it a second time. Aspen has also learned to get both feet off the floor when she jumps, and she and Sabine love running back and forth through the house.

Sabine has shown Aspen her ABC Mouse game on the iPad, and both girls get excited for "AB MOUSE!" Sabine also showed Aspen the pony rides at the supermarket. Now it's expected every time we go grocery shopping.



Aspen also has learned to count to 10. It started in the shower, we count to 10 before turning off the water. One day she just did it, all by herself, with no prompting. Dustin got her to do it again, to be sure. We rushed to get a phone to take a video, and naturally she won't it again. Sometimes it's "One, two, three...eight, nine, ten" sometimes another number or two sneak in, but we haven't heard her do the whole set. Still! Pretty impressive.

Halloween

Halloween happened!



Our dragon and dragon trainer had a great time.

Along with Sabine's good ninja friend, A



And the dinosaur cousins.









Aspen was estatic about "COSTUMES!"



And she picked up "trick-or-treat" very quickly.





Getting the candy was thrilling. She never even realized you could eat it. Just wait until next year, baby. It'll be a whole new world of awesome.

The big kids set the pace

but the little ones were really excited about all of it, and kept up amazingly well. Aspen was happy to hold her cousin's hand, but going up and down stairs, she insisted on doing it herself. No grown-up help at all. "NO HAND!"

We covered a good chunk of the neighborhood, had a quick checking of the night's loot, and then everyone took off to go home to bed.

(Thanks to Grandmom and Grandpa for holding down the fort and passing out candy so that we could tag along with the girls & co.!)