We hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, wherever you were! We certainly did, Sabine was thrilled to have her grandparents and her Aunt Dani all in the same house at the same time.
Sabine was fascinated with Grandmom's glasses:
and kept everyone entertained with her antics while we waited...and waited...and waited for that darn turkey to cook.
Seriously? Not even any cheese dip to tide us over?
Fortunately, once the turkey came out of the oven and Sabine had a nap, we had a lovely dinner, which we were too busy eating to remember to take any pictures. But the camera came out for dessert, just in time for Sabine's first taste of ice cream.
It was a success.
We all went to bed early, but took one quick family photo. We may be disheveled and in various states of getting ready for bed, but rest assured we were well-fed and happy!
(Sometimes boots can be a little tricky to run in.)
There's been a lot of development in the past month, not the least of which is language. You can tell she's on the brink of talking. In addition to "a puff," "dada," and "up," she's also attempting "mama."(Be still, my little heart.) It actually sounds more like "nya nya" right now, so Nana Lin should get some recognition, too. The b-words all get the same sound, so right now "BUH!" or "A BUH!" translates to: bear, bunny, book, or bath, depending on context.
Sabine knows a cow says mooo, although it sounds more like "bruoo" right now, and knows a lion says roar, which comes out sounding more like "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" with a big grin. Her favorite, and most accurate sound, though, is a train. We can hear the local train go by several times a day, and while I block it out anymore, Sabine always announces when it goes by. (Grandpa's little girl.) Normally she's more enthusiastic, but doing because mommy says so is a lot less fun than announcing it's going by RIGHT NOW!
Physically, Sabine's still working on jumping. She's also been walking backwards a lot, recently. She's doing more and more independent play, including spending time looking through her books by herself.
Her comprehension is amazing. She's able to identify several animals when we ask her to point them out now, and she follows instructions really well. (When she wants to.)
This has been a really fun month, both because of what we've done and how Sabine's developing. She's pushing her morning nap back later and later, which I think means we'll be transitioning from two naps a day to one nap a day pretty soon. That will make our days easier and more flexible in a lot of ways, but we are not going to do it until she's definitely ready. Still, it's exciting to think about what's in store; not the least of which is SNOW, and all the fun activities that can entail! We're ready.
(Picture actually taken at Sabine's birthday, in her new ball pit, a present from Aunt Dani.)
We went out to celebrate last weekend, and here's the only picture I have for now: But you'll have to trust me that we had a lovely time, and Sabine even behaved reasonably well for how long we were at the restaurant.
Recently, we've really enjoyed watching Sabine's language develop. She now says "up" and "dada" in context, and makes the sign for "dog." She also does a jig on command, it's kind of a cute, one-footed stomping. It's seems to get used both for dancing and for expressing impatience. She also broke it out in the bathtub last night, and was delighted at the incredible SPLASH she made. (Mom may have been slightly less delighted.)
Sabine is getting more physically confident every day, too. She's been walking around on her tip-toes for weeks. She tried the teeter-totter with her friend B this week, and tried desperately to follow him around the playground. Fortunately, B is a very good friend, and when snack time came around, he generously shared his goldfish crackers with Sabine while she incessantly kept signing "MORE MORE MORE" at him. She seems to be more adventurous with climbing on things, too. Daddy also showed Sabine how to jump today. Mostly it was bending her knees and throwing her arms in the air, but it was a good start.
She still prefers when daddy helps her jump, though. That usually elicits the most squeals of delight. (And starting with walking on daddy's feet is never a bad thing.)
We had a beautiful evening for trick-or-treating this year. More typically, Colorado kids are running around with big coats under/over their costumes and snow underfoot. We tried to take lots of pictures to savor this nice, mild fall weather.
Not a bad view, eh?
Nanna Lin came over earlier in the day and brought Sabine a big, stuffed pumpkin, which Sabine loves. Then Grandmom and Grandpa and Aunt Dani showed up to help get Sabine into her costume.
We headed out to try a little trick-or-treating, but before we could go anywhere, Sabine had to show Aunt Dani her pumpkins.
Then there was a fair amount of picture-taking, so Sabine worked on smashing a piece of candy in its wrapper. The plastic apparently made a very satisfying sound, she hung onto that lump of candy for a long time!
Daddy walked Sabine over to see a couple of neighbors, and Sabine got a kick out of seeing all the decorations and other kids.
Once we got home, there was a ceremonial Tasting of the Candy.
Sabine took a few bites, but I think it might have been a little sweet for her. Mostly she enjoyed crunching the candy in its bag, and practiced handing pieces of crunched candy to various family members.
That's fine. More for us.
Then we let Sabine stay up and have dinner with everyone, and then she went to bed. Fortunately, she had such a busy day that she slept through the handful of trick-or-treaters who came by after she went down.
