Still Here

We're still here--haven't gone private yet! We're waiting to work out a little technical glitch. In the meantime, happy fall. We've got lots more pictures coming soon.

Two Years Old

Two years and about thirty minutes ago, we held Sabine in our arms for the very first time. It's hard to believe a little person can grow and change so much in such a short amount of time. That day two years ago was a magical day...but honestly we haven't looked back. Sabine just becomes more wonderful and engaging every day, and it's been incredible to watch her turn into an amazing little girl. Today she talked to us in sentences. Today she wore underwear instead of diapers. Today she already knew to anticipate her "happy birthday," as she calls it. She knew there was a new toy waiting for her when she woke up.

We got her a play kitchen, the same one she loves to play with at the toy store. When she walked into the kitchen this morning, she stopped to stare at it, pulled daddy over to help with a closer inspection, and then kept saying, "Let's cook something!" all morning.

And so she did.



There was lots of pretend mac & cheese, cupcakes, and even broccoli concocted this morning.

We took a small break to try out her Halloween costume and meet some friends at the pumpkin patch. We brought some mini cupcakes to celebrate the special day, and Sabine took down the lion's share...terrible pun intended. (Sorry, it's late.)

When we got home, Sabine got right back to business.



Sabine's dear friend S gave her some new gear for her kitchen, so Sabine had all sorts of new things to try out once we got home. A whole new world opened up, including "eggs for daddy" since she now has a spatula and frying pan. The biggest attraction, though, was the salt and pepper shaker.

Special placement in the ice dispenser by Sabine. They fit perfectly.

Everything she cooked from there on out was seasoned within an inch of its life. Including "mommy's wine."



Thank you, S. Sabine is thrilled.

The kitchen also came with a phone, one of Sabine's favorite things to play pretend. Here she is calling grandpa.



The conversation went:

Hello, Grandpa? I'm in the kitchen, actually. Bye-bye. Love you.

What I find ironic is that her stance is not so dis-similar from Grandpa's when he's on the phone.

Sabine's baby dolls also have extremely clean clothes.



They were put in the washer several dozen times this afternoon.

The kitchen was a hit, but so was our playdate with friends. So were all the phone calls from family. So were the cards in the mailbox. "MAIL FOR SABINE!"

We feel really lucky that Sabine has such a warm, loving extended family, that so many people would reach out to her on her birthday. We love you all, and thank you for helping make this such an incredible first two years. Here's to many, many more to come.

Celebratory Ice Cream

Celebrating a second day of no accidents and no diapers. (Other than to sleep.)

Sabine has exceeded all of our potty training expectations. We are so proud of her, she's doing so well. There's still plenty of practice to be done, but we're done with cloth diapers as of this week. No looking back, just full steam ahead with our almost-two-year-old!

Pumpkin Patch

We made it to our favorite pumpkin patch last Friday, with some of our favorite people. Not only were Grandmom and Grandpa there,



but Sabine's friend S and her mommy and grandparents also joined us.



It was a fantastic afternoon.



She's grown a bit from last year (SEE LAST YEAR'S PHOTO) and was much more opinionated about all the activities and things to see.

But the donkey was still the favorite animal.



She's been carrying around imaginary donkeys all weekend, rocking them, cooing to them, and handing them off to Mom so that she can pick up another one.

Sabine took her pumpkin picking duties more seriously this year.



We even examined the corn in the corn field, but she was unimpressed.



But we did have a lot of fun, and will undoubtedly go back before the season's over.



It's a beautiful time of year.

Here We Are!

Sorry it's been a while. I've learned my lesson. I am going to stop posting about this:

because every time I do, I jinx it. We had a rough couple of weeks following Sabine's little cold, and while I think we're slowly getting back on track, it's still tenuous.

Speaking of sleep, though, Sabine seems to be pushing her nap time back. For a long time she was going down right at 11:30AM. How long she stayed down was another story entirely, but more recently she hasn't been ready to go down until closer to 1:00PM or even 2:00 some days. We'll see how long it lasts. This could potentially open up more lunch options for us!

Still, we're staying busy, Sabine continues to be quite the social butterfly, hanging out with all of her good friends and getting out and about.

in Boulder

At our house

In downtown Louisville

In the ice cream truck at Babies R Us

Sabine's talking more and more, and we've gotten several compliments on her advanced vocabulary. While I do think she's got a good vocabulary for her age, I also think she's very good at enunciating, which I think helps make a good impression.

She's also working on shapes, and can correctly identify stars, hearts, and triangles. She gets ovals, squares, rectangles, octagons, and circles right about half the time.

Imaginative play has also really blossomed recently. Sabine likes to pretend she's carrying a dinosaur, and never has any newborn baby been given as much attention during transfers as her dinosaurs. (Which appear to fit just perfectly in the crook of her arm.) Usually they are blue, but sometimes she has two (so that you can carry one), and then one is green or purple. Unless they are both blue, which happens just as much. Luckily, they are some of the few things mommy lets Sabine bring in the shower, so, BONUS!

And last but not least, she's getting more and more hair. Look! There's twice as much in the clip as there was last year!

23 Months

Today Sabine turned 23 months old. She has also contracted her first cold of the season. There's been a lot of tissues and practicing nose-blowing around here, recently. But otherwise she's been perky. Sleep has definitely been better this month, and while not perfect, she's mostly sleeping through the night and able to get back to sleep fairly easily when she does wake up. She's also been going to bed later, closer to 8:00-8:30 most nights, but she has been sleeping past 6:00 in the morning as well, which we feel is a worthwhile trade-off!

Sabine has done a lot of reading this month, books have always been a favorite pastime, but she's definitely showing more and more interest in the ones with actual plots. She'll even read to her babies and bears (and Elmo) from time to time, reciting as much of a book as possible from memory.

We've managed to see cousin E at least once a week, and Sabine adores him. She talks about him all the time, and always asks to hold him when we're together. She's actually been quite gentle and caring towards him when we have put them together. It's heart-melting to watch.

Diet-wise, Sabine is a very picky eater these days. Cottage cheese and mac & cheese are our go-to foods, when all else fails. She does usually like zucchini, which is great because we've had lots of friends give us fresh ones from their gardens, so we've had a lot of zucchini this summer. Just this week, Sabine's become re-interested in oatmeal, or hot cereal, as she calls it. She's had it for both breakfast and lunch several days.

Her vocabulary continues to grow, and we've noticed her enunciation has gotten a lot better. Most strangers seem to be able to mostly understand her now. (That's if she opens up enough to talk, she's become more shy around strangers recently, especially if there's a large crowd. Usually with enough time she warms up and acts like everyone's old friends.) Sabine's also singing a lot, and likes to entertain us, especially at meals or in the cars. She's even started making up little songs, this morning she was singing about her friend S while we were in the shower. (Just S's name over and over.) It was really cute.

Dance classes have started again, and Sabine looks forward to them all week. She's gotten quite good at the welcome "Step and Curtsey" song, both singing and dancing.

To anyone we haven't told yet, we're planning on making this blog private once Sabine turns two. (Hard to believe that's coming up in just a month!) The plan is to make this blog password-accessible only, so that friends and family can still check it, but random strangers can't access it. We'll mention it again before we do it, and we'll send out a password in an email, but if you think we might miss you for some reason, please let us know! We're thrilled that so many friends and family have followed our adventures, and we don't want to lose any readers.

Daddy's Office

Over the weekend, we took an impromptu trip to see where Daddy works. Daddy just got a new office, so we helped him hang his pictures and Sabine made sure his computer and phone were in working order.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard, clickityclickityclickity, and she was highly annoyed when we would interrupt her work.

Sabine had multiple phone conversations while we were there. Daddy's office phone is a lot fancier than anything we've got at home. Result: Sabine officially approves of Daddy's office. No wonder he likes to go play there every day, Sabine would too, if she got that phone!