8 Months Old

Aspen turned eight months old on Friday. We are pretty sure she is teething, and on the brink of crawling. She has just barely figured out how to go from a lying down position to a seated position. It doesn't always work, but when it does, aaaaah, the freedom to be able to sit back up! She is motivated!



Aspen is still working on walking, too, and very into anything big sister has/does/or touches. Big sister is mostly very patient, but does have her limits.




Swinging together at farm


Playing at Nana's

We are into the birthday party season, too. Sabine has a lot of friends with fall birthdays, for some reason. She kicked off the season with a square dance, partnered with W, a friend from both preschool and farm. They have a very sibling-esque relationship, very close, but fraught with lots of teasing and grievances, too. Fortunately, this particular day, they decided to get along, and did really well as partners.









We also had a reunion with Sabine's old play group at a pumpkin patch.Aspen stayed home with a sitter and Sabine and I met up with some old friends. (At least, most of the ones who still live in Colorado, we miss our contingents in Germany and Maryland very much!) We managed to get most of the group to sit still for a picture. These kiddos were all less than two years old when they met. The little girl on Sabine's right was only weeks old when we met her.



The moms posed, too!



The kids really had fun reconnecting, running, and being silly together.











(Sabine practiced her big sister skills on a friend's younger sister.)







It's been lots of fun, and we have plenty more pictures to come!

Clap Clap!

Aspen learned how to clap a week or two ago, and has since become quite proficient.



She has started to use it a lot when she's eating, we are pretty sure she's starting to associate it with the sign for "more." (Clapping is exactly how Sabine signed "more" when she was a baby, too.) We weren't sure, but then daddy bent down to kiss Aspen goodbye the other day, on his way out to work, and he was carrying an apple, and as soon as she spotted it, she started clapping furiously. She loves to gum on daddy's apples when he eats one around her, so we are pretty sure there is at least a vague association with "GIMME SOME OF THAT FOOD" for her!

We also did a little photo shoot recently, of Aspen wearing my very favorite hand-me-down from Sabine. It was the first outfit I bought when we found out we were expecting a little girl.



And while darling, I found this following comparison the most interesting: on the left is a very similar shot of Sabine from her (professional) six-month-old shoot. (So Aspen, on the right, is about a month older, but they are similarly-aged.)



Otherwise, we've been staying busy. We all went out to breakfast the other day...the first of many to come, I'm sure!



Sabine still goes to swim class once a week, and has made huge leaps, recently. Figuratively and literally! They have just started teaching her how to dive. (It's a little hard to see, but that's her in the turquoise suit.)



She can also swim across the pool on her front and back, now, without assistance.

And another first--going for a run with daddy. They went around Hecla Lake.


Warming up


Posing


Taking off!

We also made it to our first pumpkin patch of the season.





Sabine LOVED getting lost in the corn maze. She'll tell anyone who asks about how we were in there for hours. (I think it was closer to 20 minutes, but still, lots of fun!)



Aspen isn't quite into corn mazes yet, but she is definitely into anything big sister likes. Especially big sister's toys. Sabine is good at sharing, but sometimes it's fun to get into stuff when she's not looking.



And getting into diaper stuff when mommy's not looking!



But the biggest excitement in the last week was the arrival of October, and the birthday season! Dustin took Sabine to her first Broncos game as a joint birthday present. Sabine's been talking about seeing Peyton Manning "in person" since last year.



It was a huge success, for about the first quarter. Then I think the noise and excitement level got a little overwhelming, so they came back around half-time. Still, a wonderful experience!

And just because she's so cute, here are a couple of Sabine's recent fashion statements:

7 Months Old (and change)

We are running around busily, these days, so this post is over a week late.

But let the record books show: Seven Months Old!



Aspen is getting better and better at staying upright while she's sitting. She is more vocal, and says "Mamamama" a lot, which warms my heart, although there is no meaning whatsoever behind it. She doesn't say "Air-wa/air-va" as much, anymore. (That used to be what she said when she got excited, and 9 times out of 10, she was excited about Sabine, so we said that was her name for Sabine.)

Sabine also taught Aspen "to spit," as she puts it. They say "Plbthbthbthbth" to each other all day long.

They are two peas in a pod, already.



Aspen also loves to dance, she sways back and forth whenever she hears music, including when daddy and/or Sabine sing.



She also continues to try new foods, the baby food version of chicken and rice was the latest success. (Although her digestive track is still figuring this out--so it's prunes for breakfast almost daily!) She also tried Baby Mummums for the first time, and seemed to like being able to hold them.

Aspen also has the busiest little feet I've ever seen. She just moves them in circles all the time, when she's sitting or lying down. She has done this since she was a few weeks old, I finally got it on video:



Sabine is back in preschool, Monday/Wednesday/Friday. And she has returned to farm on Thursday mornings, after taking the spring and summer off. Here she is in the wood shed, with the drying sunflowers.



She continues to be quite the budding fashionista, if you follow me on Instagram, you can see I've been documenting all of her pattern-on-pattern, colorful outfits. She has developed a distinct look. (And still ALWAYS a dress.)



Sabine had a growth spurt recently, she is still one of the tallest kids in her class. I think she'll be moving into size 6 clothes pretty soon. She does swimming and yoga once a week, and is a social butterfly. We typically have multiple play dates every week. She also has an impressive vocabulary, and articulates well. She often gets complimented on how well she speaks. It's funny, the only sound she occasionally struggles with is the "u," and words like "Ridiculous" become "re-dic-lee-ous," and "regular" becomes "reg-lee-are," and "amulet" becomes "am-lee-et." Most interestingly, "ambulance" becomes "am-blee-ance," which is exactly how her mommy pronounced that word for a looooong time.

We're not in a hurry to correct her, she speaks quite well and quite clearly, and the few remaining Sabine-isms have become quite dear to our hearts.

She and her daddy are also very much into the spirit of football season, already. The plan is, she will be heading to her first games next month.

Delaware and Maryland

So, we did it! Our first airplane trip as a family of four. It actually went quite well, and we had a wonderful time. We crammed a lot in to nine days.







The girls did well on the plane, although Aspen struggled with sleep a little. But she hung in there, and got a quick nap in my arms.

One of our first stops was to Bing's Bakery in Newark. We saw the episode of Buddy's Bakery Rescue on TLC earlier this summer, so Sabine was eager to check out the famous bakery! It did not disappoint. In equally exciting news, we also got a call from the pediatrician: the results of Aspen's blood test came back and she is no longer sensitive to dairy or soy! (Or anything else!) So that meant mommy could partake of the bakery goodness, too, and that was heavenly.



We also visited Great-Grandmom (and Great-Granddad's) grave, while we were in Newark. While the idea is still a little nebulous to the younger set, it meant a lot to mommy.



The girls also took their first bath together at Aunt Betsy's house on Tuesday night.



They seem to have had a good time!



We went down to the beach on Wednesday. Not a bad view from our deck!



We spent a fair amount of time out there, when the sun wasn't too intense.



The house itself was a little "vintage," not much had been updated since the 60s-70s, but it was cute and functional. The girls shared a bedroom for the first time! (Aspen's pack-n-play went between the beds.)



Aspen officially graduated out of a swaddle. We were going to keep her in it through the trip, because she just slept so well when she was swaddled, but Aspen had other plans. She became very adept at breaking her arms out, no matter what we did, so we gave up and she started sleeping in her sleep sack. She was up more in the night, but is getting more used to it, and seems to be a tummy-sleeper, now that she has a choice.

On Thursday, we got to go visit Uncle Dave, who lives nearby. He seemed very happy to meet Aspen and see Sabine again.



My cousins Tom and Suzanne joined us, and we all had a great time together. We went out to dinner one night and watched the boats and ate crab. (Well, some of us did. Some of us had mac & cheese.)





Aspen even got some good crawling practice in. She's not quite there, but we think she's close.



On Saturday mom and dad went to a wedding of one of our good friends, while the girls stayed behind with Tom and Suzanne.



Sabine learned how to play Go Fish on a regular deck of cards.



Aspen chewed blissfully on anything she could get her hands on.



Saturday night we squeezed in a quick, late trip to the Ocean City boardwalk. It was a lot of fun, and we spent 99% of what little time we had in the kids' rides area, but it was worth it! Sabine had a blast.









On Sunday we said goodbye to our cousins, and had a quick breakfast with the newlyweds and some friends, before heading back up to Delaware.



We stopped by our good friends' house, and Sabine and Aspen spent the afternoon playing and swimming with P and C in their new pool. (Well, Sabine swam. Aspen intermittently watched and napped in C's bed.)





Goggles and floaties were a big hit.





Sabine is very keen to try archery, now.

Thank you, guys, for making us feel so welcome!



Then we raced up to Newark to have dinner with another good friend, S, and her family. The girls got along really well; we meant to get more pictures but the time flew by and before we knew it they had to go since S was starting Kindergarten in the morning.



That left us with only a Broncos game to watch. Aspen had to go to bed, she seemed happy with that, but we let Sabine stay up a little late to watch Peyton Manning, since she got a nap in the car on the way up from the beach. (These days, if Sabine gets a nap, even a 10 minute one, it means it'll take her close to an hour or more later to go to sleep at night.)



On Monday we had a low-key day. We did some laundry, re-packed, and made it over to Milburn Orchards to run off a little energy, eat some of their famous apple cider donuts, and get a pumpkin for Aunt Betsy and Uncle Butch's house. (Since mom and dad were party-poopers and declined to bring one home on the plane.)















Later that afternoon, we got a flat tire in our car, so we took it as a sign that vacation was winding down.

We made one last stop at Bing's on Tuesday morning, and a quick dash by "The Pretzel Store" (as mommy called it when she was a kid--some things never change!)



And then headed home. We made it back late Tuesday night, and Wednesday daddy was back to work and Sabine was back to preschool.

It was a wonderful, if exhausting, trip. We are happy to be home, and our kitties are very happy we are home!