Aspen is growing by leaps and bounds. She now makes 3-4-word sentences regularly, sometimes even 5 or 6. Sabine is now pronounced "Wa-Bean!" Aspen refuses any help on the stairs, even from handrails. She goes up and down by herself, and is getting pretty proficient. She is quite a climber, and is always up on the barstool-high chairs at our dinning room table as soon as we aren't looking. She's also figured out how to open doors (and grown just tall enough to reach them!) so there's a whole new world available to her. She is also cutting her bottom two canine teeth, finally.
Aspen still loves to dance, play with anything Sabine is playing with, and watch Daniel Tiger and La Luna on the TV/iPad. She is very attached to her goat, and will ask for goat and a pacifier "PACI!" when she's tired. She is going down for a nap right around noon these days, and sleeps about an hour and a half, to an hour and 40 minutes. She would go longer sometimes, but we have gotten pretty strict about waking her up, otherwise it takes a lot longer to get her down at night time. Aspen is also going through a very picky phase right now with food; it's hard to find anything she's willing to eat. She seems to want to subsist off of air and Pirate Booty, and some occasional smoothie. (Which is how I'm getting fruits and vegetables into her, these days.) She has also developed this cute habit of trying to pre-empt us saying something to her, especially when she think she might get in trouble. Often we hear her say things like, "Ah-PEN! Wash hands right now!" (she got marker on her hands.) "Ah-PEN! Put on coat!"
All in all, this is a very sweet age. She's becoming more adamant about her opinions, and gets frustrated easily, but fortunately she also gets distracted easily, and Sabine is always able to make her giggle, no matter what is going on. Aspen LOVES her big sister, often going to her for comfort, attention, and affection. She tries to go to sleep in Sabine's bed almost every night, it's become part of her routine, and she asks to go to Sabine's room as soon as she wakes up, to see if Sabine is still asleep so that she can cuddle her awake.
Aspen is also the politest baby I've ever come across. She's nailed her "please"s and "thank you"s, as well as "Sorry," and also likes to tell people "Bless you!" when they sneeze.
We also celebrated Grandpa's birthday this month, Aspen was thrilled to sing "Happy Birthday" and talked a lot about his happy birthday cake, even though it was technically pie. Sabine was more than happy to help him eat it!
As far as Sabine goes, she's happy to be back at school with her friends and teachers, even though it was kind of a big transition, getting back to the routine. She seems to be coming out of her most recent growth spurt/sensitive phase, and isn't having as many nightmares and is more comfortable around dogs again. (That was the phobia that kind of crept up this time, and lasted over most of the winter break.) Still, she's managed to stay quite social, with lots of play dates and good friends and family time.
We even discovered the girls and their cousins are now on the menu at our favorite breakfast spot!
Speaking of the cousins, we had them (along with Nana, Aunt Dani, Aunt Diane, and Uncle Nat) over for the recent Broncos playoff game. It was a doozy, but fortunately, they won, and we had a great time with everyone.
Up next, skiing!
