Returning to the blogdom!

Okay, the holidays are over, the grant writing is over (for now), the move from the apartment to the house is over. Therefore, the blog may resume!

The only minor problem is that I have NO idea where my camera is from the move...so we may have to stick with photos from the computer for now.

Aspen in the new house. She must like it, she actually smiled for the camera!

The only way the past few crazy weeks have been possible at all is because my mom flew out and has been helping with Aspen.  We have her until next Saturday (it will have been almost a month) and then she heads back. She has been awesome! Thanks momma!

p.s. Aspen is doing all kinds of new and fantastic things that I promise I will document and post about.  Also, she doesn't have a sunburn or a windburn in the above picture, she just happens to be a very rosy cheeked lass...especially after nursing for some reason.

We'll be back!

But at the moment we are loving holidays and family time! 

Babies are hilarious!

Our daughter is tired of lying down.  She is even tired of sitting. No, our daughter wants to stand.  She wants to stand ALL OF THE TIME. Her newest trick for assuaging this desire? Standing in her bouncy seat.

Being insightful parents, we eventually deduced that, although funny and cute, hidden dangers lurked for our chair-standing baby.  Perhaps there was even an actual purpose to the little baby seatbelt on the chair (previously we had debated its utility.) So we dutifully strapped her in and got this, equally cute and hilarious behavior, instead:

Unfortunately, the baby seatbelt is a little to long in the crotch strap because shortly after this she figured out she could stand even while strapped in (sigh). There really is no defeating the determined baby!

Aspen is 5 months old! Man how time flies!

She has several new tricks up her sleeve.

For example, she sucks on her lips ALL THE TIME.

She also plays with her toes ALL THE TIME. 

(Really, who needs toys when one has toes?!?)

She would really like to stand up, but since I haven't mastered the art of simultaneously baby spotting and picture shooting, her attempts to hold herself up will have to go undocumented for the moment. Instead I give you yet another tummy time photo. :)

She has also started eating some solids every now and again. (Originally I had wanted to wait until she was 6 months, but for a variety of reasons we switched gears a little.) Towards the end of the summer we made some homemade baby applesauce from the trees in our yard and froze it in ice-cube sized pieces for when she was ready.  Well, the two times she's had it she seems to like it, but apparently it is (as you will see) a bit tart!

Also, on a similar theme, she has definitely developed the common baby attitude of "I see it, and can place it near my mouth; therefore, it must go in my mouth!"

We love our little muncher!

p.s. the movies were huge and I got impatient for them to upload so I converted them to avi's...that is why they look kind of crappy, but I think the cuteness still comes across!

My little pterodactyl.

Did you know that I gave birth to a pterodactyl?

I know that she doesn't look like a pterodactyl. I know that she doesn't eat the same things a pterodactyl eats (while I don't know exactly what pterodactyls eat, I do know that they aren't mammals so it isn't milk). I don't think she smells like a pterodactyl, although admittedly I can't absolutely confirm that.

However, I am absolutely positive that she sounds just like a pterodactyl! Especially when she is happy. Her newest trick is to experiment vocally by gleefully making loud piercing shrieky noises.

Alas, it turns out I am not incredibly fond of what peterodactyls sound like so hopefully she will move on to experimenting with other noises soon....

Note: Aspen smiles, I promise! In fact she also grins and laughs quite often. NOT, however, for the camera (sigh). In the above pics I was trying to get a smiley photo of her wearing the sweater my aunt knitted so I could send an adorable grinning picture of her in the sweater to my aunt.  Alas, Aspen continues to play coy with the camera!

In addition to playful shrieks Aspen has also rolled over and can spend a solid hour grabbing her toes in fascination.  However, these latter two skills can only be performed while naked (I think the diapers impede her hip flexors a little, something she will grow out of) so we have a lot of baby naked time at the house. Especially since she is so happy when naked!

In other big events recently we had Halloween, a visit from nana (jamie's mom), and Aspens first snow!

I'm a piggy!

Lil' piggy hanging out with puppy and lobster friends!

Aspen was very underwhelmed by the snow.

4 months old!

Last Saturday Aspen turned four months old. FOUR MONTHS OLD...crazy! She is practically a wizened old woman! :) At her four month appointment we discovered she is a whopping 15 lbs. and 10 oz. (that is 75 percentile for weight). Her height, ahem, is more in the 50th percentile mark. That's right, we have one chunky monkey!

She is so much more interactive now then she was 2 months ago. She laughs, smiles up a storm, and started to discover her toes!

Last weekend we were also able to go up to mountain to try and get some pictures of Aspen in the aspens.  By "we" I mean myself, Aspen, and our good friend Angela who took all of these pictures (Jamie was out of town).  There are some great photos here, thanks Ang!

There are also a whole of funny face photos because it is not like Aspen exactly sits still for the photo shoot. Here are three of my favs!

(I really love this one because Aspen purses her lips like this all the time! I think she does it when she is concentrating.)

(A baby sneer?)

(I am DONE taking photos, do you hear me?!?)

I love our baby girl so much and feel so blessed to have her in my life!

Swim time!

It turns out that Aspen is a fan of the water...yeah! This works out nicely because her mommy and daddy are also big fans of playing in water. We had the opportunity for some pool time this weekend and boy was it fun!

Aspen all ready in her duck and bug suit.

The fam!

 Scoping out the scene!

Hey, what's this stuff?

Oooh, water is fun!

What happened next unfortunately didn't make it on camera. Aspen went from gently exploring the water to beating it with her fists.  In other words, she learned to splash, and boy did she like it! Notice how in all these photo's here hair is dry? Yeah, that didn't last long.  However, this wasn't joyful, giggling, splashing. No, this was the kind of splashing that takes concentration. It was intense and purposeful. She pursed her lips, furrowed her brow, and went to town (kind of like the expression in the above picture).  I thought she would cry when she got it all over her face. Instead, she pursed her lips more, furrowed her eyebrows more, and whacked the water even harder. 

Splash! Splash! Splash!