18 months

Aspen turned 18 months old on Dec 12 (yes, I know I am late posting!). I simply cannot believe its already been a year and a half! She is the most amazing little girl. She has the best personality, she is happy and fun and super snuggly. Here are some of her favorite things right now:

*RUNNING! This girl doesn't walk anywhere - she RUNS (which consequently makes it somewhat difficult to get good pictures of her....)! And she loves to be chased and to chase

*BOOTS! She has these cowboy boots that she loves to wear ALL the time and she'll just walk and look down at her feet as she goes. She grabs them and brings them to me all the time to put on her feet. They actually are still too big for her, but she can walk around in them fine.



*BEING DIZZY! She likes to turn around in circles until she can't stay up anymore...and she laughs everytime she falls. Its adorable.
*BOOKS! Not that this is anything new, but she loves them. She likes to hold books, read books, turn the pages, "read" to Mia, be read to. She often brings me a book when I'm doing something else and want me to read to her. Most of the time, I think its super sweet and I stop whatever I am doing and read to her (not all the time, of course...I'm not that good of a mom!). I just can't think of anything more important than spending time with this precious daughter of mine that I waited so long for....
*MIA! Ok, so for quite some time, Aspen wasn't too sure what to think of Mia. She didn't really "do" anything and Aspen hated it when she'd cry (which was basically all she did in those first months of life!) But now, they are getting to be good friends. Aspen likes to try to share with Mia, she loves to "read" to her, she also likes putting things in Mia's mouth (her fingers, a binkie, pens, and today-a pretzel.) She likes to hold Mia's hand.


*DADDY! Aspen has always been a daddy's girl. She adores Malo. She gets so excited when he gets home from work. I love when she runs to him and slams her body into his legs in a giant Aspen hug. She enjoys when he lays down on the ground and she can attack and jump on him and wrestle. ;) One thing that is a little bit ridiculous is that she gets really sad if he says hello to me or to Mia when he gets home BEFORE saying it to her. She often throws fits when this happens. She also cries if he walks out the door for any reason without saying goodbye to her. Aspen loves her daddy, that's for sure.


*TALKING ON THE PHONE! And basically just talking in general. She wakes up in the morning talking, she goes to sleep talking. And 90% of the time in between is talking. She likes to talk. What she's saying most of the time, I have no clue. But its sure fun to try and guess. And when we're right, she nods her head with such enthusiasm - she is adorable. She also turns anything she can into a phone and always says "hello" and "oh, wheelie" (oh really) when she's on the phone. Gosh, I love her! :)

These are the highlights of her current favorite things.

Just a bit of catch up!

Wow, I can't believe its already 2009. That means...yikes...I turn 30 in just 3 weeks! Although I am refusing to turn 30, I'm sticking to 29 at least until Aspen turns 29! ;-)

Anyway, I just am going to do a quick catch up here while I have a few minutes. Christmas was fantastic. Me and the girls spent almost 2 weeks with my family in Western WA - they had crazy amounts of snow for that area and so we didn't really venture much farther than Washougal since I would've had to have driven my mom's little Honda....and I'm not too keen on driving in the snow without at least the option of 4WD! So we didn't get to see half the people we had planned on seeing - sorry guys! :( Randy & Teresa came out to get us with Abby, Tanner and Scott - it was so nice of them to come get us! :) Then we just hung out most of the time I was there.

Malo ended up coming out on the 23rd (Happy Birthday Aeranee!!!) and it was so wonderful to be back with him. I know it was only 9 days away from him, but I really like my hubby and like to be around him. :) I was a bit worried about him coming because of the weather - Spokane got more than 30 inches of snow! But he was fine. We had a really wonderful Christmas - it was fun to be around so many kiddos on Christmas Day. We have the best nieces and nephews! :) Aspen and Mia had a great time with their cousins, grandma and Aunt Teresa & Uncle Randy. Mia really REALLY liked Tanner's attention. :)

The day after Christmas we went up to Leif & Lurlyn's place in Woodland for some Hasselblad fun. We got stuck in the snow. A lot. If anyone wants to know that whole story, call or email me and I'll share it with you. Other than that, it was a lot of fun, though it was cut shorter than planned. The 27th was Diane's birthday and so we were able to spend some time with her on her big 5-0. Lurlyn cooked some awesome tasty food! :) And as always, it is such a blast to be with those guys!!!

Oh, here's a fun story, too. Again, if you want more details on this one, I'll fill you in. But I'm just trying to do a quick catch up so I can start 2009 off right (as in, caught up!). I was driving the truck with the girls running some errands and I heard a weird noise, like sometime was hitting one of the tires and it was pretty loud. So I called Malo at work and asked him about it and he told me to make sure there wasn't ice or plastic or anything - there wasn't. So he said just to be careful. So I was - I drove really slow (not more than 25mph)and long story short, the entire wheel fell of while I was driving! In the middle of an intersection! On one of the busiest roads in town! And Malo was at work! I had to get the truck towed, 6+ hours later, with two tired and extremely hungry babies, we left the 4th place we stopped to get it driveable again. The poor tow truck driver seriously took us 4 places. Anyway, that was the worst day I've had in a very long time.

I think that's it!

Music to my ears....

Enjoy this cute video...I can't think of anything in the world sweeter than the laughter coming out of these two precious little girls! :-)

I thought it was a hug....

I happened to capture what I thought was a super sweet moment....thought Aspen was giving Mia a hug....

Turns out...she just wanted Mia out of her Bumbo and was trying to lift her out! Yikes!

So cute it hurts!

I love each new stage that my kids go through - right now, Aspen is so stinking adorable and sweet (mixed in with her toddler temper tantrums, of course!). She will copy almost anything we say, she is a pro at asking for CHEESE (that's my girl, for sure!!!). She is so snuggly and sweet, so affectionate. But the thing that made me want to post about is what she's been doing the last week or so: EVERYTIME I go into the girls' room after a nap or first thing in the morning...or even at night to put Mia's binky back in her mouth, Aspen stands up in her crib and smiles the biggest, sweetest smile at me and says "hhhiiiii" and waves at me. Then she'll blow me a kiss and I pick her up and get the sweetest snuggly hug from my girl. Ugh...it's so cute and sweet that I can barely stand it. And I'm sure writing about it doesn't even begin to show how adorable it is...but it is the sweetest thing. Gosh, I love my Aspen.

Look what we did today!

Mia decided its time to eat some real food! So we gave her some baby cereal and she actually did REALLY well with it - not nearly as big of a mess as I would've thought she'd make. How exciting! But so sad at the same time...why do my babies have to get so big so fast!?!?! Anyway....here she is....at her debut of baby food!

Few things we've missed....

There are a few things that I was waiting for pictures before I posted, but now that its almost two months later and I don't have any yet...I'll just go ahead and write a quick deal about. ;)

Aspen, Mia and I spent a week in Canon City with Carrie in October. Malo came up here a week before we did and we stayed down and played with Carrie. My girls love their Aunt Carrie. Aspen especially has an incredible bond with her - and that was one of the major reasons it was so hard to leave. But we're working on convincing her to move back to WA, too. Although Washington really doesn't even begin to compare to Colorado...so I don't know how much I can really convince her. :)

Anyway, we had a great time with her. We went to a pumpkin patch, went to ride on the Royal Gorge train, ate a lot, played with the dogs. We also went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and to Mr. Biggs with our friends, the Dorseys. And the days that Aunt Carrie had to work, we made lunch and dinner and brought it to her work. It was really nice to spend that week with Carrie...and really hard and sad to leave her. And we're still waiting for pictures from her from our week there.....hint, hint.

And then when we came up here to Spokane, my wonderful friend, Jennifer, came with us! She was Aspen's flying buddy. It was such a nice thing for her to take a week and come help us move and unpack. She is such an amazing friend. Unfortunately we didn't do a whole lot while she was here - we didn't know anything to do!! But we did go one day to the radio flyer wagon slide and fed the ducks (she has pics - I will get them one day...again, hint, hint!). We also went to a pumpkin patch. Jennifer is the best!

And then the other weekend Malo went out to help Leif build a deck on their new house and me and the girls tagged along. That was fun to hang out with Lurlyn and Leify while the boys worked hard. ;) Aspen and Leify played in the mud and then chased each other all over the place...and took turns drinking milk out of the same sippy all weekend. Crazy kids. We also got to see Eric and his two kiddos, Sierra and Noah, while we were there. Its been a LONG time since we've seen them and they are growing up so fast. We also got to spend a little time with my mom and Randy & Teresa and the kids. And that is always fun, too. It really is nice to be able to take a weekend and just drive to see our families. Even though its a long drive...its lots closer than Colorado...and that is super nice to be able to do. Even though I really really REALLY miss Colorado, seeing ALL of my nieces and nephews in one weekend and just driving a few hours to do it - that makes living back in Washington pretty cool. :-)