Drop down and give me twenty!

Aspen does her daily push-ups and they CRACK me up! She just lays down on the ground and pushes up with her arms and that's it. Sometimes she just moves her head. And as always, she stops when the camera is rolling...but this is the best I've been able to capture. But in real life...oh my gosh - HILARIOUS! :)

My little chef

Aspen LOVES to help cook. She always wants to be in the kitchen when I'm cooking. She likes to have the light on anytime something is in the oven so she can see what's cooking. She loves to stir things. I've started letting her cut up soft fruits with her little toddler knife (that is NOT sharp AT ALL). Here she is today as we're attempting to make some gluten-free chicken nuggets. She added some pepper *which is her FAVORITE thing to add to foods* She is always asking for pepper (and says it SO cute!) and she sprinkles it on most anything:


And then adding a touch of parmesean/romano/asiago cheese. That's my girl! :)

She is very focused. Cooking is serious business for her. :)

She is just so much fun. And so sweet. And tries so hard to be helpful. I love my Aspen! :)

Will I ever sleep again?

I am SO tired! Next week Mia will be 9 months old. And she still wakes up 2, sometimes 3 times a night. And since she's started standing up in her crib, daytime naps for here are nearly non-existent. It has been a LONG time since I've had a full night's sleep. I don't think I even ever did the whole time I was pregnant with Mia. I was so sick all night long the first half of my pregnancy, then I had the worst heartburn the last half. Couple that with Malo's incessant snoring and its no wonder its been so long since I've had a decent night's sleep. I am just so tired. I don't understand why she still wakes up so much at night. People say she must not be getting enough to eat during the day - but she eats a lot! I nurse her and feed her baby food and regular food and rice cereal. She eats until she's full. If she's not hungry, she wants nothing to do with food. So I can't feed her anymore during the day. I am just complaining here because I am so stinking tired. And its not like I can take a nap when she does, because her and Aspen don't nap at the same time. We were spoiled with Aspen. She was sleeping from 7pm-7am every night since she was around 2 months old. And she has always been a good daytime napper, too. Never long stretches, but she took two good naps a day until a few months ago and now is down to one nap that is about 2 hours. Oh well, I'm sure that by the time she is in college she won't still be waking up in the night...at least I HOPE! :)

Dancing with the signing shadows...

Aspen cracks me up! She won't sit through a cartoon or anything, but this morning I put on "Dancing with the Stars" on the computer for some music while I cleaned up a bit and where was Aspen? Right there WATCHING it and dancing along with the catchier music. And when they weren't dancing, she'd go off and play but as soon as that music came back on, she'd RUN back to the computer and watch and move to the music. I was cracking up! Granted, we don't watch tv during the day and Malo and I catch up on some shows on the internet after the girls go to bed, so she doesn't have a whole lot of exposure to it, but still....it was HILARIOUS! She is so cute!

And also this morning, she discovered her shadow on the wall! That was the cutest thing ever. She was standing in front of the wall dancing, then putting her hands on her head, shoulders (knees and toes -haha!), then dancing again. Then she laid down on her back and kicked her legs up in the air. She was fascinated and totally entertaining me. Ahhh...if only we all could find such joy and have so much fun with discoveries in our daily lives.

The other thing that is making me laugh with Aspen is her signing. We've signed with her since, well, forever. You know, the whole being a sign language interpreter...might be weird if my kids didn't know anything! ;-) Anyway, most of the signs she knows she has either paired with words and always does them together...like "book", "cookie", "again" and "more." Others, most of the others, she just says the word and has dropped the sign. But there is one sign that she NEVER says the word, ever. She ALWAYS signs it. That is "please." Its really funny because she has a really good, strong vocabulary. She is picking up tons of new words daily, and a good majority of them people can understand. But she'll never say the word please. She uses it always, just never says it.

That's all for today. Aspen is just growing up so quickly - talking and dancing and exploring. She is such an awesome little girl. And Mia is a nut, she is crazy with this pulling up onto everything and standing and cruising along the furniture. Between the two of them, I couldn't be bored if I wanted to! :-)

What happened to my BABY??

I laid Mia down for a nap and normally she goes to sleep pretty quickly. Well, after 15 minutes of babbling, I went in to check on her and this is what I found:

What the?!?! How did she figure out how to stand up?!? I figured it was a fluke, so I just laid her back down again....she promptly crawled to the other end of the crib from where I laid her and did this:


So i decided I better move the mattress down so she didn't climb her way out. As I was moving it down (which is not a quick process) I laid her in Aspen's crib in the hopes that she would go to sleep. But, no....this is what she did:

What has happened to my baby? My EIGHT month old baby? Why is she trying to grow up so quickly!?!?!

Ugh!

So we spent the majority of the day in the hospital yesterday with Malo. He has been sick since Saturday night. Found out he has pneumonia.

Aspen had a bite of Malo's saltine cracker. Now she is sick from the gluten.

Mia woke up with pinkeye this morning.

Yay.

A

She likes a big, juicy steak every now and then! haha!

And then a nice snuggle with the bear! :)