Memorial Day Weekend

Aspen is changing so fast...we're trying so hard to slow time down!

Aspen has developed some new skills that I will add to her resume...rolling over and blowing spit bubbles. She laughs alot more, and is starting to babble a lot! The other day she said "mama" several times. When she is real tired and trying to fall asleep, she "sings" to herself, it's quite amusing. She has discovered her hands and fists and is determined to get them both in her mouth at the same time. I'm attaching a couple videos so you can admire how hard she's been working.

Here are a couple photos of the nursery, Aspen might actually sleep there someday....we love having her in our room still, especially while she is still not sleeping through the night yet (although she has slept as much as 7 hours straight a couple times). Claire has enjoyed helping get Aspen's room ready for her. You can see the cross-stitch Grandma Patty made for Aspen.
We have been busy with more house guests...David's brother Daniel and his wife Janeth and their 3 girls girls have been for a visit.

It has been lots of fun to have 5 little girls in our house! The men take it all in stride. Their cousins Carmen (age 5), Vanessa (age 2.5) and Lily (6 months) live in North Carolina so our two families travel back and forth several times a year to see each other, which is always lots of fun.

While they were here, we went to a strawberry farm which was a hoot...

...and had several parties at the pool with family and friends. I let Aspen get her feet wet and she was not quite sure what to think about it, but she eventually started to smile.

Claire is thrilled that she is no longer in 2nd grade...she is officially out for a couple months. She was ready to move onto 3rd grade when she went back to school after her spring break. She is looking forward to a summer of sleeping in, competing on summer swim team, playing with cousins, and she is avidly trying to teach her sister to sit up so she can learn to crawl....

We hope you enjoyed the update. If you want to order any of the photos you see, just click on the link that says "Shutterfly photos" on the left of our home page and then you can order them to be sent directly to your home, or you can have them print to your local Target store and you can go pick them up there.

Many hugs to all of you!!!

Mother's Day

Well, Mother's Day ended up being rather unusual this year. Last Sunday (May 4) we were all saddened by a phone call informing us of the sudden death of Brenda's Grandmother - this is the Grandmother that we name Claire after (Brenda's Father's mother). We were on a plane with our little girls just 2 days later for the rest of the week. This ended up being Aspen's first round trip flight. She was a jewel on all 4 airplanes, as was Claire. Aspen slept most of the way, (which was a blessing so I could finally catch a few moments of sleep) and was cute and awake only for a brief 30 minutes. I was so glad to get there a few days before the funeral so I could spend some quality one on one time with my Grandfather, now that he is a widower.

On the bright side, the rest of Brenda's family got to meet Aspen and all of David's family that lives in Utah got to meet her as well :-) Everyone just fell in love with her - I started to look forward to her fussy moments so I could get a chance to hold little Aspen!...

My Uncle Stan (my Dad's only brother) told me that while they were in the hospital with Grandma immediately before she died, they would occassionally hear a bell. He inquired what the bell was for, and it turns out that whenever a baby is born in this hospital, a bell rings, and a bell rang the moment after my Grandmother passed on. Grandma had previously decided she wanted 8 of her Granddaughters (including myself) to be her Pall bearers, and the other granddaughters and Great-granddaughters were her Honorary Pallbearers.

Here are a couple more photos from the funeral: David and Aspen with family at the graveside, and Claire placing a rose on Grandma's coffin.
On a final happy note, we just got a phone call that David's sister just had a baby boy on Mother's Day!

Here is a photo Claire took of Aspen in the airport on the way home yesterday:

We would like to wish all the wonderful women in our lives our most fondest wishes! Love, the ABCD Family!

Karoke Queen!

Claire has discovered a new way to play with Aspen, they sing together! Claire has 2 microphones on her karoke machine and now that Aspen is starting to find her voice more, Claire likes to hold the microphone up to Aspen so we can hear her voice loud and clear!!

Aspen is still a very happy little baby. Claire has figured out how to make Aspen laugh and it is too cute! Aspen loves to see Claire! Aspen just figured out last week that she can control her hands and she is quite enthralled with that. She also tries to put her whole fist into her mouth all the time.Aspen is growing alot as you can see. Her appetite has grown alot lately and now if we stop her half way through her bottle to burp her, she gets quite put out with us, she has learned to communicate her disapproval quite well! But mostly she is just as happy as can be!

Over the last couple weeks, 2 of Brenda's sisters flew in to come visit along with some good friends from graduate school, so that has kept us quite busy. They were all crazy about Aspen.

Our days are so busy, that by the time I have a chance to sit down at night to work on the computer, this is usually the end result....

David has become the expert at getting Aspen to sleep at night. He loves to sit and rock Aspen to sleep and she clearly enjoys being on Daddy's lap! There have been a few times over the past couple weeks where Aspen has slept almost the whole night!

Happy Early Mother's Day! I'll post some more photos next week!