The ABCD Family: July 2008

This was too funny! Aspen was sitting at the dinner table with us. She was chewing on a plastic plate Claire gave her. Aspen dropped the plate, Claire made a funny face and then Aspen just started to giggle and laugh, it was so funny I grabbed the camera. It is our favorite video of all!! Enjoy!

Claire and her friend wanted to get their hair cut. They both wanted bangs, so presto! Viola! Claire has beautiful curly hair, but as is human nature, "Never wanting what you've got, always wanting what you've not". She asked the hairdresser to cut her hair short so the curls would go away... Although that won't get rid of her curls, a blow dryer can do the trick for the day! Here are a few photos...

I took Aspen and Claire and her friend to the pool yesterday and we all had a fun time! Adios for now. LOL!

The past 30 days has been a month of "first's" for Aspen and just lots of fun for the rest of us! She got to eat her first bowl of cereal, her first tooth, her first boat ride, her first hike, her first real dip in the pool, her first time to watch fireworks..... it's been a busy month! Aspen is now 5 months old and on the 4th of July, her first tooth erupted amid all the display of fireworks!

I only discovered it by accident as she was chewing on my finger, she was not fussy at all.
Aspen was quite happy to get to start eating cereal a few weeks ago. The rice cereal didn't agree with her, but so far she is doing great with oatmeal! She LOVES to eat it (despite the face she is making on the video), and she tries to hold onto the spoon, so of course it gets very messy. But that is ok. Here is a video clip of her eating cereal.
Aspen really likes to sit up now, although she still cannot hold herself upright, but she loves to be propped up. Here are some cute photos of her sitting. She especially likes her new bumbo chair that helps her sit.

It was so hot over the 4th of July and since we all had extra time together, we went swimming alot and helped Aspen to get all the way in the pool this time (except her head). Claire really loves playing in the water with Aspen,

and David was having a grand time making Aspen laugh in the pool.

and as you can see from the video, Aspen was having a great time.

We celebrated Father's Day a couple weeks late (due to a mean virus that had Brenda under the weather on Father's Day proper) by going out on a boat on a lake and playing in the water and having lots of fun. David and Claire got some good fishing in, and as usual, Claire "saved" a few of the worms from their fate by letting them loose. Here are some photos of us all at the lake having a great time.

Aspen loved watching us all playing and splashing in the water and watching all the bubbles the boat made when we were going fast. Claire was quite the brave girl in the lake water and did all sorts of adventurous activities as you can see from these photos. You can always click on any of the photos to see them larger.

David and Brenda both took turns riding on the seadoo tube on the lake, that was a wild ride!!

Here is a video clip of David and Claire riding on the seadoo.

Brenda took the kids to Six Flags one day, they had all earned free tickets by reading during the school year, they had a great time.

One week, Brenda took the girls to the mountains in North Carolina with some friends and we had a fun time hiking and playing outside and sleeping in and cooking together.

Here are some more photos of our week in the mountains,

Claire still loves to play with Aspen. She loves to lay Aspen on top of her stomache, and feed her and make her giggle.

We were quite sad when we came back to learn of the death of a friend of ours (my age with 2 young kids) and also the death of a family member of another good friend. We were blessed to have known these people for the time that we did and will miss them.

This past month we also had more visitors staying at our house again which is always lots of fun. Some friends that live in another state came to visit. David and I used to stay with our friend's kids when our friends would go out of town. Now the kids are all grown up practically.

David has only one sister and her first child, a baby boy, was born in May. She and her husband and baby came and stayed for a week, and David's mom came too.