My Daughter the Hippie

Well, I have many stats to fill you in on, but first I have to share the fact that several people in the past several weeks have commented on Aspen being a hippie. The reason for this is that any time a song, or music of any kind is in the air, Aspen's body instinctively moves with the beat. This is something that became evident at a Christian rock concert we went to at Harding. Aspen was sitting on one of our teenage boy's lap and she threw her arms in the air and let her body go without a care in the world. She swayed and sang along. During Bible class when the teacher begins singing Aspen does this same thing and hums along to the music. She just throws her body around and giggles everytime she hears anything musical! We are JUST SO PROUD! Especially me considering the music lover that I am. Now on to Stats:

14 1/2 months old
6 teeth(4 on top, 2 on bottom)
21 lbs and 29 inches long
Crawling and walking while holding onto our hands
7 steps by herself to date
CLIMBING on everything (she stacked a bunch of her books and climbed on them to get to her cd player......she climbs on our bar stools, couch, coffee table..and anything else that can be climbed)
Cuddling - she is still my baby and after nap time it is not uncommon for me to bring her in the living room and for her to just sit in my lap cuddled up to me for over an hour. I love this!!!!!! Then when she is done...the silliness begins!

SHE LOVES:
BOOKS (she can be found reading quietly in her room while listening to her Disney songs....In fact today I went in her room and watched her stack books to turn on her cd player and then sat down and read a book. Then she climbed back up to turn the volume up...HAHA)

MUSIC
RITZ CRACKERS
JUICE
THE TEENAGERS(She will go to them anyday b/c she knows she will be spoiled)
CELL PHONES - she is obsessed with these.(not good)

Favorite Games:

She uses any and everything as a phone. Anytime she hears a phone ring she will put her hand or whatever she has up to her ear and say "YA YA". It is so funny.

She also pretends to talk to her babies. I think this is sweet.

Our Trip to Oklahoma and Arkansas

We just got home last night from our 11 day trip away from Pasadena. Guy received his first bit of time off since we moved here and we used a few days of that to visit his mom and sisters in Oklahoma. We had Christmas with them and Aspen got so many presents. She even got a car from her Aunt Rachel. Her Grandma enjoyed playing with her and cuddling with her first granddaughter. After Oklahoma we left and headed to Siloam Springs, Arkansas to visit Guy's sister. We stayed one night with her and drove through some very cold weather. We even saw some snow, something we haven't seen in a while. We arrived in Searcy, Arkansas on Thursday to meet up with our teens and a couple of parents to go to Harding's college days. While there we saw one of our Aimers from two years ago, Sarah Everett. She recently came home from Albania and has started school at Harding. While Guy was with the teens, I spent the afternoon with Sarah sipping coffee and visiting about her field experience. We think God set that whole "chance" meeting up because I was missing AIM and Sarah was needing an AIM person to talk to. YAY GOD! Later that afternoon Guy's childhood best friend Doug and his wife Dixie and son Ethan came to hang out with us. We went to our hotel room and watched our kids play together. Later that night we had a great meal with them at a mexican restaraunt and ended the night with Aspen's first live college basketball game. Harding WON!!! Yesterday we made the 10 hour trek home and were very happy to sleep in our own beds last night. Enjoy the pics of our trip!!

In Grandma's back yard

Aspen reading with her Grandma. She absolutely loves reading.

I am not kidding when I tell you that all of the presents surrounding Aspen were hers.

Watching a bird in Grandma's back yard.

As we were driving through the Ozarks on the way to Rachel's house I just had to pull over and take some pictures. It was a very cold rainy day and this lake was gorgeous.

While we were driving I turned around and Aspen was reading this Rather large book her Grandma bought her. We thought it was too funny!

Aspen and her buddy Ethan (Doug's little boy). I laugh at this because I grew up with Guy's friend Doug as well and this just reminds me of a little Nancy and Little Doug!

These two kids played all afternoon together. Aspen's forehead is red in this picture if you can tell. She and Ethan were chasing each other and Aspen crawled out of the bathroom and then came around the corner just as Ethan was crawling into the bathroom. They rammed heads and instead of crying, they both touched their heads and moaned. We were laughing so hard!!