Playing Catch-up

Here are some late pictures from the last few months. More later.

Here are some pictures of 25-26 m/o Sage for your April enjoyment. :-)


Showing off her mohawk in the bathtub:
crossing her legs very properly and eating a dried apricot (one of her new favorite snacks):Enjoying her orange tea and cranberry-oat sourdough scones for breakfast this morning:

She requested to put on her mei-tai with Bear:
And nursed him in it (I think I'm raising my child right, don't you think?):
Hamming it up:

Here, she's demonstrating that you can even jump on the couch while babywearing:
And of course you can sweep the floor while babywearing:
Here she's demoing a back-carry with Rudy the dog:Rudy also got to ride in her little pouch for a few moments:

I LOVE my baby girl :-)

Watch Out, Everybody! She's Two!

Well folks, I've done it again. I've slacked off and waited much to long to update Sage's blog. In my defense, she really doesn't give me much time to use the computer. Any of you that have had a 2 year-old will certainly understand. :-) She can be so amazingly sweet one moment, and then make me pull my hair out the next. But she's very helthy, and smart, and we have everything to be greatful for. At her two year check-up she was measured at 25lbs and 34 inches, which puts her in the 25th percentile for weight and the 75th for hight. In other words, she's absolutely beautiful and perfect. She's talking more and more coherantly, singing more and more songs, and sometimes sleeping most of the way through the night. ;-)

Finally, here are some recent pictures.

A couple from the park about 3 weeks ago:

This picture is from her actual birthday (not the day of the party). Aren's aunt Karen brought over a very nice gift, and a little cupcake to celebrate the day. Sage enjoyed licking the icing. :-)

Here are a couple of pictures of Sage with Rusty, my folks' new puppy. He is an amazingly sweet, affectionate, calm little fellow, and he suits them perfectly. Sage was quite taken with him too.

Grandma Jan and Grandpa Darrell sent her a really awesome wagon for her birthday. Sage LOVES it! We took a walk with it even though it was quite cold this weekend. The wagon is great for this because she could totally bundle up in blankets.

She was fast asleep by the time we got back from our (rather quick) walk. ;-)

Close-up of her sweet sleeping face:

Here's a video from her birthday party. She was a little overwhelmed by all the people looking at her, as you can tell, but she really did enjoy her party. :-)

(for whatever reason, blogger isn't letting me embed this video right now)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHxXCdbtmnM

I'm hoping Grandma Alice will send some more pictures our way, so that I can put up a few more. (hint, hint)

Otherwise, till next time!

Hazel

Holiday Magic

I must preface this entry by saying that Sage has developed a rather intense dislike of having her mama work on the computer, so this will be a bit of a glossing over of a large expanse of time. I have high hopes of this being only a passing phase, so that I can do a bit better keeping up with the blog in the future. :-)

I do have much to share: In the speech department, 22 m/o Sage is saying more and more extended sentences. I think I counted a 9-word sentence a week or so ago. She can sing the full alphabet song (I'll try to get a video of this soon!) as well as other songs like Baa Baa black sheep and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. She's starting to use pronouns, "I want that", and often says please and thank you without prompting.

Cognitive developments: She has begun playing pretend in full force. She rocks, feeds, bathes, and nurses her dolls, cooks on her new Christmas stove, and plays actively with her new Christmas doll house. Perhaps her favorite Christmas present is a set of wooden "cuttable foods" which she enjoys cutting, eating, and sharing with friends and dolls. Here's a little video from Christmas morning:


motor skills: She can build tall towers of blocks, as shown here:

She can also spin on one foot, and has added that to her charming dance repertoire. Here's a video of her dancing for us just after watching the Nutcracker ballet:


Here's another video of Sage and cousin Adelie dancing together (taken with our far superior new digital camcorder! Thanks, Aren!)


We spent Thanksgiving in Kentucky with the Whites, AND Grandma Jan, Grandpa Darrell and Uncle Eric came down too, so Sage got to be with everyone for her second Thanksgiving! We all had an absolutely wonderful time visiting. Christmas was in Minnesota/North Dakota, but we got to be at the Wartmans for the McLain Christmas too. The travel was rather stressful, but it was worth it to spend such special times with loved ones whom we don't see near often enough.

Here are some various pictures from Thanksgiving through Christmas:

Decorating Christmas cookies with Emma:

Getting ready for the big plane trip with her new backpack:

What a cute little traveler!

Getting into her stocking on Christmas Morning:

Look, she got a cow!!Here she is with her brand new baby doll, made by mama:

Here she's rocking her new baby. How sweet she is!

Fall Fun

I just wanted to pop in and share some pictures from last weekend. More updates later...

Haloween--Sage was a garden elf:
Hiking with the whites on Saturday:




Trying on the beautiful kimono granddaddy brought back for Sage from Japan. So beautiful!! Emma has one too!

Hiking, dancing, and more craftiness

It has been almost a month since I last posted, and of course Sage has grown and changed dramatically since then. She frequently talks in three and four-word sentences, and sometimes even throws in a five-word sentence (example: "Bike ride, hat on head!" Hat = helmet in this case). She talks almost non-stop, so she gets plenty of practice. ;-) She has also been conjugating some verbs, which is pretty phenomenal. Some of her words still bear very little resemblance to the actual English words, but I can carry on quite a conversation with her, since I know what most of her words mean. Her newer words are fairly accurate, but her older words tend to be frozen at an earlier stage of speech. Tickle is still pronounced "ga-ga," for example.

She is a very compassionate and caring little girl, and is currently particularly interested in mother-child relationships. Every animal she sees in real life or in a book becomes a mama, and she always informs me that the mama gives milk to her babies. She also loves to have me nurse her stuffed animals and dolls. Apparently that is fairly normal for a nursing toddler. She has taken to calling her little friends' mothers "mama" too, and she is quick to ask the mamas for help on her fiends' behalf when they need a hand to climb up on something, or to put their little shoes on. My sweet child loves to give and get kisses and hugs, and likes me to rub her tummy and back as she goes to sleep. She has become quite a sweet little companion.

We had an amazing adventure last weekend hiking at Natural Bridge with my mom, Rachael, Emma, and Nadja, my parents' Danish guest. Watch Rachael's blog for more details, but suffice it to say for now that forest fires, dizzyingly steep, sloping, sand-covered rock stairs, and crutches don't mix particularly well. The forest fire was apparently on the other side of the mountain, but we could smell it very well, and it was rather disconcerting. Sage was not concerned, however, and had a grand time hiking. The rest of us enjoyed the ride up on the sky-lift, and the view at the rock bridge, but the descent on foot was a bit stressful. Here are some pictures from that adventure:





We also went to a contra dance that weekend, and enjoyed ourselves very much. Sage danced with me part of the time, and played with Grandma and Emma part of the time. We left at the break, and considered it a very successful dance outing. Here is a picture from the dance. Sage was obviously having a good time:


I've been in a sewing phase recently, and have made Sage a few more dresses. I hope you all won't mind if I show them off a bit. ;-) I think Sage looks awfully cute in little mommy-made outfits.

This one is from the same pattern as the last little dress I made. It matches the beautiful quilt auntie Deborah made for her:

This one is made from a knit fabric (my first attempt at sewing knits), and it is very soft and comfy. Sage chose the colors. She really loves it so far.

Here's the back view with the fun knotted hood:

Here's the most recent one, a wrap-around jumper dress. I just finished it yesterday. It's made from a thick corduroy, so it should be really warm this fall and winter. I really like the way this one turned out:

Please excuse the poor photo quality. I took these last pictures with my cell phone, because my camera batteries ran out.

I'm really enjoying making clothes for Sage. It helps helps ease the stay-at-home-mom syndrome by giving me a product I can show at the end of the day, and giving me an outlet for creative energies. Honestly, my mood has improved dramatically since I started being crafty again. :-)

Just for fun, here's another phone picture of sage running through the grass at the park yesterday:
You can really tell how grown-up she is here. Doesn't she look like a big girl running?!

I think this post is more than long enough, so I'll end it for now. Hopefully for the rest of the month I'll do better about keeping up the blog.

Ta-ta!