New Hobby: Grabbing

Sarah LOVES to grab these days. We used to be able to eat and hold her on our laps, but no longer! Yesterday I tried it--I pushed my dish about six inches from the edge of the table, made sure all my silverware was out of her reach, and what did she do? She grabbed the placemat and pulled the whole mess toward her at an alarming speed! I caught it just before she it all would have come crashing down. And this whole time I was holding her! The other day David was holding her while he was on the computer and she managed to reach over and snatch one of the arrow keys on his keyboard and pull it clean off! So, naturally this morning when I tried to take a picture of her with her hair all messed up and staticky from playing in some pillows, all she was interested in was grabbing the camera out of my hand. Evidence:



This was the photo I was trying to take, hehehehe. :)

Peas

Sarah had peas last night for dinner for the first time. I know, not exactly newsworthy. But the green mess all over her face was so darn cute, I just had to snap these pics! Sarah is so expressive these days; she just exudes personality!! I think it really comes through in these photos. Enjoy!

So Happy Together Part 2

I forgot I had a few more cute pics of Sarah and Kayleigh playing together from last week! Here they are:


So it turns out 3-year-olds these days know how to operate a camera phone. Seriously! :)

So Happy Together

The past week has brought the return of many of our friends who went home for the summer! David and I had a blast spending Sunday with our good friends Josh and Danielle, and on Monday night our friends John Greene and his 3-year-old daughter Kayleigh got back in town (John's wife Alisa and their son Zeb are staying in the States a couple more weeks to complete some medical treatments). Before they got back, Alisa emailed me to tell me that Kayleigh was very excited to see "Baby Sarah" and would cup her hands together as if she was holding a tiny baby when she spoke of her. This is because before they left in May, this was how Kayleigh and Sarah spent time together:
Alisa said she'd been trying to prepare Kayleigh for the fact that Sarah was a little bigger now, but wasn't sure she "got it." Anyway, Kayleigh is here now and seems to accept the fact that Sarah is bigger. She has come over to play a couple of times since they got back on Monday. We've tried sitting them together down on the floor with some toys. But for Kayleigh, the best thing is still "holding Baby Sarah."
Sarah is far more cooperative with being held by a 3-year-old than I imagine. And Kayleigh's been very patient as she's had her face grabbed and hair-pulled during these holding sessions! I imagine that she's used to it from having a one-year-old little brother. Either way, they seem to be happy together!

Ninja Baby

Sarah has recently discovered how much fun it is to play with anything made of cloth. She is absolutely fascinated by blankets, towels, t-shirts, etc. I recently even discovered her playing with a pair of David's underwear (clean!! She pulled it from the top of a pile of clean laundry). I have actually found her playing his underwear twice, recently. Anyway, these photos are of her playing with one of my t-shirts:

Suddenly, I look over and see this:
Ok, so to be honest this is a "reenactment" of what I saw, but basically, yeah. Ninja Baby. :)

Just Not a Baker

I am just not a baker. I really think baking, unlike cooking, is not a skill that can be learned but it is something that you are born with. David bakes like maybe once a month, but everything he bakes, every single time, comes out fantastic. He makes the most perfect chocolate chip cookies, incredible homemade cinnamon rolls, made a loaf of white bread from scratch and it came out delicious the very first time he made it. I have to use italics to emphasize what a baking phenomenon my husband is. But it just further emphasizes how terrible I am at it. When I try to figure out what his secret is, he says, "I just follow the recipe." Well, let me show you what happened recently when I followed a very simple recipe for a pound cake:



The recipe called for the cake to be baked in an 8 or 9 inch "tube pan" (angel food cake pan?), which I don't have. So, I read through all the comments, and one baker said she had made it in a bundt pan and it had turned out great. So, I have a 9 inch bundt pan, and I baked it in that. I mean, how different in size could a 9 inch tube pan and a 9 inch bundt pan be??? As I was pouring the batter in, I thought to myself--this does seem like a lot of batter. Turns out I was right. Anyway, I improvised and made a cobbler for my guests that evening since the cake was totally unusable. Grrr.

Thankfully, I am getting better at cooking. Recently, I have become more adventurous at stir-frying. I have observed here that the key to delicious Asian stir fries is to get the oil really hot, but not let it burn, and then throw everything in and flip and stir it really fast over really high heat. This is kind of scary as the oil is popping everywhere and there is lots of smoke and it is very noisy. But if you cook it on a lower temperature, your food just comes out soggy and just not as good. See, this is an example of how you can GROW and learn as a cook!! Baking, for me at least, is a totally different story.

A Favorite Moment

I would like to share with you all, one of my favorite moments of the day. I absolutely love going in to get Sarah out of her bed in the mornings. She is fully rested, and super happy to start the day. I almost always find her sitting in her bed making her happy babbling noises and playing with Mr. Bun, her sleeptime companion. Here is a glimpse of what that precious moment is like each day:

Six Month Old Finally Learns Not to Dread the Bath

EAST ASIA (Reuters) - From the time her daughter Sarah was two months old, Marianne Dean's mother-in-law would ask her nearly every time they talked, "Does she like the bath yet? Has she discovered splashing?" She knew that it was one of her mother-in-law's favorite memories of her sons as babies, the fun they had playing in the bath, that prompted the frequency with which she asked the question and the excited anticipation she had for her daughter-in-law to share the experience.

Yesterday, the affirmative answer to those questions arrived--Sarah Dean discovered she liked the bath. Sure, she had giggled in the bath exactly once before, but up until yesterday baths had generally been something Sarah tolerated, at best. Finally, though, Sarah discovered just how gloriously fun splashing can be. Although her mother's arm got tired as she supported Sarah to sit-up (the bath is far too slippery for Sarah's not fully developed sitting skills), she allowed her to linger and play for a while as she, Sarah's father David, and their house helper Ya Sha all sat and watched, huge grins on all their faces.

Marianne agrees with her mother-in-law, it was worthy of all that anticipation. :)

Blabberwockie

Everyone who knows us knows that both Sarah's parents are talkers--we have strong opinions, think we are right most of the time, and enjoy the sound of our own voice. Its true, we know it, feel free to laugh. Anyway, these days, it seems Sarah is going to inherit our love for talking. Its her new favorite way to entertain herself. She also finds her own hands to be quite interesting and amazing, which you can also see in this video. I also love the way you can see evidence of her drooling habit on her shiny neck. This video really highlights what Sarah is all about these days.



By the way, I do not claim in any way that these videos I post are "amazing" or "hilarious" or bound to become youtube hits or anything like that. They are mostly of interest to Sarah's grandparents and other family members who are far away and don't get to enjoy all the little details of her growing up, which seem wonderful to us but are pretty much the same things all babies do and therefore, don't make for incredibly interesting or exciting videos. Just wanted you to know that I know that you know that I know . . . All parents (and grandparents!) think every mundane thing their child does is extraordinary and fascinating, and I am no exception to this rule. :) Still, is she not SOOOOO precious??!!!! :)

Six Months of Sarah

Heavenly Father, thank you for this most precious gift you have brought into our lives. She has brought more joy, more richness, more satisfaction and more fulfillment to us than we could ever have imagined. Thank you for creating this energetic, curious, silly and unique little girl. Even before she was born, she was moving nearly constantly and we knew she would take the world by storm (though we didn't even know she was a SHE)! Thank you for using her to remind me what a gift it is to love and serve someone else sacrificially. I still have so much to learn about selflessness and seeking her best interest above my own comfort and convenience. Help me to see every day with her for the utter blessing it is and cheerfully give my energy and creativity and heart in being a good mother to her, demonstrating in a much lesser and imperfect way the unconditional sacrificial love Christ demonstrated for me on the cross. I pray that you will use David and I to point her to Christ, that your Holy Spirit will open her eyes to your truth, that she will come to faith and love you all the days of her life. Amen.

The Day Sarah was Born:

One Month Old:

Two Months Old:

Three Months Old:

Four Months Old:

Five Months Old:

Six Months Old!!!!!: