Sunday, June 15, 2014

Happy Father's Day!

We had such a fun Father's Day celebration today. Gabe spent some quality alone time with Penny while Mommy slept in for a bit (thanks Dada), and then we opened cards and present.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdFeGj9r02Y?rel=0&w=853&h=480&rel=0]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn5yQO0d_Y8?rel=0&w=853&h=480&rel=0]cards

In the afternoon we headed out to Off the Grid in the Presidio.
Sign

Penny wore more of the clothes Gabe bought her from their shopping trip.
outfit
Penny the fashion plate.

After we ate we just hung out on the lawn, Penny exploring and being free to run around.
off-the-grid-view

G-holding-P

Mommy and Dada took advantage of this guy rolling by:
beer-cart
Better than an ice cream cart!

Cheers followed by a kiss:
cheers-and-a-kiss

Penny loved the grass and was running around and flopping down like the goof that she is. She actually got her first grass stains on the knees of her jeans :). At one point she took the blanket that we had been sitting on and made her self cozy.

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She wrapped herself up and pretended to be sleeping.
cozy-p-happy-in-grass
She got both me and Gabe to lay down with her. I understood why she liked it - it was fun to lay in the grass for a bit, especially with my arm around my girl.

It was a great afternoon spent enjoying good food, great weather and a wonderful husband and Dada. Happy Father's Day! We love you this much!
happy-g-and-p

 

Penny of the North

In honor of the season finale of Game of Thrones tonight. The first Penny of the North at 9 weeks old, and now at 23 months:
Penny of the North_23 mos old

Friday, June 13, 2014

23 Months Old

23-months-2

Once again Penny is keeping us on our toes with all her new developments. Her personality is shining and we are jus trying to keep up with her! :)

• Penny has the best inflections when she talks. She emphasizes parts of words with such gusto it makes us laugh. We play a little game where she says "Maaaaaaaammmmmmmyyyyy" and I respond with "Peeeeeennnnnnnnnyyyy". It's fun to see if I can make her extend her "Mommy" even longer and longer.

• New words include:
- shleep shack (sleep sack)
- shamra (camera), she also says "shmile!" when she hold it up and looks though it
- wak, wak, WAK (if we are carrying her and she wants to walk)
- up, up, UP!
- chita (sticker), and boo-boo chita (boo-boo sticker/band-aid)
- knows down and loud
- hep, Mommy, hep! (help)
- eyesh cream (ice cream, probably from all the gelato in Rome)
- Shleyo (Lucerro, Ana's puppy at daycare)
- Oh nyo! Wha happaned?
- will say "hold on tight" and "here we go" if we turn sharply in the car or when I put her in the shopping cart

• She says more words in a row now- "buppy a trol hep" ("Grumpy Old Troll needs help", from Dora) and is making sentences on her own and not just repeating us.

• We are working big time on please. "How do you ask nicely, Penny?" "Peese".

• Penny knows her full name now: "Petty Abico" and sometimes calls Gabe "Dada Abico"

• Another new word is pie-too (her word for pacifier). Incidentally we have retired the pacifier since returning home from Europe. It was used a lot on the trip and we decided to cold turkey it when we got home. We had a few naps that started with crying for her pie-too but after a couple of days she was just fine. She doesn't use it at Ana's either! Big girl.

Once or twice at nap time she has asked for it, but we just tell her she doesn't use it anymore. Then she asks for Gawry and Bumbum (Gary and Sponge Bob) and we place them next to her head and she closes her eyes and is all good.

gawry-bumbum

• Still likes to back up on our laps to read her books but now we read one, and then we're on to another (usually) not the same book over and over and over (usually)

• She can now count to 10!

• She loves taking a spoon out of the drawer in the kitchen and pretending to eat with it - make-believe air soup must be yummy. Makes me think I could start tea parties with her :)

• Penny walks up the stairs almost by herself now.:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Lqh_rtylFk?rel=0&w=853&h=480&rel=0]
(We had just returned home from "Mimi tumbling".)

• She'll pick up a phone (landline, iPhone or a play phone) and say "Hello? Hi. Um. Bye". It's adorable. Usually she's calling Poppy or Aunt J, and sometimes Nono and Nanay.

• She likes to collect her small toys and put them in a bag to carry them around. Quite often it's one of her 'poop' bags we put her #2 diapers in even thought I have offered up a cute little pink bag with handles. She's a kook!

things-in-bag

And then she'll dump the whole thing and say "OH NYO!" (note cute little pink bag with handles).

dump

• She loves her Dora keys and will take them and put them in the little hole the counter-sunk screw has on her Radio Flyer tricycle to start it. Clever!

• Penny is also such a goof. She wakes up in the morning so smiley and rolling around in her crib. Just being a big silly head. She'll stomp around the house doing these funny big steps or half bent legged walking just to be funny. She knows how to make us laugh and we LOVE that.

• In other news, a lot of things are more of a battle these days. There is often a lot of negotiating to get things completed that were once simple tasks - diaper changes, getting dressed, getting in the car seat is a BIG one since switching the it to face forward (post to come). She is definitely flexing her independence.

• "No" has come back in rotation, sometime accompanied by a long, high-pitched screech. She gets red-faced and tenses up her whole body. It's fun.

• There have been a few more time-out's for smacking mommy in the face and throwing food on the floor (that's a big one - when she is done with her meal, a simple "all done" won't suffice. Wide sweeps of the arms to clear the tray onto the floor is much more effective).

• Another big battle these days is washing and brushing her hair. In the tub she will do anything she can to get away from me while I try to rinse her hair. In order to comb it out after, she must have at the very least the "Dora phone" (also sometimes called Caillou). Even then it's a race against her realizing what I am doing. The last few comb strokes are done as I chase her around the changing table.

Alas, our baby is getting bigger and bolder, and funnier and smarter and we laugh with her constantly (not counting time-outs and "No's".)

Happy 23 months sweet Penny. We love you endlessly.

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23-months-1

 

 

 

Friday Hi: The Denim Twins

Friday-Hi-Denim-Twins-2

When I travel for work Gabe takes Penny clothes shopping. This trip he bought her, among other things, a denim shirt because it reminded him of the one I have. I think he was pretty spot on!

Friday-Hi-Denim-Twins-3 Friday-Hi-Denim-Twins-1 Friday-Hi-Denim-Twins-4

P.S.: Penny is also 23 months old today! Post to come :).

 

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Our Maiden Voyage with a Babysitter

Hmmm Briana-and-blurry-penny

We finally did it. We had a babysitter come over to hang out and meet Miss Penny. We've been saying we'd do it for so long and just never got around to it. But when we realized that everyone we'd ask to watch Penny while we go to Patches and Ellen's wedding would be AT the wedding, it was time to get moving.

Luckily we were hooked up with Briana, a former babysitter of our friends Wendi and Sean who moved to Denver last month. She came to meet us and Penny on Saturday evening. They were able to hang out and play for a bit before dinner and bedtime while Gabe and I were still home.

[caption id="attachment_6559" align="alignnone" width="480"]What-Color "What color is this crayon?"[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_6555" align="alignnone" width="480"]Green "Greeeen!"[/caption]

Then once we put Penny to bed, we took advantage of Briana being there and went up the street to Spruce. Our first date night with an actual babysitter. It was long overdue.

[caption id="attachment_6557" align="alignnone" width="480"]jamesons-and-gingers Jamesons and Gingers at Spruce.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_6558" align="alignnone" width="480"]peanut-butter-bites Delicious peanut butter and chocolate treats with the bill.[/caption]

Briana will come back to hang out with Penny next Wednesday and then on Saturday for the wedding. We are so glad to have her help us out.

[caption id="attachment_6553" align="alignnone" width="480"]Awful date night selfie Awful date night selfie[/caption]

Painting Away

paint-5

In Penny's May Citrus Lane box there was Melissa & Doug paint with water book. I've been wanting to get Penny some paints so I figured it was a good sign.

I showed her how to put the brush in the water, wet the paint and apply the color to the paper. I'm not sure she got the concept but I helped by loading the brush so she had paint on it and applying it to the paper.

[gallery type="square" ids="6534,6535,6536"]

Soon however, she decided it was more fun to just wet the brush with water and paint the mat, her feet, her face. I figured no big deal - its just water.

paint-6

We'll try the book again, but I think for her first piece she did a lovely job.

paint-final

Last week I thought maybe we should try actual pot paints so I bought her a My First Watercolor set by Crayola. I wet the pots so they would color the brush for her and then let her at it. She seems to like that, but then realized she could rub her finger on the paint and that would work, too. I love her free styling :).

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She created these beauties that I will frame, one for me and one for Gabe.

watercolors-final

Thanks Penny Picasso!
paint-4

A funny note about the pictures in this post, you'll notice that quite a few of them have a haze on them, sort of like what they used to do to Cybil Shepard in Moonlighting. I wasn't sure why it was happening, and then realized I had never cleaned the phone, let alone the lens from our Europe trip, when Penny had hold of the phone for 10 plus days. Needless to say the lens was a bit smudgy. You can see  the difference between the first and last pictures in the post: first = pre-cleaning haze; last = haze be gone.

 

Tumbling Outfit

Penny wore this ensemble to tumbling on Saturday. I think she liked it. Her expressions in all of these are great - I couldn't edit them down :).

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