Why is Penelope grunting and panting?

When you leave Penelope to play on the floor by herself, she tends to do just fine. She simply hangs out and plays with the toys around her. Sometimes, if you're not looking you start to hear panting and grunting coming from her direction. That can only mean one thing...Penelope has taken either her burp cloth or her tag blankie and covered her face. She wants to play peek-a-boo. Penelope will lay there with the burp cloth on her face until she hears me say "Where's Penelope?" a few times, and then she'll pull it from her face and smile from ear to ear when I say "Peek-a-boo!!" It's quite cute.

Oh, and Penelope got a tooth yesterday. That explains her fussiness over the past few weeks. It has just barely popped through, so there are no pictures to be had of it yet.

Our Apartment: the Teaser

This is Penelope's "what are you lookin' at?" face. Really, it shows the position she spends most of the day in. She does sit ups all day long. My baby has abs of steel. And, she's on the bed as a teaser...you're going to get to see some pictures of our bedroom, which is still a work in progress.

People keep asking to see pictures of our new apartment. Well, this is not that post. There is still way too much to do before the house looks presentable. So to tide you over until the whole house is presentable, you get to see our bed.

Penelope has been kind of enough to behave while I worked on a little project today: wall art for the bedroom. I've been trying to think of something to do for a while. Our bedding is very geometric and square, so I added some circular art for contrast.

Would you like a tutorial for my little project? Go to a craft store and buy embroidery hoops in various sizes. These are the super-cheap wood ones. Then add fabric, cut the excess fabric from the back and arrange in whatever composition you would like. Here is what I've got so far. I might paint the frames or add more hoops to make it larger. I'm also not so sure they'll stay on the wall very well. I just used nails and am balancing the hoops on them. What do you think?

Thanks for the fabric, Shelby! I'm still debating whether or not I want to add a few yellow pillows to the bed to tie it together with the bedding. I think it works even without pillows on the bed. I don't want it to be too matchy-matchy, and I haven't found any other yellow fabric I like.

So, there you have it. The only thing that is completed in our apartment is some wall art above our bed. I'm slowly working on other projects, and will post pictures as I go. Maybe I'll finish putting the house together before we've lived here 6 mos...or, maybe not.

4 & 5 Months

This will probably sound like a stupid realization, but Penelope is really starting to look like a little person! It makes me sad and happy at the same time. It's so much fun to see Penelope learn new things and develop more and more each day. But, I also miss my newborn baby who used to just cuddle with me and sleep on me all day. I guess that's what more children or other people's children are for; they will feed my baby cravings.

Penelope is always ready to give you a little smile. She is also really good at grabbing things and getting them to her mouth now. She sometimes can't figure out how to turn the object to get it into her mouth appropriately, but she'll get it. For example, she's really good at taking the binky out of her mouth, but can't exactly get it back in. She usually ends up sucking on the hard plastic parts. Her favorite toy at this point is still her tag blankie because that always fits into her mouth.

Here is Penelope at 4 months old (yes, she always likes to grab the numbers).

And, here she is at 5 months in our new house in VA. Once I finally get the house put together with all the pictures on the walls and find places for all the stuff that has no storage space in the apartment, I'll take pictures and post them.

Penelope's Baby Blessing

I'm way behind on blogging, so I'm just going to randomly write about what I want when I want.

Dave and I now live in the DC area (more to come), and by that I mean Lorton, VA. We were homelss for a few weeks so we went to stay with my parents in Lincoln, where we blessed Penelope. The whole family was in town because Logan had just returned from his mission.

It was really great to be able to have all my brothers and brothers-in-law (Ryan, I'm including you even though you couldn't be there--I know you would have if you could have) stand in the circle to give her a name and a blessing. Dave's mom was able to come up from St. Joe, MO so we had lots of family there. We didn't get a group photo (I didn't want to disrupt church to take pictures), but we did get a picture with Dave's mom and then we staged photos with me, Dave and my parents the next week.

I'm very blessed to have a wonderful husband who holds the Priesthood and could bless Penelope! I love Dave!

Learning How to Laugh

She's learning how to laugh. Super cute.

Lest Ye Forget

Just in case you forgot, something as cute as this:

Can go and do something like this:


And somehow, she's still super pleasant through a very unpleasant diaper change for her parents.

A 3 Month Old Cannibal

Penelope turned 3 months old on June 28. She is so cute! Since last month she has started cooing, really likes to smile, and has figured out that if she kicks her legs when she's in her bouncer, the toys hanging above her will move and rattle. Consequently, she starts kicking, smiling and flailing the second we put her in it. If we take the toy bar off, she stops kicking. We think she's pretty smart.
I like these 3 mos. pictures because they show a few things (yes, she's wearing a hodge-podgey outfit...she was cold in the house so we put a sweater on). 1) you can see how long her legs are; 2) you can see what she does all day--she eats her hands. Or she eats her doll. Evidence to follow.
This is Penelope and her doll. We named her doll Penelope, but it's pronounced "Pen-a-lope" (you can thank my dad for that pronunciation).
This is Penelope debating what to do with her doll.
She has made her decision. She is going to eat her doll's head. My daughter is a cannibal. But, Pen-a-lope doesn't seem to mind.

Oh, and P.S. Dave got a job this past week. He was hired by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C. We will be moving there mid-August! Congrats, Dave!