Washington DC Temple Lights

On Sunday we drove to the DC temple to see the Christmas lights, and to go to the Jenny Oaks Baker concert. We didn't go to the concert, because we'd have to wait too long for miss P. So, we just wandered around and looked at the lights. It's like a mini-temple square.

Caitlin and Ryan were in town for the weekend, so they came, and we invited Becky, too. Somehow there is no picture of Ryan. Probably because he wanted a picture on the camel at the nativity, but he would have had to push small children out of the way to get his turn, so he abstained. Sad, would have been a good photo-op.

Miss P all bundled for being outside. It was about 8pm by now, way past her bedtime, but she slept in the car on the way there, and woke up to look at the lights. Notice her cute hat and mittens (No thumbs--smartest move ever. Thumbs in baby mittens would be IMPOSSIBLE!).

A rare shot of me and Dave, inside the visitor's center.

Some of the lights.

That's right, she's not wearing her coat. It won't fit when she's buckled in her carseat. We have since fixed that problem.

More Mail Ripping

Yep, that's P entertaining herself. I hit stop the second she ripped it to pieces...I can't let the videos get too long or I can't post them.

Penelope's Latest Pastime

Like I've said before, Penelope spends most of her days rolling all over the living room and playing with toys or getting into stuff (notice her toys and crumpled mail in the background). She's always going for my laptop chord. When that's not entertaining her she resorts to junk mail we accidentally left on the floor--as evidenced in the video. The other day Dave let Penelope "read" the newspaper with him. She ripped it to shreds, but somehow didn't eat it. Miracle.

8 Months

Here are Penelope's long-awaited 8 month pictures! These pictures are getting harder and harder to take. Not only does Penelope have great hand-eye coordination, so all she wants to do is eat the numbers, but she is also much more mobile than she used to be. No, she's not sitting up yet or crawling, but she does roll all over the front room. She often gets into the Christmas tree or the blinds. Sometimes she gets stuck under the couch. She still hasn't figured out that furniture is an obstacle that won't move for her. She continues to attempt to roll into furniture, and gets annoyed when it won't get out of her way. Makes me laugh every time!

Hopefully these pictures show how funny and excitable she is. She's way too stiff and excited about life to be able to sit up. Thank goodness we have a bumbo. Currently that's how I contain her when I can't have her rolling all over the living room.

If you can't tell, Penelope's hair is starting to get long--and platinum blonde in some spots. If you see a picture and it looks like P has a bald spot, it's really where her hair has turned blonde. I'm going to have to start doing her hair, but I guess I'm a lazy hairdresser, and don't feel the need to do my baby's hair. So what if people keep thinking she's a boy! It doesn't bother me!

So artsy...looking through the 8! In case you don't want to think it through, P turned 8 months on Nov 28.

Yep, she loves to eat the numbers. She is also becoming a better eater. She still has a small stomach, and doesn't eat that much, but she is growing. Dave and I did some "scientific" measurements at home to see how Penelope is growing. We think she weighs about 19 lbs and is 29 or 30 inches long. 2 more inches and she'll outgrow her carseat. She is a pretty big baby...she's wearing 12 and 18 month clothing. I will soon post a picture where Penelope's head looks as big as my sister Caitlin's! FUNNY! Enjoy our cute baby, we sure do.

Flat Stanley and Penelope's Room

Our nephew Collin is doing a Flat Stanley project at school. We had to decorate Stanley and take him on an adventure and take some pictures. So, of course we took him to Mount Vernon. This is Stanley in his George Washington costume.

A historical reenactor was kind enough to take a picture with Stanley. She said she knows Stanley well and has taken lots of pictures with Stanley.

Stanley wanted a picture with George Washington.

We couldn't let Penelope hold Flat Stanley, because she would eat him. I thought about laminating Stanley so that she could hold him, but I'm not sure where the laminator is since we moved. I'm also not sure Stanley would appreciate being encased in plastic and then being eaten by a small child. She still tried to hold him whenever he got close, as evidenced here.

Random photo interjected: Penelope's winter hat made her look like a gangsta! It started in the correct position, and I found her like this after our trip in the car to pick Dave up from the train station.

I finally put the decorations up in Penelope's room. I started this project last Christmas. Dad cut the wood for me, I painted it at my parents' house last December. When Caitlin came to meet Penelope last April she printed the vinyl text.

The text is "I am a Child of God" in six languages: (top to bottom, left to right) Zulu, Swedish (w/ a typo...oops), Spanish, German, French, English! You can also see the blanket my mom made Penelope. She's started using the blanket since she has outgrown her wearable blankets and I can't find any big enough. And yes, Penelope is hanging out on her changing station in her towel after a bath. She's content to suck on her towel and a wet washcloth. So funny!

I'm not sure if I've posted a picture of the name garland I made yet, but, here it is again. This is the one thing I sewed for Penelope. We don't call her Penny, but Penelope was too long to fit on her crib.

More of Dave's Request

These are reversed, because I forgot to upload them in the right order. Here is where P ended up after one of her rolling extravaganzas: staring out the window, and actually screaming and crying because her head was right at the window and she was stuck.

Before she rolled one more time to look out the window she took some time to eat the vertical blinds. Oh, how you've got to love apartments and their glorious furnishings.

P rolled from her blanket in front of the TV over here. She is about to roll onto her back so she can eat the blinds.

This video is essentially the second half of the other video. It shows where she rolled to after my last post.

At Dave's Request

When I told Dave that Penelope has been rolling all over the front room today, he requested I post a video of it. The problem is getting her to roll on command. Out of nowhere she will roll from one end of the room to the other. When I try to catch it on film, however, it doesn't happen. Or, the video ends up too long to post. I will post two videos that happened fairly close together so you can kind of get an idea of what she's been up to. Even as I sit here typing she has rolled about 6 times, which of course she wouldn't do when I was recording. And now I've got the camera plugged in to my computer, so there is no hope of catching it. Oh well! Enjoy!