Easter 2013

For Easter we made a quick weekend trip down to Lincoln.  It was fun to have a big family dinner and let her play with the cousins.  She's getting much more used to the crowds at my parents' house, and even likes to play with the cousins.  I even caught her hugging them of her own volition.

 Penelope is perfecting her "cheese" smile, which is even cuter with her new Easter dress:

Since it was a warm 60-70 degrees in Lincoln with no snow (aka nothing like in Wisconsin), we set out some eggs in my parents' backyard for P to find.  She tried to open almost every egg right after she picked them up.

I'm pretty sure she said "bird" here, because she just picked up an Angry Birds egg.

"Ooooh, an egg, right in the middle of the grass, easy to find.  Thanks, Dad!" 

Whenever P says egg, if I'm not paying attention it takes me a minute to figure out what she's saying.  That's because for almost every word that starts with a vowel she adds either a "y" or an "l" sound in front of the word, making egg sound like either "yegg" or "l'egg".  (She doesn't say leg, more like a French "le egg")

A Trip to Lincoln (in February): Part 2

Our time in Lincoln was short, as always.  We spent time playing with the cousins, holed up at and Grandmas during a snow storm and got to have lunch with the ladies (Fortune Palace!) and play with my friends (Maggie!).

This is apparently one of the only pictures I took with the cousins.  Grant liked P's animal sounds book.

 Grandpa bought doughnuts for breakfast one morning.  They were yummy.

 Mostly P had fun playing with Grandma and Grandpa.  Grandpa and P played games every night at dinner.  It went something like this:  P would look at Grandpa and smirk.  Grandpa would scream loudly at P when she least expected it to scare her.  She would usually look like she was about to cry, but then laugh.  She loved that game.  

 Penelope also liked to cuddle with Grandma.  P willingly went to Grandma for big hugs when we first got there.  They were fast friends the whole time we were there.  Here's to the next visit!

A Trip to Lincoln (in February): Part 1

Right after my birthday Penelope and I ditched Dave for about 10 days to drive down to Lincoln and see my parents.  Here is what we did in pictures.  In reality, I'm missing pictures for most of what we did, though.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel in Des Moines on the way to Lincoln, where P discovered a love for the peg game.  The toddler version includes taking the tees out and putting them back in again.

 We went shoe shopping at Gateway mall with grandma--where P went for a ride with a mouse and got to play at the mall playground.

 P visited the Lincoln Children's Museum, where she happily soaked herself in water,

 crawled through the tunnels (with Shelby right behind),

 posed for a pic on the big chair,

 played some Husker volleyball,

 cheered for the Huskers,

 gave Lil' Red a high five,

 drove a fire truck, honked the horns, and blared the sirens,

and rode a motorcycle with Mom.

We went to the museum with Marisa and Grant as well, but don't have any pictures of them.  Too bad.  We also went to Doozy's for lunch afterwards.  I forgot how good that place is!

The Giggle Factory

Yesterday we tried out an indoor playground in town called the Giggle Factory.  It was fun for P to get out of the house and climb around.  Unfortunately, I had to crawl around everywhere with her.  A few concerned kids turned to me and asked, "Are mommies allowed to play here, too?"  Yes, yes, they are.  Especially when your little girl still needs some help climbing up and over things because she's too timid.  All of what you see here is elevated with varying sections with different things to climb on and around.  The only things I don't really have a picture of are the three giant bumpy slides.  P really liked those...as long as I went down with her.  Although, I'm sure she would have gone by herself.  The main problem was I wasn't at the bottom to catch her.  She needed a little help climbing up to the top.

Climbing through the tunnel:

 Navigating the obstacles:

 Yay! Giant balls!:

 Climbing the ladder to the top:

 Weaving in and out of the ropes before she heads up the ladder again:

I get the feeling we'll be visiting the Giggle Factory a few more times before winter is over.

The First Snow of 2013

I can't seem to do a post without a lot of pictures.  Oh well, P is cute, so I think it's worth it!

We had the first snow storm today in Wisconsin since our move.  We thought it was the perfect time to test out P's snow suit, boots, and gloves.  Here she is sitting on the stairs just waiting for her coat and hat:

 She was quick to figure out how to walk in her clunky boots and in the snow.

 She didn't want to stick around for a group shot, the snow was too tempting.

 While P and I played in the snow dad got to work shoveling snow.  P deemed his work sufficient and up to a high standard.

 See, she's checking that he stays on task and doesn't slack.  She's such a slave driver!

 "I like snow, Mom!"

 "I like snow so much that I feel comfortable sitting in it and spreading it around."

When P had had enough (read: wouldn't keep her gloves on anymore), she surveyed Dave's work from inside the house.  It was a fun time for us as a family outside.  The nice thing about when it snows is that it's actually warm enough to go outside, unlike the last few weeks of negative teen (and more) windchills!

Rock A Bye Baby!

Penelope has really enjoyed playing with her dolls lately.  She also loves to claim the rocking chair in our front room.  Yesterday she combined the two.  We looked over and she was rocking her baby in the chair, so of course we started singing to her!  Never mind that she isn't wearing pants...she went through about 3 outfits yesterday, so we just forwent the pants by the end of the night.

Penelope Update

I thought I would write about some of the things Penelope is into and up to lately.  She's at a really fun age, and these things are in no particular order:

• She tries to mimic a lot of what we say.  Her vocabulary is growing, although I'm sure a lot of what she says is only discernible by us--most of what she says is still half-words.  She calls us "ma" and "da" all the time.  She says ring, shoe, socks, dog, hot, ball, binkie, bottle and plenty of other words I'm sure I'll think of later
• Penelope still likes sunglasses.  She steals mine and puts them on and walks around quite often.
• She loves forts.  Dave built her a fort that has been up for a least a week.  If she's not playing in her fort she wants mom and dad to drape a blanket over all of us to make our own fort.
• She loves hair.  She often grabs our heads and pulls them down into her lap so she can run her fingers through our hair.  While doing this she often groans and moans...she groans and moans whenever she's concentrating on something.  (As I type this she's standing behind the couch styling my hair.)
• She's obsessed with kissing.  She starts making this "mmmmmm" noise, and you know she wants a kiss.  She will full on grab my face and pull me in for a kiss..on the lips.  She pushes my and Dave's heads together to make us kiss, too.  It makes her smile and squeal when we do.
• She's obsessed with Christmas decorations, specifically the Christmas tree.  She is finally starting to ignore our tree, but the first couple of days it was up she kept screaming "ball!" and tried to take all the ornaments off, often pulling the tree over.  Don't worry, we only have a 5 foot slim alpine tree, so it's not that big and she hasn't been crushed.  She will attack trees in public places like Church and our leasing office.  She'll pull off ornaments and happily wander around with them.
• She loves to give bear hugs.  She grabs us and holds us as tightly as possible around the neck.  She also loves hugs as often as possible.  She is quite the affectionate little thing.
• She loves to be outside.  This isn't new, but as she's gotten more adventurous and mobile she likes it even more.  She climbs all over the playground equipment and likes to swing. She's learning to climb stairs thanks to the playground and loves to play in the mulch, too.  We're excited for our new house with a big yard.  Our plan is to eventually get her a play set so she can enjoy it!  We might just start with a folding, plastic slide to keep her entertained through the winter.
• She loves to play the piano.  Since it's the holiday season I've had to play the piano a lot more in church.  That, and I play the organ.  All of this means I'm practicing a lot more, and she gets to sit next to me on the bench and pound on the keys.  She loves it!  She also loves to climb up on the stage in the chapel...more evidence that she can, in fact go up stairs.  Just don't ask her to go down stairs.  She has no sense of going down and will just step off of stairs.  Scary!
• She loves to watch me flush the toilet.  When you let her stand next to you when you flush the toilet, P's eyes practically pop out of her head and her mouth is wide open is excited amazement. She gets a big kick out of watching the water swirl around. It's really quite cute.
• She loves her Dad.  When Dave walks in the door from work every night she gets the same excitement on her face as she does when you flush the toilet (does that mean Dave=toilet? hehe).  She drops whatever she's doing to follow him around the house the rest of the night...unless he's chasing her while she squeals with delight.

Well, there you have it!  Lots of text and no pictures!  I don't think I've taken any recently.  Probably because I spend so much time chasing P around the house!  She really is fun to be around at this age!