News-Bouquet

I saw some of these at a friends house and thought they were rather rad so I made a bouquet for our apartment.

I found the pog/faces on the ground at school, they're actually ads for Orca grants.

Poopsicles

Last night after we put Penelope down to bed, I kept hearing whines coming from her room. Normally I let her sort things out on her own (she's a big girl) & fall asleep by herself, but this time I heard her ask specifically for me & water. I couldn't let her down.

I wobbled up stairs & went in her room to ask if she wanted water. Not wanting to make a fuss, I had intentionally left the light off in the room & allowed the light from the hallway to filter in. I couldn't really see much, but when I walked up to the crib to ask Pen what was the matter she said, "Poop!" I couldn't see anything, but I did know she wanted to go potty.

FYI: Penelope calls both pee & poop, poop.

So, I grabbed her to take her to the potty to see if she'd be interested in going & LO & BEHOLD!!! She was naked. Aw, shoot. I turned on the bedroom light to discover what she had been up to. She had taken off all of her clothes, grabbed the toy box next to her bed, emptied the box of its contents & PEED IN THE BOX. She didn't get all of her pee in the box, though; It sprayed all over pretty much everything in her crib.

Awesome. Welcome to potty training.

Finishing . . .

Sentences.

Last Sunday night when we went on our usual walk. Penelope is pretty good at staying in her stroller without complaint, unless we stop. Not sure we stopped a whole lot, but she wanted to get out anyway.

We got her out & let her push the stroller for a bit. That never works. She wants to do it all by herself & still doesn't know how to steer. Chris grabbed her & put her on his shoulders. She liked that so much, she started rocking back and forth with a huge smile on her face.

Chris: What is she doing up there?

Me: She's pretending she's riding on um. . . a . . .

Penelope: HORSE!!

Penelope finished my sentence for me!! This was a first. I thought it was so adorable to hear such a sweet, little voice finish my sentence for me. What a doll.

Penelope & Her Words

Penelope is funny with her words. She's pretty good at pronouncing most things, but every once in a while a few words come out completely wrong.

Here are some of those words:

Peanuts (plural) sounds like penis.

Chalk sounds like cock.

Frog still sounds like f#$%

Flag also sounds like f#$%

Shirt sounds like s$^%

And then there's one word that she knows & says correctly. Yesterday she was playing with something in her car seat & exclaimed, "dammit!" when it dropped on the floor. I wonder where she learned that from.

I've got to start washing my mouth out with soap.

Goodbye Family!

Sesame Street: Potty Time

Penelope. This is for you.

Annie Get Your Gun

Over the fourth of July weekend we ventured over to Grandma & Grandpa Newton's for family dinner. Penelope & Ayden had a crazy fun time playing with the vintage dressups. Penelope especially enjoyed wearing the hard hat & holding either the toy machine gun or toy rifle. I thought it was pretty cute.

Ayden also has an obsession over Penelope's shoes, so she's wearing Ayden's cowboy boots in the pic. So cute.

Reason #18736 Why a Trustworthy Dentist is Important

Our dental experience in California was traumatizing to say the least. We went through one dishonest dentist after another before we found one that we could trust. Why is that?

Upon getting dental insurance here in Utah, I emailed my mom to see who her dentist was as she had been raving and raving about her dentist for years. Dr. Blackwood married the daughter of a family friend, so my mom knew him & always told me that she trusted his medical opinion. As soon as I found out they'd take our insurance, I booked appointments for all of us. Dr. Blackwood's secretary said that it would be okay for Penelope to hang out at my appointment. OK. Nice. I don't like the thought of finding a babysitter.

Today was teeth cleaning day for the Esplin fam, SLC division. Upon walking into the office, Dr. Blackwood greeted me by name & asked all sorts of questions about my parents, Penelope, my family, etc. He even took the time to show Penelope the toys and play with her. Cool!

The dental hygienist took me to get X-rays & start on the cleaning process while Dr. Blackwood spent time playing with Penelope. I was afraid Penelope might cause a ruckus while I was gone, so I set her on one of the chairs with her blanket & my iPhone (which was playing Babe, her favorite pig movie).

While I was in the chair, the secretary came up to me & asked if perhaps Penelope would be more interested in Nemo on the big TV rather than watching Babe on the phone; I agreed, trusting that she'd probably put my phone somewhere. Maybe I should've asked for her to bring it to me, but I'm pretty sure my mouth was full of mirrors & a suction device to really say much of anything.

The cleaning went pretty well & the hygienist and Dr. Blackwood agreed that my teeth were doing really well, save a few broken fillings (darn you blasted crooked California dentists!) and a couple of minor cavities. Dr. Blackwood even went so far as to bust out his really nice camera to take close-up shots of my broken fillings. Yeah, those definitely need to be replaced. I left the chair feeling pretty empowered over my teeth (unusual for dentist appointments in my experience).

Penelope and I sat in the chair while the hygienist & Dr. Blackwood counted her teeth. She was so scared, but she did pretty well. Hopefully next time she'll be more receptive to strangers pointing gloved fingers in her mouth.

Once we were done, Penelope and I headed up to the front to gather our things & get the estimate on the work needed to be done. Where was my phone? I looked all around the lobby & couldn't find it anywhere all while trying to keep Penelope from spilling filtered water all over the floor. She was losing it. I was losing it.

Finally, I asked the secretary if she put it somewhere. She had put it on top of the refrigerator next to the water filter. Not there. The two of us searched through toy bins, under chairs, around plants & no phone. She called it. I called it. I knew the ringer was on, but I couldn't hear it anywhere! I was starting to panic. OH NO. I'm unplugged! What will I do without Tweetdeck! GoogleReader! MAIL! CATAN!!!!!

After about 10 minutes of thoroughly searching the entire office, the secretary started to call patients that were in the lobby around the same time. There was a mother that was there with her son, who could've mistook it for a toy & walked off with it. Perhaps? Nope. Now Dr. Blackwood caught wind of the missing iPhone. He sprung into action.

He recalled a woman (not a patient) who had been waiting for her friend (a patient-also a lawyer), and figures she was the only one that the secretary hadn't contacted about the phone. He called the patient and calmly said something like: One of my patient's is missing her phone. If your friend has it, could you please tell her to return the phone to the office by the end of the day? No questions asked. Otherwise, I'll be contacting the police to get this resolved.

What would you know, the phone was delivered to the dental office next door and in my hands in less than 15 minutes! Seriously. So awesome. I couldn't have been more overjoyed to see my phone! As it turns out this woman had deleted my mail information and was in the process of deleting all of my contacts. She was going to make it hers. What a tool. Who steals a phone? Who steals a phone from a 2 year old in a dental office? Obviously a crazy lady with red glasses.

Moral to the story: don't steal phones & make sure you have a rockstar for a dentist.

Fourth of July Staycation

Chris and I were fantasizing about going camping, hiking or doing something that involved getting out of the Salt Lake valley for our Fourth of July weekend. We made sure we had a good time, but we didn't really end up doing any of those things. Sort of.

We didn't feel like packing up the house & camping, so we decided to backyard camp instead. Penelope had a great time playing in the tent, but didn't actually end up sleeping in the tent. She was just much too excited to explore the backyard at 1am to sleep. She ended up sleeping in her crib. At about 5am the birds started squawking, so we also ended up in our own beds after a while. It was still fun.

Before we slept, we had a nice bonfire in the backyard with marshmallows, nutella, graham crackers and sausages. Nutella is the way to go if you want to make a good s'more, btw.

After we woke up & recovered from the late night, we headed up to Park City to wander around. We grabbed some lunch & headed to one of my favorite haunts: the duck pond. I remember going here several times a year with my family to feed the ducks. It was a real treat to share this moment with Chris & Penelope.

We headed to the Alpine slide to see if it was something that Penelope could do with us, but we totally bailed. I couldn't seem to justify spending $50 for all of us to go down a little slide. Someday we'll do it. Not yesterday, though.

We hung around Main Street & wandered around galleries. Some were definitely better than others. We walked through an art gallery of some photographer who put up field notes on his photos (cool), but I don't quite understand how you could get a wide-angle image with a 300mm lens. The lady at the gallery didn't get it either. She was ANNOYING with all caps!

Penelope had a grand time at the park just down the street from Main Street. She had the most fun hanging out in a little walkway tube. She also had a lot of fun spreading her legs & peeing all over part of the play structure. WTF. How did she get her diaper to move out of the way?!? Thankfully no one else saw so we were able to discretely clean up her mess.

We had a lot of fun, but now we're pooped. I'm certainly ready for a nap.

Mr. Elephant

For my portfolio to apply to the Industrial Design program at BYU, I was told to include sketches and drawings. Unfortunately I didn't have any good drawings, so this semester I came back to school for sixth or seventh hour art once a week or so. As of today, my drawing is complete.

TaDa!

My new blog

It's called It's Gotta Get Worse for a Day, and it's about my adventures as the youngest and only one at home. Hopefully it's not stupid. over and out.

-Brookinator

Flower Girl

Between the prairie-style dress, the moppy hair and the flower she's smelling; Penelope looks like a hippie. What a sweet little tree-hugger.

CHEESE

Penelope now knows that when I have the camera out she's supposed to say, "Cheese!"


She even puts my camera equipment up to her eye (like a lens or the flash or something) and faces my direction and says, "CHEESE!" like she's the one taking a photo. I tried to see if she would take a picture with my camera, but she backed out. Maybe it's because the camera weighs 15 lbs.

The Most Interesting Man in the World

Watching Chris study the GMAT isn't the most interesting thing in the world, but he was there & I wanted to test out my new flash diffuser. This is what Chris looks like on the nights when he's not pumping iron:

I Haven't had Hair this Short Since I was a Toddler.

Here's me with my giant mass of hair. I went without a haircut, not even a trim, for seventeen months. Yes that's right, seventeen months. This particular photo must have been shot on a Friday, because for the entire school year I crimped my hair every Friday. (Except one in March when I forgot...)


Here's me with my giant mass of hair again. Except obviously it's not attached to my head anymore. The top of the braid was a good inch and a half in diameter. It was intense.


Ta Da!

"Sweet" Graduation Gift

Really though, it's oober rad. I won a free cake from a lady in my ward back in January at a Relief Society event. But that's when I was doing the no-sweets thing with my friends and then I lost track of time and blah blah she never made my cake. Anyway, she decided to surprise me with this fine work of art. It's fashioned after my Graduation Announcements. Thanks Margie!

Penelope Video: Bowls for Shoes

Don't worry, I washed them before using them with food.

Siblings

At Scott's birthday party on Thursday, I made Chris, Scott and Lindsay pose for a family photo. Chris boasted of his muscles and Scott suggested that he and Lindsay test them out by jumping on Chris's back. Great idea!

Funny Penelope Videos

I've been emailing these videos around to the grandparents for the last couple of months, may as well start posting them here.



1. Penelope just randomly decides that she's a monkey in the middle of the line at Cafe Rio. She hung off the railing for a good 30 seconds before I could get the video going. Her attempt here is a little distracted, but so cute.



2. Penelope was insistent on wearing my coat sometime last month. She pranced around for a good 2 hours in it!



3. Penelope and I were at a birthday party where she discovered her love for frosting and cupcakes. Her messy face just cracks me up!

Muscles

Chris just bought a power rack for our basement. It's huge. I'm not sure we can fit much of anything else in the basement now.


Last night, Chris and I had a great time working out & being silly. Chris usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to do his full work out, but last night. . . it took us two hours. My neon red unitard could have been a distraction. Not sure.


I just started the workout regimen that Chris has been doing for the last 5+ months; I'm super sore, but pretty excited about the whole thing!

Thank Heavens for the Internets.

Chris and Scott had fun ripping in half the only telephone book we have in the house.
Of course, Scott was disappointed that we only had one lying around.



Good thing we've got the internets.

"A man without a mustache is like a cup of tea without Sugar" -Old English Proverb

I have decided to compile a small stash of staches because I love them so much. Yet there is a fine line between a flaming hot mustache and looking like a little kid who just ate a chocolate bar. So here are my hots and nots.

Not.

The uni and soul patch thing just make it that much more hideous. We are not the three musketeers here. (Though we may be a mustacheer... that was lame. sorry.)

Hot.

A well groomed thick stache with nicely shaped brows and fluffy hair. Lovely.

Not.

Makes me want to throw up in my pants. Ew. I can't even comment.

Hot.

Not only a fabulous swimmer, but a fabulous facial hairer as well. And the semi-unkempt hair is just an added plus.

Not.

Far too triangular. It's just so thick and yet short and I don't even know how to say it, but it's bad.

Hot.

Yes. Yes. and... yes. Perfect thickness, and length, and it's just superb.

Not.

Yes I had to include a lady-stache. It was necessary. It was part of a contest so I give her a few kudos, because she had cajones, but it's still gross.

Hot.

I can't figure out why I like this. It's really very thick, but the way it sits on his face is just breath taking. I can't get over it.

Not.

In Brooke's words, "Oh Geez." Everything about this man and his choice of hair is unacceptable.

Hottest.

I saved the best for last. I want my husband to have a stache like this. It's the ideal 80s mustache of my dreams. Thanks Tommy for showing the world how it's done.

All Grown Up

I swear Penelope aged a whole year on her birthday. She just seems so old to me now.



Last Thursday, Penelope and I thought we'd hit up D.I. on our way back from a blogging brunch. While we were browsing the shoe department, Penelope snatched some green rain boots off the shelf. She frantically tore off her shoes to put the boots on.


I tried to take them off, but she wouldn't budge! Well, I guess Penelope needed a new pair of boots. We bought them. She wouldn't even take them off to take a bath! I even tried hiding them from her by putting them on a high shelf in her closet, but she found a way to get them down.

Finally, on Friday we figured out why she had this obsession with her boots. While Linnley was baby sitting, they were watching Kipper (Penelope's favorite show) and Kipper has the same pair of green rain boots! Penelope pointed that out to Linnley by pointing and screaming, "BOOTS!"

Happy Birthday, Goo!

Penelope is TWO now. I just can't believe how fast that went.

My new flash was put to good use this morning!

This morning Penelope woke up at 6am all ready to start her birthday festivities. I made some yummy sticky buns that we used as her "cake". She needed no direction from us to blow out the candles besides a few shrieks of warning when she tried to touch the flame.

Before the sticky buns were done, she was whining and whining. This was our conversation:

Me: Do you want a nana?
P: NO. (more whining)

Me: Do you want some milk?
P: NO. (more whining)

Me: Do you want some candy?
P: NO. (more whining)

Me: Do you want some toast?
P: NO. (more whining)

Me: Do you want some chocolate?
P: NO. (more whining)

Me: Do you want to open some presents?
P: OKAY!!

Oh my goodness. This girl cracks me up.

P.S. Notice the photo is just slightly darker without the flash?