A Few Things About Peanut

There are a few things that have happened this week that I can't ever forget.

1. She pooped in the toilet all by herself! Every time I change her poopy diapers she insists on seeing it. It's like she refuses to think that she actually deposited a dirty investment in her diaper unless she can see proof. Well, I tell her: "Pen, you can see your poop if you go in a toilet," on the off chance that she might actually take me up on that offer. It's a strange incentive, I know.

Pen is pretty good at warning us before she makes her dirty deposit, but I've never quite been able to get her to do it on the toilet. I'll sit her on the toilet for a couple of minutes, she'll pee, ask for her diaper then poop in the diaper about 5 minutes later. This week I was determined would be different. I kept telling her when she was on the potty that I'd go & buy her lots & lots of candy if she pooped on the toilet. SHE DID IT. Funny thing, she wanted to look at her poop more than she wanted the candy. She even insisted on smelling the poop. Go right ahead, my dear. After she smelled it, she just kept chanting, "Eww, disgusting!"

Potty training victory will soon be ours. I just know it.

2. It snowed this week. Penelope LOVES playing in the snow; she especially loves making snowmen & snowballs. The morning after, Pen & I were in my studio working on a project when Penelope noticed the maintenance guys shoveling our walks. Clearly upset by their industriousness, she started banging as hard as she could on the window & yelling at them, "DOP! DOP!! NO CLEAN! NO CLEAN SNOW!!!" She did that for a few minutes before giving up, stomping into the hallway, plopping on the floor & pouting, "Dammit, no clean snow."

First, I'm not swearing anymore & second, she hasn't said that word since Christmas, so you can imagine my shock when she used it. I was also shocked at how well she used it, too. My little girl knows how to swear.

3. Penelope is now in a "toddler bed" a.k.a. her Pteranodon nest. She loves dinosaur train, so we call her tent her Pteranodon nest to get her excited about being in there. We've been laying down the law the last couple of weeks to try & keep her in her tent when she goes down for naps & bedtime. We've had quite a bit of success, too! Penelope now knows that if she gets out, not only will we turn off her doggy light, but we'll shut the door & give her a time out if necessary. We're NOT messing around here. I don't want to be dealing with bedtime training when Felix comes to town!

The other day, she woke up from her nap, got out of her tent, knocked on the door & ran back into her tent to wait for me to get her! I thought it was super adorable. She really is a good little girl.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Penelope Video: Bowls for Shoes

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

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!

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?

Helmet Head

Tonight we hung out at my grandma & grandpa Newton's house. It was so fun to take Penelope into the play room to play with the same toys I did when I was her age. She had so much fun with the vintage dolls and super old-school rocking horse. But. . .




Her favorite item to play with was the helmet. She kept it on until I took it off (about 5 minutes).

Bed Hair

We've had some good bed hair recently. Penelope's hair is getting a lot longer and much more unruly. Now I'm remembering my mom spraying "no more tangles" in my hair and brushing it when I was little. I remember she did that at night and put our hair in curlers on Saturday nights so we'd have curly hair for church.


Penelope is getting to a fun stage where I could put little pigtails in her hair, but I'm WAY TOO lazy to find her some good elastic bands.

See where Penelope gets it? I slept with my hair wet. It's always fun to see what happens when I sleep like that.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Chris and I have noticed Penelope's uncanny sense of coordination. Maybe we're super proud parents, but we're just constantly amazed at how well she can keep a beat, shake her booty and twirl in circles.

Recently, I came across some old ballet costumes. One that I wore when I was four looked particularly small, possibly the size for a 16 month old. As soon as Penelope squeezed into that little leo she pranced around the house like a little princess. Or like someone from Alice and wonderland (which is what the performance the costume was for).

Doesn't she look like she's walking the runway?

I don't know where this dance move came from, but it's adorable.

Striking a pose.

Here I am at four years old, posing for the camera. Some days I miss ballet tremendously. I hope Penelope will love dance as much as I do.

Penelope's First Steps

Just last Saturday, Chris was watching Penelope and thought it might be cool to see if she'd walk to him. Over the last week she had become far more confident in standing. So she did it! She walked. She's not off and running yet, but she stands a lot longer and may take a few steps.





It's really cute to see her walk. She just started grabbing at her chest to balance herself. It's really, really cute.

More Nelly Photos

Last Sunday the lighting was just so even and beautiful I had to take that opportunity to get some more recent photos of our little girl. Penelope is becoming more and more like a toddler. It's just crazy to see her grow up.




Thanks Brooke for helping out with getting Penelope's attention!

Sunny, 107º with ZERO Chance of Snow

Sometimes I really hate blogger and how I can't adjust the image size without making it blurry. Oh well, you get the idea. Penelope left these puppies on for about five minutes without touching them! She's got a thing for glasses.

Squeaky Clean

Thanks to Chris for bringing me my camera during Pen's bath. Penelope was really cute today in the tub. It sure is a great remedy for a sour mood.

Happy Birthday Pen!

Happy Birthday, Penelope, Nelly, Nels Bells, Nels, Nels A PEA, Pearl, Belle, Goobie, Pen, Lope, PP, Little P, Miss P, Nelly Pea. . .



I can't believe that it was a whole year ago that you made your very timely debut. Not only were you born at just the right time to give Chris his full two weeks of parental leave, but you were also born on your cousin's birthday and Earth (aka Earf) day.

It's been a good/really, really stinking hard year. You've grown a lot. Your head is enormous. Your little body is slimming down and lengthening (boy, will I miss those chubs!) and learning how to do all sorts of cool things! You're scootching, almost crawling and just dying to walk. You've mastered sitting and drinking a bottle at the same time, drinking out of a straw, pulling yourself to stand, clapping, flapping your elbows around with your hands on your ears, being the center of attention, eating strange foods like sauerkraut and red curry.

We've had a great time with you this year. Happy birthday my dove. Your mommy and daddy love you oh so very much.