More pictures--Thanksgiving weekend

Penny got to meet our friends from NY, Shabana and David. She showed them both sides of her personality.
Here we are playing on the play mat that we are borrowing from Grant. Penny loves all the toys.

Shabana and David gave Penny the cutest little outfits. Here she is in one of them:

Keeping warm! Chris shoveled snow on Sunday and then we had a roaring fire most of the day.

Thanksgiving and Great Grandma's visit

Okay, folks, here's a picture filled post!!

Here are Penny and Cece during tummy time. Look at her hold her head up! We do a few minutes multiple times a day. Trying to do 10 minutes at once makes her cranky. I try to convince her that I didn't know how to hold my head up either and it is very difficult but she still doesn't think I'm sympathetic enough when she wants to stop.

Way to go Penny!

This week, Penelope met her Great Grandmother from Virginia. She has been a day care teacher for years so they hit it off. GGMA also has magic baby nap dust like the grandmas. Here they are playing with the bumbo.

Great Aunt Janet and Penny doing the hokey pokey

Last night Chris made a fire in our fireplace for the first time this yearThanksgiving day I tried to put Penny's Go Go booties on (they are from Lacey and are so adorable) They are still too big but I got this great picture.Here we are Thanksgiving morning

On Thanksgiving we went to Julie and Jennifer's place in St Paul (For the non-Strand family, these are Chris's grandfather's cousin's daughter's house...their entire family has been so wonderful to us since we moved to Minnesota) Here is Chris with a very clean plate. The food was obviously excellent!

Roger, Lee, and Chris

Great Grandma and Penny

Grandma, me and Chris

Me and Chris

Penny slept through the entire meal. Here she is with Lila, the sweetest dog I've ever met. She really could be one of those therapy dogs or go hang out at a senior citizen center.

This is Audrey--she wanted to play with Penelope. The crazy thing is that Audrey is 14 months so exactly the same age Penny will be next year at Thanksgiving. Boggles my mind!Jill and Marilyn

Evan face planting himself into the ottoman

It's a lot of fun!Penny the person meets Penny the bunny (her name is short for Pennsylvania)

Julie and Penny--didn't catch a picture of Jennifer but I'll do that next time!

Santa Claus, Laundry Complete or Laura Cooking?

Which one isn't real? Laundry complete, of course! How do Jon and Kate or the Duggars keep up with it? Ahem...I should mention prior to Penny I only did laundry on the weekends, and before we had our own washer and dryer we headed to the laundromat when we had run out of every clean piece of clothing in our posession. I knew I was committing myself to at least every other day by doing cloth diapers, but I didn't know that spit up can happen at any time. I asked the dr about this and she said it is perfectly normal for Penny to spit up an hour after a meal since her stomach is getting larger. She isn't one of those babies that does it really often, but there is no warning. That means Mommy goes through a lot more outfits then she used to. We did get almost everything washed this weekend...folded and put away will probably be another day or two! :)

Look how big Penny is now...she isn't going to fit in the bassinet much longer!



On the fun side we visited Santa Claus this weekend. My grandma Henry would be grumbling about us seeing Santa and listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving, but who wants to wait in line with an infant? Plus, I know all the words to Christmas music and can sing to Penny in the car. But I'll wait to post the Santa and Penny pictures. There are a few cute ones for our Christmas card. She actually woke up for the picture, but didn't look at Santa. Here are some of Penny as we were walking around the mall.

As for Laura cooking, yes, it is true, and I took pictures of my cobbler to prove it! Last week I watched way too much Food Network. I emailed a few recipes to Chris so he made those for dinner. What a great guy! Then I saw Sunny make a peach and blueberry cobbler. Chris doesn't like either of those fruits and he won't make food he doesn't like so it was up to me. Okay, the crust was store bought and there were about 6 ingredients, but this is from the girl who mixed up the two recipes on the bisquick box and made some sort of biscuit waffle thing. (That was only a few months ago)

Not quite pretty enough for a holiday table, but it was really yummy :)

And here's pictures of Daddy and his little girl

Well, I'm off to play with Miss Smiley Girl. She is so talkative and smiley now and becoming quite ticklish.

2 month check up

On Tuesday we went to the dr.'s office and to Penelope's day care for a visit. We arrived at nap time, but the babies were starting to wake up. Most of them are older (10-15 months), but there will be another young baby starting in December as well. They already have a crib and swing with her name on it. I really like the teacher we've met. It is a small family owned center. If we do get an opening in the Spanish immersion daycare we will move her there because that preschool program is amazing, but for now this is a very good situation. The daycare is less than 5 minutes from my work so I'm going to plan to go at lunch. Since I've been working from home part time this month I'm only going back to work two days a week in December. Plus, Chris has some extra vacation time to use so Penny won't be starting daycare until mid December. In January she will start going 4 days a week until mid February. I'm so thankful that my boss worked out this gradual plan for me. It is a win/win for all of us I think. And just in case anyone wants to know how to spread their 12 weeks of FMLA across a longer time period, check out workoptions.com. My CEO gave me this website and it was wonderful to help me figure out a gradual build up of a part time schedule and how to calcualte it.

Anyways on to our two month check. Here are her stats:
Height: 23 1/4 inches (she is still in the 75th percentile!!)
Weight: 11 lbs 3 oz (50th percentile---Penelope, I promise I won't post your weight or pooping habits online when you are older!!)

Many of my friends warned me that they cried when their babies got shots (it is 4 shots at 2 months). I was expecting something really dreadful but it wasn't that bad. In fact the red faced scream was pretty similar to the daily crying we had for the first month when she went from quiet to five alarm fire scream and nothing in between. It is so nice that she has different types of cries now. When she was 2 weeks old Chris and I were shocked that anyone could forget how hard it was and would have more babies, but he has already forgotten the details! This was the conversation coming back from the Dr's office:

Me: Well, that wasn't too bad. It was a lot like her crying when she was little.
Chris: Yeah, I guess so.
Me: Remember when your mom was holding her and she screamed so hard she choked herself and it stopped her crying?
Chris: Oh, I don't really remember.
Me: You don't?! Or how bout the time when we stayed up till 4 am and nothing was working?
Chris: Did we stay up that late?
Me: Oh my gosh! You are forgetting already! We said we wouldn't forget how hard it was.
Chris: No, I'm not forgetting. It still is marked in my mind First two weeks with baby is brutal, but all the details run together.

And I can't blame him. I never really knew what it meant to have your heart skip a beat, but yesterday I kissed Penny's cheek and she gave a great big smile. I know lots of people say they just want to eat babies up for being so cute, but I always have an urge to give her a huge bear hug....although, I do admit to nibbling on her toes every now and again :)

Here are pictures at the dr.'s office
Waiting for the dr..."why doesn't mommy match my cloth diaper with my onesie? This is embarrasing!"
You are so silly!
Hanging out with DaddyYeah, I'm extra long...mommy is so excited for me!
All snuggled up after my shots

Then here are some pictures of us playing the other day.

I put a rattle in Penny's hand and she moved it back and forth. I don't think she had a clue why I was clapping and jumping up and down.
Yay! A picture of a smile! We were practicing rolling over.
Penny hanging out with her monkey.
Looking at the other baby in the mirror
A non-pink outfit--gotta love the fleece hoodie vest.

The Mom Brain

Okay, so I heard lots about the "mom brain" when I was pregnant. Sure, I expected I'd be forgetful and lose things, but that's pretty much status quo for me. For example, my first semester of college I had to replace my ID 5 times! I would swipe it at the dining hall, put it on the tray, and then toss it in the trash with my food. By second semester I got one of those ID lanyards to wear around my neck. It tends to happen when I need to focus on class or work and then everything around me suffers. I thought motherhood would be the same...yes, I've had store clerks have to chase me and give my credit card back 3 different times this month, but I have not forgotten one thing that I needed in the diaper bag yet. All of this I was expecting. I was not expecting the loss of vocabulary.

It must be due to the lack of sleep or energy my body is putting towards milk production but whatever it is I truly have lost my words. My mind goes completly blank. The first time was really bad. It happened when I had to take Cece to the vet and I was talking to Penny (that's a plus about being a parent. I can say I was talking to Penny when before I was just being crazy and talking out loud to myself). Well, anyways, we needed to leave and I was saying "where's that thing? You know, it rings so if Chris needs me...what is that?! Oh my phone! Where's my phone?" I wish it was words I don't use often like incorrigible or precipice, but no, it is words like phone. And it happens when I'm put on the spot. This weekend we were at brunch and the waitress asked how I'd like my eggs. I had nothing in my head and then it came slowly where I felt like I was going through a dictionary of eggs:
"sunnyside up--no, what are you thinking?! That is a health hazard, scrambled--maybe, but I want the one where it is runny, but kind of hard boiled sort of...oh poached!" It probably was only a few seconds for me to do this and say poached but it felt like I made the waitress wait forever. Then there's the problem of mixing up opposites. I told a friend how Penny and I walked the track at the library...oops, did I say library, I meant the gym!
Please tell me my words will come back. The days where I get a nap are better, but I've heard mom brain often lasts through the toddler years. So if one day you are talking to me and I give you a blank stare just know that I'm relearning my vocabulary by reading board books to Penny.

fly by weekend!

This was the fastest weekend ever!! Aunt Laura came to visit from NY. We took Penny to mall of america. She slept through her first lesson in holiday commercialism. The American Girl store opened this weekend so it was pretty crazy. Other than that we relaxed and had a great time. Penny looks especially chubby in these pictures. I didn't notice until I downloaded the pictures and her facial expressions make me laugh every time I look at them. I hope everyone enjoys.

P.S.

A big happy birthday to Papa John from Penny Jane :)