Thursday, November 12, 2009

Penelope Laughing :)




she's one happy baby :)

Monday, November 9, 2009

Thinking Ahead for the Holidays...

For those of you who are interested ( a few people have asked me what to get for Penelope for Christmas...), I created a "wish list" for Penelope at Target. To view it online - go to Target.com and type in "Penelope Primm" in the Gift Registries and Lists under "Target Lists". You can also access it at the Registry kiosk at any Target Store.

We're pretty set for clothes for a while... but I know how hard it is to resist those adorable little girl outfits... so if there is something that you see that is just overwhelmingly adorable, please buy it size 12 months or larger. Preferably even size 18 or 24 months.

2 Months old and the beginning of CLOTH DIAPERS!!!

Penelope is officially 2 months old! I cannot believe how fast time is going! And how many disposable diapers we have gone through! Haha! Since we are finally done traveling for a while and Penelope (and her bladder) has gotten a little bigger we have decided to go ahead and start using cloth diapers :)
We made the decision to use them early on in my pregnancy. Just the fact that disposables are such an expense and are so bad for the environment. (Did you know that it takes several hundreds of years for a disposable diaper to decompose?! Some of the plastics used in them will actually never decompose!) That's ridiculous considering that Americans put roughly 5 million TONS of diapers into landfills annually - and it takes 80,000 pounds of plastic and 200,000 trees to make those diapers every year.
So we decided to do our part and try out the cloth diapers. And to my surprise, they're really not difficult to use or clean. They make so many different types that make the whole process so much easier than the traditional old-fashioned way of cloth diapering. Since we're just starting out, I decided to buy a few different styles of cloth diapers to see which brand I like best. Above is a picture of Penelope wearing a "Bumkins" brand diaper cover - and inside I have been using the traditional pre-folded cloth diapers that the Gerber brand makes. Below is a picture of her with a "Bambino Mio" brand cover, also with a Gerber pre-fold inside. I have also been trying a "G" diaper brand cloth cover... but so far the "Bumpkins" brand seems to work the best - however, since the fabric of them is super thin and white I found that, when Penny's icky, yellow newborn poop gets on them, they stain rather easy.


And the below picture here is Penelope in a "BumGenius" brand all-in-one style diaper. These are the best BY FAR! They are so easy to use and clean! And the best part about them is that they are size adjustable - which means that this same diaper will fit her from now until she is potty trained. The above brands are only fitted styles - which would mean that, once she outgrows these covers, I will have to buy the next size, much like clothing.
With the all-in-one styles, you don't have to deal with all the the inserts as much as you do with the diaper covers. The cloth insert goes inside the diaper and instead of just changing the insert, you change the whole diaper much like you would a disposable. Then when washing, you separate the insert from the liner and wash them all together. The only down side to the all-in-one styles is that you need a pretty good stack of them in order to use them exclusively. And at $20 each, it's going to take a while for us to stock up on a decent stack of them... so we plan to predominantly us the BumGenius brand, but when those are in the wash - we'll use the above brands.


In other news, I have been working hard at trying to finish Penelope's nursery! My plan is to start moving her in there sometime after she turns 3 months old. (Right now she sleeps in a bassinet in our bedroom). For the past several nights she has slept for up to seven hours straight. So hopefully it won't be too long before she starts sleeping all the way through the night. She has been changing so much these past few weeks. She has been becoming less and less fussy and has been staying content for longer periods of time without being held. She LOVES sitting in her swing, which has a toy bar and plays songs that keep her entertained. She has been smiling a lot and has even been laughing a little bit (but not out loud yet). She has also been doing a lot of cooing and blowing bubbles and raspberries.


I finally got her giraffe put up the other day and am very pleased with the way it turned out! It is hand cut from vintage wall paper and is super cute! I ordered it from a company that custom makes them in England. It is what inspired the rest of the wall art that I made for the room :)


Not much going on for the next few weeks. We're getting excited for Mary Ellen to visit in a couple of weeks and to go up North for Thanksgiving. I plan to start taking her to a "Mornings with Mommy" class that they have at the hospital she was delivered at on Thursday mornings.

Happy Halloween from Penelo-pumpkin!


Penelope celebrated her first Halloween! We had lots of fun - we were able to spend the holiday up in Northern Wisconsin with my family at my parent's house. Penelope had LOTS of visitors and received lots of cute gifts from friends and family. Below is a picture of her with her cousin, Zoe Jane. They were so cute in their Halloween outfits!


Alan and I were fortunate enough to be able to go out with some of my childhood friends Halloween night - Grandma was more than happy to watch both Penelope and Zoe that night. However, at the last minute my friend told me that we had to come to the bar in costume... and Alan and I hadn't come up with anything because we didn't think that we were going to have to dress up... but an hour before we left for the bars I whipped these costumes up:


....we're an American Tourist couple... complete with matching Hawaiian shirts, fanny packs, gaudy jewelery and awesome khakis. All thanks to my mother's closet :)

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Penelope in California!

Well, Penelope's first trip to California was a success! She was such a good little traveler (with the exception of our final flight from Austin to Milwaukee... but with almost 4 hours in delays, we were all a bit cranky!)



We got to visit with a lot of family and friends that were very excited to meet her! Below is a 4 generations photo of Penelope with Alan, her Grandpa - John and her Great-Grandpa - Harold. While visiting with them we figured out that Penelope is the first girl to be born to the Primm family in over 100 years!


We were able to get Penelope baptized while we were there - at the Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, CA... Alan's brother, Steven and his wife, Jill are her God Parents :)


A lot of Alan's family's friends were able to join us in celebrating Penelope's baptism - we thank them all for coming!


Mary Ellen was head over heals in love with her new grandbaby! I don't think she put her down the whole time we were there!


Jill and Steven kind of liked her too :)


Our time spent out there just seemed to fly by. Between the baptism and Jill and Steven's wedding and visiting family, we were pretty busy almost every day that we were there... but we were able to hit the beach at least one day while there. So I was finally able to put Penny in this adorable little baby bikini that I have had since I was about 6 months pregnant. Words cannot describe how excited I was to finally be able to put her in it and tote her, and our huge convoy of baby gear to the ocean!


My little beach babe! I think some of that relaxed surfer mentality stuck on her because ever since we got back to Wisconsin, she has been the most peaceful and content little baby. She is especially loving to hang out in her swing!