Happy Holidays from the sweetest little baby in town :)

Christmas is finally here! There are so many fun things happening within the next week - we cannot wait! The snow just started falling last night - and by Christmas, it will be a winter wonderland around here :) Penelope seems to be getting excited too! She has started laughing out loud now and is getting tickle-ish... especially around her neck. She has begun to grasp toys on her own know... if her rattle is at her side, she will search for it with her hands and grab it and bring it to her mouth (she sucks on EVERYTHING! If it is in her hand - it will most definitely make it's way to her mouth!) She can now hold her head straight up when she is on her belly and can also pull herself into sitting when she is in a reclined position - which is awesome!


We just had opened our presents to each other tonight - we got her a rocking giraffe (like a rocking horse... but it's a giraffe), a high chair, a fun ball, some little wooden animals and her first baby doll... the doll's name just happened to be Abby - so we'll call her Abbey Road :)

We will be leaving for my parents' home in northern Wisconsin sometime tomorrow and then on Christmas Eve we have a snow storm to look forward to! We're excited to see our family and friends - we have family parties Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and then Saturday night Nana gets to watch Penny so that Alan and I can go to a Solstice bonfire that my best friend's boyfriend's parents have every year. Alan will come back to Milwaukee on Sunday, but Penny and I will be staying until the following weekend - then my mother will bring us back home and spend New Years with us in Milwaukee!

We were able to take Penny to go see Santa last weekend with my brother, Ryan, his wife, Jenny and their daughters. She sat so nicely on his lap and he was absolutely in love with her! (I bet she was a load off the 'ole guys knee!)

Mommy had fun trying to come up with a cute (and very last minute) picture for this year's Christmas card - the first photo up top was the winner! But these two of her sitting her Bumbo were also very cute! The snowman was given to her by Alan's mother, Mary Ellen - and she is obsessed with it! She cannot get enough of it - it lights up and changes colors and sparkles and it keeps her fascinated.



...and here she is with her "baby's first Christmas Ornament"! It took me FOREVER to find the perfect one - and this one was a keeper (that is her foot print in there!) It was so hard to find a classic looking one that was sans corny characters and modern colors - we wanted something simply and timeless. It does have a cheesy saying on it... "The first steps a baby takes... are into your heart"... but I can live with that... it actually fits us perfectly because that is exactly what it said on the card that I gave to Alan to tell him we were having a baby :).

Well we hope that everyone out there has a Happy Holidays and keeps safe and warm!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Love, Alan, Becky and Penelope!

Has it been 3 months already?!

Today is Penelope's 3 month Birthday! She's getting so big already - time is just flying by! I had to take her in to the pediatrician's office yesterday and she weighed in at 12 lbs on the dot! Such a big girl. At 3 months of age, Penny can reach toward things and sometimes even grasp objects and pull them to her mouth, she can hold her hands together and bring them to her mouth, she is a champ at holding her head up (she always wants to be sitting upright so that she can look around), and she can even push her shoulders up off the ground with her arms when laying on her belly! According to the pediatrician, that is pretty advanced - usually babies cannot do these things until they are 4-6 months of age - so she's a little mighty mouse! Above is a picture of her in her Bumbo chair - she LOVES sitting in it. It allows her to sit up and look around without mommy having to hold her all the time!

We also learned that she has eczema at this last pediatrician visit. She has had a small rash on the top of her head and on her cheeks for the past several weeks and we thought it to be cradle cap - but yesterday it had spread to her entire body, so I took her in to get it checked out again. Luckily, I had been using Aquaphor to treat the rash... and, as it turns out, that is what they usually prescribe as an over-the-counter treatment for eczema... but she had had a break out all over, and that required a stronger, medicated ointment. Since I had been treating the rash so well, it stayed relatively controlled and minor, even the pediatrician had thought that it was only cradle cap. The doctor gave me a list of things that could have caused it to break out and spread. It only took one application of her new ointment and the rash has almost completely gone away.

Now that we have all that icky-ness delt with things have been going a lot smoother around here. Penelope has been super happy and giggly lately. She went through a few nights last week where she was waking up a few times in the middle of the night to eat - and I was afraid it was going to be a habit, but fortunately, she has gone back to sleeping from about 10:30pm - 6:00am. So tonight, we're going to be brave and start transitioning Penny to the crib in her Nursery. Up until now, she has been sleeping in a playpen in my and Alan's room. I'll bet she'll sleep better than I will tonight...

We're starting to get excited to celebrate Penelope's first Christmas - it is less than three weeks away! For the past week or so, we have been digging out and setting up the Christmas decorations. Today we bought her first stocking as well as some cute Christmas jammies - but are still on the hunt for the perfect "Baby's first Christmas" ornament.

Below are some fun photos from the past few weeks - enjoy!

The Primm Family :) ... at my Parents home in northern Wisconsin. We went there for a visit just before Thanksgiving.

She is becoming a Daddy's Girl :)
She actually loves reaching for and playing with Alan's beard!

Rub-a-dub-dub Penelope's in the tub! She loves her baths... until you take her out!

Such a face! She was really happy and playing just before I took this photo. She was actually mid-laugh and just all of a sudden stopped and cracked this sad little face! We're going to be in a lot of trouble when she learns how to use that pout to get what she wants!