I have been realizing that I have been doing a terrible job of updating this blog about specific things about Penny and her development... and I really wish that I would do better at doing that.

Penelope has been growing into such a wonderful person. She has so much spirit and definitely makes our days interesting.
She has been turning into such a little kid lately, it's nuts. This can mostly be seen in her rise in activity level. Go go go. Always. Too busy for anything but play - she is always doing something. If you try to get her to do anything, she will even say, "Just a minute, mama - I'm busy. I'm too busy."

She has excellent manners. There have been a lot of pleases and thank yous... when she wants something, she asks, "may I?" ... there's a homeless man that sits outside of our library, reading with his dog (super sweet pair) and Penny stopped and was even polite enough to ask, "may I pet your dog please?"
She'll order her own meal at a restaurant and is always very polite to the waitresses.
She has been becoming more and more social. She use to just glare at EVERYONE, upon meeting, but now she'll wave and say, "hi" - if's a woman she's meeting, she still glares, but with men and children, she's very talkative. She LOVES men. There have been a lot of different guys coming in and out of the house lately to remodel the bathroom and replace the windows throughout the house and she is heavily infatuated with each and every one of them. We were at the park the other day and she even went up to a total stranger (the father of another child playing at the playground) and started leading him around the play set by the hand. Super cute, but scares the daylights out of me.

Penelope loves to sing and is quite the little actress - but don't be fooled, she does not do requests often. She's not that quick to appease. She's also not a huge dancer. I play music for her often and I dance like a maniac, trying to get her to join me... but to no avail. I learned by chance though, that Penelope has disco fever. Play some Bee Gees or Abba and you have a little dancing queen on your hands.







Penny freaks me out sometimes. She loves to cut things. I haven't gotten her a pair of real safety scissors yet so she can slice up paper, but she has a pair of play-doh scissors and has a few play knives that came with various food sets and she is obsessed. One of such sets in a sushi set - it comes with little, wooden pieces of sushi that velcro together and you can "cut" them apart with a giant, wooden cleaver. She loves that cleaver so much, she asks to sleep with it. She always asking to cut things and even asks if she can cut me. Little scary.

Penny loves to ride bike - both her on her trike, peddling around by herself or riding in her seat on the back of her daddy's bike.
She can count to 10 and knows her alphabet. She can even recognize all of the vowels (not that I planned it that way, those just happened to be the ones she recognizes).
She can draw circles and is hell bent on figuring out the square. She can recognize circles, squares, triangles and hearts.
Knows her colors, but rarely admits it. She thinks it's hilarious to say that everything is orange. Orange is her favorite color.

She eats her vegetables and she loves them. Raw or cooked - there are very few that she doesn't like. She has always been pretty good about trying new foods - we previously thought that she did not like mushrooms, but the other day, we were having stir fry and she stood up and picked them right out of the serving bowl and loved them.

Penelope can speak in full sentences - I love being able to have real conversations and discussions with her. Some are fun, but some are necessary to explain why she can't do certain things. Like why she can't drive or wear a bra yet. Why she can't cook dinner by herself on the stove and why she needs to sleep. I love being able to hear her perspective on things and love hearing her made-up, little stories even more.
She even makes up her own songs, which is the cutest thing of all. We paid a visit to my sister and her family in Arizona a few weeks ago - on the 6 hour car ride there, she started singing about boobies... went something like, " oooh Boobies! I like your milk! YUUUUUM!"

For quite a while now, she has liked to play with little animal toys - she has them walk around and talk to each other. This was something she developed pretty early, but she's expanded on it quite a bit in the past few months. We got her a doll house with a little doll family for Christmas this past year and she loves it.
She also likes to pretend to be certain characters from her books or movies or a certain animal. Often she is a baby kitty or a puppy. Both of these kinds of play are pretty advanced for her age level.

March Update

It amazes me every day, when I realize just how fast time goes by. I guess that happens when you're having fun, right? Did you also just realize that it's already half way through March? I'm shocked, this is just insane.

Penelope is now exactly 2 1/2 years old and I am 6 months pregnant with her baby sister, who we are calling Olive for now :)
It is crazy to think that in four very (veryveryveryveryveryveryvery) short months, we will be a family of four and our little Penelope will be turning 3 shortly afterward. As excited as I am to be going into this next chapter of our lives, I can't help but be a little sad for this one to be ending - having just one child and being able to have so much one on one time. I greatly hope that things continue to go well for us and that we continue to be able to remember to enjoy every little minute with BOTH of our girls, both together and separately. I have already caught myself calling them "the girls" on a few occasions and I feel that it's very important to remember to say "Penelope and Olive" more in order to keep them separate. They are unique individuals. Even today.
I can already tell that Olive is much different than Penelope, even though we haven't officially met yet. Her movements are so much different... and so much calmer. Not that Penelope is a complete maniac that can't sit still for 2 seconds, but she is active and is quite the busy body. In the womb, you knew when Penny was awake. I felt her stretches and wiggles all day... and it hasn't changed. You KNOW when Penny is awake and all day, she is always up to something. She is full of life and likes to let you know! Olive, on the other hand, has very subtle movements. I usually can't feel her unless I'm sitting down and being mindful of her. This is nice because it makes it easier to get things done around here. It will be interesting so see if Olive is as much the same as she was in the womb as Penelope was.

Penelope and I have been busy lately. Alan has been working for two months now and the two of us are sick of not having a routine - so we're busy working on creating one. We have attempted many times since moving here seven months ago (REALLY?! It was SEVEN months ago, that we moved here. INSANITY!) to join a local play group and have pretty much failed every time. Everyone wants you to pay money to join their group... and I have a hard time doing this. Why should I pay to be your friend? We just want to play!
We did join a MOPS group that is held every other Thursday at a local church, and like it. It is a bit pricey, but it includes breakfast, crafts and speakers - and the gave me a huge discount when the found out Alan was unemployed.
Recently, we joined a stroller fitness group called Stroller Strides that meets every Wednesday and has a playgroup afterward. We LOVE it! Only $25 a month and mommy gets to workout and Penny gets to play with her friends. Win/win.

I hope I'm not jinxing myself by mentioning it... but we have also been included with a weekly play group on Mondays as well. It's a group of moms in the area that meet up at local parks to play. Super awesome. Even more awesome is that they're my kind of ladies. Most of them delivered at the birth center that we will be having Olive at and are in to eating and living healthier lives, like Alan and I are. Not that these are things that I require to make friends with people, but it is awesome to have common interests and similar life styles. Some people are more laid back with it and others are complete granola moms... and I'm somewhere in the middle. Penelope gets along with their kids really well too. There's a lot of boys and she tags right along with them and even shows them a thing or two (that's my girl!).
We had first attended one of their play dates back in November, but was forgotten on their e-mail list. I asked once, but didn't want to be pushy. A few weeks ago, one of the moms finally remembered us and invited us again - we got an e-mail to join them next time too and am really looking forward to it! Fingers crossed that they keep us in the loop and we can keep coming and, eventually maybe even become good friends.
In moving to California, I hadn't anticipated that it would take so long to make friends. In Gleason, all of my friends were people I had grown up with - in Milwaukee, my friends were people that I had worked or gone to college with or, later, moms that I met through the hospital where we gave birth to Penelope. Here, though, I don't really have many places to meet potential playmates. People look at you funny when you approach them in the park and every playgroup I find online either wants you to pay to join or you have to be of a certain ethnicity. I keep reminding myself that we're still in a transitional phase and that things will slowly start to fall into place... and I can already see this happening, but I am very anxious for California to feel like home for us.

In other news, Penny is moving on up to a big girl bed! She has been crawling out of her crib for a few weeks now and it's time. Mary Ellen was very kind and purchased her a beautiful twin bed from Pottery Barn Kids for her - and Penelope is pretty smitten with it :)
 


Now that she has been in her twin bed for a bit, it's a little silly to see this picture of her in her crib - she looks way too big for it! We were very fortunate that she lasted as long as she did in her crib. I was a little weary of how the transition would go - we tried letting her sleep with the front rail off of her crib and put some pillows and a bean bag chair on the floor in case she fell out... which ended up happening a LOT, since the bed is so small. Penny was starting to resist bed time - so we made the plunge...



 

...and it was NO. BIG. DEAL.

I was afraid Penelope wouldn't like it and that she would wake up a million times in the night. But she LOVES her new bed. Bonus: it's big enough for her that we haven't had any issues with her falling out, which is Penelope's favorite part.

She's pretty stoked about her new, big girl bed :)

It's a....

Tuesday, February 21st, we were able to FINALLY go in for our big ultrasound! THEE ultrasound! It was very exciting to be there as a family... when pregnant with Penelope, Alan had to go on a last-minute trip to Mexico for a photo shoot, so I ended up having to go alone. I had asked the ultrasound technician to write the baby's sex on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope for me. Later that night, Alan and I chatted via Skype and we opened the envelope together. It was special to still be able to find out together... but being able to sit and watch the entire ultrasound together this time around was so much sweeter. Even more so that Penelope got to be there with us to see her new sibling.

What did we find out, you may be wondering? Well... we most certainly found out that we are having a human baby that indeed does have genitalia.... of the female persuasion!

We are having another baby girl!

We are very excited! I still would LOVE to have a little boy some day... but the thought of never having another baby girl was starting to make me a little sad. What is sweeter than a cute, little set of sisters? It makes me want to cry, just thinking of all of the sweet, tender moments they'll get to share (though I'm well aware that there will be some very NOT tender moments in there as well).

And here is her ultrasound image below... we were able to count all ten fingers and all ten toes. I was hoping to get a good profile image... but baby girl was being a bit too cooperative and just wanted to look at us head on :)





Penelope (affectionately) calls her "scary baby" ... this is also what she calls her Barrel doll (from The Nightmare Before Christmas). She LOVES her Barrel doll <3

Baby Wish List and Registries

Baby!!!

We are proud to officially announce on here that baby Primm #2 can be expected sometime this coming July! My due date is July 24th - and baby is a girl!

We couldn't be more excited! It's wonderful that we'll have two girls that are close in age and will hopefully grow up to be good friends.

I have begun to do a few registries, fortunately there is not as much to get as there was when we were pregnant with Penny, but I mostly started this for me, to start planning and organizing what I feel that we'll need... and also some fun stuff that would be nice. But I know how others like to plan to... so I thought that I would share our wish list and registry links on here for everyone:

Target

Babies'R'us

Nicki's Diapers

Pottery Barn Kids

The registries for Target and Babies'r'us are pretty much the same. If you haven't heard of Nicki's Diapers, it is an online diaper store that carries many brands of cloth diapers and natural baby products. As many of you already know, we use cloth diapers with Penelope and plan to do the same with baby #2. This being said, please refrain from gifting disposable diapers. Nicki's Diapers also has an actual store in Madison, WI... so if you happen down that way, it's worth a visit - it's like cloth diaper heaven!

Our registry at Pottery Barn Kids is more for specialized gifts that are not essential, but would be nice. There are a few keepsake items that we had gotten for Penelope from there when she was born (a personalized chamois baby blanket (that is her special baby blanket), an Abbey doll (that was her first baby doll, an essential for little girls!), and the essential, personalized footie and hat set (as her take home outfit)) that would be wonderful to have for baby #2 too. The girls will be sharing a room - Penny in a twin bed and baby in Penny's old crib... so I also added some matching bedding items that would be cute to make things coordinate better as well as some special items that would be cute for big sister, Penelope.
I will also note that gift cards for any of the four places mentioned above are also much appreciated.

To make shopping a bit easier, I thought that I would just mention a few things that are on our "much needed" list. These are things that we will have to buy before baby comes... pretty much everything else on the registries are for fun.

Though we have a good stash of One-size cloth diapers from Penelope, they won't really fit baby well until she's almost 10 lbs. For Penelope, this took a few months and we had to use disposables. Though we were only using disposables for two months, we still ended up spending over $300 on them... and that was in addition to the many packs that we had gotten as gifts.
This time around, we plan on investing in Newborn sized cloth diapers to get us through the itty bitty baby phase until baby is big enough to fit into the One-size diapers. We calculated it out and purchasing cloth Newborn diapers will still be cheaper than purchasing Newborn sized disposables, even if we only end up using them for a few months. PLUS we can either reuse them, if we ever decide to have a 3rd baby or we can resell them to get some money back... not to mention that they're much better for baby's delicate skin.

This is the Newborn sized cloth diaper cover by 'lil Joey.

We have decided to use a combination of diaper cover/prefolds and all-in-one style cloth diapers. We will need about 6 of the little Joey diaper covers as well as a good amount of prefolds and all-in-one diapers (see our registry at Nicki's Diapers).
*Note that all of the registries have at least a few cloth diapers listed on them. We welcome any cloth diapers that we have listed on the registries.

These are gCloth inserts by gDiapers. We LOVE these inserts
I feel that they will work best in side the 'lil Joey diaper covers. gdiapers also makes Newborn sized diaper covers. Feel free to gift these as well.
They sell these on both the Babie'r'us and Target registries. Please note that I need these in either the Newborn or Small size.




In addition to diapers, we could also use a few new diaper accessories. This is called a pail liner - it is a reusable bag that goes into the diaper pail. I always kick myself for never buying one with Penelope (we have always just reused plastic shopping bags since we have always seemed to have a plethora of them around. But now we have started to use reusable shopping bags and/or ask for paper bags... so we don't have as many of them around anymore.)
We need two of these, they are on the Nicki's Diapers registry.




We also need more wipes. The ones we used with Penelope have pretty much all seen their last use. Penny usually poops on the toilet now, so we haven't had a need to buy more yet, but will definitely need more for the new baby.
These are on all three registry lists.


Bibs. We still use them with Penny, but even when she no longer needs them, I'm sure they'll be trashed. They're stained and pretty gross. New baby needs new bibs.

Maclaren Twin Techno Stroller
I have agonized and agonized over which double stroller to get. We have the single version of this stroller and LOVE it. I realize that there are many double strollers that steer a lot easier... but those are all jogging strollers... and those take up the entire trunk. So I have settled on this. We just love that we can have it in our trunk for when we need it without worrying about if we have enough room to store bags from impromptu shopping trips.
(It would also be awesome to have the organizer pouch that they make to hang off the back of the stroller for extra storage.)

These are the car seats we currently have for the girls: The Britax Frontier 85, for Penelope and baby will be using the Britax Boulevard 70 (which Penelope is currently using). A second set would be amazing, but are not essential. It would definitely be nice to be able to have a set for both my and Alan's cars though.

***UPDATE: so we have PLENTY of baby girl clothes. We could, however, use a few NEWBORN sized sleepers and maybe a size NEWBORN outfit or two to get baby through those first, few weeks. We could also use 0-3 months sized sleepers, 3-6 month sized onesies (long or short sleeved), waterproof Bumpkins or Skiphop bibs, muslin swaddle blankets and newborn sized cloth diapers and nappys.

Year in Review

The last year has been crazy. To say the least. I have been thinking back on it all today and am just blown away by everything we have accomplished in the last twelve months or so. Thinking like this really makes me with I would keep up on this blog better. Time flies, and I feel that this is a good way of keeping up with all of the fun little tidbits that I'm sure to forget even just a few years from now.

Since I have been doing so poorly, I have decided to do a 'Year in Review' post... starting with the above picture from January of 2011, which I think illustrates how insane this year has been rather well.
January 2011 was a whole lot of nothing. PEACE. We were still in Wisconsin and hadn't even thought about moving. I was doing a bit of wedding planning here and there, but nothing major. Our schedule was pretty easy: Alan worked at Jockey M-F, Penny and I would nanny Elle on Tuesdays and Thursdays and nanny Seamus and Kieran on Mondays and Wednesdays. Fridays we had play dates with our mommy and me friends and weekends were just for us as a family. Complete bliss, thinking back on it <3





February 2011 - Alan and I started contemplating a move. We loved the security of his job at Jockey, but he (and we) were not going anywhere. He was making enough to cover all of our bills and then some, but we didn't usually have much to put into savings at the end of the month. Any savings we did have was spent on trips to see our family and our upcoming wedding in April.

So we had an idea... Alan had always planned to eventually move back to California, so why not now? We only have one child, who is still pretty young and easy to up-root at this point, we do not have a house to worry about selling and we're young and optimistic enough. So we pool together our extra cash and fly out to visit Alan's family in Orange County just to feel it out, one last time before we finalize our decision.

Decision was made. We were moving.

We hadn't set a date. We wanted to keep things relaxed. We knew that we definitely wanted one last Wisconsin summer... so we tentatively decided on August/September.

March 2011 was a rough month. Wedding planning was in full swing, being just a month away and we made the difficult decision to re-home our much loved dog, Bailey. I had gotten Bailey, as a puppy when I was only 14... so after 10 years, I was heart broken to have to do it. Bailey and Penny did not get along very well (can you feel the tension in their expressions above?).

Penny LOVED Bailey, but a little too much. She was very good about giving her 'nice touches'... and by this, I mean that she would give her nice pats, a lot of hugs and a lot of kisses... none of this Bailey cared for. It was getting to the point that Penny couldn't even walk in Bailey's direction without Bailey starting to snarl at her, and Bailey snapped at Penny a few times, once drawing a tiny bit of blood from Penny's hand. We were having to gate Bailey off in our tiny kitchen all by herself, which just wasn't fair to her.

I did a lot of research and came across a cocker spaniel rescue, that was based out of a nearby town. I was able to surrender her... but I must admit that it all went a little faster than I was hoping. She was placed with a foster family for a few short weeks before being adopted by what sounds like a wonderful older couple, who are newly retired and have plenty of time and energy to give Bailey the love and attention that she needed and deserved. As well as the whole experience turned out, my only regret is that I now have no contact with them. I have no idea who they are and they do not know me. I would die for an update <3

April 2011 - WEDDING! That's all there was, right? Planning, planning, planning and making, making, making. Craziness. I did pretty much everything on my own... from making my own centerpieces (even the table runners), arranging the DJ, hall and caterer, made my own invitations and programs, and so on. I was nuts. But it all turned out 100 times better than we had imagined. The ceremony was beautiful and our reception was a blast. It seriously could not have gone any better.




May 2011 was very rough. Just days after our wedding, I became ill. I had been having heart burn issues since becoming pregnant with Penelope, but had always dismissed it as reflux. Even my doctor didn't seem concerned about it since I only averaged one or two episodes a month - she just told me everyone had to find what antacid concoction and diet worked for them. But nothing seemed to work for me.

Two days after the wedding, Alan and I were on our "mini moon" in Wisconsin Dells when I was hit with the worst attack I had had up until that point. It lasted 24 hours. For the next few weeks, I would have an attack about every other day and it would last most of the day. It would start as heart burn symptoms, but would get to be very painful and my body would force me to vomit everything out that I had in me. Finally, while on a trip to Florida, I had an attack that was so severe, I ended up in the emergency room.

When we got back to Wisconsin, I met with my doctor and she referred me to a specialist. The specialist scheduled me for an endoscope. He thought I had ulcers and possibly stomach cancer. The endoscope showed nothing but some mild irritation. So I was referred to another specialist. This whole process took about three weeks, and in between appointments, I was having to go into the emergency room for even more severe attacks. They put me on a Gerd diet (I was basically only able to eat rice and sweet potatoes and only drink water for a month), I had lost a lot of weight and I was given prescriptions for Vicodin and percolate... which did little for pain.

This whole time I had suspected that it could be my gallbladder, since my family had a history of bad gallbladder... but the doctors had dismissed it. After a month of specialists and treatment that wasn't doing anything for my pain and my attacks were getting worse and worse (imagine being in labor for an entire month. Seriously. I had given birth to Penelope without pain medications... and I would have taken that 10 times over what I went through with this pain). I ended up having an attack that was so bad that I went into the emergency room and demanded that they do an ultrasound of my gallbladder. It only took two seconds for the US tech to see that there was a serious problem. My gallbladder was badly infected and was trying to pass abnormally large stones. GREAT!

I had to have emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder. Had I not gone in and demanded for them to look at it, my gallbladder would have passed the stone, which would have shredded my digestive track. I would have bled to death in as little as 48 hours. Even the surgery proved to be more of a challenge than they had anticipated. Before being sedated, the surgeon assured me that this was a fairly common surgery and that he had preformed so many thousands of them a year and that he would be in and out in less than an hour.... it took him over two hours, the infection was so bad. Typically this surgery is an in-patient procedure, but I ended up having to stay over night for observation... for this, I was glad. I was actually able to lay still and get a bit of sleep despite the pain from the surgery... no way that would have happened at home with Penelope.
Recovery went well. It took a few weeks to heal, but I was fortunate not to have any complications.




June 2011 was a much happier month. Summer had begun and we were able to spend a lot of time with family. Penny and I went to Gleason, WI. and were able to spend a few weeks with my family there. My baby sister, Mikala came home with us for the summer to help with Penny while we prepared for our move.
There was a lot of work to be done selling things, packing boxes and preparing the house for an estate sale... but we were still able to have a lot of fun. Trips to the beach and neighborhood pools and parks, camping, trips to the zoo, family reunions, brewers games, summer festivals and playing with friends.



July 2011 was catch up time. My sister and her family came to visit from Arizona, so we were able to get all of my siblings and our kids together for the first time since before Penelope was born. We payed a lot of visits to friends and family while we could and made a point to attend as any parties and family functions as possible.
Our estate sale went very well and we sold all the major things that we needed to. Many many boxes were donated to Goodwill.



August 2011 was moving month. Last minute packing and cleaning and my family was a HUGE help. They came during our last weekend in Milwaukee to help out. We were able to have a birthday party for Penelope with them and all of our mommy and me friends. My dad was awesome and drove the huge moving van to our house for us and backed in our driveway. My sister, Michelle watched Penny while my mom did cleaning, my sister, Mikala and I carried boxes from the house to the back of the van and my dad loaded everything up. Alan was at work.

Penelope and I left a week before Alan - her and I flew out to California and Alan drove out with the moving van the following weekend. A few weeks later, Alan and his mom flew back out to check on the house and drove back with Alan's car.




September 2011 - our baby girl turned two! Much celebrating was done. We had had a big party for her with family and friends before moving. The morning of her birthday we continued what is sure to be a yearly tradition, meeting Alan's dad, "Pappa John" at Disneyland. Pappa John got us the best present ever - annual passports! Penelope got to ride the Finding Nemo ride for her first time. At the time, Findind Nemo was her FAVORITE! So this was a huge hit. Later that afternoon, we met up with Alan brother, his wife and Alan's mom at Lake Mission Viejo for a picnic (we had done the same last year too). We had cupcakes and Penny got to open her presents and go swimming.


October 2011 was pretty uneventful, for the most part. We spent most of the month waiting for our new nephew to arrive - Alan's brother, Steven and his wife had a handsome son, Hunter David Primm and we celebrated Penelope's 3rd Halloween. Penelope is old enough to really get into holidays now and we really had a blast decorating and going to Halloween themed parties and events. By request, we dressed her up as a tortoise - after her new best friend, Roger, Alan's mom's desert tortoise.



November 2011 was our 'fun month'. We spent some time at Alan's uncle, Peter's house in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving... and besides that, I think we spent the rest of the month at Disneyland. I'm pretty sure of it, actually.



December 2011 was full of Christmas cheer. Many more visits to Disneyland. With Alan still out of work, it was wonderful to have such a fun place to go to essentially for free.
Christmas went pretty well. I must say that I was a little mopey, not being around my family and trying to get into the spirit without snow outside proved to be difficult. But was still had a wonderful time. Alan's uncle, Peter came to stay with us and we had a lovely day Christmas Day with all of Alan's family at Alan's brother's in-laws home in Mission Viejo.



January 2012 was our last month with Alan. He didn't die... he got a job. So spent a lot of time going to the zoo, local parks and nature trails, museums and, of course, Disneyland.

Alan had been without a job since we moved in August, so this was much needed! He is now the Multi Media Specialist for Carbine Studios, a computer game company in Aliso Viejo.




....and now we're too the present month, February 2012. Much like last year, this month is rather uneventful... except that we finally chose to announce that we will be expecting another baby! We found out on Alan's birthday, back in November, but had decided to wait to tell everyone until we were able to announce Alan's new job as well.... which took much longer than we hoped (we had been waiting to find out if he had the job since early December!) We had a nice dinner with Alan's entire family as well as some family friends. No one had a clue that we were expecting - when Alan stood to toast and thank everyone for coming, he spilled the beans and everyone was very excited! We love that we were able to tell everyone all at once instead of having to decide who tell first. We told my family over video chat after dinner - and with that came more excitement :)



... so, yeah... lots to be proud of this past year! A BIG move, our wedding, pulling through being seriously ill, and now a baby <3

Here's hoping this next year is just as wonderful (but, please, less chaotic!)
:)

Merry Christmas From Penelope!

* Penelope's Christmas Wishlist 2011 *

How and WHYYY is it Christmas already??? As much as I love Christmas, I'm just totally behind this year. It could be the fact that we don't have a Christmas tree yet (I'm working on it). It could also be the fact that I've been ill... or that there isn't any snow on the ground. These yards just look silly with all of their Holiday lights and sculptures without all the pretty lights reflecting off of a sparkly layer of snow.

...but I mostly think that it is sinking in, just how much I'm missing my family. We were REALLY hoping to make it back to Wisconsin sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it just isn't happening. Booooo.

Anyway... many have asked, so I guess it's about time to do this thing. Here is Penelope Christmas wish list:

As always, I can't say it enough, we LOVE LOVE LOVE the Tea Collection! It's by far our favorite baby clothing line. Their fabric quality is just worlds better than any other baby clothing I have come across and it's perfect for Penny's delicate skin. Not to mention that it's super super cute!

Penelope is in desperate need of size 3T play outfits. She's going to be outgrowing her 2t clothes soonish, so I was going through her bin of 3T clothes to find that we didn't have a single pair of cotton play pants. 15 pairs of denim, but not a single pair of every day play pants. The above outfit is from Old Navy... but Carters, Baby Gap, Jumping Beans and so forth would also be more than fine, as long as it's 100% cotton.

Penelope is still in love with books and we cannot get enough of them! The three above are ones that I know she would love. We have a stuffed animal of the mouse with the cookie, but never got the book. She is also very much in love with dinosaurs.

DUMBO! Penelope adores him! We checked it out from the library a few weeks ago and she's been asking about it ever since. It's one of the few Disney movies we don't have - I know they sell them on Amazon.com.

Penny has a pair of beat up, green froggy rain boots. She doesn't play outside without them. Sadly, she'll either outgrow or wear them out soon. We need a new pair of size 8 rain boots. I found the ones above on the Target website, but any print would really be fine.

Little girls panties, is there anything cuter? We spotted these at Target and fell in love. Penelope still loves Finding Nemo and is just starting to like Toy Story and Wall-E. I think the smallest size they go down to was a 3/4 , and that would work perfectly as they run a little small any way.

Penelope loves puzzles. We have a ton of them. A storage rack would be awesome.

We have all the brushes, the papers, the easel, the smocks and spill-proof paint cups... but we need more paint! Penelope is a paint-a-holic, so we're always running out!

Kind of an odd request... but if anyone happens to have a used Barbie car that they want to hand down to Penny - PLEASE do so. I found the one above at Target, but I'm not terribly impressed with it's style and quality... so therefore, I have decided that I am unwilling to pay $15.00 for said car. Ideally, we would love a 4 seater that is not pink... but if someone is willing to give her a used one, it really doesn't matter what it looks like, we would just really really like to have one.
A little bird told me that Santa *MAY* be getting Penelope a dollhouse for Christmas... so this would be nice for her little doll family to cruise around in.

Disclaimer: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO NO NO BARBIE DOLLS! we're not ready for that yet :P