Today Penelope got to run around "outside"! Well... kinda... we went to the Mitchell Park Domes for the day! Residents get in free on Mondays, so since I didn't have to babysit today we got to go! It was so nice to let her run around and get some fresh air - it's been too cold to even let her play in the snow. We had a few days that were in the 50's this past week, but those happened to be the days that she was sick!
Surprisingly, there weren't that many people at the Domes today... usually their free days can be a bit more crowded, but I guess everyone is worn out from the Holidays still. As for Penelope and me... we HAD to get out of the house. Alan went back to work today and we're also on day #2 of weaning Penelope off the breast. She was pretty upset when she couldn't find Alan anywhere in the house - she really liked having him home all of last week and 1/2 of the week before. Needless to say, she was pretty fussy all morning - so being able to get out and run around without having to pay admission or parking was a God send!

Day #2 of weaning is going well! I don't want to take it away completely yet... I'm still nursing in the morning and before bed. I haven't decided when I'll give those two feeding up yet. For now the goal is to not nurse during the day. Usually this just means that I have to be more creative to keep her active and to have a sippy cup of whole milk on hand. She actually only asked twice for it all day! Tomorrow will be the real test though as I go back to work. We'll see how well she does when she has to compete with another baby for my attention. She usually wants to nurse just so that I have to hold her!

Put me in the Zoo

So my New Year's resolution is to keep up with this blog better. I find it comforting to be able to look back on my posts and see how the time line in my memory differs from reality. I hope that someday I can come back and reminisce about my sweet baby girl when she is grown... and I hope that she will be able to too.
Today we went to the Milwaukee County Zoo. I had actually thought that it was a "Family Free Day"... because it said that it was on their website... but apparently their website was wrong... we paid anyway and had lots of fun! It was about 19 degrees today, so we were sure to bundle up. Most of the exhibits have indoor areas, so we hopped from building to building, bundling and unbundling Penelope each time. With it being so cold, there were hardly an other people there - but the building were nice and warm. It was nice to be able to let Penelope run around and discover the animals on her own, on her own time without having to worry about her getting lost in a sea of people. I would have to say that the birds and the fish were by far her favorites.

You can see our new little friend in the lower, right corner of the above picture. His head just peeking over the corner of the plaque. He was so interested in us that he tried to squeeze his cute little head through the wires. Penelope kept grunting that she wanted to hold him.

We had to have spent the most amount of our time in the fish and reptile building. Penelope had so much fun standing on the window ledges and watching all of the fish, pressed up against the glass.

Happy Holidays 2010!

We hope everyone had a very happy Holiday season this year, as I know we did! We had a very laid back schedule this year, but we still had a lot of fun. We were able to spend some time with my family the weekend of the 11th and Penelope had a blast! Above is her and her cousin, Zoe Jane - they're both getting so big! My brother's family was super blessed this holiday season, as they learned that they will be having a baby boy this coming May! (Among all of my cousins and I, we have 10 children - all of them girls! So our family has been waiting for this for a while. It's doubly special since my brother is the only boy from my generation of grandkids that can carry on the Geurink name - now that role will go to baby Charlie Michael! )

Penny passed out on the lap of my Mom's brother, Mike :)
I thought this was really funny. Penny actually fell asleep in that same spot last year, but on the lap of my Grandma!

Penny got a new baby doll from my brother and his family - she absolutely loves it! It's so sweet how she loves on her little "bee bees".

Santa came to the family Christmas party! He was so sweet with all of the kids, they each got to come up one by one to sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. He even had a sack of gifts to give everyone!

Penny getting some help opening her new "choo choo choo" from cousin Anna.

All of the great-grandkids waiting patiently for their gifts!

The Geurink family at their Christmas finest! Alan and I, my father, Michael holding Penelope, my mother, Jean, big brother, Jeffrey, his wife, Jessica holding Zoe Jane, and my baby sisters, Michelle and Mikala.
We were actually scared that we weren't going to make it to the Family Holiday party that night, as we had a blizzard - about 12 inches of snow! (You can see that Alan came to the party prepared, wearing his snow boots!)

Penelope and her "pup-puppies"!

We had a bit of a scary start to our Christmas weekend. 2 days before Christmas Penelope came down with a fever of 103.5 and was having some trouble breathing, so we had to take her into the Emergency room at our local Children's hospital. She was diagnosed with bronchiolitis, where the smallest air passages swell up and make it difficult to breathe. Luckily she responded to an albuterol treatment, so she didn't have to be hospitalized.
For about 4 days we had to give Penny regular doses of albuterol with an inhaler - which she HATED. It took both of us to give it to her - one to hold her and one to hold the inhaler. Not fun. Besides sounding like a veteran smoker and occasional wheezing, Penny was just like her usual self. Would have made for a pretty sad Christmas if she hadn't been in her typical happy mood.
She was still able rip open all of her gifts with as much enthusiasm and we hoped and she had a blast!
Fortunately we had been planning to stay home in Milwaukee this year any way. We wanted to be able to start our own family traditions this year - usually we either drive to my parents' house in northern Wisconsin or fly to Alan's mom's house in California. This way we were able to get our first REAL Christmas tree! Penelope woke up Christmas morning to a wonderful sight in her livingroom!

Santa's first visit to the Primm home! Penelope was a very good girl this year :)

Grandma Mimi got to watch Penelope open her gifts from Santa via Skype!

Penny and Daddy playing with all of the new toys!

Merry Christmas!

You would never be able to tell that she was super sick by looking at these photos! She was in such a good mood and LOVED all of her gifts!

...Penelope also loved playing with the ornaments from the tree!

Penny is in love with the new kitchen set and baby doll high chair that Santa brought for her! She is so smart! She pretends to wash her hands in the sink, feeds her baby doll with a spoon and baby bottle and even brings food from the fridge for Alan and I to "eat"!

Alan and I were able to spend the whole week after Christmas with Penelope, which was perfect since she wasn't feeling well. By Tuesday she was completely back to normal and checked out perfectly at her doctors visit. There is a chance that this could have been a nasty sneak peek of how Penelope will react to getting the flu - I had the same problem when I was young. Instead of getting the flu, I had chronic Bronchitis. Especially since I have asthma, and Penelope has eczema, there is a good chance that this could also mean that she could develop asthma. Fingers crossed that that isn't so! If all of that yuckiness wasn't enough, Alan came down with food poisoning on Wednesday and we welcomed molar #3 into Penny's mouth!

Funny thing is that since both of us were going to be home this week, we had planned to wean Penelope off of the breast. Obviously this ended up not being the right week for that!

Three new videos!

Here are three new videos of Penny.

Penny Dancing

Penny Waking Up

Penny on a Snowy Day

November Update

November November - how is it November? ...and the end of it at that! It completely baffles me every time a new month ends or begins - where did the last one go? Especially with the holiday season just beginning, I know that I'm in for it for the next month or so! Time is going way too fast and Penelope is getting bigger and smarter every second. It amazes me how fast she figures things out for herself. I love seeing all of the new things that she learns each day.

At nearly 15 months old now, Penelope is a high-speed walker. We're talking fully mobile. Running, climbing up and down stairs, spinning in circles and attempting to jump (hasn't quite mastered how to actually leave the ground yet... but in her mind she's doing it, lol). She knows well over 20 signs now - her new ones are "potty" and "bird". She loves making animal noises and is OBSESSED with "PUPpuppies" ... as well as "NAnananas" (bananas). She's very good at communicating what she wants (and doesn't), can use a spoon to feed herself, is completely off the bottle (the boob is another story), and does a decent job of undressing and attempting to dress herself.
Penny love making silly faces and noises and has become a very busy girl. Forgotten now are the days when I could easily shop with her for hours at a time... we now have to limit each store to about 20 minutes... if she has to sit or be held too long, she gets very squirmy and NEEDS to run around!

Penelope likes to lay, belly down, on the floor and push herself backward while squealing, "weeeee!" She likes to climb in and out of boxes and go down slides. She likes to help clean up messes by wiping things up with towels... she'll even wipe her face if you let her. She is a very independent girl and loves to be able to do things for herself whenever possible. She likes to fetch her shoes when we're about to leave, she even attempts to put them on. She likes playing alone in her room - the last few weeks she has even insisted on keeping the door closed - a little scary for Mommy, but that just means that I have to be extra certain that there isn't anything harmful for her to get into in there.

We were super excited to get visits from both of Penelope's grandmas this month! Alan's mom "Grandma MeMe" came and got to spend lots of time with Penelope so that mommy could get some work done. And my mother "Grandma Nana" came this past weekend to go dress shopping for my and Alan's upcoming wedding! We also had Penelope's portraits taken this past Sunday - they turned out super cute! Below are just a few... you can see Penny's new face that she likes to make... it is usually accompanied with an, "uh-oh-oh!" sound :)

All images were taken by Neil from Front Room Photography

Trick or Treat!

Halloween 2010 was a HUGE success! Penelope loved every minute of it. We dressed her up as a sock monkey this year - I was fortunate to have found her adorable costume on clearance at Crazy8 last year. I'm pretty sure that it was intended to be a lounger outfit, as it was from their Christmas line... but, hey! Works great for Halloween - we got a lot of wonderful comments about it and everyone wanted to know where we got it from! Very fortunate to have found it too - it's 100% cotton and, from the looks of things, it looks like I'm going to have a heck of a time trying to find a costume for her in the future. All the costumes in the stores are all synthetic fabrics, so if Penny continues to have eczema, I may have to learn how to use my sewing machine!

There was a family day at Alan's work for Halloween. We got to eat lunch with all of the other families and went table to table trick or treating in the cafeteria. Since Alan has his own, rather large office, we were able to hide out and play in there while he finished his work for the day. Sock monkey got to help too :)

...and of course we carved pumpkins! Alan's is the tall one, mine is the squat one. We also had a small "baby" pumpkin for Penny but didn't carve it. Not too sure what she thought of us while we were carving them... she just sat in her high chair watching us and actually sat nice the entire time!

We were also invited to a baby Halloween party! These are a bunch of the mommies and babies from the Mommy and Me group that we have been going to since Penny was about 3 months old. For the past several months, we have been taking turns hosting a monthly get together - this particular party had 16 babies in attendance! As well as their mommies, daddies, and some grand parents - all crammed into a down town condo! Looks chaotic, but it was loads of fun!


We also went trick or treating in a friend's neighborhood, but unfortunately didn't get any good pics of that. Penny LOVED it! She had so much fun watching all of the older kids running around in their costumes and wasn't frightened at all. Our friend's neighborhood blocks all of the streets off to through traffic and everyone has little parties set up in their front yards while they hand out candy. Our friends dressed up as characters from Monsters Inc. - one of their son's favorite movies - and even did their front door up to look like Boo's door :)
Now we're very excited to see what Penny will be like next year - as she will be able to do more walking and be able to enjoy the holiday even more!

Pumpkin Picking

On Sunday the family went out to Sade's Farm in McHenry, IL to pick out some pumpkins from the huge patches they have. We had originally planned on going to the Apple Holler in Kenosha, but after reading some bad reviews about high prices, long lines and underwhelming attractions, we decided to drive a little further to Sade's Farm. It was totally worth it! There were bounce houses, a corn sandbox, a kiddie train ride, and, Alan's favorite, a pumpkin canon!