This is what I have to live with...

Lucky me. We just got a new (used) Flip Video for our upcoming trip (more to come on that later) and wanted to test it out on Penny. While it doesn't fully capture all of Penny's cuteness it gets pretty close. Good job Flip Video.

3 minutes and 55 seconds in Heaven

I finally made a little Penny slide show. She is the joy of our lives, and we can't believe how quickly it is going by. So cute.

Halloween! Party time! Excellent!

Halloween was the best we've had in years. It was so fun to dress Penny up and take her trick-or-treating. She'd walk from house to house (or car to car), hold up her pumpkin bucket and say "tweat". She especially loved the houses where it was fend for yourself candy. She'd dig around in the bowl, looking like she was going to come up with handfuls of candy, then settle on only one and drop it back in the bowl. So adorable. For trunk-or-treat on Saturday Dave and I were that classic duo Tina Turner and Jim Morrison.

Lots of people said I had a great wig. I didn't. I just have really crappy hair. Then on Halloween we went up to Beacon Hill and went trick or treating with our good friends (who are moving this week--sooo sad) the Jackmans and their baby Noah.

Penny was a mini-celebrity and had to take the escalator to escpae the papparazzi. *

We took the T (boston subway) home and my friend Bethany snapped a pic of this mural from the station. I just thought it was cool.Me and P on the mean streets of Beacon Hill, that guy in the background is not dressed up as a sexy cop, I made the same mistake, he's a real cop.

I can't wait until next year! I already know what we're going to be if we have another kid by then. If we don't, then its back to the drawing board.

*For those of you thinking I was the worst mother ever, this escalator was out of order, aka, temporarily stairs.

Penny's Shrug

My mother-in-law knitted this adorable pink shrug for Penny! Unfortunately its too small for us to share otherwise I'd be stealing it...

Al bintu tasharabu.

That means "the girl eats". I am learning Arabic! I already feel like I can say so much and it is so exciting! I love learning languages. One of my life goals is to speak like five or six languages. I have spanish and now I'm working on Arabic. Next will probably be Italian. I feel like I should learn Chinese but I don't really want to. But I should. Maybe some day.

Pumpkin Fest '10! (Video)

Penny loved walking around and looking at the pumpkins and trying desperately to get lost in the crowd. Is it too early for her to be embarrassed by us?

Pumpkin Fest '10!

On Saturday night we took a spontaneous trip up to the Keene Pumpkin Festival in New Hampshire. It was awesome. I was expecting a couple hundred pumpkins lit in a field on a little farm--not so. They shut down the whole downtown and the streets are lined with shelves of pumpkins. At the very end of the street there was a 60 foot tall tower of pumpkins topped off with a HUGE pumpkin. It was such a great way to get into the fall spirit. I love fall in New England.

This last one is just precious Penny at the Library. Waltham has a great public library and we go there at least twice a week to read and play. She is just so cute I want to punch her in the face, but instead I just kiss her in the face. Lately she loves giving kisses and high-fives, coloring, identifying body parts, and reading all of her books at the same time.

Pikshers.

A couple of weeks ago we had our family pics taken by our good friend Bethany. We took them at the Old North Bridge which is also the site of the "shot heard round the world", which, for those who don't know, is the first shot fired in the revolutionary war! We're so patriotic. Lexington and Concord MA are some of the most beautiful places in the world. So glad we could have our pictures taken there.

Pat--we had some taken of Penny in her white dress and sweater but we only have these few preview pics so far!! We'll get those up soon...

Dave's Present

This is the wall hanging I made for dave for his birthday. It's about 4 feet by 2 feet and I think it looks pretty sweet.

This post is six posts long.

I uploaded the wrong videos in the last post soooooo here are the better ones. So feel free not to watch the videos in the next post unless you're REALLY into whale videos. You know who you are.

Whale of a tail

The whale did this for like 5+ min. The Captain said he did it to tell other whales to go away from him and his friend. But Jessica and I think he was telling the boat to go away. And some old grandma next to Jessica thinks that it's because him and the other whale were homosexuals. Oh the mysteries of whales.

During the very begining of the whale watching time (not on video), a whale poped up RIGHT next to us, even closer to than the one in this video, and it scared the crap out of everyone. Jessica and Penny were right next to the blow hole.

Whale Watching = Awesome

So I found a steal of a deal on whale watching tickets online ($20 as opposed to $45 each), so when frugality and coolness combine, romance happens. So I suprised Jessica with a little going away trip since she'll being going to Southern California next week. I was imagining seeing a few whales far off in the distance, but it was way cooler than we were expecting. The whales were super close, and there were like 20 of them. Humpbacks. Penny was a little grumpy and the 4 hour trip was actually more like 6. Pictures don't so it justice, so I'm going to post some videos, right now...

Penny's super cute...

I don't think these pictures need a lot of explaining. Penny's shirt in the last pic says it all. Also cute but less apparant in these pictures is Penny's room, which Jessica did a bang up job decorating. Everyone is a big fan of the green "grass" rug. And thanks Kendra for the cute bow.

Random from summer

So this summer a lot of super fun stuff happened. Jessica and Penny had a really fun trip to Yellowstone with the Nieman Clan. I think the look on Penny's face accurately expresses the amount of fun had on this trip.

Then we had a really fun 4th of July in downtown Boston. There were like 700,000 people there or more (no joke), and we were literally running across Boston at 11:30 to catch the train home with a baby and our friends the Rose's, one of which (Diane) was and is very pregnant. It was a fun and memorable night.

And we went to the beach a lot. Wingersheek beach north of Boston is out favorite. So pretty, it looks like a tropical island... except that the water is a lot colder.

2 more Whale pics

Dave Blogs!

So I've been bugging Jessica for a while now to let me build something and she finally caved. So I spent the week before my internship started building a desk with no power tools! That's not totally true I did borrow a jig saw to cut one piece, and a sander as well. I still have a few changes I want to make (adding a shelf behind it)... but who knows when that will get done. Also here are some cute pictures of Penny, some from today at Lake Onway in New Hampshire, and some from a while ago...

She walks.

New apartment!

I made a pillow cover!

So proud of myself.

My shelf. The man delivering my crib today told me I had a "great eye for decorating". It really made my day.

Penny on the bed.

Dave's desk building project.
Penny helping Dave measure wood.

Penny climbing on the rocks in Maine. She is so close to walking! She can take steps by herself but she till prefers to crawl. It is so fun to watch her learn and grow.

Sorry all of these pictures are completely out of order and just a hodge podge! Penny's room is coming together really well finally! It is so much fun. I'll post pics later.