Meet Me in DC

Last week we took a trip to DC and it was awesome, one of my favorite cities in the world. There are so many great things to see! We toured the capital building, the botanical gardens, visited several Smithsoanian museums (one in which we saw the hope diamond and a real giant squid!), and saw the memorials. One of my favorite parts about DC is everything is FREE, 100% free. We also happened to be visiting during the best (and most popular) time if year, the cherry blossom festival! It was gorgeous we were so lucky to see all the blossoms--they only last for about a week. Here are some highlights of the trip...
Penny at the hotel. We heard her crawling around, then we saw the curtain stirring, then out popped her little head. She was so tickled.This pic was funny beause she was crawling away from us, then turned aoround quickly, grabbed the map of DC, and crawled away again. Oh, babies.Penny is freakishly strong. Well on her way to aquiring the same nicknames I had in school, Hulk wasn't so bad, it was Butch I really hated...Amendment: Everything was free except Mount Vernon, which we paid to see but then didn't go inside because we hate lines without Disneyland rides at the end of them. Expecially lines that are over an hour long. Someday we'll see you Mount Vernon! But we did go all around the grounds and it was still worth it.

Penny's Puppies

My sister, Sara, got Penny some hand-puppet puppies for Christmas but they got left in CA so we haven't had a chance to use them until now. I think the timing is perfect because she is at the perfect age to love wrestling with/biting/licking/smushing her puppies. We've even named them... From left to right: Sir London Bridges, George, Basco, and Frankenstein. (My favorite name is Basco, because that was Dave's pick, and he was attempting to name it 'Balto')Her smile in this pic kills me because she was about to crawl away but when I pulled the camera out she sat back down and flashed this grin.

Drinking Problem...

Penny has a drinking problem. She LOVES her bottle. It doesn't even have to be full, she just likes to suck on it, but she won't take a pacifier. She gets fiendish even if she sees just the tip of a bottle, breathing heavily and waving her hands.

Before the weather cleared up we took a ittle sledding trip. Well it was more of a "boarding" trip--not snowboarding, cardboarding (we didn't have a sled).

It seems like winter might be over and I am SO EXCITED for the Spring. Me and Penny went on a picnic today (not pictured).

Spitting game...

Remember my old blog? Well I've started blogging on it again. Baby pictures and family updates will mostly be limited to this blog (although I'm sure some will creep their way over), but for Jessica time please see spitting game.

Penny's on the move...

Well a picture's worth a thousand words, and a video is made up out of thousands of pictures... anyways, Penny has been pretty 'mobile' for a while, but has been so interested in standing and trying to walk that we thought she might skip crawling, but she's stepped up her game and now instead of flailing around on the ground until she gets somewhere she's crawling!


Here are some other random pictures... some of which are pretty old.

Here's Jessica and Kaity doing what they do over Christmas break, you're welcome.

And this is our awesome new Joovy Kooper stroller, Jess did a lot of research on strollers and found a good deal on this online, and we love it, and Penny loves it too. I like to imagine that for babies going to the mall is the equivalent of cruising down town in your car, looking cool and checking people out, and this stroller is the equivalent of a cool red convertible for Penny.

Growing Girl.

Penny is sleeping. through. the night. I am so glad.

She is doing so much for her small 8 months. She is getting ready to take her first steps it seems. She LOVES to walk around the house with us guiding her by the hands.

She loves to stand as long as she is holding herself up against something (usually the couch, although she's had a few tumbles).

Today she started fake handing me her toys just to watch me try and steal them from her kung fu grip (impossible). I'd say "Give me your toy" and put my hand out, and she'd place the toy in my hand and not let go, and laugh as I tried to take it away.

She is the joy of our lives, and the favorite part of our days... of course not having her at midnight, and four am, and six am is also the favorite part of my nights...

Happy 2010!

I can't believe the first month of 2010 is almost over. And I can't believe our trip to California was so short... And I can't believe Penny is 8 months old...

The fam at Disneyland. We went with my sister and her kids. It was awesome. Also, I highly recommend California Adventures. If you go to Disneyland between January and May, basically every Spring, you get the "2fer" deal, which is buy a ticket to a park and get free admittance to either park for a second day. Pretty sweet, except that its only for So Cal residents, so you'll have to have someone with a So Cal lisence.

Penny and Kody. She wanted to do everything that her cool, older boy cousin was doing.

Well anyway, there were supposed to be more pics and this was supposed to be posted last week, but my computer is whack. So if you're wondering why I don't post more pictures and more often, that's why.

Christmas Joy

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!! Seriously. I know everyone loves Christmas and it is everyone's favorite holiday, but I love Christmas. Very few things in life make me happier than the Christmas season. Family. The Gospel. That's it. (Disneyland is a very close fourth).

To start the season off right we went to a tree farm today to get our FIRST REAL TREE AS A FAMILY! It was so exciting. The weather was beautiful. President Clark did not tell the truth when he said Boston winters were worse than Rexburg winters. Today was sunny and about 60 degrees. Perhaps I speak to soon...We found the perfect sized tree for our little apartment. Penny digs it. We all do. The apartment smells like pine and sounds like Christmas (I have holiday tunes playing 12/7). It is so exciting to see our presents starting to surround the tree! And although I do have to work on Christmas day, we fly out Christmas night and can't wait to see family. But for now we are all enjoying our little holiday haven.

I'm Back

First of all, I got these Kate Spade shoes, originally $258, for $59. Thanks, TJ Maxx.

Apparently the looming specter of personal humiliation is not enough to compel me to write a novel in one month. So back to the important stuff. Penny just turned 6 months on Sunday! I can't believe how big she is. She rolls over really well now, but she still prefers her back (unless shes on the bed in which case she prefers her stomach). She can sit up, kind of, but since shes long and thin instead of squat and chubby like many babies, she doesn't have a great core to squish down on. She just sort of falls over after a minute. But she's also kind of a genius, for instance, she knows how to use the light switch! When the light is off she will put her hand, palm up, under the switch and push up. Then when it is on she will put her hand over the switch, palm down, and push down. Brilliant! (pun intended).


Here are some pics I took of her on her 6 month birthday (The only two that weren't blurry).

NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month! So, I have decided to take the challenge. 1,700 words a day and by the end of the month I should have a full fledged novel. I am only blogging this because NaNoWriMo (the organization sponsoring this event) encourages all participants to tell everyone they know that they are writing a novel, in hopes that the looming specter of humiliation will carry us forward. I know it's November 2nd, so you're already 1700 words behind, but if anyone else is interested here's the website, http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/561200. That's my user page. My user name is Smackster. My WIP is titled Don't Shoot the Messenger (Or How We Changed the Block).

What am I doing wasting all these words!? If my blogging is a little sparse this month, I apologize, but now you know why.

I'll see you in December.

(Don't worry I'll make Dave upload cute Penny pictures)

Werewolf Bar Mitzvah Spooky Scary...

Even though I have to work Halloween night (boo!) we decided that we couldn't miss the opportunity go to Salem this year, so we went on a Tuesday night. We went through a haunted house, which wasn't that scary. But we ended the night with a haunted walking tour, which is when a very knowledgeable guide walks you through all of Salem's witch history hot spots. It was really interesting and spooky, and I think I caught a picture of a ghost...
The second floor of this house is where they did much of the witch interrogating...I think that white smudge is the ghost of a woman who hung herself while being kept locked up during interrogations...or maybe it's rain?Penny was un-scareable.

Canoein' the Charles

Last week we went a canoein' on the Charles River. It was so much fun and sooo pretty. The leaves were turning all different shades of fall and Penny was enjoying the ride. Dave did most of the rowing as I did the baby-holding, but on our way back Penny fell asleep so we both got to row and enjoy the crisp fall air. It was such a great day. Penny was looking so cute in her infant life vest. I didn't know they had such things.

Which brings me to another subject, and that is that I pretty much always assume no one is going to let you do anything with an infant. But they do! They even have special infant things! My plan was to hide in the car with Penny and then smuggle us on to the canoe after Dave had paid. Luckily, Dave's idea won out, which was to just all go in there normal-like and rent a canoe. They procured a special life jacket for Penny and although she hated it, I loved it.

Here are some gems from the day.

Soup du Week

Since I am working a lot of nights and can't make dinner I have started making a different soup at the beginning of each week so Dave (and me) have something yummy and warm to eat. I have acutally done this 4 weeks in a row! So I figured it was blogworthy, and time to start asking for ideas... Soups I have made so far:

1. Taco soup
2. Broccoli cheddar (probably my fave so far)
3. Potato Bacon
4. Corn chowder

Any other ideas?

FALL in love...

Fall is awesome! The leaves are so pretty and the weather has been lovely. I have been working most nights but Penny and I get to hang out during the day. Today we went to Orchard House! (Louisa May Alcott's house). It was so neat and the tour guide was so knowledgeable. Most of the people in the tour, including the guide, seemed more interested in Penny than the tour. How can I blame them? Penny and me at Orchard House.


The above three are me and Penny on our walk to the park.

I love that girl. Being a mom is awesome.

Wow it's been months, if not a full year since I've blogged... I guess it's time I start pulling my weight in the blogosphere. So life is great, school is good, we like Boston a lot... but probably not enough to keep us here for the rest of our lives (so don't worry family). Penny is reaching new levels of cuteness, levels that can only be reached with videos, so here are a couple. The audio wasn't working for me for some reason, so let me know if it's messed up for everyone else.




Penny does this funny thing sometimes where she sucks her upper lip... it's weird in a adorable sort of way.


And Uncle Joe and our friend Justin (that I've known since my first summer term at BYU-I way back in 2000) were our on the east coast and stopped in to visit, so we went to a Red Socks game and watched them get creamed by Toronto. During the 8th inning everyone sings "Sweet Caroline" and I missed most of it but you get the picture.