christmas with the daddy's family

we did our first christmas last weekend with daddy's parents and brother and sister... was so much fun and such a weirdly gorgeous day... we spent most of it outside - pretty unexpected for december 18th...

we went over to gma and gpa h's house with uncle kyle, aunt mary beth, aunt kori and uncle matt bright and early at 9 am and startd presents soon after... penny got some awesome presents but i think the award for favorite goes to the doll and dolly accessosry set from uncle kyle and aunt mb.  she now has a pack n play, high chair, baby bjorn, rocker and bouncy seat for her babies.. we play with those items all day every day.  she is also a huge fan of her brand new tricyle (photos later) from gma and gpa h along with the giant brobee doll and her muno hat.  and mommy's favorite present... much to my surprise was the adorable juicy sweatsuit from aunt kori! so cute!  i alos have to give props to aunt kori for the crayola bath gel crayons... we have been very successful latley with finally getting penny in the bathtub and with the help the crayons i was able to wash her wihtout her knowig!!! 

a few favorite photos from the day below...



cereal!!

first of all ... can you tell i'm on christmas break? it's blogger overload today!!!

gotta get these done before all the holiday craziness starts!!! then i'll be really behind!

daddy was eating some captain crunch the other day, and as penelope does with everything now she demanded, "i want bite". 

a new love was born.  penelope LOVES LOVES LOVES her some captain crunch.  it's adorable.   she does a prettyy good job of eating it by herself too.  we have to put an extra napkin on her lap so she doesnt totally drench herself with milk but she loves it!

she takes her cereal eating very seriously too - it requires a LOT of focus...



baby dolls, jewelry and yo gabba gabba...

no real theme to this post... just a hodge podge of photos that involve penny's favorite things... her dolls, yo gabba gabba and jewelry.

she LOVES this baby doll she got from gma hoffman for xmas... it has a bunch of outfits you can put on it but all penny cares about is brushing it's hair... i hope penny doesnt start to get jealous of all the hair her dolls have...(notice there is a giant brobee doll and another baby in the background.)

2.  still playing with her doll when we are getting ready to walk out  the door... and check out her sweet new yo gabba gabba muno hat...

3.  aunt lizzie bought penny this brobee shirt and gave it to her last weekend.  i washed it first and when i was folding laundry today she pulled it out of the pile and INSISTED that we put it on immediately.  she wore it all night and then poured and entire cup of water on herself.. still woudl not take off the shirt... of the 5 necklaces that she thought complimented it so well.

4.  i love profile shots... its that little button nose :)



ginger bread houses

there are so many fun christmas projects and crafts - and pinterest puts them right in front of your face... so of course every day I want to try something new.  i dont know about other new moms out there but for reason i feel like i need to establish our famliy traditions young... so i'm probably going for it to young... but i'm going for it anyway!

one of the "traditions" i decided we'd do this year is gingerbread houses.  (but i'm not a complete nutjob - i used graham crackers and hot glued them together to make houses before I even brought penn into the kitchen).  I did however think we'd spend an hour of nice family time decorating our houses... not that case.  this whole project lasted 6 minutes.  took 3 times as long to clean up...



such a ham

this little one is turning into quite the ham lately...



torture?

well.... what was suppossed to be just a simple little breakfast with santa was apparently a day of hell for penelope... who knew santa was so frightening... and who know that a terrified child could make such an awesome xmas card (watch the mail...) :)

and what does it take to make her happy again?  apparently just a plate of sausage and some syrup...

mabye next year santa should actually serve breakfast??

dancing and getting all the wiggles out...

yo gabba gabba has a song that is a favorite of penny's that she sings to "get the wiggles (or sillies) out."

it's basically...

"hold stttiilll....

wiggle wiggle wiggle go

wiggle wiggle wiggle go"

these videos are penny getting the wiggles out, with a little ring around the rosy and dancing thrown in...

she's got moves :)



decorating for christmas!

this past weekend we finally were able to do some christmas decorating.. lights up inside, mantle done, and most important - our first real tree picked out!

penelope had a great time helping to pick out the tree and an even better time playing with the lights...

some decorating photos below along with the finished products!