a pretty perfect date

last week was a great one for weather... nice and warm during the day with a lovely evening to following.  We took advantage of that weather to enjoy a pretty much perfect evening with our friends - the 'q' family.  tom and kris (the dads) have been friends for years (i believe they celebrated their silver anniversary this year) and now it's awesome that the kids are friends as well.  donovan and reese are 3, and 1, and the perfect friends for penelope.

so - who better to enjoy a date night (kids included) with :)

none to shabby.

we started at twin oaks park (a favorite of both families) where the kids played, we enjoyed a picnic, and then the kids had a blast fishing the duck fish. Follow up with more playground fun a trip to Fritzs for ice cream and there it is - the perfect summer evening :)

thanks 'q' family for having a double family date with us :)



the picnic circuit

penny's been hitting the picnic circuit this summer... started at St. Francis, last weekend and Queen and who knows what else we will find.  One thing is for usre though - she loves rides..

She also loves games and happens to ROCK (aka cheat) at them.  She some how won the grand prize at every game.. either she cheated or they just though she was so damn cute that the people runnming the booths cheated for her - shh... dont tell anyone :)

this was a pretty special picnic for penny cuz BOTH sets fo grandparents came out to play with her along with aunt lizzie, uncle mark and of course mommy and daddy.. she had quite the entourage :)

some pics from the picnic....

waiting patiently for her turn

bumper cars wth mommy - MISTAKE

i love this picure... lizzie looks terrified

riding with uncle mark

winning (i mean cheating)

very clearly cheating in this one

she looks like such a little pimp :)  or a britney backup dancer :)

my pretty girl


After the picnic we walked back to gamma and gpa h's house and hung out with anderson and henry - some of penny's friends :)  as we were telling them goodbye we ran into gma and pawpaw d as well again!  so we had an impromptu gathering of all the grandparents out friend and even a dance party in paw-paws truck.... one lucky little girl with some aweosme grandparents that love her very very much :)



gatsby buddy

penny and gatsby are getting very close lately and it's adorable to watch them be friends :)

she is getting older (and more sturdy) and suddenly very interested in playing with him. Plus children have no fear.  she will stick her hand in his mouth like it's no big deal.  and to give him credit, he's good with her.  he's gentle, he let's go if she is pulling on something and never bites down on her fingers..

penny has also figured out how to get him to sit for a treat. she just wont give it until he listens.  she will yell "sit gabby.  sit" like 50 times.  if he wants he stinking treat, he better listen.  then she throws the treat (usually no where near him), leans over and says "good boy, good boy gatsby buddy"

so cute :)



moonwalk

penny's moonwalk :)

butterfly house!

last thursday penny got to spend some long overdue time with gamma h. and aunt kori at the butterfly house and she had a blast.  she was a little nervous at first, but in true penny form, warmed up pretty quickly and was suddenly no fear.. she has been telling me for days about how a butterfly landed on gamma's head and that it was "so funny that silly goose".  

they followed the butterfly house with 2 penny favorites - a picnic (or "pignib") and a ride on "giddy up ponies".

the girl was in heaven.

thanks for a great day gma and aunt kori!!

under the bus...

twice last week that little stinker threw me under the bus..

1).  while shopping at online, mommy may have gotten into it with the cashier. She would not let me use a giftcard with a coupon. EVERYONE knows giftcards are like cash so there should be no problem. penny was sitting patiently in the cart for awhile, while I got more and more frustrated... i was about to ask for the manager, when penny leans over to the cashier and says "my mommy mean"

whose side are you on penny??

i made a quick old navy departure.

2).  i got pulled over the other day because my plates are expired. it's been on my list of things to do for a month and I'm still not sure what happened to may.. but regardless - old plates.

the police officer comes up to the car and before he even speaks he hears "mommy in trouble. mommy in trouble for being mean??"

the officer looks a little confused.. and i'm sure concerned for the child that i'm apparently so mean too... but ends up saying "no.. mommy's not in trouble.. I'll be right back"

i think the little stinker helped out though.. when he came back it was just a warning and he told penny that her mommy was not in trouble.  to which she responds:

"mommy not in trouble anymore.  mommy happy now!"

where does she get this????

A few other randoms... penelope has been very demanding in general lately, she always wants "evybody" to do what she is doing. for example "paw paw put feet in pool" "mommy put feet in pool" "EVYBODY put feet in pool".

she also yells out random demands... the best were friday night.  she was sick and had a pretty nasty fever when she woke up at 3 am. we let her watch some gabba in our room while we worked on getting the fever down.. dont know if it was the fever, the fact that she was half asleep or just her normal demanding nature, but the following three demands were yelled (and repeated) nonstop for about 2 hours.

"I WANT TO FLY IN AN AIRPLANE NOW"

"BRUSH YOU HAIR NOW"

"SIT UP WHEN YOU WATCH TV" (we were both trying to get some sleep, which was apparently unacceptable.)

so... i love this new phase in language development and i LOVE hearing all the crazy stuff she comes up with, so i guess it's time to get used to be embarrassed in public.. and irrationally reprimanded at 3 am :)

sorry if this is a dup...

i can't remember if i posted this yet... but i love this video of penelope doing her animal noises :)

crocodile chomp

aunt lizzie (or iddy) got a pretty sweet video of penelope when she watched her on saturday night for my bday...

what penny is attempted is the "crocodile chomp" a video from yo gabba gabba performed by Andy Samberg.

What it actually looks like can be seen here.

Crocodile Chomp

I like penny's version better. 

 

(she's saying "clap here, up here, over there, down here and chippy chippy chomp)



face time

what did the world do before iphones?  penelope will never know a life that didnt have facetime - and lucky for her neither will her cousin calvin.  with them usually in kansas city and now even further away in arizona for the rest of the year, facetime is how we let these ones see each other. calvin doesnt know what is going on yet, but penny sure does :) look at these photos... her face is priceless as she talks to her cousin on her bday :)



pretty pretty princess

paw paw surprised penny with a new princess outfit on sunday for her bday.. all i can say is wow.  she's a classy princess - belly button on display :)



the big 3-0!

well it happened.  i officially turned 30 this weekend.  it wasn't soo bad.. in fact it was pretty fantastic - great family, great friends, great party, great gifts... not so great hangover... :)

penelope was fantastic - i wasnt sure if she'd be confused that it was my bday when we had been talking about hers.  but she was soo sweet and kept telling me "happy birthday mommy" and aunt lizzie sent a video over of her singing to me..  doesn't get much more awesome than this.

I also got a homemade penny card, amazing flowers, and the best birthday "cake"ever.  Kris got it from Five Bistro.  3 words - Goat Cheese & Chocolate.  my heaven. Penny helped sing to me and helped me blow out the candles.

i have to say... turning 30 wasn't so bad...and having my awesome family to celebrate with me was amazing.

penelope did wake up the next monring saying "not  mommy's bday anymore - it penny's bday now" 

dont worry baby - we know - that's coming up in my next post :)

dancing in the rain

well it was raining, it was warm and we both have rain boots - so why not???

penny and i had a little "dancing in the rain" run today :)

Congratulations Uncle Mark

Uncle Mark graduated!  He's the last one ofmy siblings (all six of us) to finish high school - way to go class of 2012!  we took some family pics after graduation outside Joey B's... some of these are just super cute :)