18 Months Old!

Today I am taking a moment to reflect on a post with a similar title, while sharing that the big news today is that Penny is now 18 months old!  Though its a bit of a parent cliche, I can't help but express that I don't know WHERE the time has gone! It really sort of startled me when I sat down to write this post, when I realized that my last baby is a full-blown toddler.  Sometimes I still think of my first baby (now a very big boy) as being this age.  At any rate, here's the low down on Miss Penny:

Penny is quite the talker!  She says so many words these days I am hard pressed to remember them all.  Basically she can and will repeat just about anything we say.  Her most common words include Mama, Daddy, Buh-Puh (Cooper), hi, nana (banana), apple, boo-bear (blueberries), Ma-Mas (Grandma), Go-Gur (yogurt), cracker, sucker, diaper, duck, Ralph (our dog), truck, fish, ball, bebes (baby), gang-kit (blanket), Elmo (from Sesame Street), Elmo (also says this for the Disney Nemo character), in-cess (princess) and star.

Really though, she CAN say anything...just last night her and Cooper were playing and she started exclaiming, "Bust my buffers!"  (This is a Thomas the Train expression that Cooper uses all the time.)  Penny knows a lot of animals and the sounds they make.  The duck says "Gack Gack", the horse says "neigh", the cow says "moo", the puppy says "wuff"...all of this she knows.  What makes this so Penny is that while she knows all of this, her favorite sound is the duck sound.  A lot of the time if you ask her what an animal says, she will say, with an impish grin, "Gack Gack".  This is her version of being funny, and we love it!

Recent trip to the aquarium...but the first time Penny enjoyed it like a kid...no stroller riding for this big girl!

Penny loves to play with her babies, work wood puzzles,  ride on her Dora ride-on toy, especially when Cooper is flying around the living room on his ride-on, and play with any toy that her big brother is playing with including blocks, trains, cars, or in the playhouse outside.  She also loves to push buttons...she drives Cooper crazy with her button-pushing, quite literally.  If we are watching one of his shows, she turns off the DVD player.  If he is playing on the iPad, she likes to push the home button.  If I accidentally leave my phone in reach, she is trying to text someone.

I don't have Penny's growth stats yet...both her and Cooper have been under the weather for the last week and I didn't really want to take her in to see the doctor and get any shots while sick.  Hopefully the congestion et al will be cleared up next week and we can go in to see how she's doing physically, though after looking at pictures of Cooper at this age, she seems to be right where she should be and doing great!

Miss Penny with her first ponytail...I slave to keep all that HAIR out of her face!  I don't mind, her wild hair seems to suit her.

So, I Sewed!

 For several years now, I have had a personal goal of learning to sew.  Before Cooper and Penny came along, the task of learning to sew never seemed important, as I had a career, a husband, and a very old house to attend to.   Once Cooper was born, I had even less time to consider taking up a new hobby but it occurred to me that sewing could be useful in my career as a mom.  Fast forward a couple of years and add another kid to the mix. Learning to sew was pushed even further down the list of priorities.  Then came Halloween of 2011.  I didn't have the ability to make a costume for Penny, so I ended up, through gritted teeth, buying her a costume that every other kid her age probably had too.  This REALLY bothered me, and since I had always wanted to learn to sew ANYWAY, sewing became one of my prioritized goals for 2012.  David got me a sewing machine for Christmas and I let it sit on a shelf for two months, completely intimidated by it.  Then last week, armed with a cup of coffee, a how-to you tube video, and some cheap fabric remnants, I set to work.  Here is what unfolded...

I don't have a true workable flat surface anywhere in my house!  All of my table and desk tops are "distressed".  I also didn't have real sewing scissors or measuring tape at first.  I wasn't sure this sewing thing would stick so I wasn't willing to spend much money to start, however I was not going to let lack of proper tools stop me.  I used the top of my dryer as a work surface, regular old paper scissors, and a ruler...

I watched a you tube video on how to make an envelope pillow cover (an easy first project), and set to work cutting and pinning the fabric. I also used a pen to mark where to cut...I don't know why, I guess I just figured the marks wouldn't show from the inside of the cover. (They didn't.)

My sewing space...the kitchen table.  I set to work and it took no time at all to sew a mattress cover for Penny's doll bed. I was sort of disappointed how quick and relatively easy it was, so I kept going.  Over the next few days, I made a pillow and blanket to go with the mattress cover.  My stitching got better as I got a feel for the machine.   This is fun!

The finished product...what you can't see is the slight uneven stitching on the back side of the cover...

Penny's baby trying out the new bedding...I'm not sure Penny likes it because she keeps pulling out the bedding to put her babies to sleep!  Oh well, at least I now have the confidence to move on to other things.  On to recovering my couch pillows and maybe curtains (finally) for Cooper's room!

Where We've Been

Have I ever discussed how much we dislike winter?  Well, we do.  We like to be outside and generally speaking, we don't like to wear shoes.  (Flip-flops are fine, of course.)  Ours would not be a.happy household if we lived somewhere colder.  We usually all go a little stir crazy through the winter because we just can't go outside as much.  The evenings seem long because it gets dark sooner and we spend it indoors.  The last few weeks, despite the season, have gone relatively fast.  Why?  Well, there are two reasons.  One, we were considering the idea of moving away from the coast and making plans and preparing to do so.  We are not, however, moving. (More on that later.)  Two, we have filled the void with several things.  Home improvement (as usual), two quick trips to the Ranch, Valentine's Day and David's birthday, and of course our regular routine.  I've tried to blog through the last month.  It just hasn't happened.  Either I wasn't feeling particularly inspired when I sat down to write, or I didn't have any good pictures to share.  (I like pictures in my posts!)  At any rate, we've been relatively quiet here in the blogosphere, but where we've been has given us a place to go.

Another Afternoon at the Ranch