Penny Pie is 3 months! (aka picture overload)

Before I bombard you with pictures of Penelope, I thought I'd give Eleanor the spotlight for a minute. She is the cutest big sister you'll ever meet! She is so sweet to Penelope. She holds her hand when we're driving in the car and moves the sun shade thing on her carseat if it's too "ight" (bright), she reassures her with "ohhh it's k" when she's crying, she bring her toys, she tries to share her snacks, when she hears her crying on the baby monitor she lets me know "it's the baby", she climbs in her crib with her to keep her company, and she always wants to include her in our dance parties.


One night after her bath and jammies, she insisted she put on her boots, her belt, sunglasses, and an old hat. And if that wasn't enough, she found her swimsuits and wore them as purses. I wish I had a clearer picture, but you have to have a glimpse of my fashion forward child :) She just cracks me up when she likes to accessorize like this, because I have no idea where she gets it from. The only accessories I own are earrings!

Ok, now on to Penelope, or "P-P" as Eleanor calls her. At some point we'll probably have to nix that nickname. I don't think Penelope will like it very much. On the eve of her 3 month birthday she decided it would be a good time to roll over. (Eleanor first rolled over when she was 2 1/2 months old. Why do my children have such an urgency to be on the go!?!) It's fun to compare their differences and similarities. For example, Penelope doesn't get nearly as frustrated as Eleanor did when she's trying to roll over, but once she rolls over, she gets pretty irritated that she's stuck on her stomach, while Eleanor was thrilled to be on her tummy.
Here's Eleanor on the move:

And Penelope:

(And I just realized they were wearing the same little nightgown when they first rolled!)

Penelope is much more dainty when she shoves her hands in her mouth...
Eleanor:

Penelope:


I love my babies and watching them grow everyday and learning about their personalities!

Now, join me for an afternoon with Penelope...






Victory!





Uh-oh, I'm stuck!

This is after I rolled her back over...doesn't she have the best surprised face?

Trunk or Treat, Grandparents, and a Baby Blessing

On Wednesday we had our ward trunk or treat. Eleanor was a ladybug (last year's after Halloween $2.50 special at Big Lots). Unfortunately this is the best picture I could get of her before we left...

Andrew had night class and I had to help with the Beehive's cookie decorating booth and face painting booth so I was worried things might get out of control with Eleanor and Penelope. Luckily things went pretty smoothly. I think Eleanor was a little spooked out by everyone in costumes so she basically stood by me the whole time. It also helped that she could just sit at the little table and shake sprinkles on her cookie to her heart's delight and then lick them off. And Penelope was a trooper, she just sat in her carseat and took in all the sights. Andrew showed up just in time to take Eleanor trunk or treating while I cleaned up. Eleanor was so excited to fill her pumpkin bucket with candy.

On Friday Andrew's parents drove up from North Carolina. On Saturday morning Eleanor was excited to see them and show off all her tricks...
Like feeding and burping her baby

and playing with her train tracks


The girls with Grandpa Doug

and Nana (check out Eleanor's size 8 feet!!)

On Saturday we headed off to explore another pumpkin patch. They had cute little crafts to look at and a treehouse to play in. As you can tell by our attire, the cold weather is here to stay!


On Sunday we blessed Penelope at church. She was born on Friday the 13th and blessed on Halloween - spooooky. I thought about painting her nails black but Andrew wouldn't let. Here's our obligatory inside the church foyer, after baby blessing, end of church, past naptime photo op :)

And here's our precious little Penelope.





Does it get any cuter than this??

A 2 Year Old and a 2 Month Old

We celebrated the arrival of fall a couple of weekends ago and went to a pumpkin patch that also had some other activities.

Eleanor played on a train

we went on a hayride

we milked a pretend cow

we ate ice cream

we saw a lot pumpkins

and we had our picture taken :)

Last week we got back from a trip to Utah. Andrew's school sent him down to the BYU law fair to do some recruiting. They paid for all of his accommodations, so since Eleanor wasn't quite 2 yet, we were all able to go for just the price of my plane ticket. It was so fun to see my brother and 2 sisters that are at BYU and my dad even came in town. We celebrated Eleanor's birthday a week early with them and made her a practice birthday cake. I really should have taken more pictures, but unfortunately this is all I've got.

Another great thing about our trip is that we got flight vouchers! Score!! We have gotten so many vouchers in the last couple of years. I think Eleanor is some kind of good luck charm. Our flight out of SLC sat on the runway for almost 2 hours because there were some mechanical issues so we missed our connection in Denver and had to spend the night there and fly out the next morning. As anxious as I was to just get home with my overtired children, I think all the hassle was worth getting some vouchers!

In other news, Penelope turned 2 months! She still loves to be held and rocked, but ever since we put her on medicine for her reflux she has turned into our little angel baby. She is so sweet and smiles and coos so much. She sleeps like a champ - at night she'll go from about 11 pm to 6 am then eat and go back to sleep until about 8:30 am. She is in the 95th percentile for height and weight! And I'm sad to say this is one of the only recent pictures I have of her. I really need to pull my camera out more often. She sucks on her hands all the time and I bet she'll turn into a thumb sucker like her big sister one of these days.

Before the weather gets too cold we are trying to take advantage of our beautiful fall here in Ohio. So over the weekend we went to the Cleveland Zoo.

Andrew and Eleanor aren't that great at showing how excited they really are in pictures. I promise, they were really having a good time!

Eleanor really got excited about the polar bear

She really didn't like having her picture taken


She loves giraffes and says they are "toooolll" (toe-l) (translation: tall)

She loved playing on the playground

she loved riding the elephant

she loved riding the tram, which she insisted was a choo-choo

and she loves her dada!

On Sunday Eleanor turned 2! So i made a little cookie cake and she opened her presents.

She was very excited about her Buzz, Woody, and Alien pool throw toys that I got on summer clearance at target...best $2.48 I ever spent!


A birthday celebration has to last at least a week, right?? So on Tuesday we took Eleanor to Chuck E. Cheese with her buddy Katherine. This clock ride was by far her favorite thing there!

Happy Birthday to our little Eleanor!