We Now Live in a Gated House!

For months Ella has walked by our stairs and not made the briefest move toward going up them and then, this past week, I would find her standing on the 1st step looking at us smiling.  Then, she would continue up them til she was 1/2way up the 1st flight with no way to get down except tumbling of course.  Thankfully, she never tumbled down, but it was enough to finally breakdown and put the gates back up :(    Now, we will try to get her to learn how to get up and down on the stairs so we can take them back down!

Working on her new "skill" before the gates went up:

She's pretty proud of herself!

She is such a fun baby to be around!!  I will have to do an update on her soon.

 

And, now the gates are up and Avery is so good with shutting them closed.  She also likes to go on the other side and act like she's a princess in a castle ;)  As long as she shuts them behind her she can pretend play all day long!



She's Definitely Tim's Daughter!

Today at the grocery store, Avery & Ella got their usual free cookies from the bakery.  They pretty much looked like this, in the spirit of the season:

Avery decided to keep hers until after dinner tonight to have with Tim which was surprising, not that she would want to eat it with him, but normally she devours it the second it gets in her hands! 

But, the one who is definitely a Penrod is Ella!!!  With half-eaten cookie in hand we got to the tomato display and the child literally started screaming and pointing at them and would not stop until she had one of these in each of her hands, cookie all but forgotten:

SERIOUSLY???  Who drops a cookie for tomatoes??  Definitely Tim's daughter!

Randoms...So Many!

i'm never going to catch up!!  from over the holidays:

this is what my costco cart now looks like and i LOVE it!!

holiday photos in front of the tree

avery pulling ella on the blanket.  they love it!

why are babies so cute in sunglasses?

sweet juliet

Santa at Lifetime

Last Saturday, we went to go have breakfast, do crafts, ride on trains, get our face painted and sit with Santa at Lifetime.  I know Avery has been waiting to go see Santa at the "gym" to tell him what she wants from him for Christmas and she was super excited!!  

Ella was having a blast just walking around and eating - of course! Where does it all go??

This is a good distance for her...

All of them with Santa...a little too close for Ella ;)

way too close for her but avery was happy!

 

the girls ready to tell santa what they want.  avery asked him for a princess bike and he told her that he thinks he probably could find that in his workshop. 

they got to make their own ornaments and we came home with a couple of them.

and, they waited so patiently to get their faces painted. 

check out my butterfly

 ella LOVED looking at her

the train ride that ella wanted no part of.  oh well...next year!

and we ended the morning with dancing and hula hooping.  thanks nana!!

Happy Hannukah!

What a fun Hannukah we had this year with the girls. It was kind of crazy because Christmas fell right in the middle of it all, but the girls didn't seem to mind...more presents :)  In totally random order here are our 8 wonderful nights!

Our last night of Hannukah we spent with Darmi and Poppy.  Both the girls got puppy zhu-zhus.  They thought they were so fun!

 Art for Avery one night

Our big night at Darmi & Poppy's with Mollye, Brian and baby Maddie too.  The girls totally raked it in!

celebrating our 1st night with Shea & Alicia

another night of art, the theme this season

 the girls new hannukah bags that nana made after a pattern i found...aren't they so cute!

dinner before presents.  yummy pasta!