Penelope In the Last Few Weeks

It has been amazing to see the progress that Penny is making physically and developmentally. She is such a sweet baby. At six weeks she rolled over, seven weeks she started to look us in the eyes, eight weeks she started smiling on purpose, and at 8 1/2 weeks she started cooing and smiling much more. She is able to hold up her head for tummy time for up to 15 minutes. She is so strong! Yesterday she was trying to roll over from her back to tummy. She almost got it. When she is hungry she'll make grunts and squeals and will get so excited when she sees the breast coming...she'll open up her mouth really wide and dive in and nuzzle her head in. When she hears my voice she'll look all around to try to find me and will open up her eyes wide and raise her eyebrows. It's very cute. Tonight on the phone we were talking to the Benitez bunch and she would coo in response to Deven and Micaella's voices. They loved it and so did I!

Friday night Penny and I were lying on my bed and I was singing "Heavenly Father Loves Me" ...you probably know the lyrics more so than the title of the song "Whenever I hear the song of a bird or look at the blue blue sky...", which is her favorite song (I know this because she stops fussing when I sing this song more than any other song), and as I lay looking at her singing this song she kept smiling these big cheesy grins and cooing and opening up her mouth really wide and raising her eyebrows. It was the sweetest thing. She did this for a good 10 minutes as I sang the song over and over to her. I loved every minute! It's hard to believe because she was so dang cute from the moment she was born, but she is getting cuter and cuter by the second...you can see for yourselves:

Four Weeks Old

9/27/2009--Pen with Aunt Jenny

Five Weeks Old

10/4/2009--Penny's hand's were cold and so we did what any good parent would do, we put socks on her hands.

Six Weeks Old

10/11/2009--She loves bath time. She'll kick her arms and legs like she's swimming. Often times she'll get so relaxed that she'll start falling asleep in the bathtub.


Seven Weeks Old

The following were taken 10/18/2009:
She crosses her eyes all the time. It cracks us up. We had to get a picture for posterity's sake.



This is the cute dress Grandma Linda gave Penny at my St. Louis baby shower. I love love love it.We will often walk into her nursery and find her like this. She is a little Houdini. Even in my best swaddles she manages to get out. That led me to buy "Woombie" which is a contraption I found on the internet that looks like a little straight jacket. It's actually quite adorable and I'll have to post a picture of it later.

10/22/2009--"Playing" with her stuffed animals on the floor after nursing. One of Penny's very favorite things is to lay in the sunlight. She loves to look out the window into the woods in our backyard. Sometimes if she's fussing and I know she's not hungry or messy, and she won't be soothed by rocking and cuddling I'll bring her to the window and she'll stop crying because she's fascinated by the leaves on the trees.

Eight Weeks Old

The smiles arrive!!!!!

The following were taken 10/29/2009. She is lying on her daddy's rose blankie. Every morning he'll wrap himself in this blanket and go eat breakfast. He says it's not his 'blankie' but I think he's just afraid to come out of the blankie closet and fully admit that he's a blankie lover like my sister's and I.


My goodness I can't get enough of these smiles. They melt my heart.