First Great Picture of Penelope & Nate

Enough said:

Momentous Events

Last week we attended Nate's first baseball game; it was a beautiful night for a game, we got to see Bryce Harper play, Penelope got her first baseball (purchased, not caught), and the best part was that Aunt Rachel was with us too! Here are the best pix we could get:

Handsome Boy

just a nice picture of Nate that I like:

First Pigtails

This post is about a month late, but too cute to pass up. These are shots of Penelope's first pigtails, a momentous event in any little girl's life!

Family Visits

One of the best things about having a new baby is that you get more than the usual number of visits from family. Penelope is so used to people visiting that this past weekend when she and I took my sister to the airport at the end of her visit, Penelope asked who was coming to visit next (not in so many words, but that was the gist of it). Here are some shots of recent visits we have had with Penelope & Nate's aunts and family:

Cousin June, Aunt Jenny, Ben & Penelope enjoy the swings; it was June's first time!

Nate, Penelope & June, in a classic pose (how else to get three kids of this age in one shot?)

Aunt Rachel meets Nate, and Penelope helps!

Penelope, Aunt Rachel & I enjoy brunch!

Despite Appearances, She Really Is My Daughter..

Last night Penelope played in her crib by herself for 20-30 minutes while I put Nate down (Ben is on a work trip). Ben wisely suggested that I give her one of her favorites toys, a set of cupcakes with icing and candles that are removable and exchangeable. I was nervous about how this would go, we don't often ask her to play quietly by herself in her crib. When I came in to get her to put her down for the night, below is the sight that awaited me. All of the pieces of the cupcake set, neatly categorized and laid out next to one another. I guess despite looking just like her dad (so everyone says at least), she does have some of me in her after all.

More Similarities

In fairness, so far Nate seems to be very different from his big sister (at least with regard to sleeping patterns), but in terms of cute expressions there are some that seem to me to be very similar. Here is one example:

Nate's Smile/Laugh Around One Month:


PJ's Smile/Laugh Around One Month:

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Last Sunday morning (Nate's 4-week birthday), Penelope & Nate began the morning hanging out with Mom & Dad in their jammers (pajamas to those of you non-Champas). Here are some shots of the big sister and little brother hanging out:

Penelope & Nate Spend Some Quality Time

Penelope seems to be taking pretty well to her baby brother. She hugs him, kisses him, has held him, says good night to him and says she loves him. I think that seems like a pretty good start! She also likes to look in on him sleeping and show him things, like the colored buttons on her toy phone.

More Nate!

P is for Penelope

Penelope officially recognizes at least one letter, the letter P of course. She also knows that "P is for Penelope." She actually does pretty well with other letters in her name also. She can pretty reliably bring us the letters "o" and "e" upon request from two puzzles she has that spell her name, and some of the other letters as well!

Interrogatories

Penelope is fully into what her Nana calls "interrogatories." She is all questions: "Where is so and so?" "What's he doing?" "What's that noise?" It seems she is officially into some sort of new phase of language development!

First Family Portrait

Here are some pix of the new & improved Champa Family:

Look Alikes?

Today we snapped a shot of Nathan that reminded me so strongly of a picture we have of Penelope from the hospital, that I am compelled to post them both and see what others think:

Here is Nate at less than 2 days old:

And here is Penelope at less than 4 days old:

Welcome Nathan David Champa

As our loyal blog followers no doubt already know, Baby Boy Champa has arrived. Late Saturday evening / early Sunday morning we welcomed Nathan David into the world. He weighed in at 7 lbs and 8 ozs and measured 20 inches. This means that his big sister has him beat in the newborn stats departments. Having tied him on height and head size (35 cm), weight was the tie breaker and she beat him out on that one by 6 ozs! Below is one of the first pictures we have of him:

time out!

So one of the "parenting" techniques we are trying to use is the classic "time out" routine. Today Penelope showed me just how much she understands about the technique by putting her Cookie Monster stuffed animal in "time out." Apparently he had knocked over her blocks, and that is "time out behavior" in her book. Perhaps the best part was that she used her play cell phone to set the timer, just like her mom does. She pushed some buttons on the phone and let Cookie Monster know that he is done with time out at the "beep beeps"! She is pretty amazing!

Penelope's Approach to Her Baby Brother

As Penelope's "baby brother" is likely to be joining us any day now, I figured I better get a few things on record now. I am not going to say that Penelope actually understands what it means to have a baby brother on the way, frankly I am not sure her mom & dad do yet really either. But she knows where her baby brother is (mama's belly). She also sometimes says good night to her baby brother, or sings him songs to go to sleep. She also knows where his room is, and sometimes points to where he is going to be sleeping. All in all this seems like a promising start, let's keep our fingers crossed.

Transitions

Penelope seems to be a pretty resilient and/or "go with the flow" kind of girl so far (hope I am not jinxing things by saying this out loud). In early January she dealt with a lot of change. In the same three-day window, we moved her to a new bedroom, with a new bed (still a crib), and she also started a new classroom at daycare. That's right, Penelope is officially a Panda (that's what they call the 2's room). She is taking everything in stride, while her mom & dad seem to be slightly amazed at the differences in this new class room. For example, the Pandas have "show & tell" every Friday (apparently it helps the kids develop their verbal skills, as they stand up to talk to their classmates about their object). The also have jobs. One day you may be the "napkin passer" and the next you could be the "bell ringer" (truth be told, I don't even know what the bell ringer job entails, but Penelope had that as her job her first day in the classroom, and apparently she handled it just fine). There are other differences too, most of which are slipping my mind right now; but in general I will say that it is exciting and kind of amazing to see how far she is coming how fast.

Penelope's Latest Tricks

I feel like it has been awhile since I have documented some of Penelope's newest tricks. I am sure I will forget some, but I will do my best. Let's see, she can sing a number of songs. The newest are "If You're Happy & You Know It," "Five Little Monkeys," and "Five Little Ducks"

She also likes to help put away groceries, play cook in her play kitchen, do puzzles, play with Mrs. Potato head, and use big sentences that involve about five words. She can also maneuver her way in to and out of her car seat, except of course for the whole buckling thing, which I think we can all acknowledge is for the best. But her most frequent request is for someone to build a wall of blocks "around the Penelope." Since she usually doesn't do the work herself, but instead suckers others into doing it for her, I guess I would categorize this as one of her burgeoning management skills.

A very new development is that she will sometimes read to others. For example, she knows some of the words to "Madeline" - she knows it starts "In an old house in Paris, that is covered in vines..." and she knows that in two straight lines the girls "brushed their teeth and went to bed;" and of course she knows what Madeline says to the tiger in the zoo (for those of you not in the know, the answer is "pooh, pooh").

Overall, she amazes us pretty much every day with some new trick. It is hard to remember what life was like before she could communicate with us so well. Lucky for us, her baby brother, who should be joining us very soon, will be a jolting reminder.

Car Show

Attending the DC Auto Show is basically a family tradition for us. We have probably been for the last 5 years in a row, maybe more. That means Penelope has been when she was less than two months old, when she was just over one, and this year when she was just over two. Each year she gets something different out of it, (I am pretty sure the only thing she got out of it the first year was the chance to get out of the house, where she had been otherwise confined with her mom & dad since birth). This year she got to sit in the cars with her dad and press some buttons (or as she calls them "butts"). She also got a free toy car from the kind folks at Scion who chased after us to give it to her. Below are some shots of her dad explaining to her the magic of this event:

And Don't Forget Christmas

Oh yeah, and in the midst of everything, there was Christmas. As with her birthday, Penelope got a lot of gifts and had a great time. Below are some shots of her with her baby doll (complete with diaper bag, bottles, and diaper changing kit), her ladybug backpack, and some in the green bag special books that come with an electronic reading friend...

Welcome 2012!

Here's a decent family shot from New Years Eve of the three of us (four of us really). Happy 2012 to everyone, we are looking forward to a big year around the Champa household!

Penelope's First IU Game

This past weekend Penelope attended her very first Indiana University Men's Basketball game. We traveled up to Penn State to see the 14-1 and 12th ranked Indiana Hoosiers become the 15-1 and 8th ranked Indiana Hoosiers! It was a good game. We played well, there was some excitement in the closing minutes, but in the end Indiana was victorious. Also, Penelope got to trot out almost all of her Indiana gear at once. She wore her IU socks, IU t-shirt, IU hat, carried her IU pom pom, and the night before slept in her IU pajamas! Here are some shots we took over the weekend:

Adventures in Pottyland: Part Two

Stop reading if you are not interested in the topic of potty training accomplishments!

Again in the category of catching up, the week that Penelope turned two she pooped in the potty twice! It was a major accomplishment, and apparently one that would not be repeated again for some time as she has not done it in the four weeks since. Oh well, plenty of time to work on this skill.

Penelope's Second Birthday

Penelope had a great, low-key, but nonetheless eventful birthday. She started off the day by getting to wear the special birthday dress her mom and dad picked out for her -- she even called it her birthday dress.

Then she had cupcakes at daycare and got blow out candles (well, one candle, her friend Zachary, whose birthday was the month before, blew out the first one for her to show her how it was done).


Then it was time to come home and open up presents! Oh the presents, presents, presents...