Easter Sunday

Today was Penelope's first Easter.  It was also her first trip to church!  She was a little trooper.  She slept through Sunday School and then was loved on by the ladies in the nursery during the service.  They asked if they could keep her.  She is quite wonderful, if I do say so myself...

After church we went to Allison's parents house for lunch and some fun times.  We watched baseball then watched Bubba Watson win the Masters. Penelope visited with almost everyone there but found herself napping with Mel, she does that quite well.

For Easter Penelope had a super cute outfit!  Her little tights had silver mary jane looking shoes on them.  Since she has some long legs the tights were a little short, but she looked so cute!!


Here are our Easter pictures:

Family Time! 

Sweet baby girl...ignore that Chris didn't crop me out of the picture. 

Picture of the day:

Haha!  This makes me smile!  I was trying to wake her up and she was making all kinds of faces at me so I caught this one!

Sorry...

I promise I have not just turned into a total slacker after only starting my blog for 3 days.  I have a valid excuse for not posting the last two days...I have been sick.  Sometime Thursday late afternoon I started to not feel well.  That night I threw up and ended up taking some meds that didn't allow me to nurse for 24 hours. It was a good thing we had a supply of milk already stored up because we needed it!  I spent most of that night actually sleeping and Chris got the night shift.  Then Friday afternoon a friend of ours, Mel, who actually works at Phoenix Children's Hospital, came over and watched Penelope while I slept.  After another pretty good night last night I woke up this morning feeling much more like a normal person!

Thursday Penelope had her second doctor's appointment.  She weighed in at 7 lb 1oz putting her at the 15th percentile.  Dr. Alexander said he would like her to have gained just a little more weight, but it could be that she is just going to be on the thinner side.  We go back in two weeks to check that again. Penelope has been having a lot of "wake" time in that she hasn't been sleeping too much during the day, some, but not really good naps or anything and a few nights had a few cry/screaming fits.  We now believe she wasn't quite getting enough to eat. She would eat then about 30 min to an hour later acting hungry again.  Since we are trying to put her on some-what of a schedule, I wasn't sure if I should feed her again or if she was even really hungry. After talking with the doctor he said that she might really be hungry and that after her food had settled she realized she wanted more so to supplement with a bottle of about an ounce and see what she does.  Since then she has been much sleepier!  We are glad to have that issue solved and Chris is also very glad that Dr. Alexander suggested us using a bottle so now he can feed her with a bottle easily.  That appointment came just in time for me to get sick because he got to feed her a lot on Thursday and Friday!  She has also done really well going between nursing and the bottle, which was a concern of mine.  She is our little trooper!

Today my amazing Aunt Carol posted on her blog some of the pictures she took of Penelope while she was out here.  They are beautiful.  Her blog is ladyinashoe.blogspot.com but I will post a couple of them too.  I will also post my pictures of the day for the last couple of days...

Thursday Picture of the day:

She likes her Daddy...and I'm pretty sure he likes her a little too...

So Friday I didn't actually take any pictures of her...I was sick remember?  So this is her Lorax picture from today and then a few pictures from Aunt Carol to make up for no Friday picture...

Lorax Day 19!

This was an idea we got off Pinterest and the verse she is beside is Psalm 119.  This picture is extra special because the big Bible she is on is the Wagner family Bible.

I always see sweet pictures of babies on the internet and stuff but its completely different when I see the sweet picture and my heart jumps because I realize its my baby!

I think I need to submit this one to Similiac because the first time I saw it I seriously thought Aunt Carol was showing me a picture from one of their ads..then I realized I knew that little face...

This is her Pops wearing his bunker jacket and her in his helmet...the one he actually fights fires wearing.

Yep, thats my baby!

April 4

There is a cute little store in Glendale called Healthy Baby Happy Earth and on Wednesdays they do free baby weighing. Today we went to see how much we have gained. Little Miss Penelope is now back at her birth weight! 7lb 1oz! The lactation consultant we saw before said she would like to see her gain just a little more.  Tomorrow we start our more structured schedule so hopefully that will help out with our weight gain.  We also go see her doctor tomorrow and we will see what he says about her weight gain. Here is her picture from today...

Its a rough life going out on the town!

2 Weeks Old

Well little miss is 2 weeks old today!!  Its hard to believe!  We are learning to adjust to our new life.  Last night was rough but we made it through. Today has been a pretty good day.  We took a good nap this afternoon together so I feel all rested.  Chris made it home and he and Penelope are spending some quality time together.

Right now they are in the same position but in the recliner both sleeping.  Its quite sweet. Penelope has decided she likes white noises so Chris downloaded and app on his phone and thats why he has his phone in his hand.  She really likes running water, but seeing has how that will only increase our water bill...phone app it is.  Jet engines make her sleep apparently!  Now we have some friends bringing us dinner and coming to meet our little one.  Should be a good evening.

Please pray for us as we continue this adventure. My biggest struggle is knowing for sure if she has gotten enough food. She is a sweet baby and we are very excited to have her!

Penelope Kay

We are now a family of three!  Yay!  I am hoping to take a picture each day and post it on here with a little bit of how we are doing!  Since I'm almost two weeks in I will post a few pictures today to catch up! 

Yesterday was our first day to just be three of us at home.  Chris took Penelope most of the day so I could get some rest. Today is a lazy day filled with movies and laziness while Chris works! :)  

Each day we are taking a picture of Penelope with a stuffed Lorax so I will post those about once a week so you can see how she has grown in comparison to her Lorax.  

Here is her picture of the day:

Its hard stuff being this cute...this is our nap area while we watch movies!

Here are a few other pictures worth seeing!

 Proud...just a little

 First Family Moment

 So Sweet!!

 I just love the little legs and big bow!

 Sporting her Thing 1 and Thing 2 outfit with her cute bow!

 He likes her a little...

 First time he got to feed her!

 They had some good conversations that night!!

This would have been yesterday's pic of the day had I gotten to setting this up.

 Here is her with her Lorax on Day 2

And here is yesterday!

Over the next few days I'll post a few more pics of family and friends too along with the pic of the day.  

Enjoy!

Life

My mom reminded me about a week or two ago how good I am at blogging. She is right, I'm not very good at stopping what I'm doing to jot down updates, thoughts or funny stories. I should get better though. I love to write so I don't know why I don't do it more...oh well..

As far at Chris and I go...we are doing good. Life is crazy and we like it like that. Chris is trying for a promotion at work. It would be awesome! He really deserves it. He has worked hard and I think he would be really good at it. I hope he gets it, not just for the raise but because I think he would enjoy it. We don't know how long it will be until we find out for sure...Banfield is doing some new things with their leadership stuff but they are trying to be smart about it and approach it the right way, which is good. So it might be a while, but we will continue to wait and pray!

I'm doing good. School is awesome, as usual. I've started Foundations 3 which = proteins!! Week one was seafood...yumm...I learned how to take a whole fish and get fillets out of it! It was interesting...this week is chicken...oh how I love chicken!! My new Chefs are cool too. Its always nice to like your chefs!! I feel like I've been lucky and had good chefs so far...I hope I finish out that way! Ha! My job is going good too. I'm enjoying it. I like office work so its all good.

Chris and I have discovered a restaurant out here that is amazing! Its called Paradise Bakery. They do sandwiches, soups, salads and of course cookies and things of the such. Its VERY good!! If you ever come out to see us we will take you there...almost guaranteed! We have eaten at a few good places out here. Rustlers Rooste is another good one! We like it there...its comfortable. All the servers wear boots, jeans and a cowboy hat. They make a pretty good steak and we ate snake there. Tasted like a more chewy chicken...but it worked, I liked it. I've also tried some sushi. Its pretty good. I have a classmate who works at a sushi place and he has made a couple of rolls I've tried and my co-worker ordered some the other day I tried. I want to go to an actual restaurant and eat it. Either way, what I've had of it so far is pretty good.

I have now learned how to make pasta! yummo!! I love pasta!! I was surprised at how easy it is to make! I'm having fun learning all this new stuff!! It has been good getting all sorts of new ideas...now I must return to my book and finish chapter 15!

Well We Made It! (3 weeks ago)

Hi friends and family!! We finally made it to Scottsdale. Thank you for those of you who have prayed for us and even come with us out here. It has been quite the experience. We have enjoyed it a lot. I have almost completed 3 weeks of school (which means my first class is 1/2 way over) and I love it. My chef instructor is awesome and I have made some neat friends. It has been a great experience so far. Sorry I haven't written yet, but we decided not to get internet until I get a job so I'm actually writing from my school.

I am desperatly looking for a job (so please pray). My full time job is looking for a job. I spend most of my afternoons on the internet because I've figured out going to a place looking nice and talking to people is dead. Some places won't even let you in, they simply want you to apply online. Its crazy...and of course they don't call you back! Its frustrating but I know that Father has some awesome things planned for us and I have to have a job, so I know he will provide that for me. We have a department here at the school called Career Services and the poor girl who works in there is Angelica. Her job is to help students find jobs. I say "poor girl" because she is the only one in there and there are a lot of students!! She has been completely awesome to work with. She is like my own personal head hunter but I'm sure she doesn't get paid as much. Either way, she has been a blessing. So we are teaming together to get me a job! :-D

Although job searching is stressful, things out here have been good. Chris and I have spent a lot of time together, just us. Its been nice. We are both ready for friends too. Having encouragement right in front of you always helps. We know we have friend and family long distance, but we are ready for people to encourage us here too. We went to a church we really liked last week. We went to the service and to an evening thing called Crash. It was lead by a guy (who looks wayyy to young to be a minister) but he was awesome. He had cool ninja shoes too so that rocks. His grandfather and great grandfather were Aggies so he is good in our book. haha. Either way, he spoke some amazing truth and more than anythign, it was good for Chris and I and go be with fellow Jesus lovers praise our Father for his blessings. It was good for our hearts. We are thinking about visiting another church this week but we might go back to that one, we are unsure.

Now it is time to destroy a little myth about Arizona. I moved out here thinking "sweet it doesn't rain hardly at all and its going to be nice and dry" HA!! Of course not. Its pouring outside as I type. We are also suppose to get hurricane force winds tonight. Fun....So for those of you who think it never rains out here...come take a walk outside with me...

A fun thing Chris and I are doing in this completely different culinary area we are in is trying new foods! Yay!! There are restaurants from all sorts of places here, Morrocan, (I know I didn't spell that correctly but I don't know how to), Iraq, Sushi, so forth and so on...there are lots!! So as I write updates I'll put our latest outing of new food and what I thought about it. Yes, during this time I will be taking my life in my own hands and eating foods I'm allergic to, but I don't do it a whole lot so its okay. I'll be fine. Last night, for example, Chris and I had In N Out Burger. Neither one of us had ever had it and it was pretty good. Their fries are fresh cut potatoes and not frozen like McDs or pretty much every other fast food joint. They were great, and the burger was good. I love their menu. You can have a burger, fries, a shake and a coke. Thats about it. You can double the burger and get it without cheese or other items, but a burger is their only menu item. Its cool. They are a neat place and they had cool uniforms. haha. It was neat to try something new! We are excited to see what else we get to try. After I get my first paycheck we are going for Sushi!! Whoop!

Well this is long enough and I should probably head home. I've been here for at least 3 hrs this afternoon. Please keep us in your prayers about me finding a job and us finding a church home.