The Penelope Olivia Miranda Photo Entry :)

My last day pregnant with Penny, Sunday, September 26, 2010

From 2010-9-27

Penelope is born and is cuddly!  September 27, 2010, Sophie becomes a big sister, officially!  Welcome to the world Penny!

From 2010-9-27

From 2010-9-27

First picture with Daddy.

From 2010-9-27

All the girls!

From 2010-9-27

Welcome Penelope Olivia!

On Monday, September 27, 2010, Mommy and Daddy went to Lowell General Hospital for a scheduled cesarean section.  The section was delayed and started at 11:30am instead of 10:30am, resulting in the birth of Penelope Olivia Miranda at 12:29pm.  She weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces, was 20.5 inches long and has a head circumference of 26 centimeters.  After surgery, Mommy felt pretty good and Penny cried for about 4 hours straight.  Since then, she has woken up to have a siaper change and to eat.  Penny, as it turns out, is a fairly good eater and has been producing an excellent number of dirty diapers.

Unfortunately, the hospital is not permitting me to upload my photos onto the internet (probably due to a slow connection), so I will post a photo-only blog at a later point.  Feel free to check out our new photos uploaded from our cell phones onto facebook, however.

Here's a physical description of Penny: she has a thick head of black hair.  Her eyes are that lovely gray-blue color newborns tend to have.  I think it means she will have brown eyes like her big sis, but we'll see what happens over the next few months.  She has cupie doll lips and a cute upturned nose.  By the end of day 1, she looks exactly like her big sis did at the same age.  She has incredibly long fingers and toes, but her hands and feet are, of course, itsy bitsy.  Unlike Sophie, who smelled like cookies to me at birth, Penny smells a bit like flowers to me.  Suffice to say, I love smelling her as much as I loved to smell new born Sophie.

Upon meeting Penny (which happened on Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at approximately 4:45pm), Sophie said "Oh...she's so cute!".  Sophie has had a good week so far, spending lots of time with her various grand-parents, having a great school week and getting special Daddy attention.  She also has enjoyed eating lots of McDonald's fries and chicky nuggets and got a special "congrats on being a big sis" cake.  Apparently the cake did not taste good and Sophie was disappointed and surprised.  Mommy will have to get her a new one when she gets home on Friday.

So, all is well and we are all happy (minus the cake incident).  Yay!

Summer 2010

To sum up the end of Sophie's summer, she had a great time hanging out with Mommy and going to parks and museums every day.  She also had fun over the weekends.  Twice, she went down to NY to see Grams, Gramps, cousin Naomi and Aunt Allison and Uncle Alan.  She has lots of fun going swimming and playing in the sandbox with her cousin.  Sophie also got to meet all of her Pittsburgh relatives and developed a wonderful friendship with her cousin Mara. 

Finally, Sophie also got to go to the MIT Robot Museum and the Worcester Ecotarium for the first time.  She also went to many new parks and farms and just had a wonderful time.

Now, Sophie is prepping to become a big sister.  Tomorrow, the big day comes and we will welcome new baby Penny into our home.  Sophie is super excited and has been asking us for weeks when will she come home. 

Please check out Sophie's pictures as blogger isn't letting me post pics in the blog right now.  :)

The 3rd-5th of July, 2010!

From 2010-07-06

From 2010-07-06

This year's "fourth of July" celebration was marked by several outtings to the local community. First, we went to a 3rd of July bluegrass concert in Westford center where one of Tim's friends was playing with a great group called the Boston Road. Tim and I thought it was great and Sophie kind of liked it. She went to a face painting booth and proceeded to have her entire left arm painted with hearts, doves and butterflies...in purple, but of course! We then all fled for the coolness of our house because it was near 95 degrees outside and extremely humid.






The next day, we spent almost entirely indoors due to the same weather conditions, but we did head outside for the Chelmsford Center 4th of July carnival! Sophie got to spend some time in a fire engine, watch the Chelmsford Community Band play some marches as well as some doctored Handel (I am really not sure if the music for the royal fireworks should ever be played by a concert band....maybe a symphonic band?), she got to enjoy watching people attend the carnival booths, and had a nice mini strawberry shortcake! When all was said and done, we were too hot and too tired to go to the local fireworks, so we retired home in time for the televised Boston Pops concert at the hatchshell and watched some of their fireworks too!

The next day was July 5th and this was the day of the Chelmsford 4th of July parade. We went for the first hour and a half of it, or so. We saw lots of fire trucks, police vehicles, some great floats and of course, the Chelmsford minutemen. We also saw many local and state-ide politicians marching for votes. Suffice to say, it was interesting to see who voted with supporters and who did not. Since Chelmsford's parade is the biggest one in the area, we had some big name politicians. To my shame, Sophie clapped at all of them. I guess it is good to have a polite kid, right?

We ended the 5th of July hot, tired and fairly happy. Sophie is a big fan of holidays that involve cheering and the possibility of free balloons and candy.

Vacation - June-July 2010!

This past week, we all went on vacation! We went to Ogunquit, Maine where Sophie has a blast! The first full day, it rained in the morning, so we went to the Children's Museum of Portland, Maine where Sophie was a firefighter, a veterinarian, a farmer, an astronaut, a logger, a naturalist and much, much more! She loved the museum and we may have to make a beeline back north again for another visit soon!

On the way back from the museum, Sophie got her first milk shake.  She was supposed to share with Mommy, but that ended up only happening when Mommy snuck sips.  Suffice to say, Sophie loves really cold chocolate flavored things (ice cream, popsicles, chocolate milk, etc...)

For the rest of the trip, the weather was lovely!  We would wake up, eat breakfast, go to the beach, make sand castles, jump in the water, make mud soup, play frisbee, etc....

In the afternoons and evenings, we would have quiet time and possibly go do something that was
not beach oriented...like checking out York's Wild Animal Kingdom (see the thumbs up below!), walks on the marginal way, mini-golf and more! Check out Sophie's photo albums for all the great shots!

Sophie has a very good vacation week and I actually felt bad coming home. We already pre-booked next year's trip and can only hope that our newest addition is as much of a beach hound as Sophie is.

Penny's Pregnancy (~24 weeks)

Just a few pics of how Penny is coming along. Mommy will be 24 weeks on Monday and this picture was taken on Friday, so technically, 23.5 weeks. Everything seems to be well and normal and Sophie seems happy and excited at the prospect of "baby Penny". I think she even likes that Mommy's belly has become an angled pillow for her head. It certainly makes watching tv while on Mommy's lap easier for her.

A Gratulation

Sophie experienced a couple of firsts these last two weeks. First, she made her first fort (with help from Daddy). She was very proud of her fort and Roxie enjoyed it for a while too. She now makes a fort a few times a week

We also started going back to the big park this week, now that the weather is nice. Sometimes, after work, Mommy will take Sophie to the park to play for about an hour. Lots of the kids get ice pops afterwards at a local convenience store, so Sophie got one too. It was her first ice pop and she loved it!

Sophie also got to go with Mommy to her first high school graduation (which she called a "gratulations"). Mommy went to go watch her seniors graduate from high school. Sophie had lots of fun, although she was shy of all of Mommy's students. The fun part was provided by the little girl of one of Mommy's colleagues. Suffice to say, playdates will likely follow this summer.

Finally, Sophie got her first fully styled haircut last weekend! She had been asking for her hair to be cut short for weeks. Mommy noticed that she needed a trim, so she took Sophie into Mommy's salon. Sophie, once again, said she wanted it short, so 8 inchs and a bit of layering later, Sophie has a very trendy and new 'do. She especially liked the part at the end where she was given a lolly-pop for being so good.