this morning...

i hope i never forget the little things, like spring mornings in the backyard with my girl...

daddy's bike...

so since her dad rides a harley, this means she'll never want to date someone that rides one, right?!?!

first snow...

all last week my trusty weather app was saying there was a good chance of snow all day saturday. saturday morning came, no snow. lunch time saturday came, no snow. somewhere around 3pm saturday i started cursing said trusty weather app for getting my hopes up, and then 4pm rolled around.

we were driving home from running a bunch of errands, and as we were just a minute away from our house, the sky down the road looked noticeably grey and cloudy. we decided to drive past our normal turn to see what the devil was going on. it was the long awaited snow, and boy did it ever not disappoint! we decided to head on home, and by the time we got to our driveway it was a full on snow storm. we quickly bundled penn up and took her out to see her first snow...

^^she didn't think the snowballs thrown at her were nearly as hilarious as i did^^ 

i think she would have stayed outside until her fingers fell off, but seeing as we're southerners without proper snow attire, our little frolic outside lasted about 5 minutes. i'm pretty sure it was one of the most glorious 5 minutes of her 13 months so far. 

daredevil...

i can remember back to shortly after penny was born, when evan would take this tiny sweet little baby and hold her up above his head (which is apparently a very 'daddy' thing to do), and i would just stand underneath holding my breath and nearly dying inside. fast forward a good number of months later, and here we are with penny being tossed into the air by her papa, and it doesn't even give me a single palpitation! seeing the giggles that only her daddy can bring on is enough to get me over my fear of injuries real quick. she's already a thrill seeker, that penny. i hope she never stops loving to fly!

peeking at puppies through fences...

 just a few other pics from this day, where she's looking like such a big girl in her piggy tails. this kid, she kills me!

penny's vintage inspired montessori nursery

well, i've been meaning to do this for, oh let's see, a year now, and i've finally gotten around to sharing a peek into penny's nursery. we knew from the get go that we wanted to base her room around the Montessori philosophy, which you can read up on a bit HERE. in a nutshell, the room is set up to encourage interaction and exploration, with everything being completely baby friendly. 

her room has changed some since she was an infant. in a Montessori nursery you should try to keep the decor and set up the same for the first year, so now that we're past the one year mark we've added a few more toys and elements for her to engage with that suit her current developmental stage.

we also try to stick to the philosophy that if you surround a child with beautifully made toys they'll learn to appreciate such things at an early age. penny's toys are mostly wooden, or like her schleich animals, so gorgeously realistic that you wouldn't care for a single second that they're plastic!

nothing she owns lights up or makes noise, unless it's a musical instrument, because the thought is that the type of play involved with those toys is already dictated and doesn't give a child a chance to really use their imagination. 

we use a Montessori style floor bed and have all the shelving at her level in her room. the idea behind that is that it not only further encourages exploration around her room, but it gives her a sense of value because everything in here is meant for her. when she's in her room she's not a small person living in an adult world. she can get to just about anything she'd like, and not feel frustrated with things out of her reach.

^^but some things are definitely kept out of her reach because this girl can be quite the destructor^^

the mirror next to the bed is more for the infant stages, but she still gets a kick out of it these days!

and there ya have it!

this is just something that meant a whole lot to us when thinking about how to design her room. it's not the ideal for everyone, but i definitely believe it's worth giving a second (or third) thought to the things that surround our kiddos these days. 

a first birthday party

last weekend we had penny's first birthday party. we were waiting until MLK weekend so that some of my family could fly down from NY to be here. it was a great little at home party, with just family and a couple close friends, complete with lots of homemade goodness. i was too busy just enjoying the day to remember to take a bunch of pictures, but here's a few i grabbed with my camera and phone. it was a "love" themed (all vegan) snacks and sweets party, which pretty much happened out of the blue when i fell head over heals for all the adorable valentines day decor out there (seriously target, you're killin' me!) oh, and you best believe these decorations are staying up until AT LEAST february 14th!

we're still eating sweets to this day, and sadly penny's biggest balloon in the world deflated just yesterday. man, was she ever in love with this thing!