Besmocked and ready to color eggs!
Dad supervises...
Two eggs at once! Xtreme Eggz!
I love the anticipatory expression on her face.
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Penny's favorite color is pink. Thus, we ended up with something like 10 pink eggs.
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Dye all over the hands. But almost none on the smock.
Aftermath. Hurrah for paper towels, eh?
Our local Chinese buffet does not know how to spell 'sushi'.
Snow in April. This beats last year's freak snowshower in March.
Penny, of course, was thrilled.
She's trying to build a snowman. The snowball step has escaped her.
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Dreaming of a white Easter?
I'm glad I let her out to play when I did; it was all gone by noon.
Ziggy is starting to relax around Penny a bit.
Even if he does sort of longingly contemplate escape from time to time.
Penny got a journal and a pen in her Easter basket from Grandpa Brooks. She looks so serious, here, like she's planning the Great American Novel.
We met the Hickses at KT's dad's beach house for an egg hunt.
Can you find the girls finding the eggs?
Penny was all over the eggs. She had to be restrained so that Jess could find a few.
Penny shows off her take.
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...One Egg To Rule Them All / And In The Chocolate Bind Them.
Egged-out girls.
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Their baskets held a multitude of stuffies. Is it just me, or is Jess plotting to abscond with Penny's bunnies?
Matt demonstrates the proper Peep-consumption technique to Penny.
What's sweeter, the hug or the candy?
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Holy cow, they were even sharing candy with each other!
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Saccharine silliness: Penny was teasing Jess by trying to kiss her.
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Check out Jess's expression: 'No, I'm not wired! Why do you ask?'
Mainlining the sugar.
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And then we moved on to an egg-hunt at my folks'! 'More chocolate!!!'
Penny voluntarily and without prompting offered to share chocolate with us all. She did insist on unwrapping it for us, however.
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Something about the hamster-cheek full of chocolate here amuses me.
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'You missed one.' 'Where?!'
In addition to a metric ton of chocolate, my mom also got Penny this adorable ladybug umbrella and bag.
Penny was beyond excited when it rained just a few days later. She got to wear her ladybug boots and her ladybug raincoat and use her ladybug umbrella. And (though it's facing away from the camera) she's also carrying her ladybug purse.
I took Penny to the Williamsburg Farmer's Market, and when I was done shopping, I bought her a brownie to snack on while we enjoyed the entertainment.
Penny really seemed to enjoy the band, though I'm not sure how much of that to attribute to the brownie.
Music was provided by the W&M Appalachian String Band. They were quite good.
Penny willingly sat through a good fifteen or twenty minutes of music. About the time Penny finished her brownie, either the music or the sugar got to her, and she got up to dance. (See movie, below.)
Flores and Sara pick out some 'mood music' for the baby shower.
Any gathering is a good excuse for grilled meats!
Sara struts her belly. (See movie, below.)
Whoo, presents!
Diaper genie! SCORE!
Jess watches the proceedings with great interest.
Men always look just a little bit confused at a baby shower.
Three cheers for KT, who organized the whole thing!
Is the Queen of May supposed to be so... gravid?
I'm not sure that's an improvement.
The traditional dippy baby shower game...
Firing little plastic babies out of a catapult at a target.
Shannon shoots from the hip.
Colin didn't take it very seriously, and therefore took first prize.
The guest of honor got to do her shooting from the couch.
Penny got to fly a kite for the first time!
(See movies below!)
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She didn't want it to go up very high, so we couldn't get it away from the wind-breaks of the houses.
Matt or I would get it up in the air, and then let her hold it all by herself.
Toward the end, she was even getting the hang of lifting the string when it looked like it was going to falter.
We didn't have any flights longer than 30 seconds or so, but she giggled more or less continually.
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She was really thrilled about the whole thing, and begging to go back out with it the next morning.
Ray and Penny playing with 'swords.'
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Penny loves to eat with chopsticks.
(See movie, below.)
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Elizabeth's housewarming: Jess, Penny, and Emma made it very warm, indeed.
Could anything be more adorable than 4 little girls? I think not!
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An idyllic pose. The girls (mostly Penny and Jess) cleaned every single dandelion out of E's yard.
E's beanbag is so big it holds four small girls!
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Sarah says, 'Come on, Emma, move over and let me in!'
Emma was trying to organize a heads-in-laps triangle, but neither Penny nor Jess really got the idea.
Look! It's the Brandts! Emma is a lion-tamer, apparently, and Sarah simply has no fear at all.
Kris and Emma
Sarah pets the cute widdle baby lion.
Jess and Penny are riding double.
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Dang thing needs reins.
Braz and Sarah
Mom and I ran into Sophia at a production of Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding.
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The show itself was... colorful.
(see movie below)
MONKEYS! This can only mean one thing... The ZOO!
Groundhogs are cute.
Penny was all about the snakes.
And the monkeys. Did we mention the monkeys?
The 'farm' area was a pretty big hit, too, since you could pet the animals.
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And feed them!
Penny got the best views.
Meow.
Bald eagles look so majestic.
Giraffes! I love giraffes.
Penny and Jess held hands like this most of the trip. Could they be cuter?
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Bongoes. The picture doesn't do them justice; they really were almost orange.
I think there's a law against going to the zoo and skipping the elephants.
Penny really, really wanted to pet the lion. Thank goodness for safety glass.
Too early for butterflies in the butterfly garden, but the girls liked this chair.
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Is it just a little backwards that Matt had to encourage Penny go come near the fountains in the courtyard?
She had a good time, once she caught on.
This gorgeous stone ball had a map of the Earth carved on it, and spun on this fountain. We tried to shift its rotation, but were unsuccessful.
Everyone say hello to the Peanut!