Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween Weekend. It was Penny's second Halloween, but it was really the first where we could get her all dolled up to go out and trick or treat. Sure, she still had no idea what was going on, but she seemed to enjoy it. If nothing else, her pumpkin bucket has become one of her favorite things to carry around. We had a ward Halloween party Thursday night, where Mel and Peanut both dressed up as Minnie Mouse. They were both incredibly adorable, as you can see below. It was fun to see so many great costumes from so many people in our ward.

Penny, taking a break from "trunk o' treating" in the church parking lot.


Mama and Peanut looking ten kinds of adorable.


Friday was Rob's Halloween party at work. He sexied it up as an old PE coach. We're proud to say that he won an award for his costume. But really, how could he not when he was baring those sexy drumsticks of his?

Coach Bobby says, "Drop and give me 20!"


Friday night, Penny as a witch…kind of.


Mel's dad, Lew, was here for the weekend, so we were able to hang out with him a lot. Penny loved seeing her Grandpa again. We were even able to go to lunch with Mel's brother Matthew whom we don't get to see very often. It was great for he and Penny to be able to get to know each other better.



Halloween afternoon we went out to Santee to hang out with Jason (Mel's brother) and his family. It was the first house that Penny got to knock on for trick or treating. Caden and Mireya were very cute, as they dressed up as a Power Ranger and Cleopatra.

Our lil Minnie Mouse


Trick or Treat!


Cousins having fun.


All of us then went to a Halloween Fair at a church there in Santee. It was a lot of fun, although by that time poor Peanut was ready for a nap as she kept falling asleep on Jason and Lew.







After deciding we'd had enough of the fair, we figured it was time to go home. We wanted to have Penny do some trick or treating to the neighbors around our house.

Penny hoping Roberto would give her some candy.


She was pleased as punch to roam the 'hood.


On Sunday we got a very pleasant surprise when we found out that Ana, Sandra and Alex were at Disneyland for a few days, so they came down to see us Sunday evening. It was a grand time. We had a great visit, and it was funny to see Penny play with her cousins. She is so funny with Alex. Everytime she sees him, she gets so excited. After visiting for a couple hours, they drove back up to OC. It was a quick visit, but it was great. We hope to see them again soon.

Alex and Penny—two very happy cousins.


Penny and Sandra




So another Halloween is in the books, and it was perhaps our greatest one yet, especially seeing Penny all dressed up and having a great time with all the festivities.

Happy Birthday Penny Joan

(So, I'm a few days late with this post, but I have my reasons.)

I can't believe our little girl is a year old. Sometimes it's still hard to believe that we have a kid, and now, all of a sudden, she is a year old. Absolutely crazy. One year ago we were just home from the hospital, dumbfounded that we had ourselves a lil baby girl. We were excited, shocked, scared, happy, and every other emotion you could imagine. The past year has been nothing short of amazing. She brings so much joy to our house, it's difficult to imagine what it was like before she was there, screeching, yelling, hollering, crying, yelping, singing, walking, crawling, staggering and dancing around the room.

Her constant screaming (and I mean happy, positive screaming) has to be one of my favorite things about her. She is always making some kind of noise. The screaming, the jibber jabber, and of course, the dancing. We listen to a lot of music in our household, and whether it's the Beatles, Wolf Parade, Madness, The Shins, or something else, she bobs her head along with the beat, and even sometimes mimics the song as if she's singing. It slays me every time.

She has changed so much, but she is still that little squeezable baby that we brought home from the hospital a year ago. Her beautiful blue eyes were so striking right from birth as they surveyed her new surroundings, and they've only become more gorgeous with time. Sometimes her face looks so wise, sometimes so curious, innocent, mischievous, and always adorable.

Not too long before Peanut was born, someone suggested something that I thought was a great idea: take at least one picture of her everyday for the first year. Even if you only take one, just do it and you'll have a great account of how she's grown over the 12 months. We thought this was a cool idea, so we decided to try it. Now, this isn't as easy as it sounds. Sure, Mel and I take A LOT of pictures, but there are days that you just forget until she's in bed asleep or something. We did pretty good though, only missing six days I think. In all honesty, this wasn't too hard to do though, since we love taking pictures and she provided the perfect muse for us. It's amazing to look over everyday and observe the subtle changes. We tried to include pictures of just PJ, so you can just focus on her and how she changed from day to day, but there were some days where the best shot included us or someone else.

So, without further ado, here are 365 days of Penny (for the days we missed, we included an extra one from the day before or the day after). We hope you enjoy the visual story as much as we do.

Probably the hardest part was deciding on just one picture for each day! Some days there were several options that were so darn cute, but there could only be one.

Here are two shots that didn't make the final cut for the 365 project. but when compared side-by-side, it's a perfect example of how much she has changed in a year (except for her hair!).

September 20, 2008 | September 20, 2009


On her birthday we had a small party to celebrate, and were lucky enough to have a few friends and family over in our little place to help us honor Penny Jo. It was a happy occasion. I believe we will be in the Guinness Book of World Records for most cakes at a one year old's birthday party, but that is okay. Mel slaved over them, and did a wonderful job. Penny had her very own cake, with a penny drawn on it (of course). The rest of us had two cakes to choose from: one with a lil peanut on it, the other was a multi-layer chocolate cake. They were all very creative, and very delicious. Nice job mama! Penny loved them too, as seen here. As far as gifts are concerned, she received a kitchen set, a stroller to push around, some pretty clothes (including a Chargers cheerleader outfit!), a DVD and some fun toys. (See the birthday pictures here.)

So happy birthday Penny—thanks for bringing so much joy, happiness and unpredictability into our lives.

We love you.

Poor Penny

Penny got a blood test today, she was a tough brave girl. However she did not like being held down and searched for a vein in her tiny little arm :( After a good nap, she is now happy as can be.

Who's a HAPPY girl?

The new adorable look :

Weekend with Miner Fam!

Penny walking at 10 months!

Not all rental cars are created equal

I've been traveling a little bit lately, and of course, when you travel for work, you get a rental car. This is always a crap shoot. You never know what you're going to get, especially when everything is arranged by our office manager, JoJo whom I'm extremely grateful for, since she makes it so I don't have to worry about all of that stuff.

Sometimes I drive a Ford. Sometimes, I drive a Dodge Stratus. It's always kind of fun walking through the rental car lot, wondering which one you'll get. It's almost as exciting as Christmas. Almost. Sure, I know I'm not going to be able to drive the Cadillac STS or the Chryster 300, but I can dream, can't I?

So, you'll pardon my excitement and slight boasting when on a recent trip to Austin, this was my assigned rental car:



I have dreamed of the day when I could drive a mean machine like that. I felt honored. I felt blessed. I was just flat out ecstatic, as you can see:



I guess there comes a time in your life when you know you've arrived. And with this trip to Austin, with this beautiful PT Cruiser, this was MY time. Thank you Avis. All future car rentals will be judged by this wonderful experience.

Thank you.

Pictures of Penny

One of these days we'll have some free time to upload some videos. In the meantime, enjoy some photos from the past couple months.









Showing some sexy shoulder.

Lowriding.

"Playing with (and freaking out) my buddy Frank."

"I love chewing straws."

"No worries, just decided to open the drawer and get a peach."

"Just wanted to listen to some CDs, is that okay Dad? Today is the Kings of Leon."

"Looking through Mom's wallet, but alas, there was no cash!"



More photos can be enjoyed here.

Putting in some hard time at work.

1971

What's more awesome, my old man's name on this building, or the sweet Pinto in front of it?



Tough call.

Oops

Oops
Originally uploaded by Robotkinson

We all know there are times in life that you can't help but laugh, but you kinda feel bad doing it. This is one of those times. Hopefully this isn't the kind of event that will later in life cause people to ask Peanut if she was dropped on her head as a child. I also hope that it isn't the type of thing that will cause child services to come to our door.

Hey, no harm no foul. She's just fine!

That's my girl.

So the other day, Mel was sitting at our desk at home, working on the computer when she heard something that sounded like a gulp coming from underneath the desk. Let me back up and say that we keep a small trash can under the desk with aluminum cans in it that we will recycle (for not much money). Let me also say that Penny Lou is always crawling under the desk. So when Mel looks down, she finds Penny holding up to her mouth, as if she's guzzling, one of my empty (or what I thought was empty) cans of Coke. I know there wasn't much in there, maybe a drop or two. But Mel said she had a little bit on her face, so there must have been something in the can.



So yeah, that's awesome, our 7 month old is officially going to be a Coke addict, just like her old man. Maybe this explains why she wouldn't go back to sleep early this morning.

I'm so proud.

Easter

We had a lovely Easter Sunday. First off we went to a friend's ward to see them bless their baby. Then we thought, "what better place to spend Easter than at the Temple?" So, on the way home we stopped off to walk around and take a few pictures. Mel and Penny looked wonderful in their new Easter clothes. Then we got to hang out as a family, watch The Masters and eat some great food.

Here are a few pictures, more can be found here:

Family picture at the Temple.




Penny with the bunny rabbit that grandma sent to her.


The Easter Bunny left Peanut some starter ears.

Videos, finally.

So, Penny is over six months old, yet we've never shared videos of her on our blog. There is a reason for this. No, we are not ashamed of her! And no, it's not because we don't have a video camera (we do). It's because our video camera is ridiculous. Let me expound. So, we have a Apple computer and we have a Canon video camera.

Wait, let me back up. When we were engaged, we bought a Sony DV video camera. We loved that camera, and used it quite a bit for a few years. Well, right after Penny was born, the Sony decided to go haywire and die. So, we needed to buy a new one to document the lil one. After dragging my feet, then looking around, we settled on the Canon FS11. I read several expert reviews and a couple user reviews, and it seemed like a good one. We weren't ready to get an HD camera, since they're expensive, and changing by the day, but we wanted something decent. I felt that this one was a good middle ground camera—we'll be able to use it for a few years till we're ready for HD.

Great, right? Wrong. I suppose I should have read more user reviews. The camera itself is nice. It's compact, pretty easy to use and seemed to take quality videos. So what was the problem, you ask? I couldn't get the videos onto my computer. Awesome. For some reason, the camera films in some weird format that my Mac didn't recognize, nor did I have any software to convert it. The camera came with software, but of course it only works on Windows computers. So I did a bunch of reading online.

To try and make a long story not quite so long, I basically found that, to convert the files, I needed to buy the new version of iMovie, which also meant that I needed to get the new operating system, Leopard top run it. Great. Of course I had been wanting to get Leopard, but I was going to wait a little while to take the plunge, but now our hands were forced.

What bugs me the most is that everything else I've ever plugged into my Mac has worked without a hitch. Most of the time you don't have to even use the software that comes with the device. It'll just work. But this camera was the only one that didn't. How can Canon design something so narrow that it ignores all the people with a Mac that's more than one year old? It's lame.

Canon, you get a demerit.

Anyway, I got it to work. Yeah! And now that I've put all of you to sleep, here is a clip of Penny giggling at a ball. This was taken in Arizona when Mel was there visiting family.

I get a kick out of it everytime I watch it. Hope you do too.