Making some changes

I remember telling my husband a while back that once we move out into our own place I'm going to be a domestic diva. Well it took me about 6 months to attempt that but I'm making some changes and I'm loving it. I'm trying to eliminate processed foods, so I started making our own bread, I used the dry active yeast and got a good handle on it. Then decided to try out sourdough starter and it took me a few loaves but I think I got it now, the last 2 came out great! Sourdough starter also makes great pancakes and waffles, and now I got both of those in my freezer. I've started making my own ravioli and can't wait to buy a pasta attachment for my kitchen aid so I can make all sorts of pasta, it's so exciting! Started making my own butter, which is insanely easy since the stand mixer does all the hard work. I got some yogurt culture and now am making yogurt too, haven't perfected that yet. But a friend recommended this awesome culture that works at room temperature so there is no cooking the yogurt which is nice and pretty easy. I went grocery shopping and realized that I really only need the produce section, the bulk grains and milk. I've also decided I'm going to start buying raw milk except it's been a pain to find, today the guy from the dairy section at the store told me that the cows don't produce as much milk when it's cold. bummer. Oh I also started making nut milks, so easy and no preservatives or additives. pretty awesome.
On the non edibles I started making my own deodorant, which my husband still finds funny, and now I wash my face with oil. Just started that this week, very interested to see how it'll work out. I'm not sure if I'm suppose to still moisturize or not I'm running out of my moisturizer and would really rather not buy anymore. I'm seriously considering no pooing but am a little intimidated by the idea haha. Next challenge is making granola and calcium capsules from egg shells. It is ridiculous how excited I am about all this, I feel like a kid on Christmas.
Oh what inspired me to change the way we eat is the movie "Forks over Knives" although it does promote a vegan lifestyle it is still very informative and persuasive. We did eat vegan diet for a month and now we are eating animal products again but in my smaller quantities. My meal planning used to be based on what animal protein I had, now I base it on the vegetables I have and once or twice a week I'll cook meat too. I feel much better about eating this way, and physically have noticed a change in my body as well. I'll try to blog more often now do keep track of all these things.

I suck at this

I can't believe I only updated this thing once in the past year, that's pretty lame of me. In my defense I'm pretty busy nannying, knitting in my spare time, and trying to squeeze and adequate amount of playground trips in between.
We have finally moved into our own place, Penni now has her own room that she loves. After being in the same room with us for 2.5 years I thought she might have a rough time transitioning to her own space, but she did wonderful. I'm realizing that she is a pretty easy going kid when it comes to kid and adjustment. I think part of it is because we've always followed her lead, we let her adapt to changes slowly and never forced anything on her. I'm very proud of the independent little girl she is becoming. She turned 3 the other day, it's hard to believe that it's been 3 years since she's joined our family. She is now talking in long full and almost dramatically correct sentences. Strangers are understanding her better and that makes me feel really good, and of course proud. The day after she turned 3 some switch went off and now she wants to do EVERYTHING by herself, she screams at me "do it self! mama" it makes me laugh most of the time, but there are things like buckling herself into her carseat that I don't feel she can do herself safely just yet, so we are working on finding a balance with this "do it self" thing.
This year she is really into Christmas decorations and Christmas trees, we really need to get one, hopefully in the next few days we will. She gets so excited when she sees a house that's nicely decorated with a lot of lights, and any trees that has lights on it is a "christmas tree", it's pretty cute. We put up some lights on our windows yesterday and she says that they are "Penni's lights" of course they are darling.
She is really into Thomas and friends lately, we even had a Thomas themed birthday party for her (that she talked about months in advance). In the summer we went for a "day out with Thomas" in Santa Cruz, it was pretty awesome. At first Penni was terrified of the big loud trains, but she quickly got over and had a blast. Can't wait to go again next summer, well this summer actually I guess.
That's pretty much what our munchkin has been up to. As for me I'm busy with my shop, working mostly on custom orders and loving it. I did another fundraiser this fall, last year I did one for Leukemia and other blood cancers, this year it was for Histio disorders. Looking forward to helping another cause in the new year. I've also become more involved in the intactivist community so you might see a circumcision post from me in the future.
Not many pics, I got a new laptop and not much on here yet, here is a few from Halloween, she was Olivia the pig


She is trying to show off the spider tattoo she got on her hand

Potty Learning

I'm very proud to say that as of 26 months old Penni has been diaper free! Yay! And she did most of the work herself, I introduced the potty to her back around the time she turned 1 and would occasionally sit her on it and try to keep her amused so she stays long enough to go. In the summer she got plenty of nakey time and the potty was around, and there was also a lot of pottying on the floor haha. Then one day she ran to the potty sat down and peed, with no prompting reminding or encouraging. From that point on it was just more of the same and I tried to be consistent. Finally we braved the nights, it turns out that she was waking up so much at night because she wanted to pee and didn't want to do it into the diaper. Talk about mommy guilt! Accidents have been rare and in the last 2 months we've only had one phase of regression that lasted roughly a week so I'd say we are doing pretty good.
In other updates she is talking more and more every day, I know that she is still way behind other kids her age, but most other kids her age aren't spoken 2 in 3 different languages so I'm ok with that. The doc said as long as there is a lot of progress between 2 and 2.5 years of age then we are good, so I think she is fine.
David has recently cleaned out my hard drive so I don't have many pics to include, but here are a few:
Here she is modeling one of my hats for me


she was helping me sort the yarn


Most days she won't take a nape, so on the ride home this is often what happens


The kid is OBSESSED with dandelions, she spots them in the most random of places on our walks


and this pic is just cute :)


I'm also changing this blog a bit, I initially intended it as a way to document Penni growing up, but I've also been wanting to vent and rant stuff that's not related to her and really don't feel like starting another blog, so it will be more of a space where I feel like I can vent and rant about whatever haha.
And just for good measure here is a snipet of my etsy shop:

Etsy anyasboutique

And then she was 2........

Where did the time go? I can't believe my baby, my first born is 2. It's funny because I've not gotten too emotional about that until I sat down to write this blog. Maybe because this is the first time that I've thought about it this much or maybe it's because I'm putting how I feel about it into words. I've always said that I don't feel sad about her growing up or getting bigger, but this time I'm emotional about it. Not sad, I just can't believe that it's going by this fast. So much of it seems like it has just happened and on the other hand I have a hard time recalling so many details of when she was little, or can't remember the exact age she was when she did something new.
Her birthday fell on a saturday this year so we had her party on her actual birthday. She had a blast! Last year she was still too little to understand that it was all about and for her, but this year she knew. Oh boy did she know. She did what she wanted and we let her, it was her day. No time outs, no scoldings, no veggies. She loved the part when she would open a present and everyone would clap for her, she would tear into a present and without even getting a good look at it just drop it and start clapping for herself and get everyone else going. It was the funniest and cutest thing, everyone was rolling with laughter. She learned how to say "two" and now says it all the time, and can hold up 2 fingers (sort of) to show that she really is 2. Her birthday was Dr. Seuss theme since that's the only thing she cares about, well more specifically it's the ABC book by Dr. Seuss that she cares about. I got her a cute dress off of Etsy and made her a little cat in the hat type hair pin and she looked adorable, although the hair pin didn't stay in long. She got so into tearing all the presents open that she now thinks anything that's wrapped is there for her to unwrap. Should be interesting once we start setting out the Christmas presents. We might just have to keep those hidden till Christmas. Here are some pics from her party...
Here is her cute outfit

and the hair pin

and off it goes

posing with her auntie

with auntie, grandma, and baby cousin

All the babies dressed in Dr. Seuss outfits :)

tearing into the presents

and clapping for herself lol

needed a bit of help blowing out the candles

and that's the face of a 2 year old ladies and gentlemen


I'm not going to bother with pics of the cake because it was ugly. I wanted to make it red and white striped and put ABCs all over the sides, and write Penelope is 2 on top. Well I've also read all this stuff recently about how evil and cancer causing food dyes are, son in attempts to avoid using them I went to whole foods and found some natural ones. I had a haunting thought in the back of my mind that they will probably be pastels at best but the label said "red, blue, yellow" I thought great! What do you know it, they sucked! it took half the little bottle of "red" dye to get pink. arghhh, one of the most disappointing things ever. And they cost quite a bit too! I ended up just leaving the cake white and wrote on it "Penni is 2!" it was ugly. The whole night I kept thinking about it, and I just wanted to make some fondant dye it with horrible artificial food dyes and cover the whole darn thing. David didn't let me. He said it wasn't that bad and we spent all that money on the natural dyes, bla bla bla. Oh well. Penni didn't seem to realize that the cake was there for eating, she was so busy playing with all of her new toys. Moral of the story is that unfortunately there are no natural dyes. booooo

As far as 2 year olds go. It's true that the 2s are terrible haha. But although it seems that someone took my sweet, happy to follow commands baby and replaced her with a defiant toddler, we still love her and will keep her. Some day she'll cooperate again. For now the answer to everything is "no", and yeah even if she means yes, she'll still say no. So you never really know. She spends quite a bit of time in time outs these days, some days I fell that maybe it'd be easier to just put her in time out for the whole day and let her come out few mins at a time. Ok I'm kidding, but sometimes it gets rough. But she always wants to give you a hug and a kiss when she is coming out of time out and it's sweet. She is potty learning and doing pretty good with it. I'm not training her (I don't really believe in training babies anything, but that's another post) I'm just letting her do what she wants and I guide her and encourage her. I've noticed that when I try to put her on the potty she refuses but will come back a minute later and ask to go haha. Oh those toddlers, they want to control everything. I bought a foldable toilet seat and am going to try taking her out without a diaper. I'm a bit worried, but I guess we gotta start doing that at some point.
This post is getting long and I'm rambling, so good night and I will attempt to update this thing more often.