Having a newborn in the middle of winter has been a challenge. This year both RSV and the flu have been widespread in Louisville and I didn’t want that anywhere near Goldie, so we decided to keep Penny out of her daycare for Goldie’s first couple of months home. The whole point of keeping Penny out of daycare was to keep her away from germs, so that also meant we couldn’t take her to places like the library, science center, or anywhere else with lots of kids and hands-on activities. It’s been a really boring couple of months for this very active 2.5-year old.

Tener un recien nacido en la mitad del invierno ha sido un desafio. Esta ano las enfermedades respiratorias han causado estragos en Louisville y no quiero nada de eso cerca de Goldie, asi que decidimos mantener a Penny alejada de la guarderia durante los primeros meses de Goldie. La meta de mantenerla fuera de la guarderia es alejarla de los germenes, asi que eso tambien significo que no podiamos llevarla a lugares como la biblioteca, el museo interactivo, or cualquier otro lugar con actividades manuales. Han sido semanas muy aburridas para esta activa nina de 2 anos y medio.

Under normal circumstances we try to limit Penny’s screen time, but during this newborn sabbatical we’ve given ourselves plenty of grace when it comes to letting P watch a movie while we get work done (or enjoy a moment to ourselves). There is, however, a limit to the number of times we can all watch Zootopia and Trolls without losing our damn minds. I started looking for new activities for Penny, and I decided the time had finally come to introduce her to watercolor paints. She took to them IMMEDIATELY and now she wants to paint all the time. It’s messy – I’ve been taping garbage bags to the wall behind her because it turns out that watercolor paints do NOT wash off vinyl wall murals. But I’m totally fine with messy and busy over clean and stir crazy (and when is our house ever clean anyway?).

Bajo circumstancias normales, intentamos limitar el tiempo que pasa Penny frente a un pantalla. Pero durante este “sabatico” nos hemos dado libertad cuando se trata de dejar que Penny veo peliculas mientras hacemos tareas hogarenas. Aso si, hay un limite de cuantas veces podemos mirar Zootopia y Troll sin volvernos locos.Empeze a buscar actividades para Penny y decidi que por fin era hora de intrucirla a la acuarela. Le gusto de inmediato, y ahora quiere pintar todo el tiempo. Es un desorden – he estado pegando bolsas plasticas a las murallas como proteccion, porque la acuarela no se puede sacar de los murales de vinilo. Pero no tengro problemas con hacerlo, prefiero ocupado sobre limpio y enloqucida (y quien sabe cuando nuestra casa esta limpia en todo caso)

For Valentines Day I bought a frame cube and plain 5×7 frames with the idea that I’d fill them with Penny’s art for Javier to put on his desk at work. I also bought a book of quality watercolor paper from Michaels, and Penny spent two afternoons painting beautiful creations on the paper instead of her Trolls watercolor book. It turned out even better than I expected!

Para San Valentin, compre un marco de fotos en cubo y marcos de 5 x 7 pulgadas con la idea de llenarlos con el arte de Penny para que pusiera en su escritorio. Tambien compre un libro de papel para aquarela en Michaels, y Penny paso dos tardes enteras pintando lindas creaciones en papel , en vez de su libro de Trolls. Termino siendo mejor de los esperado!

I also printed out two photos of the girls and then staged a very quick photoshoot of the three of us after nap time and printed out one of those photos for the frame cube. I recently bought this wireless Canon printer / scanner with photo paper and this was the first time I’ve used it to print photos – I was so impressed with the quality!

Tambien imprimidos fotos de las ninas e hicimos una sesion de fotos muy rapdida las 3 para aprovechar el tiempo, e imprimimos un par para ponerlas en el cubo. Hace poco compre una Impresora/scanner Cannon con conexion inalambricay papel de fotografia. esta fue la primera vez que la usamos y quede impresionada con la calidad!

Here’s a quick video I made about some other quiet activities we’ve been doing around the house to keep Penny occupied. I posted this on our IGTV – are videos like this interesting to you? Javi and I are thinking of making more videos about the stuff we do around the house and I’d love to hear your feedback. Also, any tips or suggestions for activities OR ideas on how to keep painting mess to a minimum, drop them in the comments!

Aqui va un video que hice con otras actividades en silencio que hemos organizado en casa para mantener a Penny ocupada. Lo subi a IGTV – son los video intersantes? Javi y yo teniamos pensado hacer mas video de como hacemos cosas en la casa y nos encantaria su opinion. Tambien sugerencias para mas actividades o ideas de como mantener el desorden de la pintura al minimo, por favor compartan sus comentarios!