Christmas and After

Well, it's been a very busy couple weeks. We were fortunate enough to have my family come visit us in Yakima for Christmas. We had a lot fun baking, cooking, playing games, and just playing around. Peri got to play with her cousins, whom she adores. She followed them around and was generally a pest, wanting to do everything they did. Deep down I think the cousins actually loved the attention. Peri gave Jeilyn an extra long hug when she left; it was so cute.

We made a ton of food for dinner, which everyone enjoyed to the fullest. My brother said it was the fanciest holiday dinner he ever had. So there's something. We got out the apple plates that both of Gary's grandmothers collected, as they are especially suited for Christmas meals. We actually used the bronzeware we inherited from Gary's grandma as well. It was a lot of fun! Though not so much when it came time to clean up. But you do what you gotta do I guess.

Peri got a lot of cool gifts for Christmas, and she loves every single one of them. We totally forgot to take any sort of pictures during the family's visit, but we did get a few videos of Peri playing with a couple of her toys today.

Grandpa Jackson gave her and her other cousins a rocking horse for Christmas, and she just loves it. She likes that when the tail moves it tickles her feet, and that she can put her fingers in the pony's mouth when it moves too. She also does some trick riding on it, though I didn't quite get a video of her doing it this time. She half-stands on the saddle and rocks for a bit, until her feet slide off. She's listening to My Little Pony Songs in the background, in case anyone is curious.

Gary also made sleds for all the children this year too. We took Peri's sled out today, and she loved it!

The only other video we caught of my family's visit is one where my sister Katrina and brother Benjamin are playing fruit ninja together. Katrina is so cute because she plays like a little kitty cat. It's so funny!

So we're all enjoying all of our gifts, and we're very happy to have had everyone over for Christmas! For New Year's we don't have much going on, and I don't think we really want to after all the Christmas chaos.We bought some sparkling grape juice which we will drink at midnight tomorrow. Sounds like a fun evening doesn't it? 

Happy New Year everyone!

I like Papercraft.

I finished my first picture frame that isn't a sonogram today. I think it's cute.

 

Gary says he'd buy it.

I wanted to put some snowflakes in there, but I don't have a punch or any snowflake embellishments, and there's no way I could cut out something that small and intricate. A giant intricate snowflake, that's no problem, but I don't think it would fit. I think my favorite part of this picture are the poofballs on her boots. It is in my etsy shop!

I'm also working on another silhouette project, and it's a big one. It's just for me, not to sell, but it's still pretty awesome. I'm working on a nativity. Each element of the nativity gets it's own frame, so it takes up a nice portion of my wall. So far I have the star, two angels and the three wise men with a camel. I'm going to do the shepherds next, then the animals, and then Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus in the stable. I can't wait until it is finished! Gary is very excited for it too.

In other news, Peri just heaved her guts all up all over Gary and I at dinner today. I didn't know she could have that much food in her stomach. Good times.

Catching Up on the Blogging

We'll start with a video tour of our new house. Naomi put some pictures up the other day, but the walkthrough is really something. It doesn't look much different now, as we're still unpacking, organizing, and adjusting. Peri quickly figured out the door handles, so sometimes, we get a visitor in the middle of the night.

We arrived at our new home with a truckload of stuff, dropped it off, and came back to Pullman to clean out our old place. We got back to Yakima in time for Halloween, which was pretty fun because our neighborhood is Trick-or-Treat central. We ran through five big bags of candy and ended up leaving a note on the door. Most importantly, Peri went Trick-or-Treating for the first time. She was a ladybug!

Peri had a great time, and came back with a bucket full of candy, and a new toothbrush from one of our new neighbors. It also turns out that half of our ward lives in our neighborhood, so that's pretty cool.

While we were unpacking, Peri came across my old friend Billy Bear, and the two became fast friends themselves. That is a very precious thing to me.

In the last few weeks, Naomi has been introducing coloring and drawing to Peri, and I have been coming home to markers and crayons strewn all around the house. She's getting pretty good. Here's her latest work of art.

In truth, we've been too busy to get pictures up on the wall, and Peri decided to mark this one up. The washable marker is no match for the protective glass in the frame. The painting is of a church near Susanville, California, and hung in my grandmother's house for as long as I could remember. I'm pretty happy to be able to hang it in my new home.

Anyways, just to catch you up, we're happy in Yakima, we love our new ward, Naomi's already made "like a million friends," I am really happy with my new job, and things are just great for us. This Thanksgiving, I can say we have so many blessings and can express so much gratitude.  Thanks.

Desert Bus for Hope 6

Last night marked the beginning of Desert Bus 6, a telethon raising money for the Child's Play charity. I wrote a post on DB5 last year, and I want to plug it again this year.

My favorite part of the entire endeavor is that for around a week, Loading Ready Run and Friends can basically build a city populated by great people doing great things for children. There are auctions, giveaways, opportunities to create art and poetry and crafts, music, singing, dancing, comedy, and much more. The sense of community they create is unparalleled, and though I've never met any of these people, I feel as though they are my good friends.

One of the highlights for me from Desert Bus 5 last year was a phone interview with "Stepto", an online policy consultant. The idea came up that we shouldn't just be nice to each other, we should be excellent to each other. I call this Stepto's Law, although it was heavily used in the film Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and should thus be called Bill-and-Ted's Law.

So, watch Desert Bus, and be excellent to each other.

Gary

Our New Place

So a few people have been clamoring for me to put up pictures of our new place in Yakima. I only have phone pictures of before we moved in. We're still unpacking and have lots of stuff scattered everywhere, so no pictures of that.

But yes, here they are in all their sad glory:

This is walking in the front door. Sorry for the glare! Those are the dining room windows.

From the entry way over to our master bedroom, where Gary is lounging about. Our bedroom has a bathroom and a walk-in closet that can fit a twin size bed in it and still have room left over.

From the entryway into the hallway toward the second bedroom.

From the hallway to the second bathroom. That is the linen closet and at the end of the hall is the third bedroom. I apparently forgot to take pictures of any of the rooms. Oh well.

This is looking into the living room from the hallway. There are three doors in our living room. The one on the left is the laundry room, the one in the middle goes to the garage. The right one is a coat closet.

This is the kitchen! It is lovely.

And here is the back yard. It is small, but definitely big enough for us to play in. We want to get a play toy for Peri eventually. At least a slide. 

So there you have it! Our new place. It is very large and we don't have enough furniture for it yet. But soon!

Our Friend Melissa Came to Visit!

So about a month ago (is it really only a month?) our dear friend Melissa came to visit us! It was so much fun! We didn't take a huge amount of pictures, but that's okay because we were busy having fun instead!

We did a lot of things together, but nothing really exciting. We just hung out and talked and caught up and basically just gave Melissa a break from Arizona. Oh Arizona. It should be a tourist only state.

But one thing we did get pictures of was when we went bowling! And I made Melissa drive my car! Which really isn't that exciting, but I got a picture of it! It looks like she's going really fast, but really we just got out of the driveway so she can't be going more than 10mph here. But she looks like a speed racer! And she's going to be mad at me for posting it! Bwahahaha!

At the bowling alley. Peri had never been to one before. She didn't bowl, but she had a fun time running around, playing with the balls in the return, and watching us bowl.

She? She's having a good time.

Another picture of Melissa! Proof that she was here!

I forgot to take a picture of our first scores, but Melissa and Gary did pretty close to the same. Gary did a bit better the first round. I did absolutely awful the first round. I may or may not have broken 50. So yay for improvement! Peri got to name Melissa. I think Tukmv really suits her.

We went shopping together and ate at some of our favorite places around Pullman. We went to the Library and Melissa got to chat with someone who actually knew her when she was there! So that was really nice for her. We wanted to go to the temple whilst she was here, but we picked the wrong week for a visit, as the temple was closed for maintenance while she was here. It was pretty lame-sauce. So we're pretty sure she has to come visit again so we can do that.

On our way back to Spokane to take Melissa to the airport (sob) we did eachother's hair! It was fun! We took pictures of that too!

Aren't they pretty?

And something else that was pretty cool, on the last day of her visit, Gary got a call back from his interview saying that he got the job! It was awesome to have a friend there to jump around and squeal with. Even Peri was doing it.

I lobe lobe lobe our friend Melissa, she is a great gal. We miss her loads! And if anyone in Arizona wants a good pal, you should look up Melissa, because she is so awesome!

Peri Likes... again

So here is another photo dump of our cutie little girl. It is hard not to take pictures of her all the time. Thank goodness for phone cameras!

Peri Likes Her Vacuum Cleaner

She likes it so much, that she sometimes wants to take it with her on car rides. It doesn't fit very well in her car seat with her, but she makes it work.

Peri Likes Potty Training

Or she at least likes to sit on the toilet every once in a while. We've been a little lax with it since the move, but she still asks to sit on the potty every once in a while. I think we'll get back into the swing of things after the holidays.

Peri Likes Shaking Things

But the only picture we have is this one of the rattle that our friends got her for her baby shower. She still enjoys shaking it like a maraca every now and then. She also likes to shake bottles with stuff in them. Like pill bottles. If she happens to find one that we left lying around for some reason (big no-no parents...), we let her have a little fun with it before we put it back out of her reach. She also likes the spice bottles.

Peri Likes Photobombing

I think we may have a prodigy on our hands.

Peri Likes Sunglasses

And she looks especially adorable in my hideously large and cheap pair that nevertheless do their job of keeping out the sunlight.

Peri Wears Hats

This is the first time Peri has ever willingly worn a hat, which is fantastic, because I like hats. She has always immediately removed any hat we put on her. I just wanted to post the evidence that Peri is becoming a hat girl.

Peri Also Likes Driving

I thought this was a fun picture to share.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

Gary was offered a job! Finally! We are so excited and can't wait to get things started! Gary doesn't officially have the job until he passes his drug test, but we all know that's going to be no problem. The position is in Yakima, or more accurately, Union Gap. We're starting to look for places to live there, so we can get this ball rolling. The company, Pexco, wants Gary to start ASAP, and we're trying to figure out how quickly we can move and get started!

We were also debating whether or not we should just go house shopping, rather than renting. But then again there is this little pesky problem of down payment. We've not been able to save hardly a dime since we have student loans and a car payment. Plus it's hard to just pay regular bills on a paltry $12/hr pay rate. But that is going to soon change! We are so stoked to finally be on a salary! What a strange feeling that is.

Perhaps even more importantly, this job is absolutely PERFECT for Gary. He'll pretty much be doing exactly what he wanted to do when he signed up for a mechanical engineering degree in the first place. He is so stoked.

I'd be remiss if I published this post without expressing the gratitude we feel to our Heavenly Father for keeping us in a home with enough food on our table and the ability to buy diapers for our little one for these past 2 years (even though there were some very tough months). I guess we were just meant to be patient a little while longer until this position opened up and the perfect job became ready for Gary. And working at Decagon in the place he's working helped immensely too, so I'm glad he ended up there. It has been a long road, but as always, we finally realize just exactly how much HF was looking out for us this whole time. It actually makes me sad and a little embarrassed at the many times I doubted and my faith was shaken, however briefly. Now to follow the counsel of the Book of Mormon and continue to harken unto the counsels of God even in our day of prosperity. We definitely need to remember to pass our new-found "wealth" (for we'll still only be middle class, and probably still pretty poor until our loans are paid off) around to others who don't have the same fortune as we do. I think HF has given us this blessing with the expectation that we will do our best (and better than we have been) to serve those around us.

And that's what's going on with us! Expect a few more very excited posts about this subject in the future :D 

My Helpful Little Girl

Someone helped me make the bed today:

what a cutie I have.

Second Etsy Listing and Peri Likes Round 2

So I finally got my second Etsy listing up! Life got in the way, and I haven't been working on them every day like I ought. But I think it looks pretty good!

Peri is again my little model. Isn't she great?

Speaking of Peri...

I think it's time for another round of Peri Likes!

Peri Likes Waste Baskets

She likes putting them on her head at least.
 

Peri Likes Chocolate

But she makes the cutest little mess, so it's okay.

Peri Likes the Bike Trailer
 

 As long as she's not actually going anywhere.

 She really likes putting her face to the window though.

Peri Likes Fairies

Mostly. She doesn't quite understand the wings yet. We're working on it.

Peri Likes Baths

 Her favorite game is pouring cups of water on herself.

Doesn't she look positively pleased with herself?

Peri Likes Dual-wielding Lollipops

Specifically Dum-Dums.

Peri Likes Taking Out The Trash 

Photo evidence that I have the best little girl in the world.

She also does a lot of other chores too, like helping with laundry, dishes, and cleaning up her toys.

And I guess that's all for today!

Hazy Pullman and Sleeping Girl

There have been lots of forest fires in Idaho recently, and we here in Pullman are seeing some of the effects of that. It's been hazy here. Real hazy. It is as if there is a perpetual fog blanket on Pullman. The sun came up blood red today. Isn't that nice? I snapped a few pictures of it this morning.

This is the best picture of the sun's color this morning.

And this is the best picture of what all the smoke looks like.

It definitely smells like smoke too. So that's what we've been having fun with the past few days.

In other news, Peri is still sleeping in her big girl bed, and she loves it. When it comes close to time for her to wake up (or after Gary leaves and stops being so noisy) I open her room door a crack so she can come out whenever she wakes up. So far it has made a really happy little girl. It is so nice to watch her walking into the living room with a big smile on her face and no crying fits in the morning.

She is also really good at her bedtime routine. We tell her, " Peri, it's time to brush your teeth!" at about 7:30 every night, and she just drops what she's doing to go and get her toothbrush. She loves having her teeth brushed and then chewing on the toothbrush afterward. I think it is her favorite thing of the night.
Then she puts her toothbrush away when we ask her too, and goes to her room to get pajama'd all up. Then either Gary or I (we take turns) read a book to her while she plays. Currently the books are more for us than her; right now we're on the 7th book of the Artemis Fowl series (which is really good and unique and well-written, so you should all go read it. It's about a teenage criminal mastermind. What's not to like?) We had to read through all of them so Gary could catch up before I got to read the 8th and final installment.

Anyways, when we stop reading, it's time for family and Peri's personal prayers. Sometimes Peri even volunteers for prayer by folding her arms. It is the cutest thing she does. Since she doesn't talk yet, we help her with her personal prayers. After that we go back to the living room so I can feed her one last time before she goes to bed. Sometimes that puts her to sleep and it's easy-going, but sometimes it doesn't and I put her back on her feet and she walks all the way to her bedroom climbs into bed all by herself, where she lays down and doesn't get back up or play around or anything. She just lays there until she falls asleep while Mom or Dad sing bedtime and Primary songs to her.

We haven't have a crying fit bedtime for ages! And it's mostly because I have the sweetest, smartest, cutest, bestest little girl in the world. (Which all moms say, and it's always true)

I am so excited!

I have finally made an Etsy store! I finally got my first listing on it today! Sadly, there is only the one, but that's okay because soon there will be more! Hopefully. And hopefully other people will like them just as much as I do.

Here is what I listed! Except the paper in her tummy has yet to be cut out in this picture. I really like the way it turned out and I hope other people do too!

I still have some work I need to do on the listing to make it more searchable, but that is neither here nor there. Bottom line is that I'm excited!

I do have some ideas in the works for photo frames that aren't sonogram-related, so we'll see how that goes!

A Big Kid Bed for Peri

Peri's never been too keen on her crib, ever since she could stand up and climb on things. So the other day we were rearranging our house, and decided to convert Peri's crib into a toddler bed.

See?

She had lots of fun last night climbing in and out of it. We put a rolled up blanket along the edge so she wouldn't roll out of it in the middle of the night, even though she tends not to move around a lot.
We had a pretty good night, and she was so happy to be able to get out of bed by herself this morning.

See how happy she is? 

Peri's First Birthday Party! (a month late)

So, Peri celebrated her first birthday on July 23, a day after her real birthday, and it was a lot of fun and we have some good pictures, but I just realized that I totally forgot to make a blog post for all of our friends and family that didn't get to come! So finally, here is what we did!

First of all, Peri's birthday party was supposed to be My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic themed. We didn't get to do all the decorating that we wanted to, mostly because it was windy. We wanted to make the party look like one that Pinky Pie would throw for one of her friends. It did not turn out that way, but oh well.

Peri got to wear her pretty pink tutu from her grandma, and a cute rainbow shirt I found on clearance the day before. She was so cute all decked out in pink!

We made themed food, but forgot to take a picture of it before we all dug in. There were little sandwiches cut into star shapes (my mother and sister helped, and they put all the leftovers in bags so that they wouldn't go to waste. There were a lot of leftovers. Gary and I ended up making savory bread pudding out of them. It was soooo good!) We cut up lots of fruits and put them into rainbows with mini marshmallows for clouds. I saw the idea on pinterest! But we had too much fruit and our pans weren't big enough to make them rainbow shaped. So they just kind of sat there in colors instead. They still tasted just as good though! For drinks we made my favorite sherbert 7up drink! I remember having this all the time as a kid.

We had cake too! I went to a lot of trouble to make ice cream cone cupcakes, but on the way they all fell over in Gary's truck and got all over the floor, so Gary had to hurry to Dissmore's and buy a cake from there. The only ones they had were frozen though, so it was hard to cut the pieces. And I didn't have a knife, since we were supposed to be eating cupcakes. Oh well. We put the cake toppers we'd made for the cupcakes on the cake instead. The rest we put in a basket, and the children all had fun playing with them.

Peri got good and messy with her cake. She must think frozen cake is yummy :D

My nephew Kinton is such a silly kid, he asked if he could pose for the camera, and this is how he chose to do it! Pretty much the best pose ever!

Gary made a beanbag toss, which I painted with Pinkie Pie on it. I also made beanbags that looked like a cake, a cupcake, and an ice cream cone! The kids liked it I think. We still have it if anyone wants to come play!

We played Pin the Tail on the Pony, but forgot to take a picture of the rarity poster that I printed out. Afterward some of the girls taped the tails to their hind quarters. Sarah had a lot of tails!

Gary made the pinata! It is a dragon, for those of you who can't make it out. I had something else in mind, but Gary's vision came out waaaay better than mine. We were going to make a wooden sword to fight it with, but we didn't get around to it in time.

So we used a hurley instead. This is Peri taking a good chunk out of his wing with the help of her aunt Katrina.

And this is Sarah (a child of one of Gary's coworkers) giving the fatal blow!

The kids went crazy over the tootsie roll treats inside. Who doesn't like tootsie rolls? There were flavored ones for those who don't, for some inexplicable reason, like the chocolate flavored ones. Which are the best by the way.

Peri opened presents too. She really really loved these leopard print pants given to her by our downstairs neighbors. She couldn't wait to try them on! Peri loved all of her other presents too, and wears/plays with them all the time! Thanks everyone who came (and some who weren't able to) for making Peri's first birthday a special one!