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)

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!

Poor Peri

So, poor Peri got her first really big owie today. She tried to run downhill on her stubby little legs. I tried to stop her but she's a sneaky and fast little devil. I made sure it wasn't bad, and then couldn't resist taking a picture, because oh boy does it ever look nasty.

Let me make this extra large for you all so you will never get the image out of your head.

A couple things I'd like to make clear. She is only bleeding from her forehead (not her nose or her hands or arm or leg). I did check really good to make sure her pupils were dilating and all that. It is a really really small (but deeper than skin deep) gash on her forehead. She was pretty happy to see the camera, so I'm guessing it didn't hurt that much.

They aren't kidding when they say head wounds always bleed a lot.

On the bright side, she looks darn cute with a bandaid.

Now we'll just have to see if she knows better next time she goes out.

At Grandma's Part 4

While we were on the West Side, we decided to have a small early birthday party for Peri so Grandma and Uncle Gary could celebrate with her. We bought a cake for everyone to eat.

And also a cake just for Peri. It stared at her.

She stared back.

She didn't understand blowing out the candles, but she did think the flame was pretty.

You can see how she really felt about this cake, as she went straight for the eyes as soon as we blew out the candle.

Next she tore off the rest of his face and munched on the cakey goodness inside.

The battle was bloody, but Peri did prevail.

Grandma bought Peri some little people. There was a tractor and a farmer named Jed and some animals too. The tractor sings! She thought they tasted really good were really fun to play with!

Grandma gave us the very large gift bag to tote the toys back home with us. I thought maybe it could be a good alternative to a stroller. You know, like carrying around one of those purse dogs, only it's a one-year-old. It could catch on.

Peri didn't mind for about 2 minutes, but then she heartily objected, so I guess I had no choice but to let her out. The bag wasn't that comfortable anyway.

Later on, Grandma found some other little people things at the store. She got Peri a big barn with more animals and another farmer. We've named him Farmer Dej, Farmer Jed's evil twin brother. When we find a small enough sharpie, we're going to draw a teeny, tiny mustache on his face so it will be official. She very much enjoys playing with it. She especially likes to lock all the animals and farmers up in the silo together. I'm not totally sure what that means.

And that concludes our trip to Grandma's! Peri had lots of fun, and continues to enjoy her presents!

4th at Grandma's Part 3

After fireworks and fun the night before, we went to Pointe Defiance Zoo early the next morning. When we got there, there were hardly any people there, so we had the whole place pretty much to ourselves. It was pretty fun. The first place we went was to the aquarium. Peri had fun roaming the halls with us checking out all the pretty fishes.

She still likes the sharks the most (they were her favorite when we visited 6 months ago too). I don't blame her. I mean, who doesn't like sharks?

We saw seahorses. 

And little fishies.

And Dory and Nemo (otherwise known as a Blue Tang and Clown Fish, but what's the fun in that?)

I don't even remember what these were, but they were glow in the dark and looked like they would bite if you got too close. What's not to like?

He reminds me of a Super Mario piranha plant.

We got to see the Tiger chillin' in his/her habitat, which she/he shares with the monkeys or chimps or orangutangs or something. Anyway, the tiger was out, so the monkeys were in, which was kind of a bummer because I think Peri would have really liked to see them swinging around (or more likely moseying around on the ground doing whatever it is that monkeys on the ground do, i.e. not being interesting, so I suppose the tiger was just as well).

We caught the Zoo's plumed mascot wondering why the ice cream stand wasn't open yet. You and me both brother.

And Peri got to run around and play with all the other little tikes at the playground for a little while. The ground is squishy.

But this is undoubtedly the best picture of the day! What a goofus I have for a baby.

We saw lots of other animals: Camels, Elephants, baby Spotted Leopards, Caribou, Yaks, Walruses, Penquins, and so on, but the internet will have lots of better pictures of those things than I took, and I took far too many, let me tell you. So if by some strange chance you've never seen a walrus, you can look up a picture of one online, or go support your local Zoo and buy a ticket for some great family fun!

4th of July at Grandma's Part 2

Later on in the day, we went to look at the stalls again, and then settled down on Gary's lawn to watch the parade go by. Peri was... less interested. She played in the grass while we watched. It was an okay parade as far as parades go. Gary's favorite part was this big guy riding around on a motorcycle with a long beard and a coyote skin on his head. I don't know why he thinks that's so cool, but I must admit I've never seen anyone with a coyote on their head. Other than that guy though, we don't really remember much about it.

After the parade, we took Peri back to the beach because it was now warm enough to play in the (freezing cold) water. It looked like she was having a good time. 

But I'll let you be the judge.

And of course, some of the sand made it happily into her mouth. I guess she forgot that she doesn't think it's very good.

Later that evening, of course there were fireworks! In Grandma's town, the fireworks are shot off of a barge in the sound, and Grandma's backyard has the perfect view. They even built a deck out back specifically for firework viewing. Gary fired up the grill and we had bratwursts of all different flavors, baked beans, a couple of cold salads, and some other yummy things. Gary's mom spoils her guests that way.

We decided to try taking pictures of fireworks this year with Gary's camera. It is really hard to get the right settings. We tried following the advice from here, but our camera isn't as cool as theirs, and anyway I don't even know what settings they are talking about. At least not yet. Anyways, we got some okay shots and it was fun to try.

I think this one might be my favorite

And that was the end of our 4th of July. We did do some cool things the next day, but that will be in the next post!

Shelves for Peri's Room

I've been working on shelves for Peri's room for some time now, and I've finally been able to get them both up. Once again, all made out of stuff we had on hand.

I built the shelf bodies and thought they were a little heavy, so I came up with the suspension blocks 16 inches above them, and with cotton string in abundance, the shelves really took off. I've got one more shelf to put up in Peri's room and then we're done.