Christmas. Finest Kind.

Peri sitting up like it's not a big deal at all.

I volunteered to do the Christmas blog post. We had a pretty good time in Steilacoom with Grandma. Peri got to show Grandma and Uncle Gary all of her new tricks, and she improved on some of them while we were there. In her repertoire, Peri can now stay sitting up without weebling over, she can roll over off her tummy (she hates tummy time), and she can creep along for several inches (I call it proto-crawling for some reason) if all the conditions are met. Grandma was also very impressed how Peri can put down her oat cereal. I'll tell you though, Peri does not like traveling long distances. I don't blame her; I've driven enough to feel every mile in my bones.

Peri is contemplating what to do next. So much concentrated awesome .

Peri showing her Singing Star Stack to Grandma.

Peri absolutely LOVED Christmas. Santa takes the extra time at my house to lay some toys out so we could play right away, and he remembered that for Peri. She loves her little bucket of shapes and her singing star stack and her pop-lantern and several dolls and her giraffe hat (thank you Grandpa!).

Possibly the cutest picture on record of any baby, anywhere.

Peri is a big fan of giraffes, and it came about accidentally. It started with a plush giraffe which I had from somewhere. When Peri first started grabbing hold of things, we gave it to her and the two were inseperable. Next, we got her a little jungle playmat/tactical command center which features a giraffe in one corner. She loves that beyond all else. And third, She has a nice giraffe hat from Grandpa to keep her ears warm when we go out on walks. The first instance of Peri doing her creep-crawl thing occurred when she went after her hat.

Naomi and I got some pretty neat things as well. We got a Kinect, which opens up a lot of doors for us on the Xbox. We set it up in my mom's living room and put it through its paces Christmas morning, and we use it on the daily here at home.

My mom got us everything we need to get started with painting landscapes. The instructional material came with a pretty slick little guide and a DVD. The style is similar to that which Bob Ross made famous, though he used oil paints on a wet canvas, whereas we're using acrylics on dry. Naomi and I made a fun date out of watching the instructional video, practicing on the plastic sheet, and finally putting brush to canvas. This was a really great gift and I'm excited to do another piece. I already have an idea in mind that is at my skill level and really carries some meaning for me. I'm going to let it sit in my mind for a while so it can grow and develop a little more before I commit to canvas, but it's on.

Naomi's is on the left; a classic New England lighthouse. Mine is on the right. It's vaguely what I remember from the time when I actually saw a lighthouse in the Pacific Northwest.

We decided that we couldn't leave Peri out, so we cooked up some finger paint out of corn starch and food coloring. We found a big piece of stretched canvas and let her go to work on it. The result turned out far, far nicer than we had expected. The corn starch doesn't hold up too well, so it's cracked a little now, but it still looks pretty nice. In fact, it's hanging over our mantle right now, and we have no intentions to move it anytime soon.

Peri's interpretation of a New England lighthouse, having never seen a lighthouse or knowing what a lighthouse is.

I want to conclude with some more photos of Peri, because she's a lot cuter and far more interesting than I am.

She loves playing with the tray to her little seat, even more than playing with toys on her tray on her seat.

Playing with wrapping paper on Christmas morning. She split her time pretty equally between her toys and the stuff her toys came wrapped in, so we count it as a victory.

Absolutely adorable. Finest kind.