It's the start of a NEW YEAR!

My New Years resolution is to blog more. Like... maybe once a month? Hopefully more. Hey now.. it's better than once every 6 months like before. I figure having a child should be a good reason to blog more, since things are constantly changing with her and we have lots of family that don't live close to us. :)



Yup that's my little peanut taking some of her first bites. YUM YUMMMMMMY sweet potatoes! Perry loves food. LOVES food. She's a great eater. I was so excited with the Doc. gave us the go to start feeding her solids. We are anti-grain in this household so I went against what most do and chose not to feed Perry rice cereal. After doing lots of my own research I found no good reason why the first food I gave my child should be a grain and not a non-processed whole food... other than the fact that it's just the "American way" of doing things. So we started her off with Sweet potatoes. The next week we tried bananas. And then the next week we went for carrots/avocados (combined the 2). I am making my own baby food, which I am stoked about. It's super easy. Especially since for Christmas my fabulous mother in law gave us a baby bullet. It's so cute seeing Perry open her little mouth as wide as possible the second she sees that spoon come near her mouth.




We had a great Christmas. We were able to celebrate with Bobbys Mom, brother (and his fam), and sister a week before Christmas. Then Perry and I caught a ride with a friend down to Portland so I could do some hair, a few days before Christmas, and Bobby came down the Friday before when he was done working. We had a great time celebrating Perrys first Christmas.



This is Perry on Christmas morning. Did I mention she is a smiling maniac? It's rare that you smile at her and she won't give you a massive dimpley smile back. She's into this new thing where she'll smile at you and then burry her head into whoevers neck that's holding her--getting all shy. :)
We had fun hanging out with the family, going from family to familys house, visiting different friends. I took Perry over to a few other of her "grandma's" houses.. like the Eisenbach's and Maloneys. Cara and Kristin were 2 of my best friends in high school. Cara and I have been best friends since 4th grade. Her family lives a few houses down from my parents, so I got to see them a lot, they are like family to me. Kristin was also in town so I got to go over to her parents house a couple of times and visit. Everyone loved getting to see Perry.

The day after Christmas was my sister Crystal's birthday. She did the coolest thing anyone I've ever known has done for a birthday. She had a "Feed the homeless birthday party". She invited everyone she knows to come to our church and make 160ish sack lunches and then take them to downtown Portland and pass them out. Many people contributed, and it was a HUGE success! Bobby and I got to go down and help pass them out.. driving around and hopping out of the car whenever we saw a homeless person, offering them a lunch. It was very humbling. I've been to downtown Portland a billion times and never think much of the homeless people I see all around. It was really eye opening, having them be my focus for the day, and interacting with them. Seeing young and old.. some children. Very emotional. I'm grateful for my sister and that she came up with this super cool idea. It was a great activity to do the day after Christmas, and I know all the people we served were truly appreciative.



Then onto the open road.. all the way to Utah. Bobby had to work so he couldn't go, but My mom, Chuck, Crystal, Kevin, Pdub and I spent 4 days in the car (total) to and from Utah to go visit our Grandma & Grandpa Billinton. Perry did really well in the car. I was kind of surprised. She is nursing so luckily I have a FABULOUS pump with a battery plug in and pumped in the car... that way I didn't have to stop and nurse her. We would stop after I fed her so I could burp her and change her diaper. She slept quite a bit, and when she was awake and board I had a few different toys I used.. then when all else failed I put The Backyardigans or "Tigger and Pooh" on my phone so she could be entertained. The last half hour of every day in the car she was done and wailed till we got to our location. We stopped in Boise Idaho to stay the night both there and back.
It was great seeing Grams & Gramps. We don't see them much, and this was their first time meeting Perry. Sadly Perry was teething and had a really rough time being so out of her schedule. My mom and the rest of my family were a huge help, but it was hard doing it all without Bobby. Nonetheless it was great seeing lots of family.


This is my beautiful Grandma. I sure do love her.




We also got to visit with my friend Kylie and her SUPER cute daughter Zoie. I love this girl!!!! Cutest 2 year old I know! She loved Perry and Perry loved her!!





This was super neat. We have 5 generations! My Great Grandma Larsen.. then My Grandma Billinton. My mom. Me. And Perry. So cool! 5 generations of women and 5 generations of hands! So cool. So glad we were able to visit Grandma Larsen and get these pictures.

All in all it was a great trip but it was so great to come home. Perry has really discovered her voice and she gets louder and louder EVVVEERRRY day. She's into yelling right now. It's pretty funny. We really enjoy her. She gets more and more interactive every day and we love it. She's 2 seconds away from rolling over! So much fun.

We are excited for this year. We feel like there will be a lot of exciting things going on and we cannot wait!