Pre-Halloween Fun

Last Friday, Megan, Jessica, and Matt came to hang out with us and stay the night. We're so much fun I can't believe they don't come and stay every weekend. We started off the night by eating some of my homemade BBQ chicken pizza and then baked some halloween sugar cookies. We had so much fun that I even stayed up way past my bedtime. The next morning when Bridget woke us up at 6:30, Nate took her and went to Einstein Bagels to get us some delicious breakfast including my favorite pumpkin bagels with pumpkin shmear. Once everybody was finally awake we ate, played with Bridget, and then decorated our sugar cookies. It was a fun-filled weekend, and I'm pretty sure I ate way too many cookies.

11 Months

I seriously can't believe October is almost over, and Bridget is now 11 months. Her 1st birthday will be here before I know it. Nate and I love watching all the new things she's learning to do, and can't help but laugh at some of them. Here's a quick run-down of the last month and a video highlighting some of them:

• She's getting so good at walking, but still resorts to crawling at least half of the time. I love how she walks like a zombie with her arms straight out in front of her to help her get her balance.


• Her ability to understand amazes me. If we're in our living room and we ask her where Jesus is, she gets a big smile on her face and looks at the picture hanging on our fireplace and then at the statue on the piano. I know I'm a little biased, but it's so cute!


• Any time you say to her "no pooping," she smiles and pretends to grunt like she does when she is pooping. Sorry if that's TMI, but it really is funny.


• She got 2 more of her top teeth.


• She loves to play "Where's Bridget?" aka peek-a-boo if there's a blanket or dishtowel nearby.


• Bath time is still one of her favorite activities, and she's not afraid of the water one bit. If we lay her down to wet her hair, she doesn't get scared or cry at all.


• The stranger phobia still hasn't set in, and at this point I don't know that it will. She's a very friendly baby, and will smile or go to most people if Mom or Dad is nearby.


• She finally wore shoes for the first time, and is getting better at walking in them.

A Few Steps

Bridget is getting closer and closer to walking by herself, and a couple of days ago she made some good progress. She will sometimes let go of things (couch, people, etc.) on her own now and take a few steps. She does really well if she goes slow and gets her balance with each step, but sometimes she gets a little too excited and then falls. Anyway, this is a short video of one of her practice sessions. I'll be surprised if she's not walking on her own by her birthday which is only about 5 weeks away!

Recent Changes

We've been in our house now for about 2 months, and in that short time we've already gone through some major changes at church. About a month ago Nate got called to teach Elders Quorum one Sunday a month, and lucky for him he probably now holds some sort of record for serving in a calling for the shortest amount of time and never having to actually do anything with it. Within 2 weeks of receiving that calling, our stake made major boundary changes to every ward and dissolved two of the nine wards (ours being one of them). Obviously everybody from our ward was released from their callings, and on Sunday we attended our new ward for the first time.

On Saturday a member of the bishopric randomly showed up at our door (for some reason they didn't have a phone number for us so he couldn't call first). I happened to still be in my pajamas because I'd been so busy cleaning and taking care of Bridget that I hadn't had a chance to get ready for the day yet, so it was just a little embarrassing. Anyway, I got called to be the 2nd Counselor in the Primary of our new ward. When he told me the name of the president, I didn't have a clue who she was (not surprising since we've only lived in our house a couple of months). When we were all sustained during sacrament meeting, I didn't even recognize her as somebody I'd ever seen before. She even admitted to me later that she couldn't even remember my name, but when she was praying about who her counselors should be, she knew it was supposed to be me (the woman who spoke in sacrament meeting just a few weeks before and bought the Riggs' home). I'm really excited about this calling since it's something I haven't done before, and I love Primary. I also look forward to getting to know the other women in the presidency, the teachers, and the kids.

First Snow Fall of 2008

We all awoke this morning to the great white stuff falling from the sky. Bridget loved to just sit by the window and watch it fall.

By the time we got done with church (4:00 PM) the snow had stopped and it was looking much nicer. Now Nate just has to clean up the mess from the two branches that broke off our tree in the front yard.

Waving

A little over a week ago Bridget learned to wave, and since I'm slow to blog these days, I'm finally get around to posting a short video. She still hasn't figured out to turn her hand the other direction, but she'll get it eventually.