27

Today Bridget is 27-months-old on the 27th! Since I thought that was kind of cool, I decided to write a little bit about her and the things she likes to do. One of her favorite activities is playing with Play-Doh. Sometimes we get the Play-Doh out multiple times a day which means I get to sweep the little remnants off the floor multiple times a day too. I'll be glad when it's warmer and this activity can be done outside.
Her current obsession is Curious George. In fact, she would probably watch it all day long if we would let her. At least it's educational and she's actually learned quite a bit from it. Should I be concerned that half of her conversations involve explaining the plot of a "George" episode? It also gives her an opportunity to work on her negotiating skills (which are quite good already). If I tell her she can watch one George she will always ask to watch two.

Recently she's taken a big interest in the Disney Princesses as well. She hasn't seen all the movies yet, but she loves Ariel and Sleeping Beauty.

She loves anything to do with music - dancing, singing, playing the piano, etc. If I sit down at the piano, she has to sit with me on the bench and pick out songs to sing with me. I'm amazed at how many songs she already knows all the words to.

She's recently learned all of the basic colors and loves to identify them whenever she sees them. She will often point to something and ask what color it is which really means she just wants one of us to ask her what color it is so she can tell us herself.

She's been able to count to 14 for a couple of months now and sings her ABCs well, although she only recognizes a handful of letters by sight - W, A, B, O, and K.

One of the things that amazes me is how good she is at recognizing store logos. She knows Target, Walmart, Costco, Lowes, Harmons (the grocery store we shop at), McDonald's, and Great Harvest Bread even if she just sees the logo printed on a tiny piece of paper. There's a slight disclaimer I must make though. She doesn't actually know the name of McDonald's. If she sees the logo or we drive by one, she just calls it the yucky food place. I'd prefer to keep it that way too and see no problem passing my prejudices on to my daughter. She also doesn't know the name of Great Harvest, but calls it the "cinnamon roll store" when she sees that logo because she's been there with Nate a couple of times to get cinnamon rolls.

She's an extremely affectionate girl always full of hugs, kisses, and "I love yous." If I pretend to act sad she'll say, "I'll give you a hug." And my favorite thing is the random and unprompted "I love you, Mommy" or "I love you, Daddy" she says multiple times a day. If she's leaving the room one of us is in, she'll walk away and then quietly say to herself, "Say I love you Mommy." Then she'll come running back and say it to me. Nothing brightens my day more, and I never get tired of hearing it.

We love our little girl so much, and are so grateful for the joys as well as the challenges she brings into our lives every day.

Trip to St. George

I've been such a terrible blogger lately. I guess I feel like our lives are uneventful and even when they are, we usually forget to take pictures. And we all know that a blog without pictures is lame.
Anyway, over Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend we had the opportunity to go on a quick trip to St. George for Nate's Grandma's wedding. We did remember to take our camera, but we didn't remember to actually take any pictures while we were there.

After we got there Friday night, we met up with Nate's sister Alysha and her husband Adam for dinner and then went back to their house afterward. Nothing too exciting after that except for visiting in Nate's parents' hotel room while Bridget was asleep in ours.

On Saturday, we got ready and then headed over to another hotel where the wedding took place. It must admit that attending the wedding of an older couple like this was new for me and a little different from all the other weddings I've been to. After the ceremony and luncheon we had the rest of the day to spend with Nate's family. Alysha and Adam volunteered to watch Bridget while she napped so we could go with the rest of the group to the Parade of Homes that was going on that day. Nate and I only had time to go to a couple of homes before we needed to break off from the group to run some errands. One of the two homes we went to was listed at $3.5 million, and it was fun to walk through such an extravagant home.

On Sunday, we stopped at my sister Jessica and brother-in-law Matt's apartment on our drive home to celebrate Matt's birthday. Dinner was delicious along with the birthday pie & cake. You can tell from this picture that Bridget especially loved the pie. I'm not quite sure why, but lately she always squints when she smiles (I think she thinks it makes her smile bigger).
And after stuffing ourselves with all that food, we decorated heart-shaped sugar cookies. Thanks, Matt, for letting us spend your birthday with you!

Funny Bridget quote of the week:
I was trying to get Bridget to lay down on the floor so I could change her diaper and told her that she needed to cooperate because she smelled like poopy diaper. As she's lying there, she says, "Mommy, you smell like candy." I laughed and said that was good because candy smells good and a lot better than a poopy diaper. It was also random because anytime you ask her what something smells like her reply is always, "Pumpkin."

Conversation with Bridget

Like most kids her age, Bridget is constantly making us smile and laugh with the funny things she says and does. Here's an example:

Today as we were leaving my classroom to go home she stops and points to some small graffiti some high school kid wrote on the wall nearby and asks her typical question, "Uh oh. What happened?" I explained that one of the kids wrote and the wall and that it was naughty to do that. She responded by saying, "Kids naughty. Go in time-out?" I laughed and said, "Yes, they should go in time-out for doing naughty things like that."