If You're Happy and You Know It...

Clap Your Hands! Bridget randomly learned to clap her hands today. I've been trying to get her to do it for awhile, and all of a sudden she did it on her own. To make sure it wasn't just a fluke, we had to see if she would do it again on video, and she did:

8 Months

I really cannot believe that Bridget is 8 months old already and how quickly she's learning new things. Here are some of her accomplishments over the past month:

• She's crawling all over and getting into everything! She still doesn't crawl far distances and won't follow me from room to room, but she certainly can get around the room she's in. She loves to pull the DVDs off the shelf by the TV, and she loves to play in the bottom drawer in our kitchen that's full of plastic bags - supervised, of course.

• She tries to pull up to stand on just about anything she can, and she's getting more steady on her feet and faster at walking holding onto people's hands.

• She has 2 teeth on the bottom that are coming through but not completely there yet. Luckily she hasn't seemed to be bothered by teething much at all.

• She still loves to eat everything I give her, but especially enjoys when I share what I'm eating with her like little bites of banana or graham crackers. She's also finally figured out how to eat Gerber cereal puffs without trying to swallow them too quickly and actually "chews" them with her gums now.

• She learned how to hold her bottle herself and also enjoys drinking water out of a sippy cup and even a real cup when we share with her.

• She loves to blow raspberries and also babbles quite a bit. Right now she says "da" a lot, and it even comes out "da da" sometimes which makes Nate happy.

The Joys of Parenthood

Lately Bridget has developed a liking for sucking on her bottom lip, and some days she likes it so much that she does it nearly all day long. Of course, a picture of her would not be complete without some drool. I should also mention that Bridget's first tooth (bottom right) finally started coming through today!

This is definitely not an attractive picture of me, but the horrified look on my face is because Bridget had just been climbing all over me and then decided to spit up all over my neck and chest - and not just a little bit. Nate was laughing so hard that he decided to grab the camera while he was grabbing a burp cloth for me. Let's just say I am eagerly awaiting the day she stops spitting up, and it's a good thing she's so cute so I can put up with it.

Crawling

Bridget is officially crawling today. She's not particularly fast and sometimes she uses a combination of techniques (scooting, army crawling, reaching) to get to what she wants, but she did some real crawling for the first time today. You can watch her in action:

More House Details

Since Nate failed to post any details about the house, here you go...

The house is 1792 square feet and has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. The basement is a finished laundry room/bathroom and family room. The yard is just under 1/4 acre and has a garden for me to spend my afternoons and evenings.

We are close to a golf course and the Roy aquatic center and in what appears to be a quiet neighborhood (we hope this holds true).

Our House...

So, we finally did it--we bought a house!

When all is said and done (and everything passes inspection, etc.) we will close on August 6th (Kimberly's birthday) and hope to be able to move in during the next week. We are excited to start this new adventure and scared to death to be putting down roots, no matter how shallow, in Roy.

Although we don't have an exterior picture (one will be added soon), here are some interior ones Kimberly snapped during one of our quick visits:

Bridget & Mason

A few weeks ago one of my college roommates, Danny, came to town (along with his wife, April, and son, Mason). We were lucky enough to arrange some time to get together and it was entertaining to watch Bridget and Mason interact.

I was nice to reconnect and I guess we now owe them a trip to Albany, NY sometime in the future...

Rather than repost pictures, here's a link to their post: Mason and Bridget. Enjoy!

Montana Vacation

We're finally back from our long trip to Montana, and it's so good to be home again. We left on July 2nd and drove to Idaho Falls to stay with our friends Dustin & Emily for the night before heading to Kalispell and Big Fork, MT the following day. We were trying to make it in time for a BBQ dinner that was part of the pre-wedding festivities for Nate's brother Brant's wedding, but we ended up not making it.

Friday we just hung around the hotel until it was time to head to Big Fork for the wedding. We had a big downpour of rain that evening, but luckily it stopped in time since the wedding was outside. We don't have any pictures from the wedding because we forgot our camera at the hotel and we never really saw much of the bride and groom anyway. I was too busy with Bridget during the ceremony to take pictures, and Nate was up front looking handsome in his tux. After the ceremony the bride and groom were off taking pictures for almost 2 hours, and we had to leave to go put Bridget to bed shortly after they came back. It was a nice wedding, but it was too bad it was somewhat disorganized and the location was too small to accommodate everyone comfortably. It was the first time I'd been to Flathead Lake, Kalispell, and Big Fork, so it was fun to see new places.

On Saturday we headed back to Nate's parents' house and basically just spent the next week hanging out and relaxing.

Bridget loved being outside and enjoyed Grandma and Grandpa's huge yard. You can see the nice creek behind her in this picture.

Bridget got to help Grandpa mow the lawn

Bridget played with her cousins Tanner and Jaxon a few times.

Another one of Bridget's accomplishments while we were away was learning how to get from her tummy to a sitting position by herself on Thursday, July 10th. Here's a video of it:

On Saturday the 12th, we headed to Great Falls for my friend Angie's wedding. Angie was one of my best friends in high school, and we hadn't seen each other in a few years. I also got to see my friend Emily from high school, and she was kind enough to let us stay with her that night.

Me, Angie, and Emily

As an added bonus, my brother and his partner were in Great Falls for Mark's high school reunion, so we met up with them for lunch that day at my favorite pizza place of all time - MacKenzie River Pizza. Here's a picture of Bridget meeting Uncles Mark and Mark for the first time.

We were very ready to make the return trip home yesterday but had one more stop to make in Pocatello, ID to visit one of my friends from BYU, Marshall, his wife Krista and their two kids.

Bridget did really well with all the traveling. She slept well in all the different places and did really well on all the long rides in the car. But it's so great to finally be home!

My Domestic Side

When Bridget isn't demanding my attention (and that's not very often) I like to spend my spare time in the kitchen or sewing. I just finished her Christmas stocking a few days ago - it only took me 4 months of working on it little bits at a time. And today while she was napping I whipped up a devils food cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate mint ganache, and Andes mints for Nate's coworker's birthday. And when we get back from our vacation in a couple of weeks, I have to find time to alter a wedding dress for one of my former students who's getting married in August.