Oh my, what fun! Our baby is now one!

One. Year. Old.

One whole year has passed and we've all survived. Can I get a hallelujah? There were a few days where I was sure one of us wouldn't make it out alive, yet here we are! All of us! And Bridget is a happy little munchkin.We took a few one-year-old pictures for you all. We're in love with her and the pictures, so hopefully you like them just as much! PS, this post is going to have a lot of pictures. Be forewarned.

She's been teething for real too. Remember that one time where we though she was teething at 3 months old, then she got one tooth but re-absorbed it? Well now that she is officially one, she decided it was time to make up for all the time lost. From what I can feel, she has four teeth coming in on the bottom. Our toothless wonder is going from having none to being a shark. I wouldn't expect anything less from her though. *sigh*

Let's see. What fun things is she doing now? Well... She's walking. Not all the time, but when Tony gets home, she deliberately goes from crawling to standing, then fast walks to him and then ends it with a big hug. It's adorable.

Oh you should probably see the video of the first steps. Pretty important.

She is doing a bunch of baby babble. I have no idea what she's saying, but she's telling me all about it.

She loves waving at people as we go places. You'd think she was practicing to be the next Princess of England or something. She's also a pro at blowing people kisses... even if they don't realize what she's doing. Haha. Up until today, she would curl her fist up in a ball and make the mwah sound from her mouth with her fist facing out. However, just today at lunch, Tony might have fixed it because she was blowing kisses with an open palm, facing herself by the end. It was great, so hopefully it sticks.

This little girl is a bookworm. We'll get through all 50 of our books every two or three days. I just tell her to pick a book, she'll get one, bring it over and sits on my lap and we read. She'll pick out little details like where the puppy is. She loves finding dogs in her storybooks. Who knew so many illustrators incorporated them. It's great! She also has favorite stories that she'll ask me to read over and over. One of which is The Croaky Pokey, a song book based on the Hokey Pokey but features frogs. She'll play with her little stuffed frog while I sing the words and turn the pages.

She loves planes. Whenever she hears them over head she'll stop what she's doing and looks around. If we're outside and she sees it, she'll point to it.

Bridget is still a great eater. She tries everything and although she may not eat a ton of it, she'll still eat things. Even peas which she was spitting out for a while. Her favorite snacks include cucumber, bananas, sugar apple, starfruit, and green beans. My mom also suggested raisins as a healthy, fun snack. I. hate. raisins. But I gave it a try and it turns out that Bridget LOVES them. She ate an entire mini box in maybe 5 minutes. It was gross. But I now have a new go to snack. As long as I don't have to smell them for very long I'm okay buying them. 

In addition to being a great eater, she also loves to help cook things... well mix things:

Now to describe her birthday party: the theme was "Island Baby" and we invited lots of people to share with us. We had a lot of food and some people, including Bridget, got to swim in the ocean between downpours of rain. It was great!

 For food, we started with Bridget's favorite: macaroni and cheese, accompanied with hotdogs... I mean octopus!

Then came the plethora of island fruits which we called shark bites! The white fruit on the bottom of this picture is called sugar apple. Very yummy.

Then Veggie Island. You can see a little cut out Bridget under one of the carrot palm trees, behind the red pepper crab.

'

Of course, you need Veggie-turtle Dip for all the veggies.

Watermelon-flavored Jell-O with cool whip.

And two special cupcakes. Pina colada (rum excluded) and white sandy beach cupcakes (vanilla).

 Bridget wasn't too sure what was going on with the candle and singing, but she liked it! Daddy ended up blowing out the candle since she really didn't react to it at all.

  Bridget even got a few presents! She was so excited to open them.

Gasp! A towel! I love it!

Gasp! A piano! I love it!

Gasp! An owl and BOOK! Let's read it!!!

 She was so cute with this piano. She would get embarassed or shy or something and would curl up and smile. Then she'd play it and do the same thing again. This video, however, captures perfectly what has happened over the past couple days. She'll be playing, playing, playing on something, and then BONK! hits her head on something even though I'm right there. Ugh. I don't know how we've avoided concussions thus far.

Fourth term is so hard. Can you tell we miss Daddy time??

Good thing she has her fuzzy friend for lots of hugs and cuddles.

Don't mind me! I'm just hanging out here.

 Yes, she's swinging by herself!

Ooh, as a bonus picture, we caught this amazing sunset on our way to a YSA activity. It was like this for literally 2 minutes, and suddenly gone. I had never witnessed something so breathtaking and over so quickly.

Month Eleven: Friends Make Heaven

This past month has been a bit boring. Tony is in the dreaded term 4 here at SGU and has next to no time for anything but school. He still tries to be involved in our lives, but it's difficult and I couldn't ask for more time than what he already gives. We have had weekly lunch dates with Daddy though! That's been a kind of fun outing for us... stressful for me just because of timing and Bridget, but it's nice to see Tony in the daylight.

"Cheers!"

Oh, this is kind of exciting. I tried iguana meat the other day. A local from our church, Roger, cooked up a big guy for a visiting missionary and his family, and the other missionaries in town. It literally tastes like chicken. It's la little chewier, but tastes just like it. This was part of the tail.

It has also been extremely hot here on the island this last month. Between the rainy season (increase in humidity) and lack of wind, it's hard going anywhere if you're not going to be in the pool, ocean or direct fan or A/C. Those to things combined make for a long term. The other morning I checked the temperature at 10 am. It was 87 degrees, but felt like 98 degrees. At 4:00 that afternoon the "feel" of the island was at 105 degrees. I'm over this whole summer thing. I feel a little bit of hatred for those back in the states posting pictures of their adorable fall boots, comfy fall sweaters, apple cider this and that, and the leaves changing colors. Envious yes, but I can deal. I'm sure others would love to switch spots with me. To all those who would rather be here, please switch with me!

Humidity does wonders for your hair. Bridget has inherited Tony's waves and wings. It makes for interesting hair styles.
Seriously, that hair though

Since last May I haven't been running. Some days I would like to get back into it, but then I think ehh, better not. If you wake up sweaty, you know it's too hot to go do something that is supposed to make you sweaty. However, Zumba classes have started up twice a week and I've loved it. I've missed dancing. I feel bad taking time for me sometimes, but I know it's necessary. Especially if it involves getting those endorphins pumping. Tony really wants me to do it too, so I am making an effort. And as I said, I am really liking it.

Bridget eating a French Cashew, watching a TV show with me.

We as a family, have had a few fun things happen though. For starters Bridget took her first steps!! 

Nothing photo or video worthy, but she walked for the first time on September 10th 2015. We were watching a movie in the craft room and she decided to take 3 steps between her mommy and daddy. It was so cool! Tony was so excited to have been there for the first steps. :) Since then she has taken a step or two here and there, but no serious walking.

Bridget is also speaking a little more. She says Bear a tons as always, and is getting a lot better at Mama. She also says Uh-oh, Hi, Hey!, Yeah, and the occasional Dada. Tony worries that he talks too much for Bridget and that is why she isn't speaking sooner, but who knows. She also does a little bit of signing. She can sign water and all-done, wave and blow kisses. She is seriously the cutest thing.

Not a happy camper.. I said no to open markers...

She is also taking after her mommy and honing her gymnastics skills. 

What do I mean by this you ask? Let me explain. 

Tony's desk it very oddly shaped and under it there are 3 bars. One that is knee high when you are sitting at it and the other two that are about shin high. Well, Bridget used to just crawl under Tony's desk and grab his legs while he studied. Now that is too easy, so she goes under there and climbs onto the bottom bars and holds herself up by the top bar. Like so...

Don't let her wide mouth face fool you. She loves this and has to be removed repeatedly. She's just practicing for the parallel bars!

One of Tony's favorite new developments is her hitting. Tony teases her a lot and it makes her very angry. She used to just cry about it, but now has a new trick. Tony made this discovery the other night. He put her in a headlock with his knees and messed up her hair. According to him she then yelled Hey!, pulled her head out and hit him on the thigh 3 times and scowled. Hah.

Teaching her bad habits? Apparently Tony is. :/

Bridget is learning how to throw too. It's pretty cute, although not very accurate most of the time.

As a final point, Bridget loves her little friends. So much! It's the cutest thing ever. She loves playing with older kids even when they don't know how to play with her. It is the funniest thing to see. She crawls up to them full steam and they get a look of terror on their faces and run to their mommies. I can't help but laugh every time. Kids her own age have no fear of each other however. The other two little girls that are down here are Bridget's BFFs.

Friend watching by the poolside.

We watched her friend Mila, who is 2 weeks younger than Bridget, one evening and Bridget was just in heaven. She shared all of her toys, they tag teamed Bear in a mad fight to "ride the horsey" and took the messiest and loudest bath I've ever heard Bridget take. There was water everywhere because of all the splashing.

 

 It was so cute and so much fun. Tony even suggested that we hurry and have another baby so Bridget has someone to play with all the time. I graciously declined, so he then suggest we have twins the next time then. :/ I more strongly declined that offer...

Of course, we also needed to share this gem of a video with you. One night, prior to bedtime, Bridget discovered Tony's nipples... she was fascinated with them and kept poking them like a button. I think she was entertained for a full 5 minutes. I hope you find this as funny as we did.