Thanksgiving in Nevada

On Thanksgiving Day we drove to Fallon, Nevada. It is a town about an hour east of Reno and it is where our friend Brett grew up. We had a lovely afternoon with good food an great company. Brett's parents hosted dinner and their house was well prepared for Bridget, because they have a grandson who is about 6 months older than her.

Their house sits on a lot of land and there were horses and mules milling about. Bridget stayed very close to me when we went to see them, but I think she liked seeing the animals. (And yes, I did dye my hair red. You like?)


We had a great dinner with all the traditional Thanksgiving fare. Instead of place cards, Brett's mom made gingerbread cookies and wrote each persons name in icing. Needless to say, Bridget LOVED hers.


She spent quite a bit of time on the phone while we were at the McGinness house. She called all her relatives, and she also did some chatting with her favorite singer (Britney).


She also loved riding around the house on Aiden's tricycle. She got the concept of pedaling and only tipped over a few times.


All of these photos were taken by Sara McGinness. Thank you Sara! I'd like to use the excuse that our camera battery was dead (which IS true), but I still would never have been able to take as great of pictures as she does.

Trimming the Tree

We decided to put our our Christmas tree and decorations this year. The last time we put up a tree was when I was pregnant so this is truly Bridget's first Christmas Tree.

I set up the tree and added the lights and some of the more fragile ornaments while Bridget took her nap.

Once she was up she took over with the soft ornaments.


She also stopped for a minute to play one of the drums.


She had a lot of fun decorating, and learned how to open and close one of the musical ornaments.


She even tried to wear the stockings!


Here is the final result. Bridget actually did a really good job with spacing out the ornaments.

Bridget's Play Date

We had a chance to meet up with Sara's friend Annie and her boy Drake (who's almost 3) while we were up in Reno. The plan was to visit Santa but Bridget ended up having much more fun playing with Drake. (We did make it to Santa's chair, but not all the way onto his lap. Bridget asked for a "Yellow Present" in case anyone is wondering.)

After the Santa attempt we ended up just walking through the mall and stopping in a play area for a while.

Drake is one of the cutest little boys we've been around, and the two of them together was simply comical.


All the running around made them tired (well, as tired as 2 year olds can get), so Nathan went and got them some water. They made sure to "cheers" properly before they drank.


They started out sitting on opposite sides of these steps, but Bridget quickly moved in next to her new friend.


While Bridget was busy showing off, Drake took a second to show us his push-ups and his Spiderman muscles.


She made sure to show Drake her owie, and she actually got him to kiss it (too bad I wasn't quick enough with the camera).

We're Not in San Francisco Anymore

We took a trip up to Reno to visit our good friends Brett and Sara for Thanksgiving. Every time we drive up there we talk about stopping at Cabela's, but we never seem to make it. This time we made a point to stop at this mega outdoor/hunting store and we were not disappointed.


They have a HUGE fish aquarium filled with trout and Bridget was captivated.


There are also several very large life size dioramas filled with wild animals. Bridget had a great time pointing out all the Moose, Deer, and some really exotic species like a Leopard, Lion, and even an Elephant.




The place is not very PC, but don't worry we didn't actually come home with this pink toy gun set.


We also left the Davy Crockett coonskin hat in the store.

Weekend Brunch

Last weekend we had a rare chance to get together with our friends Sara and Brett and Sonya and Levi. Sara and Brett were passing through town on their way home from Hawaii (lucky them) so we met for Brunch at the 21st Amendment in San Francisco.

Bridget had the French Toast and was very excited about the mound of whipped cream that came on the plate.


She also got to open a few belated Birthday gifts from Aunt Sara and Uncle Brett. One of her gifts was a pink cell phone.


She also decided it had a built in camera phone.


We were able to get another group shot similar to the one we got a few months ago at Amici's. We're excited to see them again in a few weeks for our annual roommate holiday get together.

Let's Make a Deal

Sorry I don't have a picture to accompany this post, but the story is too cute to not be told. Lately Bridget has really taken a liking to skirts and dresses. They are all she ever wants to wear. Yesterday morning she wanted to wear her pink skirt when she woke up, but she was going to gymnastics later in the day, so I wanted her to wear pants.

This is what I said to her:
"Bridget you can wear the skirt while mommy finishes getting ready for work, but when we leave for Nonna's, you will have to change into your pants. That's the deal. OK?"

And this is what she said to me:
"No, that is NOT the deal."

And so it begins...

When did this happen?

Today Bridget got dressed in a cute outfit complete with tights AND pigtails. And then I realized she has no trace of BABY left in her. She is truly a little girl now. It is hard to believe she was once less than 8 pounds.

It's Delicious!!!

We had a little time to kill this morning so Bridget and I stopped into Starbucks. Normally she gets a box of Apple Juice but they were all out this morning. Instead I ordered her a kids hot chocolate and had them make it a cooler temperature than normal (120 degrees is perfect for 2 year old's in case you are curious).

She was SOOO excited to drink her hot chocolate. After her first sip she let our a big "Ahhhhhh" and then proclaimed "It's Delicious!".


Sorry the picture is not the best quality but you can still see how happy she was!

Coloring Skills

Bridget got a new coloring book and some large crayola crayons about 2 weeks ago.

For the first week, all the pages she colored looked like this:


A few days ago I was cleaning up the living room and stopped in my tracks. She had left her coloring book open to the page she was last working on - where she was clearly trying to color in specific items instead of scribbling across the whole page.


What a difference a week makes, it's amazing to see her motor skills developing.

Jam Session

I was going through old emails and found these pictures from Nonna. These are all of Bridget's friends at daycare. Judging by the length of her hair and the clothes she is wearing, I think these were taken sometime in fall 2008.

Here is a picture of the Marina Daycare Band - from the left we've got Bridget, then Leanna, next is Nikki, and Mierko is on the right. In the very back in the bouncy seat is Elaina.


And here is a cute shot of Bridget and Leanna. Leanna is 3 months older than Bridget. Watching these two interact is a lot of fun - especially when they fight and then make up! If we ever have a hard time getting Bridget to come to us at the end of the day, all we have to do is ask Leanna for a hug. Bridget's competitive streak comes out and she'll come running!