Crawling

Bridget is crawling around now. She's very content to go exploring and gets excited when she finds something she likes. The other day she was in front of the laundry machine intently watching the clothes tumble.

Spring Has Sprung

Now that the weather is nicer we have started taking Bridget to the park and she finally got to try the swings for the first time. She absolutely LOVED it! Although it's hard to tell whether she prefers the actual swinging or watching whatever kid is in the swing next to her.

There's something about a burst of warm sunny weather after a long cold winter that just makes me want to garden. However, that's a little difficult when you live in an apartment without a backyard. Jason is really the green thumb of the family so he was totally on board for doing a little gardening...Jersey style.


Jason with his latest avocado plant. Classic!

Our fire escape garden.

Bridget admiring our handiwork.

B is so excited to wake up and get ready for the day.

Bridget's favourite thing to do is go to the park by our house. She loves crawling around on our blanket and watching the other children, birds, squirrels and dogs. It is the perfect park for us because there are so many kids her age that also like to play there so she is constantly meeting new babies.

Such a ham! It's amazing how many different faces she makes.

Just soaking in the sunshine.

B showing the tree some love. It's never too early to start developing a love of nature!

The Easter Alligator hits NJ

What is Easter without a visit from the Easter Alligator. For those unfamiliar with the Easter Alligator I'll attempt to explain. He's a newer family tradition, in that he didn't start making his yearly visits until I was in my teens but ever since has snuck in as soon as the Easter Bunny has left. You'd know if the Easter Alligator had stopped by your house because he leaves a trail of chocolaty foot prints (thankfully only on hard surfaces, never carpets) leading to a chocolate bunny bitten in half with a note announcing his visit. I think in his early years he was a little more ominous and may have really been out to get the Easter Bunny but that wasn't really kid friendly so he's developed into more of a mischevious figure out to eat candy. Either way I'm pretty sure he made his first visit to New Jersey this year.

Bridget was excited to get at the candy. She doesn't crawl or scooch or do anything reliably yet but when she saw all that stuff on the ground she went for it.

The spoils.







So excited to be eating chocolate!

The aftermath

All cleaned up and ready for church

Happy 8th...month!

Bridget is now 8 months old. Wow, how the time has flown. I can't believe how big she is getting. She isn't crawling yet but I'm convinced it's only because she doesn't want to. She can easily pull herself into my lap when she wants something I have. She makes us laugh on a daily basis. Bridget attended a birthday party for the first time this past weekend. It was a cowboy theme and my friend Tamara went all out. It was great! Jason went for the "Hells Angels" look rather than the traditional cowboy bandana. We made brownies yesterday and Jason wanted to let B lick the frosting off the beaters. I don't want her to be one of those kids that doesn't know what to do with her cake on her 1st b-day so I agreed. She totally loved it. She is definitely our child. I feel like we don't have any "framable" pics of her so we're making more of an effort to have photo shoots where she's actually looking at the camera and there isn't a big mess in the background.

Give me Williamsburg or give me death!

We spent a day exploring Colonial Williamsburg, the largest living history museum in North America. That means there were a whole bunch of people acting as though it were the mid 1700s. Luckily, they "weren't annoying" (as Jason put it) and would talk to you normally if you had questions rather than feign confusion over anything you mentioned that wasn't from that period. It was a lot of fun to tour the city and talk to the local blacksmith, weaver, printer etc. about what life was like then. It made me daydream about going back in time and living in that era (of course I would have been extremely wealthy and educated, otherwise life would have been way too hard).

The Governor's Palace (obviously where I would have lived)

The front entrance to the Palace was a large round room covered in the Governor's sword and gun collection.



You could even tour the cellar of the Palace, which was actually really neat, and a little creepy.


A very small portion of the Palace gardens.

I just love this pic of Jason examining the wheelsmith's handiwork. It's such a guy thing to do. I guess it is a wheel for a cannon, which is pretty cool. I really liked that all the tradespeople were actually working on real things, not just hitting their hammer on the same thing all day. The Blacksmith was making nails for the carpenter who was building a shed. The printer was printing newspapers that were being sold in local stores. It was great.

We went to observe a "trial" at the courthouse and I got to act as a local seamstress taking on an apprentice. Jason wishes he had volunteered to be on the panel of judges and taken Bridget with him. She has started yelling randomly in such a way that it would have sounded like she was voicing her objections.

I absolutely HAD to buy her this little mob hat. Soooo cute! Even Jason didn't object to this one.

The best part of the day were the re-enactments in Revolutionary City. The audience was ushered around so they were part of the show and the actors scattered themselves among us. It really helped you appreciate what it was like to be there. I actually got a little teary eyed over their reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Benedict Arnold giving a speech and interacting with the crowd.

My absolute favourite thing was listening to the band. Everyone who had gathered at the Capitol marched with the band to the courthouse to hear the Marquis de Lafeyette give a speech and send off the troops to battle.

Bridget did NOT like the cannons! After they fired she startled, looked around for a second in confusion and then started howling. Unfortunately we cut off the filming right before the howl.

Such a long, hot day for such a little girl. Time to hit the pool.

On The Water

After Charleston we hit the road and headed towards Colonial Williamsburg. Bridget has gotten used to hanging out in her car seat for hours on end and is actually a really good road trip companion. Jason calls the car her "kryponite" as she usually falls asleep the instant we start the engine.

We really tried not to drive the same road twice so we opted to drive on a small single lane highway and catch a ferry to reach Williamsburg. It was B's first ferry and she loved it.

It was a little windy but B was just so happy not to be in her carseat that she didn't seem to mind.

One of the perks of taking the ferry is that we got to see a little of Jamestown. Founded in 1607, it was the first permanent English settlement in the US.

We really grew to love the Hampton Inn on this trip. They were really nice rooms with yummy hot breakfasts. Mmmm...turkey sausages, make your own waffles, home fries. Plus we could always get a really good deal on expedia. By the end of our trip I would scroll down the list of hotels in the AAA book and pick out the Hampton Inn. So I was really excited to see a Hampton in the Williamsburg historic district. As a rule, we would never book a hotel for 2 nights in a row just to keep our plans flexible and just in case it was a total dive. In Williamsburg, we walked into our room and immediately got on to expedia to book a 2nd night. Then we went to dinner at the Jamestown Pie Company because "Round Food is Good Food". We had chicken pot pies, cherry pie and key lime pie. Yum!

That night we took Bridget swimming for the very first time and she loved it!! The water was pretty cold but she didn't even care. She loves the water!

The only person who had more fun than B was Jason. He was so excited to have someone to play with, which worked for me. I got to relax in the hot tub and watch Bridget laugh while he played in the cold water.