And . . . apart again

Sam left this morning for Virginia, so Bria and I are readjusting to spending all our time together just the two of us. Thank goodness Bria was happy today, because I may or may not have been a little grumpy. That's allowed, right?
We had so much fun the last two weeks that Sam was home. Bria was Sam's little shadow: copying his every move, tackling him, tickling him, randomly giving him hugs. The first morning he was home, Bria couldn't stop giggling and snuggling him. It may have been the cutest thing I've ever seen.

So here is a marathon of pictures. In no particular order, here is a lot of what we did over the last two weeks.
Bria further solidified her love of all things tomato-based, including ketchup:
We went to a wedding reception:

Sam and Bria made faces:

Sam and Bria played on the computer. We soon learned that Bria freaks out when she sees the laptop because she wants to poke it and play with it and destroy it.


We went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Counter, where Bria tried optimistically tried a lemon:

And hated said lemon:

We went to the Discovery Gateway children's museum where Bria rode a fake horse and licked its saddle and I tried to ignore the germs:

And Sam and Bria sat in the fake helicopter while I warded off swarms of adolescent boys trying to kick Bria out of the said helicopter:

Bria loved the Sox:

Sam and I went on a date to see Julie & Julia:

Sam and Bria played bunny rabbits:

Bria played peek-a-boo with us in the car:

We went to IKEA, where Bria made Sam take her down this slide a million times until she tried to climb up it herself and slipped and hit her face:

And Bria walked through the entrance to the kids' section approximately one trillion times until we finally succeeded in distracting her with the annual IKEA crayfish festival.

Believe it or not, that's only some of what we did. We had to pack in a whole summer of activities into the two weeks. We really had such a fun time and we miss Sam already! We are planning a trip to see him, so the countdown for that should keep us pretty occupied.

Celebration

Tonight Sam and I drank some Virgil's to celebrate. Sam is headed back to D.C. for a temporary job at National Geographic for the next month.

Reunited

And it feels so good.

Our Swanky Digs

Our biggest thing to report is that Bria has a new favorite thing to say: "uh-oh!" She says it about everything, and it is probably the most adorable thing in the world. She's picking up a lot of new words, and mostly just trying to imitate sounds. She has been trying to figure out how to say cheese for weeks.

Also, I feel like our sleeping arrangements are pretty fancy. I mean, were it not for Bria's bed, I would never get to see faces like this:

Or this:

Bria sleeps in a port-a-crib in my closet, and it works incredibly well. Other than the occasional need for something in the closet while she's sleeping, or times when I've dropped something loudly in the room, it's gone swimmingly.
Here's Bria, in her grand chamber. And if you'll notice the hangers, those are only about 1/4 of what used to be there. When she fights a nap or wakes up, she likes to play with them and knock them down. You should see the pile of hangers on the floor behind the crib. Hmmm. Why have I just not moved all the hangers yet? I think that would be too easy. And we all know what happens when you take the easy route.

Also, last weekend, Bria had a run in with a chocolate-dipped fortune cookie.
You should've seen the cookie.