Nine Months!

Bria is nine months old today. It's crazy that she has now been part of the real world for the same amount of time that I was pregnant. Bria has turned into a crazy ball of energy in the past couple weeks. She won't sit still for anything, and she is constantly crawling, standing, scooting, wiggling, etc. She loves to dance-- we've noticed her favorite is Weezer, and she also rocked out to the National Anthem when we watched the Inauguration on Tuesday. I can't believe she will be a year old in just three months. Where did my tiny baby go?
We are also so happy that Bria and I are finally not sick! This past week was pretty miserable for all of us, but we are all feeling so much better now. Sam's still running at about 80%, but hopefully in the next couple days all three of us will be back to normal. Bria did need an inhaler for a couple days, which was pretty sad, but I'm just glad it wasn't worse-- it definitely could have been.
The Adventures of Food Boy played at the LDS film festival this weekend, so it was great to see Sam's brother Marc for that. And I enjoyed a girl's night in with some friends while Sam and Marc hit up Sundance. I'm a little sad I didn't go to Sundance this year, since it was probably my last opportunity with it being so close, but I didn't really want to stay out so late, so I'm ok with it. Now that the weekend is over, we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The Bria Marathon

Things in the Mangum household haven't been very exciting lately. We all got sick at Christmas, and while Sam and I are feeling better, Bria is still in the throes of a bad cold. In fact, she was getting better, but then got worse again, so I think she may be battling cold #2. It makes me so sad to hear her cough! But she is her usual happy self, so it's not as bad as it could be. I have a ton of pictures, so here's a marathon of our monotony.

Bria has taken off crawling, and she now loves to pull herself up to standing or kneeling anywhere she can. She also likes cords and technology. And she has a penchant for danger.


Bria loves Sam. I think the best part of her day is when he gets home from work. They play all evening before she goes to bed, and I think she really loves that quality time.
I will admit to giving Bria a bite of my pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Saying she liked it would be the understatement of the year.


Just call her Miss Mischief. Why does she love to play with diapers? I look away for one second and . . .


She is very snuggly when she first wakes up from a nap. She has also developed some shyness. Whenever she sees someone other than me or Sam, she lays her head on my (or Sam's) shoulder and smiles (usually).

I finally let Sam use a little pomade in Bria's hair to create a punk-rocker look.

Bria also loves to watch football with Sam.

She was supposed to look like a queen, but I think she looks more like a baker.

We no longer wrap her up at night! The transition was easy-- no tears at all. I still wrap her for naps though.


This is what I mean when I say she's her usual happy self, even though she's sick.

More Movies

So instead of trying to build anticipation, we've decided to release these videos together.
You can really see how much Bria has grown since the last video in October. These both are from Christmas and the week or so after. These videos are for home entertainment only and not for public or commercial use. Enjoy!

Bria's First Christmas


Dancing Baby

Bria learns to eat

Here is a video of Bria's first experience eating. It is a little old, but better late than never. This is the theatrical version, there is an extended version planned for the DVD with director's commentary. I'm just kidding, about the commentary. There really is a director's cut. Some more videos from Christmas and such are on the way. Enjoy!

100th post, Christmas post, 8-month post

Yes, it's true. This post is triple fold. First, let us celebrate the 100th post of this blog. Now, in order to make this easier for myself, I'm just going to caption each picture in the order they uploaded. So if things seem out of order, that's because they are.


We spent Christmas with my entire family in SLC. We took some family pictures and had this one of all the babies born in 2008. So here is Bria (April 25), Abby (September 28), Cameron (September 2), and Stone (April 1). Yes, Bria is huge.

Sam thought it would be great fun to make the dads of the '08 babies refuse to smile. Needless to say, my mom was not thrilled with their pact.

We took this family picture just outside my parents' house.


My two oldest nieces' Christmas presents were getting their ears pierced. So we all went for moral support (mostly for my sister), and Sam thought it would be cute to dress Bria up in Hannah Montana gear while we waited. I'm not so sure what I think about that, but I took a picture anyway.

On Sunday night, my sister Amy, her three girls Lindsay, Lucy, and Sophie, and my sister Whitney and I went to see the lights at temple square. There weren't as many lights this year, but I'm glad the church is recognizing the cost and effect of using so much electricity!


Ah, back to family pictures. This is Bria's incredibly happy face. Adam and Kathleen, do you think she looks a little Lena-esque here?


On the 26th, all the girls went to lunch at Market Street Grill. YUM! We talked about things that were hard and things that were happy this year. Then I made us all divulge on our celebrity old-man crushes (young-guy crush for my mom). S0 here we have Whitney (Brad Pitt), my mom (Matt Damon), me (Colin Firth), Lindsay (George Clooney), Amy (Harrison Ford), and Rachel (George Clooney).


We didn't take a ton of pictures on Christmas morning, but here is Bria with her Santa gifts, including some cute clips to put in her hair. That should help more people know she's a girl. (She's also wearing her traditional Christmas Eve pajamas). This will also work for our 8-month picture, since Bria turned eight months old on Christmas Day. I can't believe how big she is! She has crawled a few crawls with her belly off the floor, but mostly she just scoots around (with incredible speed).


Sam, Bria, and I each opened a present on Christmas Eve earlier in the day. I had to work on Christmas Eve, so by the time I got home, it was a whirlwind to throw our stuff in the car and start driving to Salt Lake. We opened out presents and Bria got these little barnyard animals, which are a hit, to say the least.


Last but not least, we got a new kitchen table! My sister Lindsay was letting us borrow theirs while they have been living with my parents. Now they are moving into their own place and need theirs back. So we were searching KSL Classifieds and Craigslist (as well as Target and IKEA) for a while. The other day, Sam saw this table for $25! We called right away and Sam left to pick it up within 15 minutes of our talking about it. When he was almost there to pick it up (in West Valley). The guy called and said that he had moved the table, and while doing so, cracked the corner, and if we still wanted it, we could have it for free! So, the crack wasn't too bad, so we got this free table! It is pretty nice, and we are really excited about it. Sam fixed the crack with some wood glue, and you can barely tell. So here's Bria enjoying the new table.

So there you go. The marathon post. We hope you all had a lovely Christmas! We are home in Provo now, and it feels really nice to be home. I am now hammering out some details of my New Year's Resolutions, so I'm sure I'll post about those next year in a couple days. Until then, I will just enjoy these last few days of '08. It was a good year.

Christmas is in one week!

The calendar might not say it, but it is definitely winter in Provo. It has been snowing a ton, and I'll admit, I'm so over it. I think I'd like to move to California right about now. Oh well. Bria is rather interested in the snow, however, so I guess we'll make the best of it. Here is a picture of Bria in the Snug-a-Bug clothes we won last week.Later that day, I let her chew on an apple. This was right as she started getting big chunks in her mouth, and I had to take it away. Try to notice how soaked her clothes are from drool. She loved that apple.

Bria has become quite the scooting pro. I am trying to rework how things go around here, because it seems the second I turn my head, she is playing with a cord or licking the wheel on her stroller or gnawing on a small piece of paper. I'll get this babyproofing thing down soon, I'm sure. But it's definitely added an interesting element to my life.

We are eagerly getting ready for Christmas around here! We are just almost finished shopping, and my family will start getting in to town soon! I took some pictures of Bria today by our tree-- which I may regret now, because now she is fascinated with the tree and all the presents.
Now I am just analyzing this year's resolutions from January and trying to think of what resolve I want for 2009. Hmm . . . maybe I should just take the year off.

Scooting

Within the last three days, Bria has learned to move forward. She has pretty much mastered the army crawl and is finding all sorts of ways to get into trouble. I have this video I took the first day she started to scoot around, and as you can see, I like to lure her with plastic bags. Today I got her to scoot all the way from our bedroom to the front room by wiggling a plastic bag in front of her. Why do babies always go for the dangerous toys? We may never know.
So here she is, folks . . . The newly-mobile Bria! (oh and don't mind the camera shaking-- that's me laughing. and don't mind my shrill voice either-- that's just the way I sound.)