Bria McDonald Had a Farm

I have been trying to get some videos of Bria lately to capture her recent explosion of language (she said four new words yesterday alone). But whenever the camera comes out, she just yells "show me! show me! show me!" I finally got her to demonstrate some of her animal sounds the other day and captured it on tape. Enjoy.

Cornucopia

I am thankful for so many things this year. The list is too long to post (believe me, I started typing it out). So, here are pictures of the two things I am most thankful for this year.









yes, that was mostly just pictures of one thing, but Sam is featured in there once. believe it or not, sam and bria are tied for first in things I am most thankful for.

Home Sweet Home

Two weekends ago we had absolutely gorgeous weather. We decided to take advantage of the wonderment and walk around D.C. (it's a good thing we did-- the following week was cold and rainy). We quickly learned that every other human in the area had taken note of the weather as well. We wanted to walk around some of the memorials, but there was absolutely no parking anywhere near the memorials, so we decided to park by the National Air and Space Museum. Museums have taken on new meaning now that we have Bria. Museums are now more a new, bigger area to run around than they are places to enjoy learning new things. So we just let Bria roam free around the museum-- which she thoroughly enjoyed.

After the museum, we went outside to one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. We walked a little between the Capitol and the Washington Monument just soaking in our beautiful new surroundings.

When I'm just home or at the store, just doing my daily things, it doesn't feel that different. But getting to walk around such an amazing city, riding the metro, seeing all the trees, and this amazing autumn weather feels a little surreal sometimes. We're definitely still settling in-- it can take a long time for a place to feel like home, but we are so glad that this is the place we are making our home.

Dress-Up

I often find Bria, hmmmm, how should I describe it? In character throughout the day. The other day she insisted on going out to the car wearing the cowboy hat, my sunglasses, and carrying a purse. I didn't fight it. And the Darth Vader helmet? Well that special gem makes an appearance every. single. night.

using her words

The other day I was reading the weekly email I get telling me about Bria's development, and I learned that 18-month-old babies pick up ten or more words per day. Those who are especially focused on speaking skills will pick up a new word every 90 seconds. Zounds! I am constantly amazed at the miracle of being a human. Bria is learning and growing at an astounding rate, and it really is fascinating, thrilling, and amazing to be a part of it.

One word that Bria has down pat is "shesha." What-- you don't know what that means? That's ok. I don't either. But Bria is constantly asking for shesha, pointing to shesha, and telling me all about shesha. (that's a short e sound, by the way.) I am dying to figure out what it means, because it causes great distress to Bria when she keeps asking for shesha and I can't figure out what she means. She even says please, or rather, "peas shesha!" With this very cute, very sincere, very puppy-dog look on her face. I think shesha actually means several things-- which is part of the problem. I do know it can often mean Hunter, one of her cousins. And one time it meant pretzel. So you can see where some of the confusion lies. If I only knew what it meant! I would never mean to deprive my daughter of her beloved shesha-- unless, of course, shesha turns out to mean permanent marker, or scissors, or super glue, or electrical outlet.

Spooky, Scary

For Halloween this year, we wanted to avoid Bria having to wear a costume made for a dog, so we thought about our costumes several weeks in advance. We decided to go as a rock band. However, making our decision lulled us into a false sense of security, because we got to Halloween and realized we knew what we were going to be, but not what we were going to wear. So even though the execution wasn't exactly spectacular, at least we were all wearing human clothes.

We went to our ward's trunk-or-treat the night before Halloween and had a great time. Bria didn't really understand the concept and just wanted to play on the church steps, but it was still fun to meet more people in our ward.
Ok, so this picture is kind of weird, but I think Bria's face is too hilarious to not post.

The next night we decided to trick-or-treat with Sam's brother Marc's family. So the older kids did their own things while Sam, Bria, and I went around with Marc, Jenn, and Colin. Bria quickly picked up on what was happening, and then she was off! She loved it. She would run up to houses with Colin (Jango Fett-- am I spelling that right?), climb the steps to the door (she would not let us help her), knock on the door, quickly grab as much candy as possible, and then yell thank you (or "da do" in Brianese) and bye-bye as she quickly ran off to the next house. She lugged her bucket behind her the whole time, even though towards the end of the night it may have weighed more than she does.
It was a really fun Halloween-- perhaps the most fun Sam and I have ever had on a Halloween. I'm excited to start thinking of our costumes next year, although I'm sure by then Bria will have her own ideas of what she wants to be and I won't be able to subject her to my crazy ideas.

Museum #1: The Natural History Museum

On Saturday, we started in on the great list of museums in D.C. by going to the Natural History Museum. It was raining for the second weekend in a row, and we didn't want to just sit around at home on our only full day together, so we decided to brave the rain. We took the metro to the Smithsonian stop, and when we got out, the light misting had turned to a full on torrential downpour. Luckily the museum is just across the street from the metro. By the time we got across the street, the stroller had several inches of water in it (Bria was under the umbrella with Sam), and we all felt about 15 pounds heavier from our drenched clothes. But it was well worth the wet adventure-- Bria loved it! We were a little nervous about how Bria would do at a museum-- she rarely does well with looking and not touching, but we just went through a couple exhibits, and she had a blast.

The mammals were her favorite. She was making every animal sound she could think of and I think she was close to hyperventilating she was so excited. She just kept laughing and screaming out of joy. It was awesome.


We could barely get her to look at the camera for a picture.

Bria's favorite: the elephant. This is the world's largest elephant on the display, and it is absolutely huge! Bria's favorite animal really is an elephant, and she just kept running around and pointing at it, making an elephant sound over and over and over again.


Bria took a little break, eating some snacks and drinking water while watching a video from the '70s about the world's first organisms. She led us here, and I don't know why it was so appealing to her.
By the time we left the museum, it had stopped raining. I'm excited to take Bria in sometime to try out some of the other museums. This city is amazing!