Probably about a year ago we bought a magna doodle for Bridget. Its just one of those small ones (travel/sacrament meeting sized). She calls it her ‘draw’ – “I need my draw” or “Mom, where is my draw.” She kind of goes in phases where she uses it all the time or neglects it for weeks at a time. Currently, she loves it!

Usually her pictures are a series of random lines and circles that make up a picture that only she can interpret. But every now and then she draws something recognizable to the rest of the world. About two weeks ago she drew a carrot. . . and it looked pretty dang good. I wish I had a picture of that one. Basically she drew a really long, narrow, and rough looking “V” shape and started drawing little lines inside of it. Then yelled “Look mom, I made a carrot” – and she had.

A few days later she was into drawing faces. She drew a circle with 5 eyes and a smile. When I told her that it had too many eyes she simply responded, “That’s because its a monster” (she had watched Monsters Inc. earlier that morning). My mistake.

Then, not quite a week ago. . .

She told me it was a snowman. The two lines coming out the bottom of the head are his neck (not his legs). I’m not sure if he has four eyes, or if the second set are eyebrows – that point was a little unclear. It kind of looks like something you’d see on Homestar Runner, if you ask me.

A few minutes later… This guy has ears – notice the black dots on each side of the head.

She’s been writing words a lot lately too. Usually its just a series of small circles in a row. . . but she sounds out things as she spells them and verbalizes what she’s writing. She likes to write people’s names best, but instead of writing her name – or our names, or names of some of her little friends – she writes names like: Adam, Melanie, Jared, and Baby Wyatt (some of her daddy’s co-workers and her new cousin Wyatt).

Here is a picture of one of the names she wrote. I think this one was Melanie. She wrote it in blue highlighter.

Sorry its a bit wrinkled – she’s also into folding, rolling, and squishing her drawings and then giving them to people as presents. First she’ll tell you that she has a present for you, then she’ll ask you to close your eyes. . . next thing you know. . . a rolled, twisted, and waded up paper is presented to you – and boy, you’d better be excited about it. She did that with the grocery ads the other day and gave them to me as a present. . . at least it wasn’t the phone bill. Anyway, if you end up being the recipient of one of these lovely gifts, please, act surprised. (Note: Emily, it may not take long for you to get one – she is pretty regularly telling me ‘this is for Emily.’)

I love watching all of these developmental milestones! She’s getting so big.