I love October

This month is awesome! As soon as October arrived I could hardly contain my excitement, I just knew this was going to be a good month. And so far it has been!
On the 4th, Sarah and Daniel officially adopted their baby Sophia! We've all been praying so hard for them that they could keep her so this is a dream come true!
The next day (friday) Barrett David Brinkerhoff was born to Brett and Jess!

That night the Bortons came for a visit. Bekah adores James! She follows him around and imitates everything he says and does. When he starts teasing her mercilessly she just watches him in awe. She thinks he's the coolest! Saturday morning we went to Willow Park Zoo and chased the peacocks around. The kids had a blast. We went to Pizza Pie Cafe for lunch and the kids loved that, too! After lunch we headed up the canyon a bit to look at the leaves, the kids had fun throwing rocks in the river. That night we went swimming. Bekah and James loved it, but not Lydia, she thought everyone needed to get out and stay dry! Sunday we watched General Conference and ate a delicious meal before sending the Bortons on their way.
Then up the canyon we went again to do family pictures! We met Chelsey and Cody there so we could take pictures of each other. Bekah was super tired and very uncooperative, but we still got some good ones. And of course the Watkins looked great!

Told ya she was tired!

As soon as we were done with pictures we headed to Barrett's house! He was so tiny and cuddly! Bekah acted way more interested in Jess's M&M's than in the baby, but she did say hi to him and pat his head. On the way home she said "Baby!" I responded with, "We saw baby Barrett!" She said, "Bye-bye baby." When I asked if she loved him she said yeah. On Monday I was looking at some pictures of him and she said, "Baby! Brett!" She loves that family!

September

This girl has spunk!

 She loved the fort Garrett made for her

Daddy took a nap in it while she just played and played!

Looking pretty after church

This is her "sniffy" face. She's smelling a flower!

Loves putting bowls on her head

I showed her this picture...

...and this was her reaction!

She usually has a grin on her face and loves pulling pranks on me. She's just silly all the time.

I found her like this after her nap. She thought it was a pretty clever way to wear a shirt!

She begged and begged to have a second set of pajamas put on. Then made a goofy face for the camera

My family in front of a super old train when we went to Montana for Isaac's Baptism

She is constantly begging me to take her picture. She runs to the drawer with the camera in it and pulls at it saying "Eeeee! EEEEEE!" (cheese) When I walk to the drawer she starts saying "Yeah, yeah! EEEE!"

But she can rarely hold still long enough to get a good picture!

This was her pose one time after begging for a picture to be taken. How adorable!!

Pretending to be bashful

Don't you just want to kiss her?

Being like mommy and daddy

She loves her USU shirt. When I ask what is on it she says "Bull!" because the mascot is on the back. She loves when we do the school cheer and she pumps her fists and says "Hey Hey" with us. She also says "Aggies!" We are training her young! Also, she says, "Ootah!" (Utah)

Camille's family, Sherrie and Lon, and my parents came up to Logan and we all (Watkins, too) went to the Brigham City Temple open house. It was so beautiful. I loved seeing all the rooms and seeing all the work and detail that goes into a house of the Lord. 

Garrett and his sweet mom. He loves her so much!!

After the open house we went to Cedar Hot Springs. Bekah loved playing in the water. The water had a very high mineral content and she kept licking her hands!

First Week of School

You know those nightmares about school starting and you can't find you class, you sleep in, or miss the whole day entirely? Well I didn't have any of those this year! But after Wednesday night I think it would have been better to get the mortification over with in my dreams rather than in real life. My Tuesday classes went well. Actually, really, really well! I was walking on clouds the whole way home because I made friends. I wasn't feeling shy for some reason and I introduced myself to people, said hello first, and walked from one class to the next with someone. I felt brave and invincible. So I guess it was time for me to be humbled. 

Wednesday nights I have a class that is broadcast from another city to several cities throughout the state. Our distance education building is brand new so they are still working on getting all of the equipment working and synchronized. Also, the table is really high, meaning the chairs are also really high (and I have short legs, so it was awkward climbing into the seat). The regular microphone didn't work, so the four of us in the class had to pass one around the table whenever we were called on. The professor was calling roll and when she said my name I waited for someone to pass the mic to me, then when the teacher marked me absent and moved on to the next, I realized that they didn't pass it to me because they don't know my name. Duh. So I jumped up, grabbed the mic, started talking into it, and fell flat on my back. I felt like a fool, so I did what any fool does best. I laughed. The I.T. guys ran over to help me up and the professor asked what on earth was going on, even though the whole state could see me over the cameras that focus on you when you turn a microphone on. So I very clearly explained, "This is Emily Brinkerhoff. I'm here. Also, I fell off my chair. It has wheels."

This is what happened: because the chair was so tall, had wheels, and my legs are so short, it just rolled away as I thought I was planting my booty in it. So, needless to say, I avoided the mic for the rest of the night and clutched my chair for dear life. 

Squirrel

Today Bekah and I came home from the park to hear a weird splashing noise in what we thought was our empty home. My adrenaline got pumping as I realized that we were not the only ones in the house and I ran down the hall shouting, "Who is in here?!" My answer was some more aggravated splashing coming from the bathroom. I went in and looked for water leaking down from the apartment above, but saw nothing. I then heard the splashing again. Coming from inside the closed toilet. WHAT??? "Is this a prank? Who's here?" No answer except more splashing. Realizing that there was no way this could be a prank, I knelt by the toilet and peeked through the crack, still doubting the validity of the experience. I couldn't see anything, but it dawned on me that Garrett was not expected home for another 6 hours and I was going to have to open the toilet to use it before then. Also, would this thing eventually be able to get out? Would it pose some threat to Rebekah and I? Was it too big to flush? I called Garrett and he didn't answer, so I called Heather.

While describing the situation to her, I continued peering through the crack when all of a sudden I heard myself shriek, "It's a mouse! It's a mouse! I saw whiskers and a paw! It's trying to get out! What if it gets out? What do I do? How do I get rid of it? Why didn't Garrett answer? What do I do? It's going to get out!" (I may have been a bit hysterical. A bit.) Heather told me to flush it. She said, "If it's a mouse, you don't want it getting loose in your house, and mice are small. It should flush easily." I then told her that my toilet is pretty lame and probably couldn't swallow half a mouse, but I gave it a try anyway.

After the noise of the toilet ceased, I listened to the silence from within and decided to be brave enough to peek inside. I did so an realized this was no ordinary mouse. It was BIG! "It's a rat! It's a rat! There's a rat infestation in my house! My house is infested! What if it get's out? I can't flush it!!!!!" (Maybe I was borderline crazy by this point.) Sweet Heather calmed me down and gave me the courage to look again and when I lifted the lid a second time, I realized I was looking at a full-grown-completely-alive-never-going-to-be-flushed-down-my-whimpy-toilet-SQUIRREL!!!!! Uh, weird.

So I hung up and called animal control. No answer, so I left a message. Just then Garrett called, so I put Bekah in the car, we picked him up, and then we waited outside for him to chuck the squirrel out. And we waited. Then I saw the light in Bekah's room turn on. I went to the window and saw Garrett. Chasing a wet squirrel. Around my baby's room. (GROAN) They ran into my bedroom next and I decided it was time to get in on the action. So Garrett and I chased that squirrel around and around and around our bedroom till it ran out the door and into the living room. Fearing this would never end, I decided to just watch again. Luckily, I stood in the hallway so that when Garrett chased the squirrel my way it did a double take and ran the opposite way, right out the front door!! It knocked over a rake, jumped onto the neighbors grill, turned to give us one last look, and jumped into the tree.

That was easy.