Puppy Love

If there is an animal in this world that Kate loves more than anything it is definitely a dog.  In fact, if you ask her who her best friend is, she will invariably say, "Dottie." Blake and I joke that if given a choice to live with all the people she knows in her life, she would pick Dottie.   So, it just made sense that Kate dress up like Dottie's kind this year for Halloween.

Course we hit a little snag with the Halloween plans this year.  Kate woke up a few days before Halloween with an awful fever.  We kept thinking we had the fever under control, but that was just the tylenol talking. That nasty fever ended up sticking around almost 5 days, spiking to 104 and a little beyond.  Needless to say, there was no trunk or treat at Kate's school and no trick or treating on Halloween.  Our ibuprofen-fed child enjoyed seeing all the children in their costumes and passing out candy.  She didn't even know what she was missing.

The weekend following Halloween Kate finally went trick or treating.  Our sweet neighbors had special treats waiting for Kate so we got dressed up, took some pictures, and finally showed Kate what all the hype was about.  Enjoy our sweet puppy!

She wouldn't walk at first until she saw the big ball

Ready to go!

A puppy dog on 2 legs!

She even has her Clemson pumpkin bucket

Oooo, mommy, a plane!

Pumpkins for our Punkin'

What screams fall more than a field full of big, bright orange pumpkins?  Not much, which is why the first opportunity we had we packed up the van and headed to the pumpkin patch.  In fact, Kate liked the pumpkin patch so much we visited twice this year!  Nothing like good, free entertainment.

Below you'll see pictures of Kate and the pumpkins.  Although we purchased some cheaper pumpkins at the grocery store, Kate got some small, her-size pumpkins and, naturally, we had to take home the orange and white "tiger striped" pumpkin.  I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as Kate enjoyed being in the field of pumpkins!

So many to choose from!

My size!

Still holding on to that little pumpkin!

And Grammy came too!

There are green pumpkins?!?!

I'll take two!

Fallin' for Fall

It's hard to believe it's November already and we're heading into Thanksgiving soon.  October was a busy month for us.  Busier than I thought it would be.  Of course that's usually how the fall is for us.  In years past our weekends would be consumed with football games and fall parties; now, they are consumed with family gatherings, pumpkin gathering, and Halloween activities.  How life has changed!

Besides Halloween, of course, other big October events included Gramma turning 92 (!), cousin Lindsay visiting Kate for the first time, and Patsi, David, Kim, Andy, Leah, & Amelia coming in for Gramma's birthday (and I like to think to see Kate's cuteness as well). Oh yeah, and Uncle William was in town for several weeks from Colombia (the country, not the capital of SC).  We also managed to sneak away to one football game with our friends Dan and Ann.  They are UNC grads and, fortunately, Clemson whipped up on Carolina and made our weekend just perfect.  Blake's parents also drove in from Marion to watch Kate during the game and she had a blast feeding the fish, ducks, and greeting all the dogs that live in Keowee Key.  At then end of this super busy month, I guess it was to be expected that Kate's immune system would give up and she got the first, big virus of her short little life.  We battled a high fever for about 5 days before her cold finally said, "adios."  Thankfully she is now back to her normal, fun-loving self.  We missed that girl.

I'm posting a few pictures from Gramma's 92nd birthday.  You're going to be lucky enough to get a whole new blog on our pumpkin patch visit and Halloween.  Stay tuned for that!

Happy Birthday Gramma!

Apparently it's a little hard to get 3 kids and 2 adults to pose

Gramma and Leah

Following Amelia