Santa's Elves

Santa sent a very special shipment to our house a couple of weeks ago.  He knew that we'd need extra time to put together a very magical gift for Kate from him.  And, boy, did we ever need that extra time!

The shipment arrived three Fridays ago by freight and came in 5 very large boxes.  We were just dying to know what Kate had asked Santa for!  We also knew that Santa wouldn't have sent a gift so early unless he required some help with something.  After Kate went to bed that night, we tore into the boxes and discovered that Santa had sent a swing-set!

Now this is not just any swing-set.  This is the Mercedes Benz of swing-sets....it has three places for swings, a rock wall, a ladder, a climbing rope, a wave slide, a tic-tac-toe game, a wheel, telescope, and a playhouse on top with real, working shutters!  When we started opening up those boxes, we had never seen so many parts!

Needless to say, we got right on the construction of the set the next day and spent 10 solid hours working on it.  I would guess it probably took us at least 2 hours just to lay out the parts!  In total, about  30 hours have been spent putting this swing-set together.  Fortunately we've had Blake's parents the last several weekends helping out and my mom helping out this week when we've been off.

Unless Santa decides to stay a little longer tonight, we'll be putting the final touches on the set tomorrow.  Pictures will follow later but, for now, it's time for us all to have a good night.

Beach Bum

My posts have been a little absent for the past couple of weeks because we have been so busy.  Blake and I managed our first weekend away in mid-November when we took friends to the Clemson v Wake Forest football game.  Kate enjoyed some good Grammy/Grumps (or Bob-Bob as she now calls him) time and it was nice not having to wake up at 7am. The next weekend, the whole family packed up and headed to Hilton Head for Thanksgiving.

If you've never been to the beach in the off-season, I highly recommend it.  We were able to enjoy the other activities the beach has to offer without sweating to death.  The house we rented came with an electric boat so lots of time was spent navigating the waters outside the house and fishing.  The cooler temps also made walking and bike riding much more enjoyable.  We even made a little time to head to the beach!  Even though it was November, the temperature was in the mid-70s most of our trip.  Couldn't have asked for better weather and a better time!  Enjoy the pics of our beach bum!

Destroying daddy's castle

Ready for the boat

Family boat trip

Loved the indoor playground at the mall

Where's Kate? There she is!

Grandpa Jim, Nana, and Kate

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

Changes

Splash park!

We have a water baby!

And a beach baby!

Who knows just how to relax on the beach

According to the blogger log it's been about 2 months since my last post.  It's kind of embarrassing.  Especially when I log on to read a friend's post and think, "oh, I should update my blog." Somehow I have managed to carve out time to read someone else's post, but can't make the time to update my own.  I could give you a myriad of excuses:  Kate's cold, going back to work, busy fall weekends, Blake working, yet all of them would fall short.  There's just no good excuse.  As of today, I sincerely hope that I will be better at keeping everyone up-to-date.  That being said, here's what happened in the last couple of months (in picture form, of course):

Our STEADY walker!

Love that bubble butt!

Now when you say "baby" to Kate she pats her belly.  She thinks all babies are in bellies even though Baby Zoey arrived already!

Still obsessed with balls

What started out as peek-a-boo....

Ended in hmmmm.....let me lick the plate....

Helping with the watermelon harvest

And I'm off!

Dottie and Kate patrolling the yard

Hi Mommy!

Oops! First skinned knee!

Had to prove she occasionally lets a bow stay in!

 

 

 

 

 

First day of preschool.  I love Ms. Shelly!

Where Did My Baby Go?

It's almost hard to remember what I was doing this time last year with Kate.  She had just come home from the hospital at the beginning of May and we were trying to establish a routine of feeding, sleeping, and surviving.  Fast forward one year and now I'm trying to keep up with my always-moving 15-month-old toddler!  

Kate took her first independent steps on June 1st, just 3 days shy of what would have been her first birthday had she arrived on time.  It took her about a month to be "declared" an independent walker.  Her first major steps happened on July 4th.  Since then she continues to do a mix of walking and crawling.  The walking part still needs to be coaxed out of her at times.  Since she didn't crawl before she walked I think she's discovering that crawling is almost just as fun!  

Kate's walking also had a little set-back recently when I decided to return to using cloth diapers.  As my stash of bargain disposables was running low, it just seemed logical to go back to cloth since they were already paid for; however, Kate decided that walking in a cloth diaper was NOT for her.  In fact, she would barely crawl at times.  I think the big, bulky diaper threw her balance off and she wasn't sure what to do!  So, back to disposables for now until she gets a little steadier.  Those big 'ole cloth diapers sure were cute on her for awhile!