Do you remember?

In case you didn't think about it, Kate turned 18 months on Saturday. A whole year and a half old. It's so hard to believe. I was looking at pictures of her as a baby and trying to remember her being so small. It was hard to remember - a good reason to have a camcorder (I guess we should get ours fixed). But, I do remember. I remember how nervous I was driving with her in the car when I first started driving again - I kept finding myself driving really slowly. I remember her sleeping in our room in a little bassinet and watching our favorite TV shows with the volume down low after she had gone to sleep. I remember that no clothes fit her tiny frame until she was at least a month old. I remember her long skinny feet and large hands. I remember how the doctors thought she looked jaundiced, and I just thought she looked like her daddy. I remember that dark peach fuzz hair, and how she would fall asleep on your chest or in your arms. I remember her tiny cry. What do you remember? Here are a few pictures to jog your memory.

Home again, home again

Sorry for the blog hiatus. The last week has been busy with preparing for our trip to Illinois, then making the trip, so now I need to catch up.

We had a nice visit with my family, although Kate was sick the whole weekend. She didn't even leave the house the entire weekend and slept 16 hours straight from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning. But, she still had fun playing with the Newcomes and showing everyone she knew their names. Becky is her favorite one to say! She has also learned her own name, pointing to her chest and saying "Kate", extra emphasis on the "t".

I enjoyed seeing snow and even got to shovel a little! Carrie and I were a bit taken aback when we went to leave the house and there were three inches of snow covering the car. "What do we do? Should we cancel?" We came to our senses and remembered that a little snow is not the end of the world. It was pretty funny.

Kate didn't do so well on the flight home yesterday, screaming for about 20 minutes until she fell asleep (during the descent into Nashville). Evidently, sick toddlers don't travel well. But we made it to Oak Ridge and had dinner with James, avoiding a wreck that had I-40 closed west of Knoxville. Sitting in traffic at dinner time after two hours in the car would not have been a nice way to cap of our return trip.

So, Kate went to "school" today and I'm going to unpack and rest, as I have been trying to fight off Kate's germs for a few days now. We didn't take many pictures this weekend, since Kate pretty much wanted to stay with me (or sleep), so I don't have any to post.

You put your left foot in...

These images are the covers of Kate's favorite books right now. "Raindrop, Plop!" we received free through Dolly Parton's fabulous Imagination Library and Kate loves to look at the pictures over and over - beautiful illlustrations of a little girl and her dog playing in the rain. "No More Diapers for Ducky!" is a cute little potty book she got from Grandfather and Nana. I told you she loves to talk about the potty! And "Hokey Pokey Elmo" came from Grandma and Grandpa. Today while she was reading it in the rocker, she stuck out her foot and shook it all around. She knows her books as well as I do now and sometimes she even tells me what's on the next page.

Growing vocabulary

Kate is really starting to talk lately. Still no real sentences beyond "Hi _____" and "Mama's _____" - she's really catching on to possessions and attaches everything to me or James. It's interesting to see which things she thinks are mine and which are his. One of the remotes is Daddy's and the other is Mama's, and it's the same every time.

Some of Kate's newest words are "light" which she says when she wants to play with the switches on the wall, "play-doh", "kiss", "walk", and "potty" which sounds just like Daddy. :) It's fun to hear her try new words and she emphasizes the consonants on the ends of words, almost turning one syllable words into two syllables.

We have been walking at the mall lately. It's a good way to get some exercise, get out of the house without spending money (why we go BEFORE the mall opens...), and there's a new kids play area there. It's been great. We go most mornings and Kate can play or walk and get some exercise too.

Today we went to storytime at the library. I discovered that they have a storytime for Kate's age group, so we tried that today. There were lots of kids there. They sang songs with motions and read stories. It took Kate a little while to open up around so many new people, but I think she liked it. The storytime was in a room outside the main part of the library, so we went into the childrens' library afterwards, but I don't think Kate's attention span is quite ready for that yet. I think her favorite part of the whole experience was seeing the men putting garbage in the garbage truck when we were leaving. They waved when they saw us watching and then honked the horn for us as they drove off. So many new things to experience and learn about.

(PS - don't miss today's first blog post below)

Pictures from our trip

I'm pretty sure you all know that Kate likes chairs, so I don't think you'll be surprised that she's in a chair in all of these pictures. She really liked the green baby rocker at Nana and Grandfather's house. She says "rocker" now in addition to "chair" - she knows the difference. Nana bought Kate an LSU shirt on her last trip to bayou country, which she is sporting in one of the photos.

I think he likes his job...

Go Grandfather, go Grandfather, go!
I imagine they were chanting "Hello Operator" during this scene...