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.