Life Lately

It's been a very rough week, I am recovering from my first ever experience with the flu, and it has been debilitating.  Last weekend I thought I was getting a very bad cold, but by Monday the fever, aches, and chills were more severe than any cold I'd ever had and a trip to the doctor confirmed it was the flu.  Four days off work, a round of Tamiflu, and lots of rest later I'm much better but still not completely over it.  It wiped me out.  Thankfully, Matt and Kate have remained healthy and I was able to take the time off from work to recover.  Even though it's been a horrible week, overall January has been a very fun month for us.  Since I've been slacking on blogging, here are some highlights from the past few weeks.

Kate has lots of little friends, and keeps making new ones.  Probably thanks to daycare she is very friendly towards other kids and always willing to share.  We've gone out to lunch after church with our old small group a few times and it's really fun now that we all have kids.  Our topic of conversation sure has changed from two years ago when we met and none of us had children yet.

Thomas, Ella, William, and Lucy- just of a few of Kate's pals recently

A few weekends ago we also got to meet up with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Emily, for lunch.  Her oldest son is three now, the same age Emily and I were when our friendship began, and it was great to see her family.

Friends pretty much our whole lives, will Kate, Caleb and William say the same?

Adam, Sarah, and Laing came down to visit us around Kate's birthday and as usual the girls hit it off right away and had a great afternoon playing together.

Kate spent a lot of the day in Adam's lap, she's a big fan

The best part of opening birthday presents?  Playing with the tissue paper of course!

And just this weekend Kate's neighborhood bestie, Lucy, came over for the night while we made up for some babysitting we owed her parents.  Having a "baby" in the house again, even for just one evening (Lucy is five months old) reminded us how far we've come since Kate was that small and immobile.

Kate and Lucy, seven months is a big gap right now, but they'll be playing together great soon enough

 Apart from Kate's busy social life, she's also been busy transforming into a little girl right before our eyes.  She had her one year checkup and is weighing in and measuring on the petite side (25-30% in both height and weight) and hitting all the developmental milestones expected of a one year old and then some.

Waiting at the doctor's office, still happy because the shots haven't happened yet

Kate keeps asserting her independence, and would prefer to do everything herself if we'd only let her.  She feeds herself, wants to climb into the bathtub by herself, do her own laundry, and the list goes on.  Everyday she's figuring out how to get into new trouble.

I can do it myself, thanks!

"Helping" with laundry

At daycare Kate is spending more and more time visiting the "Ones" room, and she will soon be transitioning there permanently from the infant room.  We love Ms. Mary and Ms. Regina in the Ones room, they know Kate really well because they both open each morning when Kate gets there early and she is pretty excited whenever she sees them too.  On Friday the daycare e-mailed a few pictures of our big girl napping on a cot in the Ones room.  A cot!  She looks so grown up!

No more crib for this cutie at naptime, she's got her very own cot now!

Just to compare, here is a picture from last April of our tiny infant in her crib at daycare and my big girl now.

So that's what we've been up to the past few weeks.  It has been colder than usual this January in South Carolina, although I realize we are still way better off than the rest of the country, no sign any ice or snow flakes here!  I'm ready for warmer temperatures though, it's been a fun month with friends but I'm ready to start doing things outside again instead of just being cooped up indoors.  I know spring will be here soon, one thing I've learned since having Kate is that time really does fly!