All Clean!

Kate's new favorite place to play is in our master shower. She grunts and says "please" til we open it for her and then she gets in and pulls the door mostly shut from the bottom. She pretends to squirt soap on her hands and rubs her tummy and her arms while repeating "all clean". It's pretty cute to see her use her imagination. Here is a shot a got with my phone during one of her "showers".

In other news... We got a NEW CAMERA! So, hopefully the camera phone posts will be phased out for more masterful shots!



Tubes

Kate is a champion teether. She works on growing each tooth for a good two months! We don't have any of those "go to sleep and wake up with three new teeth in the mouth" experiences here. Oh NO! Our little Kate wants to make sure they are perfect so she spends lots of time and energy and emotion on each tooth! 

Unfortunately, we don't just deal with normal teething woes with our little angel. She seems to have this interesting correlation between growing teeth and getting ear infections. Not just sometimes, every time there is a new tooth coming, an ear infection follows. Dr says it is probably due to her size and not a whole lot of room for swelling in her head. However, the best part about it is that she doesn't seem to run a fever with her ear infections (hopefully you sensed the sarcasm there, no alarm system). With no fever I thought I was just being reasonable and not an over-reacting first time mom by attributing the EXTREME fussiness to the obvious signs of teething. After a three weeks of this EXTREME fussiness at the beginning of the Summer, Marshall stepped in.  "Maybe you should take her to the doctor just in case". I think he was more frustrated with my whining than hers. Again, I thought it was all due to teething and that the doctor was going to treat me like an over-reactive first-time mom, but I finally agreed to take her in. 

Long story a little bit shorter, I am waiting for my "Mother of the Year" award (again, sarcasm).  Double ear infections for who knows how long and who knows how many she had had before that I justified away! Five oral antibiotics, one round of shots, and two SUMMER months of ear infections later, our pediatrician decided that Winter wouldn't be fun for us or Kate if this continued and that we should try tubes. 

All I remember from my personal experience with tubes is bubble gum flavored anesthesia and anxiously waiting for them to fall out so I could see them and inspect them. Anyway, I decided that if I made it through twenty-something years ago she would too and Marshall agreed. 

Sept 9th, less than a week after we moved we took her in.

It took a little over an hour for our entire trip and I think less than 15 min for the actual surgery! She had a little bit of a rough time coming out of the anesthesia but other than that, It was a breeze! 

She recovered so nicely we forgot to make her follow-up appointment right away! 

We have been enjoying a MUCH happier child!

Cornbelly's

Friday was the first day of Cornbelly's, a Fall carnival-like event that happens every year at Thanksgiving Point, and also employee day! So, after work Friday night we enjoyed a free family outing! Kate loved all the activities and especially enjoyed being able to run around the grounds and explore virtually without restraint!

When we first arrived we were greeted by the Pumpkin Princess.



Kate was super excited to play in the life-sized doll house.

Marshall and Kate were a winning team at the duck races!

Always finding opportunities to play Peek-A-Boo

Sunset wagon ride

Climbing the haystack with daddy

Wheels on the bus

It was hard to tear Kate away from this wooden "Choo-Choo", but as soon as she saw all that there was to do it was easily forgotten.

Horsing around in "Princess land"

Kate was sooooo excited to make the horn go "beep"!

Kate was in awe at the pig races! She was picked as a volunteer to represent "Kevin Bacon" in one of the races but we lost by a snout to "Helen Runt". Of course I didn't get any pictures of the pigs with our 30 sec shutter delay it was impossible!

Some family portraits

It was a wonderful Fall evening! We will for sure be back for more! 

Fall Feasts

I was looking through my pictures and discovered I had quite a few from us dinning out in the month of September! Must have had something to do with our move and my lack of left-over energy! Anyway, here are some cute shots.

A breakfast date with daddy at Kneaders before work one morning.

 Lunch at a Mexican restaurant with fried ice cream for dessert!

Dinner with Uncle John at JCW the same day!

Let me know if you want me to give you lessons in responsible parenting!

Rise and Shout!

Today we took Kate to her first football game! She loved it! She has seen football on TV a few times with daddy so when we told her we were going to a football game she kept saying "football", "kick"! I don't think any amount of television football was going to prepare her for an actual stadium experience. She was in awe from the second we left the car! Once the awe finally wore off and she took in her surroundings she was super excited to be there and she kept up like a true fan! We were a little worried that a family game day was going to be a bust but she was a trooper and it was so much fun!

John and Nick live right across the street from the stadium so we enjoyed close, free parking!

As you can see, she didn't quite know what to think of all the noise and people at first.

After she got over the initial shock of all the noise, she loved dancing with the band and stomping her feet with the crowd.

Heading to Uncle John's house for half-time.

The pictures really don't do the stadium justice. It was a little toasty in the sun when we first got there but otherwise a beautiful fall afternoon!

When we first arrived we were nervous the sun and the noise was going to bother her so we pumped her full of water and shared a snow cone. She was a happy, energetic child the rest of the game! :)

I thought this was a funny picture of daddy and daughter. Their expressions kind of sum up how the game ended up!

BYU lost but we still had fun and couldn't leave Provo without some yummy Pizza From Nick's! After pizza we put Kate in her PJ's and headed home, but not before a quick stop at Krisy Kreme for some hot donuts! Yup, it was a GREAT day!

Coach John

Kate and I wanted to make a quick trip to Provo to get her a shirt for Saturday's game so we called John to see if he wanted to meet us on campus. He had a girls intramural football game he had to coach that evening so we took the opportunity to drop by and see him and Nick in action. It was one of the first Fall afternoons this year and Kate really enjoyed running around the fields and cheering on the "Red Rhinos"! 

(still taking pictures from my phone...hopefully a new camera is in our future!)

Labor Day Luau!

I took tickets for the Labor Day Luau this year which meant a free, fun activity for the whole family! We didn't stay too long because it was pretty chilly for the first weekend in September and Kate's ears were still giving her trouble. We were there just long enough to enjoy some authentic food and entertainment and a short walk in the gardens!