Merry Christmas!

Dear Friends and Family,

We decided to try blogging our Christmas letter this year. Hopefully you got the hint and followed the link on our Christmas card!

2008 has been quite a year with big changes for our family. Late winter and spring kept us busy getting ourselves and the house ready for the arrival of our beautiful little girl, Katherine Marie. She was born on May 5 and we never could have imagined the blessing that she would be to us. It was so amazing to have the doctor tell us, "It's a GIRL!!" after nine months of waiting.





For now, Laura is enjoying the unexpected opportunity to be at home with Kate. Her job as an Environmental Consultant became a fatality of the economic downturn a few weeks before Kate was due, and it's no surprise that the job market is still so incredibly slow. She is continuing to look for another job but is definitely making the most of all the precious time she is able to be with Kate.

Jeff is still enjoying his job at Watson Wyatt in downtown Dallas. He played a lot of softball this year with some friends in a softball league in Plano. He loves being a dad and has a very special bond with Kate, who definitely looks more like him than her mommy!



The week we brought Kate home from the hospital, our dog Bailey had a few seizures. We weren't too surprised, she had gotten to a point where she was having a seizure once every 3-6 months. They continued in the next few weeks, so her vet did some testing and diagnosed her with Epilepsy. We are able to control the seizures for the most part with her medication, but she still has one about once a month. Thankfully the vet told us that the seizures aren't dong any damage to her; they only look scary. Bailey takes it all in stride, she is a little scared after one happens, but that's nothing a little comforting won't fix.



Laura sadly sold her horse of twelve years, Blaze, earlier this month. It was definitely a bittersweet moment. A nice family with a young girl bought her. It's nice to know that Blaze will surely make them as happy as she made Laura. They have already taken Blaze to a show and on trail rides - it's great to hear that she is being "used" again. It was very hard to say goodbye, but it was the best for everyone. We're just not too sure Kate will be pleased in a few years when she finds out that she "used to" have a horse! :)

Kate is growing up so quickly. We can't believe she is already almost 8 months old. She is a very happy, easy-going baby. She is on the verge of crawling, which will add a whole new dimension to our lives! We were able to take her on three trips - Minnesota, Atlanta, and Chicago, to see friends and family this last summer and fall. She's a great traveler and it was so special to get to show her off. We are looking forward to spending Christmas this year with Laura's family and everyone flying in from out of town. Kate is excited to see her cousin Micah again, and "meet" her next cousin on the way (Laura's sister is due in May!).

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and blessed 2009.

Love,

Jeff, Laura, and Kate Blair

Evening Update

Through the afternoon and evening today, Kate seemed to improve by the minute. By this evening, she was almost back to normal! She had a great time in the bath tonight, here's a quick video we took!

Poor Sicky

Kate's fever is under control today, but she has thrown up twice so far...

But I thought it would be funny to swaddle her - she hasn't been swaddled since she was 3 months old! She LOVED it! She just smiled and laughed, and I tickled her through the blanket, she was just laughing and squealing... So sweet! But look how LONG her body is! Her feet are touching the bottom!

Sick Again

Poor Katherine is sick AGAIN. She had a 102 fever today. So she's essentially been sick since the first week of November. I don't know what to do anymore! I just feel so bad for her, every time she's on the road to recovery I wash her bedding and disinfect everything she touches... I wonder what is wrong with my little girl! I just want her to be well again... :(

New Things

I have a bunch of pictures to update of Kate! This is a pretty typical picture of Kate, always wanting something to gnaw on! She still has only those two front bottom teeth, but I won't be surprised when the next ones pop through!



Naked baby on the changing table!



Her new favorite toy is the laundry basked. Oh what a joy, hours of entertainment! She tips herself over backwards with the laundry basket and gets stuck!



She also loves to read to herself lately. She'll open up her book to a page, tell herself the story (ba-ba-ba-ba) then start laughing. It is SO cute.







Finally, when she goes to bed tonight, Kate will discover she has a "new" bed! I had to go out and buy her a bumper today. For a couple weeks now she has been tossing her pacifier overboard at some point during the night, then deciding she wants it back, making mommy get up and give it back to her. (I was a big fan of that...) So now hopefully this will fix that little problem! I'll also start putting a few in there, so even if she "loses" one, she'll have more waiting. :)



I can't believe Christmas is in ONE week! I can't wait.

Visit to Santa

I don't know if I dare say anything, but I think Kate is getting better. What a stretch if sickness she's had for the last month!! Kate is much more smiley and happy now, and hopefully her nose will stop running soon. Jeff took the day off yesterday to spend with Kate and me for my birthday, so we made plans to take Kate to the mall to see Santa. She was such a good girl! It was a nice setup - themed with the movie "The Polar Express."



They had a fun snowglobe set up where you could snap a picture, and fake snow was falling down.







We weren't sure how she'd react to Santa - if she'd be fine, or if she'd be a screamer. Either way, it would be fun to get a picture. We set her in Santa's lap, and she LIT UP. We had a hard time getting her to turn away from Santa's face to look at the camera! She had the biggest smile on her face, and she kept laughing at him. She loved to feel his furry suit. You can see her left hand clamped on his furry cuff - when I took her away from Santa, she came away with a handful of fur. haha! All of the workers kept saying she was the happiest baby they'd seen.



While we were out, we wanted to do a little shopping. Because I sold Blaze, we wanted to give ourselves a laptop for our birthdays. We shopped around and found one that we wanted, but the only store with one in stock was in Mesquite! So we trekked all the way down there, and before we knew it, we didn't get home until 6:30. We had Kate out for 7 hours without one complaint out of her. We were shocked. She is such a good girl!

So here I am with my new laptop! I'm so excited!

Spoke too Soon

Just when I thought Kate was getting better, I think she has Croup again. She's been up in the middle of the night the last 2 nights with coughing fits.. Sunday night I thought it might have been a fluke, like she just had something stuck in her throat or something, but when it happened again last night, with more intensity and that rell-tale seals bark, I knew it wasn't good. When she had Croup the first time, she never had any of these nighttime fits. Poor little dear, she was struggling to get a breath in edgewise between all her coughing. So I took her into the shower at 4 this morning, and let her breathe the hot steam for a while. She loved looking at the water coming out of the shower head, then she'd bend over and watch it fall into the drain. So inquisitive. Then after that we went outside, but unfortunately it wasn't a crisp night by any means. It brought her coughing down a bit. She's best when she's upright. If I lay her back down the coughing comes back. I have a call into the Pediatrician now to see if we should go back in.

Jeff is sick again too. We are REALLY tired of passing this around our family!