Well, the creeping crud kept us from going to Colorado last week. Skip and I both had a rough night the Thursday before we were supposed to leave - neither of us getting much sleep. Skip's congestion seems to all be in his chest; mine, in my head (so bad that my TEETH hurt, of all things). So we called my folks and told them we needed to delay our trip a bit - the idea of going into the mountains with congestion just was NOT very appealing.

So we all laid pretty low last weekend - watched more TV in a single weekend than I've watched in the last year: The Simpsons movie, every Blue Collar comedy "thing" on Comedy Central, and a DVD we rented called "Planet Earth" - which is very cool.

Skip and I are both still pretty congested but we do seem to be on the mend. Seems that this virus, whatever it is, is pretty pervasive and everyone gets to "keep it" for about three weeks. Most of Skip's office has been taken out with it, and there are a few people at my office who have been sick as well. I'm happy to say that Katie only ever had a little bit of a stuffy nose - I just could not imagine how rough it would've been for her had she gotten hit with this crap.

Speaking of ... Katie still only has the two teeth on the bottom, and her hair is getting longer and thicker (still shows more than a little red, which is pretty cool ... and, I hate to say it, a little curly. I only hope it is the nice, gentle "Skip waves" and not the "Demon hair from hell curls" that I have). She's crawling everywhere and anywhere whenever she can, and getting pretty fast at it, too. Katie's started pulling herself up on things, but only to her knees - she's not too sure yet about those feet. We're trying some sign language, mostly around eating: more, food, bottle, all done. All of which she watches me do, then she giggles and puts whatever is handy back in her mouth. Although Katie has learned to wave "bye bye", and if you blow kisses at her, she'll put her fist to her mouth (whether she thinks she's returning the kisses or just sucking on her fist remains to be seen ). She also knows how to do "gimme five", which is pretty funny.

And, I'm happy to say ... Katie is now eating Cheerios. Thank goodness - I was starting to wonder if my kid was going to be a Cheerio flunkie. We're introducing a few other new foods (most notably bananas), but she's still not real adept at getting the food from her tray to her mouth (she gets close, but more often than not there is just a big glob of whatever we're trying to feed her stuck to her cheek).

We continue to look at new houses ... have found a neighborhood we really really like but it is split into two different school districts. There is a house available that looks appealing, but the elementary school is way north! So that sort of defeats the purpose of having an easier commute. We may hook up with a neighborhood real estate agent soon to find out if anything we want to do is really feasible or if we're just dreamin.

Well, off to get a few more things done while Katie and Skippy nap ... we're off to a birthday gathering tonite for a friend, and there are friends in from Nebraska that we're going to see tomorrow. On Tuesday I'm back out to Arizona for business ... I just hope the congestion is completely gone by then, or my head may just totally explode!!

Katie had her nine month checkup the other day: 19 lbs, 14 ounces and 28 1/4 inches long - both of which put her in the 50th percentile for height and weight. So it would seem her peers are catching up to her! Only two shots this time - not that only two was really any easier on her than four or five.

Katie continues to crawl and loves going through the whole downstairs. Just the last day or two she's decided it's funny if she gets a head start on you and you "chase" her - she giggles. No more teeth yet, though. We're trying a few solid foods, but so far no luck - she has a tendency to choke/gag/puke. We've been trying some little cereal "puffs" - or puffies we call them, but so far all she does is hold onto them like there is no tomorrow (I've found them in every room of the house so far, as she eventually drops them somewhere). So we'll keep trying ... hopefully soon we'll have better luck with the solid foods.

We've all been fighting what I call the "creeping crud" - Skip came down with it last week and actually stayed home for two days last week. Katie and I started coming down with it over the weekend - Katie got it in her eyes really bad, so they puffed up and got red; she looked like she'd gone a full 15 rounds with Ali. We all stayed home Monday and Tuesday of this week, and Katie went to the doctor - it's just a nasty virus that is going around; he prescribed a decongestant but we haven't used it a lot. Katie is definitely back to her normal self tonight - she was a VERY happy little girl, I tickled her so much tonight she giggled until she snorted (very funny!). Skip and I were both feeling better today, but Skip is feeling pretty run down again tonight. I'm hoping we're all mostly over it by this weekend - we're off to Colorado for a trip to Grandma & Grandpa's!

And Katie continues to amuse us with her sleeping habits ... when she was first born, sleeping on her back, it was all about 'the froggie' - arms up over her head, feet together. As soon as she learned to roll over, she's slept on her tummy - well, sort of; her butt would go straight up in the air. And now that she's crawling, we put her into the crib and she has to crawl up until her head is against the bumper pad, and then she has to wiggle her one arm under the sheet that is snapped over the top of the mattress. It's the weirdest thing - but she's happiest that way, so whatever works!

So ... that's the latest. Probably not a new blog until we get back from CO; I'm pretty nervous about the trip because there will be VERY long periods of time when Katie won't be able to crawl, and I'm afraid that's going to make for one very cranky little girl ...

So here's where we are: two teeth, both on the bottom, and we suspect more are coming (lots of drooling / fussiness this week - even waking in the middle of the night, which she NEVER does, plus she's blown through - literally - no fewer than three outfits per day the last several days). Katie has been crawling for the last week to 10 days - she's not very speedy yet, but she definitely gets around. We have a stairway in the center of our house and you can kind of make a "circle" through the house around it - she's done that a few times. She's also become quite enamored of the bookshelves in the living room - one has nothing on the bottom shelf any more. The other still does, and she knows it - she goes straight for it whenever we put her on the floor. We tried impeding her progress by putting her walker in front of it, but she just squirmed her way around it and then promptly sat up, looked straight up at Skip, and did her little machine gun laugh as if to say "nanner nanner, I fooled you!".

We are getting used to having the house to ourselves again and have spent the last couple of weekends just getting caught up on stuff - bills, taxes, picking up, etc. We've also started to semi-seriously look for a new house; we love this one but the commute for me borders on brutal some days. So who knows.

Not this next week but the week after we're off to Colorado to see everyone out that way. Skip and I are going to try to go into the mountains and let Grandma and Grandpa take care of Katie, hopefully that will go well! Skip is anxious to try skiing and I'm anxious just for some down time - might spend some time on ancestry.com again; I've been poking around there some lately, I've got family tree software on the mac and I need to get it updated.

After vacation, it looks like there may be no fewer than three trips for me - AZ, then San Antonio, then AZ again. Wowza. I told Skip at the start of the year that maybe this would be the year I'd get "preferred status" with American, he laughed at the time ... but it's starting to look like it could happen!

Skip has been down this last week with a nasty bug - doc tested for the flu but the test came back negative. Skip actually stayed home from work for two days - something he almost NEVER does - took some good drugs and got some sleep. He's still a bit whipped but doing MUCH better. Katie has been sniffly, too, but hasn't nearly had the congestion Skip has. I've been suffering the joys of a runny nose, too, but that seems to be about the worst of it.

Well, that's all for now - Skip says he needs to get some pictures of Katie and when he does, I'll get 'em posted. TTFN .