The Southern Kellings: Happy New Year!

We are back in Wild and Wonderful WV. Poor Sam has the end of a nasty cold. Her fever spiked last Tuesday at just over 103 and stayed in the 99-100 range for a bit. We had to take her in today to the doctor because she had such a nasty cough and she is now on antibiotics for the first time ever. She did weigh in at 10th percentile though, despite not eating well for this week. The drive home was a bit rough with the sick toddler who wanted out of her seat, but we did not want her exposed to germs or infecting anyone. So she only got out for a diaper change. Lots of elmothough. And she really wanted to be rocked, so a nap did not come until 4:40. But she was happy to be with her old toys and ran around a lot when we got home and she woke up. She (and we) sure do miss nana and papa though. And our house was freezing when we got home. The upstairs was below 40. The back room was about 34. It never stays too warm upstairs because furnace is too small, so we run ceramic heaters. But it appears that the filter, which we replaced maybe a month ago, got clogged and the downstairs was even around 40. It took a long time to get Sam's room warm enough for her to go to sleep. But she had fun playing.

I took a ton of pictures, and are some highlights.

When Sam felt bad she did a lot of snuggling, the only true benefit to a sick kid. Here is some snuggle time with Daddy.

One of my mom's neighbors, "Miss Jo", gave Sam an umbrella with her name on it. It was a big hit and we all had to take turns pretending to run to get out of the rain. Since she was the only one with an umbrella, we had to pull coats over our heads. It was fun for the first 10 minutes or so, then we had to trade and get someone else to take a turn.

A close up with the umbrella.

Drinking a shake out of a fun straw from a breakfast friend of my parents at Krystal.

She and I rode the pink pig. I used to love it as a kid when it was downtown. Mom says whenever someone mentioned Christmas I would say, ride the pink pig. We tried to go on the 23rd, but it was a 2 hour wait or so. We went on Tuesday and that was when Sam started seeming not herself and ended up with a high fever. Glad we got it in, though. She had a blast.

Mom and I spent 3 coupons worth at Macys and found this cute coat for Sam. My mom also wanted to get cowboy boots for Sam because she and I had loved ours. The shoe store had these, but they were on clearance and not part of the buy one get one half off, so we passed them up. I got my new hiking boots and got Nick some, but he did not like his, then we took his back and got my dad some, those did not fit, so we took those back and the boots were on sale then, so many crazy trips to the store and we finally got the boots. Glad my mom thought to check them.

Sam loves them and they get lots of compliments.

Sam loves these tiny babies that are $1 at Walmart and she keeps moving it around the house. So I got her 4 for Christmas in her stocking. She came in with two in my crocs, calling them boats. It was pretty funny. She has an impressive imagination for an almost 2 year old. Makes us be her baby, she is our baby play with a doctor kit, the umbrella game was all her, etc.

And these were a hand me down that she likes, but she also actually came into the room with them on her chest and said look at my bra. Again, imagination strong, but may lead to embarrassment.

This is part of a hall game where my dad and nick would take turns saying I am getting away, she would run over and catch them and then pat them back to sleep. They were both her babies, but they got to rest while wearing her out. She had a great nap that day.

Christmas was a present fest. She helped open everyone's and could not always decide where to go next.