I have been utterly plagued by guilt about not blogging for so long - I think the peak of it was when Claire posted a description of Kate's bday party and photos, only to be followed shortly thereafter by more pics of Kate being posted by Jess - and each time, people commenting on how old she looks. Sheesh, her own mother can't get to it??

I wish I could say that I've just been lazy, because I'd prefer that to the truth - I am barely keeping my head above water most days, and I'm starting to say - when will this get better?!?! I'm not going to blog about all of that though, because my purpose here is to update, update, and update.

As you probably guessed, we settled on and moved into our house. We absolutely love it, although the sheer amount of things to do/buy remains overwhelming. I've just been taking it one at a time, but I have to admit that it feels like an endless project. I bought some houseplants yesterday, and that one small change really helped my mood. Sometimes small items are enough, you know? So, at this point, on the interior we've done almost nothing of real impact. We're making sure that we have a good savings built back up before we go pillaging the account again, so that means that the only spending that's going on for now is on a small scale. I know it's the prudent course but is sure is the boring course!

We did spend some money on landscaping, though. We have a "conservation easement" behind our house - it spans our property and the property behind us - it's basically an area that the developer was absolutely forbidden to touch by the county. During construction it was fenced off, and at settlement they removed the fence and left behind a huge mess of brush, including a lot of poison ivy. The rule is that the plants that are in this property are not to be cut down, but Jay and I had decided long ago that our first priority was going to be to get that scrub cleared but we would leave the trees untouched (they're what really matter to the county, not the poison ivy!). We did that and are thrilled with the impact. We also ended up redoing the front landscaping completely, and the plants that were removed from the front were mostly replanted along the sides of the house. It looks really nice, and although I'm sure many people wouldn't have prioritized landscaping, it's really nice to come home to.

I'm not posting pics of the house now because I have tons of Kate pics to add. I will post them, though, I swear I will.

Kate is doing really well now. September, especially the first two weeks, was a nightmare. She was scared to sleep alone in her new room and was terrified of her new daycare. It was pretty much a daily disaster, and a LOT of tears were shed. Of course it was just a transition, and she moved back into her own room mid-month. The tears at daycare continued for a little longer, but it's been a few weeks now since she cried substantially when I drop her off. She's made friends, Eleanor (E-nor) and Patrick (Pat-tick) in particular, and she seems to be doing great there. In the first month she learned to count to 10 and most of her shapes and colors, and she now knows all the colors and shapes and has learned a ton of songs. She strongly prefers one of her teachers for whatever reason, but all of her teachers and the staff constantly comment on how sweet and cute she is. So, alls well that ends well, but it was a HORREDOUS transition in the beginning. I had expected it to be rough, but I had no idea how bad it really would be.

Amazingly, Kate turned two on the 7th! I can't believe that she's so old already, and she reminds us everyday (in both good and bad ways) that she definitely is two. Claire and her family came over for dinner that night, and while on the one hand it was nice to celebrate on her actual birthday (it was a Tuesday), on the other hand our weekdays are just a little nuts, and adding a birthday party to the mix did not make things easier. We had a simple dinner - spaghetti and salad (made by Claire - THAT was great!) - and a chocolate cake. Unbelievably we completely skipped the whole candles and singing routine - we were all distracted I guess, and it was the end of a long day. Oh well, the cake was still yummy, although I'm embarrassed that for NEITHER of her birthday cakes have I put any kind of effort into decorating it...Melinda's recent post about Stella's birthday cake made me blush. Oh well, we do what we can do, right?

Commuting with Kate, for the most part, has gone ok. I ply her with food and we listen to whatever music she wants. We have a routine now, but I definitely miss my alone time listening to the news. We have definite plans to buy a DVD player for the commutes, but I'm finding so many problems with them in online reviews that I'm hesitant to rush in and spend such big money. I'm hoping that I'll come across a model and say - aha! this is the one! We'll see. It would be helpful for both of us if her time in the backseat passed more pleasantly. We have had to kill time at a Rockville mall a number of times now due to traffic that is simply not worth sitting in. We have a routine there, and in some sense I like knowing that it won't be too long before I make it to a mall. I've started putting things in the car for the inevitable trips - my watch that needed a new battery, dresses of Kate's that I wanted to find leggings for, etc. It's a nice mall with a nice play area and a great food court, so it's really not much of a hardship when we stop there. It's just unfortunate that we're in the situation, I guess, but at least we have a Plan B, as my boss calls it.

We've been enjoying our new neighborhood. We're in a group of 12 newly built houses (with a cul-de-sac) at the end of a short pre-existing street, and of the 11 inhabited houses (1 is still on the market), 7 are young families and 2 of them will definitely have kids at some point (one of the women is pregnant now). We had a block party the 3rd week of September, and it was a nice way to get to know everyone. It really seems like the whole group is very friendly and I think that this is going to be a fun place to live. The best part of the neighborhood are our neighbors across the street and one house down - Michelle and Jim have two sons, Jack (21mo - 4 mo younger than Kate!) and Charlie (4mo). Happily we all hit it off right from the beginning, and we've spent quite a lot of time together in just the short time we've lived here. In a lot of ways Michelle reminds me of Allison (from Seattle), so that's a lot of fun. We joke that Jack and Kate will end up married, and they're pretty cute together. He's pretty shy, but he's really starting to come out of his shell with us. They dropped by earlier this evening and he was happily playing with Kate and her toys, and I'm sure that we'll all just get closer with time. Jim and Jay have hit it off as well (I think the only problem is the NFL rivalry, but that's overlooked), so overall Jay and I are thrilled to have them here. We went out for Halloween with them - Kate was a frog (borrowed from Chrissie), Jack was a chicken (borrowed from us, originally from Julia), and Charlie was a pumpkin. We just hit our 12 house neighborhood, and they were awfully cute.

We're learning our way around our new town. It's fantastic to feel so "in the middle" of things, even though there are always prices to pay when others want to be where you are. The Metro stops ~2miles from our house, and we hear it go by all the time. This is a relatively old area with lots of big trees overhanging neighborhood roads, and lots are pretty small so it feels kind of quaint - until you get to the major roads. I'm loving it. I think one of the biggest things for me on a really mundane level is that there is a Trader Joe's one stoplight away. Ah, finally - back to civilization! My time on the west coast really left me enamored with TJ's, and it drove me crazy to not have easy access to one in Ashburn. It probably seems silly, but it's a fantastic change in my mind. We've been to a couple of town events, including a Farm Day a few weeks ago that included a petting zoo - we went with Michelle and her gang.

It's been a lot harder to see Claire and her family ever since we left Ashburn, so we've scheduled every other Saturday evening together. Last week we went to the Air and Space Museum (such a cool place) for their Air and Scare (a Halloween event). Kate was on the young side for it, but she just wants to follow Anna around wherever she goes, so it worked out great. It was fun to see the girls dressed up and to just spend time with the four of them.

Well, I guess that's it for now. I feel so much better for having written this all down, finally. As always, I'll try to be better, but I'm smart enough to know not to make any promises...