My teacher friends

Today (actually tonight at midnight) we've been home six weeks. Wow, funny how those 42 days seem like forever ~ not in a bad way, just in the way that I no longer remember living in this house without Kylie. In that time she has met so many of our family and friends but there are still so many more to go!

One group that she had been missing out on was my teacher friends. So last night my "Fries friends" buddies ~ a group of 5 of us that worked together at JN Fries up until 2002 ~ took care of that for us.

Fries friends ~ Kathy, Kim, me & honorary member Kylie, Della, & Luci

They hosted a welcome Kylie baby shower and invited people that I've worked with during my career. Though I spent 9 of my 10 years teaching at Fries, when new schools opened up many of the people I started with headed to locations closer to home. It was so fun just to sit and talk with former team teachers, I think that we ended up with 5 schools represented. And of course the star of the show was Kylie! She was eager to help open gifts and would clap her hands or raise her eyebrows at appropriate times. Despite the fact that she was in an unfamiliar room with many unfamiliar faces, she was on tip top behavior and won several hearts during the two hours. Kylie got several adorable outfits, some bath toys, some great books and Baby Einstein DVDs, some baby lotion (oh how I LOVE that smell!) and thankfully some blind cord wraps (having a walking child when you have blinds is a hazard!). We are very grateful to the generosity of those that were able to make it out on a dreary Thursday evening!

Running around and entertaining everyone wore our baby plum out because she fell asleep in her car seat before we even got out of the parking lot. One pair of shoes was the wrong size, so we decided to head to Target to exchange them to let Kylie have a cat nap on the way there. Luckily they had the same shoes in the right size, so we exchanged them and decided since there was a Starbucks there...

When we got home Kylie had just enough energy to show how much she loves carrying shoes around. And just to show that shoes really are a thing with her, I'm posting a picture of her from earlier yesterday with mine... (and recall her playing with Ian's shoes last week)

Watch out Imelda Marcos!