Sick Again and Christmas Crafts

Kaitlynn came down with the stomach virus last week. She had diarrhea and was vomiting. The vomiting lasted about 7 hours.

Sunday evening, Kaitlynn woke up from a late nap with a barking cough. Sound familiar? Yeah, I think she has croup again. She had it right before Thanksgiving. I don't understand how my very healthy little girl went from hardly ever getting sick to being sick a lot. This year she has had an ear infection, several viruses, croup, stomach virus and now croup again. The only thing that has changed is that I am doing in-home childcare. But it's not like I have a house full of kids. I typically only have 1 child at a time, sometimes 2.

We are giving her children's Motrin and sitting in the bathroom frequently for the steam from the shower. I just hate seeing her not feeling well. I am really concerned with how often she has been sick lately. We need to purchase a new humidifier. We've never liked the one we purchased when she was first born. It's The First Years American Red Cross Cool Mist Humidifier. I just don't think it works and have never noticed a difference when we have used it.

Kaitlynn worked on some Christmas crafts Wednesday afternoon when she was feeling a little better. She had so much fun making these crafts. We had some photo Christmas cards left over, so I cut her pictures out and she pasted them to a couple of wreaths. She made a photo wreath for MawMaw, too. She enjoyed cutting the pictures of mommy and daddy and pasting them on a separate wreath.
Here's just a few of the crafts she made.

St. Charles' Christmas Traditions

Saturday Kaitlynn, Dave, MawMaw, Johanna and I met MawMaw Tommie in St. Charles for Christmas Traditions. We went last year and want to make this a tradition. We walked around Main Street braving the cold weather and went into the stores to shop. Kaitlynn collected the Character cards. We stopped for some coffee / hot chocolate and cookies. We took Kaitlynn to get her picture taken with the Victorian Santa and she freaked out. While in line she said she wanted to go home and that "this is ridiculous." I spent the next several minutes trying to get her to repeat herself for the camera, but of course she wouldn't. It was hilarious! I was kind of surprised that she was freaked out by that Santa because she didn't mind the other characters and santas. We watched the Santa Parade and then gathered at Berthold Square for storytelling. We ate lunch at Lewis and Clark's. After lunch we walked around and went into more stores.

To view videos from the day, check out my other blog. Need the link, email me at everydaymamadrama@yahoo.com.

MLM at the Zoo - Wild Lights

Friday night Kaitlynn, MawMaw and I went to the Zoo for Wild Lights. It was MomsLikeMe.com night. Thankfully, I got to work inside at The Living World giving out gloves to the first 100 moms and mittens to the first 100 babies / toddlers. MawMaw and Kaitlynn participated in the Lowe's Build & Grow activities in The Living World. Kay Quinn was there to read stories to the kids.

Here's a video from the Zoo's website.

Christmas Party

A few weeks ago, Kaitlynn and I met our playgroup at Yummy & Co for our Christmas Party. Yummy & Co has a great area for the kids to play. Their cupcakes are super yummy and they have great coffee, too.

We brought cupcakes home for daddy and MawMaw. They really enjoyed them, too!

Santa at the Caboose

Sunday, December 13th, we took Kaitlynn to get her picture taken with Santa. Santa was so nice! He took his white gloves off to show Kaitlynn that he had hands like her. He talked to her and reassured her. She decided she would stand by him, but only with me next to her. Santa gave her a candy cane and she got a coloring book, too.

Afterwards, we took her to McDonald's to treat her to an ice cream cone.

Little Tykes 2 Class

Kaitlynn's been having so much fun in her class.
Dinosaurs

Nursery Rhymes

Let It Snow

MLM Baby Shower

Tuesday, December 8th, Kaitlynn, MawMaw and I went to Midrivers Mall to attend Robyn's baby shower with MomsLikeMe.com. MomsLikeMe.com is following Robyn along during her pregnancy and hosted a baby shower with all gifts being donated to Crisis Nursery.

After the baby shower, we went to Children's Place. They had a great sale and Kaitlynn got some new wears (hat, purse and penguin). She also got some new sweaters and a matching scarf and pair of gloves.

Kaitlynn met her new boyfriend at the mall. She was obsessed with Kaden, until he left the mall. She hasn't talked about him since!

If you check out my other blog, you can see the link from News Channel 5. Email me at everydaymamadrama@yahoo.com for my new blog link if you don't have it.

Christmas Lights and St. Nick's Day

December 5th on the way to MawMaw's, Kaitlynn and I were looking at Christmas lights and talking about how Christmas and the lights were all in celebration of Jesus' birth. We talked about how Christmas is Jesus' birthday. At one point, Kaitlynn started telling me she couldn't see. She said her eyes wouldn't open. When I looked back at her, she had her eyes closed. She is so silly. She opened them when I pointed out the next display of Christmas lights. In the car, we continued working on left and right and colors. She is pretty good at left and right and knows her colors. Dave met us at MawMaw's. After dinner, we drove around in St. Louis Hills looking at Christmas lights. They do such a great display on several of the streets / neighborhoods around there. We saw the lights on Candy Cane Lane and met Santa. Kaitlynn was freaked out and wanted to go home after seeing him. She is just so scared of him. One of the houses in the area, had a radio station set up to the lights display.

When we got home, Kaitlynn got her piece of candy out of the Christmas Countdown Calendar and then put her stocking out for St. Nick.

I wasn't sure if we were going to celebrate St. Nicholas' Day because I thought it was a Catholic tradition. I grew up Catholic and celebrated the day, but I do not consider myself Catholic anymore. We consider ourselves Christian, more specifically Presbyterian. In doing some research, I found out that it is in fact a Christian and German tradition. I am so excited to continue this tradition with Kaitlynn. When I was younger, I put my shoe outside my bedroom door. With Kaitlynn, we are using her stocking and put it in the hallway between the bedrooms.

When Kaitlynn woke up on the 6th, we reminded her about her stocking. She was excited to see what was in it.