Christmas 2012

On the 17th (I think) we took the kids to a little free train ride in town.  We drove around that night to look at Christmas lights.  It was a nice night.  Not too cold, but just cold enough to make it feel like Christmas time! :)  Here is a picture collage of us on the train.  Sean kind of got cut off.

 

Thursday, the 20th we woke up to ice and snow and the wind had blown down our fence :(  I took this picture on Sunday, the 23rd.

 

Thursday morning we headed out for Kansas City.  Here are some pictures from our trip.  We made it safe and sound, but some of the roads were a little icy.  We just took it slow.  Lily threw up twice on the way there.  I'm still not sure if she was just car sick, or if she had a virus...  There was an indoor pool at the hotel so Chris took the big kids swimming and I gave Lily a bath to wash the puke off of her.  She loved the bathtub!

 

In Kansas City we went to the Irish Center in Union Station to see Ryan Kelly and Neil Byrne from Celtic Thunder.  Here I am with Lily and Chloe waiting for the concert to start.  This concert was our big gift for our family for Christmas instead of getting a bunch of gifts.  The kids still ended up with quite a few gifts though today!

 The concert was a lot of fun and we were able to meet the guys after the show and get a picture with them too :)  Poor Eleanor looks awful in this picture because she was not, and still is not feeling well.  Poor girly!  She had a fever and a cough and sore throat.  I didn't realize how sick she was till we were already there.  Thankfully she was able to sleep during the concert.  There was a long padded bench at the back of the room where she laid down to rest.

 Our second reason for being in Kansas City was to take Lily to the Ready Set Grow clinic at Children's Mercy.  She did so great during the appointment!  The building was pretty cool looking on the inside too!  They had it decorated cute :)  She had to put on a little gown for the check up and Chris called it her "pretty dress" and then she decided that it really was her pretty dress and she wore it under her clothes for the rest of the day haha!  It was so cute!  She did not want to take off her pretty dress.  We really didn't find out anything at the clinic.  She is underweight and under the 3rd percentile for her age/size.  We are going to try to get her to eat more high calorie meals more often to get her to gain weight.  I have to take her to our doctor here for a weight check in two months.  Hopefully by then she will have gained 10-18 ounces.  I am hoping she does gain at least that much so then maybe we won't have to go back to KC for another appointment.  The doctor's office hadn't faxed over her charts so they really didn't have her growth history to compare her current size to, so that was irritating.  They didn't do any blood tests or xrays or anything like I thought they would.  So that part was disappointing.  But thankfully everyone was really nice and Lily's big, brown eyes and long, dark eyelashes had the nurses and dietitian/nutritionist oohing and ahhing ;)  We were told that we could add some pediasure or some carnation instant breakfast powder mix to her diet to add some calories to her diet.  I guess we will see what happens in the next couple of months.  Here are pictures from the clinic.

Chris' parents were able to meet us at the clinic and they took the big kids home with them and after Lily's appointment we went to their house for a couple of days.  Poor Eleanor was so sick the whole time we were there.  She was fevered and sore, bad cough etc...  She pretty much laid on the couch with a cool washcloth on her head and ate Popsicles and took warm baths.  Saturday night Chloe and Lily started getting fevered and Lily threw up a couple times, I think from coughing so hard.  She threw up once more in car on the way home too.  By the time we got home Sunday afternoon Sean and Chris were feeling pretty bad too.

Yesterday and last night were rough.  Chris had to work all day yesterday and I started feeling sick too.  The kids slept a lot yesterday and watched Christmas movies and took turns taking baths.  Chloe threw up three times.  Not a very happy Christmas eve :(

Last night was rough for Chris, Chloe, Sean, and me.  Eleanor and Lily slept all night though, so that was good.  Eleanor still has a bad cough today and her fever started going back up last night.  I think maybe we are done with the vomiting.  I hope.  Chloe has a check up on Thursday, so I might see if I can get Eleanor in that day too.  I am really worried about her cough and fever.  This has been going on since Thursday evening.  I am sure it is probably just a virus, but just in case I might as well get her checked out if we are going to be there anyway.

So that has been our Christmas so far!  It's been a pretty good day considering no one feels all that great.  We had stocking stuffers for the kids and they had plenty of presents to open from their grandparents.

I hope all of my readers are having a MERRY CHRISTMAS ♥  Blessings to you!

We have received a couple of anonymous gifts in the last week (week and a half?) and we just want to say thank you and God bless to whoever you are!