How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

I had such high hopes for a wonderful break with my little family, especially after we were all sick over Thanksgiving. Sadly, RSV reared its evil head in our little munchkin. She was such a trooper through all of it- the 104+ temps, congestion, traveling, all of it! She literally got sick the day after we got out of school and didn't start feeling better until two days before we returned and SHE. WAS. PITIFUL! Miserable or not, this is my attempt to relive our Christmas.

CHRISTMAS CUTENESS

It is no secret that I have a "slight" obsession when it comes to dressing Morgan. That's part of the fun in having a little girl. I'm fairly certain I have yet to pay full price for any clothing item she owns. I love looking for a good deal. Here's our favorite little munchkin modeling some of her holiday duds.

She "helped" me make an appetizer for my staff Christmas party.


DECORATING THE TREE

Our little love bug was VERY into the tree and everything about it this year! In fact, we used the various ornaments on the tree to teach her all her colors, and by the time we took the tree down, she knew them all.

She helped Daddy put the angel on top.

It wasn't very hard to tell how high she was able to reach. We let her have her fun since our tree isn't in Southern Living or anything I didn't really care. In fact, it made me happy to see her rearrange her little clusters of ornaments.


Helping Mommy decorate the tree

Handing ornaments to Daddy- such a great helper!


CHRISTMAS PARADE

Aubie, the main attraction!

Poppa met us for lunch after the parade. We always love spontaneous visits!

DATE NIGHT

Steve and I have only been out three times that I can remember since Morgan was born and two of those have been my faculty Christmas party. Rachel and Adam graciously agreed to keep her again this year since they were in town so we got dressed up and headed out for a night (or couple hours) of fun.

SAMFORD LAWN FUN

We were all dressed up after church so I decided we should go out to Samford lawn and have a little mini photo shoot and some fun.

ANNUAL CALLAWAY TRIP

We started an annual tradition last year (Can I call it a tradition if it's only happened twice?!) and went to Fantasy in Lights at Callaway Gardens. She was mesmerized by the lights last year and I knew this year would be even better. They did not disappoint! It seemed as if I heard "Wooooow! Look!" with every turn. It was so awesome seeing her identify different objects she recognized. I was impressed.

Who am I to pass up a photo opportunity? :)

Callaway has the most amazing Santa! He was so patient with her even though she had no clue what was happening. He gained an instant friend when he gave her a mini candy cane. We got some super cute pictures of the two of them, but I just love this one for some reason.

She loved coloring while we were waiting for our trolley ride with "Snowflake" the reindeer guide.

After the trolley ride

CHRISTMAS EVE

She had some "spunk" to her on this day. In fact, I thought she just had a cold and was just fine. Her fever did spike at 103 this afternoon and I called her doctor to see what he recommended we do. He said he thought it was most likely RSV and that we should rotate the Motrin and Ibuprofen to keep her fever down. She slept a good bit this day, but Steve and I had some errands to run and last-minute shopping to do so some of her napping took place in the car while we took turns running into various stores.

That evening she seemed to be feeling better. We spent the evening at home having tons of fun with our little munchkin.

She posed on the presents...

...studied the nativity set...

...stole Gabriel multiple times...

...gave noozies...

...and kisses...

...and ended the evening by reading "The Christmas Story" with Daddy.

CHRISTMAS MORNING

The next morning we rushed in to wake her up excited about all the day had in store.

She woke up and immediately I knew something wasn't right. My happy-go-lucky child was whining and all she wanted to do was "Read David!" so we read her current favorite book, "It's Christmas, David!" for the millionth time.

Then we convinced her to go to the living room. Her immediate reaction was, "Wow! Look!" I thought that maybe she might be coming back around to her usual self.

Here she is checking out her gifts from Santa.

I felt like she was fading fast so we went for the stocking.

We tried to make her open presents after that but, as you can see, she was having no part of the presents.

She did, however, think they made excellent slides for her bracelets.

We decided we'd take a break for breakfast and try the presents again after that. We (ok I) sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus.

And that was that!

Back to bed she went! We were out of school another week and I decided the presents could wait until we got back. She slept for a couple of hours while we got everything loaded and ready to head South. She even slept most of our trip.

CHRISTMAS AT GRANNY SMITH'S

When we arrived at Granny Smith's it was as if her body said, "Show time!" This girl loves an audience, and with the Smith family she's sure to have one! She is the first grandchild in 13 years and I think everyone aims to spoil her rotten. Here she is putting on a show:

wearing Uncle Bubba's hat

This is the best I could do at getting a picture of the whole family.

She loved all of her wonderful gifts

and all the attention she got from everyone!

Here's Granny Smith opening her gift from Morgan, photo coasters- one with each of the grandchildren.

After the presents were opened, everything was cleaned, and all the good-byes were said, we loaded the car for one final stop, Poppa's! On the way to the car, Morgan started screaming like nothing I had heard before. It was pitiful! I knew she was burning up with fever so I gave her more medicine and attempted to put her back in her car seat. She kept screaming, "MOMMY!!!" over and over again and I just couldn't take it so I rode in the back and held my sick, precious child all the way to Brewton. She never did fall asleep the whole time, but kept her eyes wide open staring at me.

POPPA'S HOUSE

After a very prayerful journey, we arrived in Brewton, took her temperature, and realized it was over 104! We coated her in Vick's and found some old newborn-size clothes for her to wear. The medicine kicked in and she seemed to be feeling better. Poppa was insistent that she open her presents that night since she was already awake. Here she is sporting her lovely outfit and playing with Poppa in the middle of the night.

She felt better the next day for the most part. I learned that with this virus, she was one extreme or the other and it would hit her hard and fast when she didn't feel well- so sad!

My favorite present!

Right before we left, Poppa taught her how to eat ice cream from a cone. The next few days she would cry for, "Poppa's ice cream!" The problem is that we couldn't find "Poppa's ice cream" anywhere and trust me, we looked everywhere!

Out again on the way home, but IN her car seat this time!

THE DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS

Long story short, here's what our next few days looked like:

- Dress up in cute Christmas clothes in case she did feel better.

- Sleep until she got an energy burst.

- Get up and open a present or two.

- Play for a few minutes until she crashed again.

I took her to the doctor after several days of the high fever and was warned that she had lost too much weight. Miss Priss is already so tiny that we don't have the additional weight to play with that most people do so we started on meal replacement shakes and peanut butter. A hospital stay is NOT what we wanted. Luckily she started feeling better (good enough to paint the door with peanut butter!) the next day and we were just fine.

She even got to clean up her own mess!

Here's our little princess with all her Christmas goodies. Notice all the ornaments are off the tree and the decorations have been taken down. Yes, it took her THAT long to open all of her gifts. :)
This is one very blessed young lady!