The Albin Family

And here is our little family in our Christmas PJ's. By this time Maddie had had enough and was not in the picture posing mood as you can see.

After we got into our PJ's, it was time for Maddie to go to night night land. Then it was time for us all to bring down all the presents and place them under the tree. And Daddy still had to assemble the Toy Box for Maddie.

Here is the final picture of our Tree after Santa's Visit. I actually had to get on the staircase to get everything in the picture.

Here is the Toy Box all set up and of course the Cats were curious as always.

Here is a shot of our stockings hung over the fireplace. Notice Maddie's being the fullest and the little red bag on the fireplace is full of stocking stuffers too.

After we set everything up Rick, Grandma, and I opened up our stockings. Then off to bed!!!

I will post about Christmas Day tomorrow... I just looked and there are lots of photo's to share!!! :) We had a great day and that little girl grinned all day long!!!

Good night to all! Tomorrow will come much to early.

So Maddie has come down with her first little "bug". She woke up on Tuesday morning with what we call "The Snootzies" (Nasal Congestion). We think she may have a low grade fever. I called the Dr. yesterday and spoke with a nurse. WOW, she gave me so much info that my head spun. So last night, per the Nurse's suggestion, Maddie slept with a Humidifier in her room so it was cool and humid and we elevated her mattress so that the Snootzies could drain. We gave her some Tylenol and "sucked her brains out through her nose" with that little bulb syringey thing (she loved that....NOT). Surprisingly she did sleep through the night.

Today was about the same. She was a bit of a terror and very fussy. She has sort of lost her appetite... which is a little unusual for that kid. When I spoke to the nurse she said to look out for ear infections with tugging at her ears or not wanting the bottle/juice. Right now we are okay. I think she just has the little bug that has to pass. We are keeping a close eye out for wheezing or chest conjestion. She is still playful, just conjested. We just feel sorry for her because we can't do anything. You know how miserable you are when you have a cold... and she can't even communicate that with us.

Hopefully she makes a speedy recovery for Christmas. I would hate for her to be under the weather on her first Christmas. We have 2 Christmas parties to go to in the next few days... the first being on Friday for the Hotel.. so I hope she is well enough to attend.

Tomorrow brings another day of work. I have to get up early because we are to do some sales calls. Then more shopping for the Employee Christmas party, then home to cook for the party. Busy Busy Busy. Hopefully we won't be making a trip to the Pediatrician tomorrow. I think she should be okay... just conjested and miserable. We are trying to keep fluids in her but it is hard for her to take the bottle/sippy cup with her nose all stopped up. So also per the nurse's instruction I bought some popsicles to give her. The nurse said that the cold she would like if she was feverish. She still has no teeth so it is hard for her to take the popsicle, so she said to make is slushy and feed it to her through a spoon. Stupid me, gave her a Red Popsicle after we just had a bath... next time we will do that in the exact opposite order. ;)

She is asleep now so hopefully she will stay that way until morning. Daddy is asleep also... so I guess it it my turn to turn into a Pumpkin too.

P.S. to those Moms of babies out there..Do not be tempted to buy the little thermometers that are stickers that you stick under thier arm. If you don't know what I am talking about they come in a pack of 5 or so and you just stick the sticker under thier arm and it continually takes their temperature through little green dots that turn black. You can leave it on them for 48 hours, even through a bath as it advertises. Well it sounds like a superb idea to have a continual thermometer on them and not have to shove anything up the butt...Right??? Well, not so much for us. Do you know how hard it is to read a little sticker the size of a Half Dollar that is under the arm of a sick, fussy, squirmy, and now cold baby since you have to undress her to read it? Plus the stupid thing came off in the bath. So it is back to the Rectal Thermometer for us. I think it may be time to invest in an ear thermometer.....

So not much is happening here. We are just gearing up for the Jolly Ol' Fat Man as my Dad would say. We haven't a present under the tree, but a closet full of them. Between the Cats and Maddie being able to crawl and get into things we decided to keep them all out of reach until Christmas Eve. So the closet is busting at it's seams with presents for the whole family and we still have more to wrap and put in there. Oh Christmas is going to be wonderful.

So speaking of Maddie Crawling.. she is no longer doing the Army Crawl scoot on the floor thing. She is doing the full blown crawling. And when there is food involved she can get to her destination in a Heartbeat! That girl loves to eat. She is getting to the point were she does not want to have anything to do with her bottle... she wants the food! For dinner she had a jar of Lasagna baby food and then she had cooked diced carrots. She was doing a half way decent job of picking them up and feeding herself with the carrots. Anyone that knows me knows that I can't stand Carrots, so she did not get her taste for carrots from me. After Maddie ate it was time for the "grown ups" to eat. We were eating Borscht (sp?) which is Beet Soup. It is actually quite delicious if you like beets. Well Maddie was watching us eat and getting very upset that she could not have any.... as she usually does. Well, we decided to let her taste the soup. Since it was a clear liquid I didn't think it would hurt to give her a little taste. Well she made the funniest faces and she would lift her eyebrows.. it was hilarious. She would act like she wasn't sure if she liked it but then would open wide for another taste. I tell you she is her Father's Daughter when it comes to food!!!

Well that is about all I have to share today. Nothing much new with us, but just want to keep the blog going so no one thinks I dropped off the face of the planet again. :)

So I decided I wanted to take Maddie to sit on Santas lap. I have been looking forward to this for ever. We took her to go sit on the Easter Bunny's lap when she was just a few months old and she slept through the whole experience. So I was very concerned about the Santa looking very natural. Back home at the mall the Santa would not always be the best looking Santa in the world. Many times I don't think the Santa was much older than 28 or weighed much more than 150. So needless to say I wanted a good looking Santa.