christmas 2008

aubren anticipates opening her presents!

before we left to spend time with family on christmas eve, we celebrated christmas at home. aubren loved her gifts, especially her snow white dress and her "little people" airplane. she immediately started dancing when she put the dress on and, of course, had to watch her favorite episode of "dancing with the stars" so she could break in the new gown! one of my favorite gifts was my citrus juicer from trey. it makes really yummy juice!

we spent the day with trey's family and, like always, aubs had a blast with all her cousins - until ian unintentionally scared her with his soldier mask and zach got her with a light saber (we need to toughen her up)! we went over to my parents that night and and celebrated the same way we have for as long as i can remember: we eat a smorgasbord of snacks! my sister and i also started a new tradition this year; actually, it isn't so new, since my grandma did it every year we were growing up. when we would arrive at her house for the holidays, she had a table set up of homemade goodies like carmel popcorn, chex mix, yogurt pretzels, and peanut brittle. amy had all the recipes, so we decided to pick up where she left off. my dad brought out the table that grandma always used for the treats and we set everything up. it brought back some sweet memories - and to keep the tradition going, my sis bought me a popcorn maker, since i had no idea how to pop corn the old fashioned way!

christmas morning was fun! santa jingled his bells and the girls heard him yelling ho, ho, ho and the reindeer on the roof. of course, aubs slept right through it and trey had to wake her up. she was thrilled to see her angel cake doll in her stocking!

aubren's favorite gift: her very own laptop

we then went back over to celebrate with trey's family. aubren loved her gifts - especially the one aunt kris found for her: a supergirl costume.

the day was wonderful, but then night fell, and everything went downhill from there! at about 10:30pm trey heard aubren making coughing /gagging noises upstairs. when he reached her he realized that she had thrown up all over herself. we threw her in the bath; unfortunately, it was the first of many. we were up every hour with her. it is the saddest thing to watch your child in that state, especially when everything has come up and you have to hold them while they just sit there and dry heave. she was a trooper, like always, though. the next few days we just snuggled on the couch with a bowl never out of site.

the worst part was that she could not eat, and a few days prior to her getting sick she had stopped eating and drinking much. so she got slightly dehydrated and we had to force her to drink. on saturday we made pizza and she begged and begged for it. when we tried to explain why she couldn't have any she threw the biggest tantrum we have ever seen. i didn't realize that my child had such powerful lungs! she was screaming louder than i can scream. she finally calmed down and fell asleep in my arms from exhaustion!

one of aubren's highlights in the midst of the stomach flu