As I’m sure you could imagine, Kinsie was ALL about Christmas this year. She loved everything about it…the lights, the songs, the Christmas trees, the Nativity scene, you name it. She spent the last month gazing at the Christmas tree, playing with all her Christmas animals and manger set, and singing Jingle Bells both in English and in Spanish. With all of the fun Christmas festivities happening, we still tried to constantly focus on the real reason for the season, which led Kinsie to sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus every once in a while too!
Kinsie admiring our tree, then in front of the “Disney tree” at my mom’s house…she was obsessed!
Kinsie was much more aware this year of who Santa Claus was, and seemed more interested in him, so we took her to see him and I wanted to let her decide if she wanted to sit on his lap. As funny as the screaming toddler-Santa pics are, I didn’t want to do that to her if she didn’t want to sit with him! Luckily, she wanted to. She was a little nervous and wouldn’t speak a work to him, but she didn’t cry, and she still continues to talk about meeting him!
On Christmas Eve, we spent the morning at Ryan’s parents house eating breaking and opening gifts with them. Kinsie was already rolling in new toys so she was pretty pumped! We went to Christmas Eve service as a family, then to Ryan’s aunt’s house for dinner and gifts. It is always a great time getting together with everyone, and Kinsie loved helping pass out, climb on, and open everyone’s gifts for them!
I was so excited to wake up the next day and spend Christmas Day with Ryan and my little Christmas girl. However, when I woke up on Christmas morning, I felt sick. I was hoping it was just a weird pregnancy morning sickness kind of thing, but I soon found out that it was actually a stomach flu. One of the worst stomach flus I’ve ever had in my life. I still got to watch Kinsie open up her gifts from Santa, but had to run to the bathroom every so often. We still went to my parents to open gifts with them, but I was absolutely miserable. I had to miss Christmas breakfast, and it was exhausting to even open my gifts. After we opened gifts with them, we went home and I went straight to bed…only getting up every 2 hours to throw up again. Ryan took Kinsie to his other aunt’s house, where they got to still enjoy family and Kinsie even got to sing some karaoke! Ryan was full time Mr. Mom that day…taking care of Kinsie and me. I’m so lucky that he’s not only a loving husband, but a doctor-to-be and felt comfortable and willing to hold my hair back, rub my back and help keep me hydrated. Even though being sick is absolutely awful, the only thing worse would be if Kinsie got sick, or if something happened to the baby…so I had to keep that as my focus to stay hydrated.
Enjoying going through her stocking
Some of her favorite gifts from Santa…a light up dinosaur, Olaf slippers, and a karaoke machine!
Saying I was super bummed about being sick on Christmas is an understatement. And being in the height of my pregnancy emotions, I cried several times throughout the day since I was “missing” Christmas, especially since Kinsie was so excited about Christmas this year and I wanted to enjoy it with her. But I had to keep reminding myself that it could be so much worse. Some people were spending their Christmas in a hospital, and some were spending their first Christmas without a loved one. I realized pretty quickly that I am so blessed with the family and health that I have, and while being sick for one Christmas was bad luck, I am still very lucky.
Kinsie still had a great Christmas, full of dinosaur and Olaf presents from Santa and family. While I recovered over the next few days, she was perfectly content playing with all her new toys at home. And most importantly, I still feel that we accomplished what we wanted to this Christmas, by teaching Kinsie why we celebrate Christmas and how special of a gift it was for God to send his son to the earth to die on a cross and save us all from our sins.
Merry Christmas from the 4 of us!
More Matthews 
So precious ! We loved seeing Kinsie at Christmas. You guys have such an awesome family and we are so proud and love you so very much. We hope you have a Blessed 2016. , Uncle Pat & Aunt Linda.