First Christmas Party

We attended a great Christmas party last night hosted by Sharry, Katie's wonderful day care provider. It was a potluck type dinner with homemade chicken potpie that was very yummy. Thank goodness my appetite is back because there was a lot of delicious food there. Almost all of the families were there and it was really nice to meet the mom's and dad's of the children Katie goes to school with. For Jeff it was a parenting wake up call because it was the first time he had been in a large group setting with about 20 children under the age of 5. Needless to say he had a lot of questions and comments to make on the way home. For example, "why were some parents just letting their kids run all over? I would never let Katie do that!" Not that I have all of the answers but my 10 years of working in early childhood has prepared me for situations like this.

As more and more people showed up and everyone started eating it was hard to keep Katie from getting run over since all of the kids are either bigger than her or not mobile yet. She also wanted to explore everyone's plates and drinks and anything else that was on the floor. It was exhausting but so much fun! The highlight of the evening was when Santa arrived. Some of the older kids did great but others burst into tears and clung to their parents. Katie at first wasn't interested, then she was curious, and lastly she burst into tears and was not happy with the man in the red suit.

It was a wonderful evening and once again made me appreciate Sharry even more. She cares so much about the kids in her care and while she could easily retire from the daycare field, she keeps doing it because she enjoys it. That means a lot to this working first time mom.

Sharry and Katie

Getting some love from Sharry
Meeting Santa for the first time. I love the look on Katie's face
The curiosity quickly wore off
Sharry made and gave all of the kids these adorable hats.
Later we tried to get a family photo with Santa. It worked at first but then....