MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Here are a few pictures from our eventful first christmas as parents! We had a total of 7 christmases this year, that's including extended family get togethers! Needless to say, we are all pooped! We had christmas on the 19th(Dan and Marlene's annual chirstmas shindig), the 23rd with my parents and brothers, the 24th at Donnie and Sandy's, the 25th at home and my grand parents house that night, then off to dave and Darlenes on the 26th, and then Derek's mom and step-dad on the 27th, along with the big Atkinson family christmas. Uff Dah!!  I think i am pretty much familied out!  :)

 Kylie's twin shirt from Uncle Adam

Uncle Butch holding Kylie at the Skogman/Wood/Atkinson christmas

Kylie sleeping on christmas day...it was 830am and daddy and I were getting impatient!!

Taquito waiting patiently to open his gift!

Spaz in his new tie!

Derek putting together Kylie's present from Santa

Still putting it togetherKylie in her new exersaucer!Kylie looking at the HUGE stuffed dog from Great Grandma Atkinson.

Ben, Great Grandma Atkinson, Kylie and DerekGail holding Kylie at the Atkinson Family christmas party.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

For Derek's Co-Workers

Our dog leaves the tree alone until we put his gifts under there. Then our cat; who LOVES to lay under the tree, cannot go near it or the dog chases him away. So if we tell him the cat is by the tree, this is what happens.


Dog Protecting the tree from carrie Atkinson on Vimeo.

It's That Time of Year Again

When Taquito feels the need to guard the tree against Spaz the cat. Poor Spaz; who likes to sit under the tree, cannot anymore because Derek put some gifts for Taquito under there. So now Taquito sleeps in front of the tree at night, and during the day next to the tree on the couch.  If Spaz enters the livingroom, he lays in front of the tree.  Example...

Look What I Can Do!

So we have been doing tummy time everyday.  Kylie surprised me a couple days ago with holding herself up for quite sometime.  She's getting so big!! I do love her expression...it's like she's giving me attitude already, "Mom, no more pictures!!"

A Visit with Old Saint Nick

Derek and I took Kylie to see Santa at Ridgedale today. We waited an hour and a half, and it was worth it. Besides Derek making teenage cracks about the names of all the stores...Wet Seal and Nuts and Such are just two of them...use your imagination!  I had to keep hushing my teenager because of all the little kids around us.
But Kylie was so cute! She stared at Santa for quite a bit. He was a really good Santa! Although Santa pictures are quite expensive these days! The cheapest package was 17 bucks for two pictures!!!
Here is Kylie and Santa!!!

Watching the TV

Kylie is a huge fan of singing. She really loves it when i sing, her faces just lights up. So we were watching the Carrie Underwood Holiday Special and she was talkin up a storm!


Untitled from carrie Atkinson on Vimeo.

Home Improvement Poll

So, Derek and I found tile for the front foyer. There are lots of colors in it that we like. Even a bit of green which is what i plan on painting the walls.

I am excited to get it installed! We just have one problem...we can't agree on the pattern! That figures huh? So Derek is more plain, doesn't like alot of "clutter". I like "clutter". So we need some opinions because i like it one way and Derek likes it the other. So feel free to take my poll and help us decide!

New favorite websites

I found these websites and they are awesome!! I thought i would share them.

www.babysteals.com

www.woot.com

Woot has four different websites on the right hand side. Kids woot, shirt woot, sellout woot and wine woot. It's fun to see what they offer everyday, the items go fast so you need to be quick! Like babysteals just had halo sleep sacks, and they are all gone. So now i wait impatiently for the next offer and hope it's something i can use.

2 month check up

So Kyle had her two month check up this past Monday. Man, she's a petite little thing with a big appetite! She weights 11 lbs 5oz (90th percentile) and in the 40th percentile for height...if I hadn't been so sick i might have remembered to actually write down her height. Oh well, i'll have to bring a notebook next time!
She also had her first shots, she took them like a champ. Cried for a fraction of a second, took her wooby(her pacifier) and sat there lookin around.
Her newest milestone? Sleeping through the night!! Goes to bed around 10:30pm and sleeps anywhere from 9 to 12 hours!! Mommy loves sleeping in!!

Demo Done

So it took us two saturdays, but we got our demo done!!! The basement is well on it's way to having a bedroom and living room! Now we need to do some frame work and start drywalling everything! Before and after pictures, labeled in red on the picture. I will explain each picture for those who have never been to our house.

I am standing on the landing taking a picture of the far wall. That door used to go into a smaller room, like a storage room. This door will be walled up.

The stairs come from the front door and if you turn the corner you go upstairs. In the before picture: This section housed an entertainment center in a makeshift closet. We ripped that out and now there is nothing next to the stairs.

This is the foyer. Before: There is a closet here that makes it really tight for people to come inside. You normally have to go single file and pretty much leave your shoes on. After: We ripped out the closet, so you now have room to walk in and remove your shoes or take off your coat without the person behind you having to wait outside. We'll end up putting hooks up for jackets and maybe put a bench or something.

This is the small bedroom that is next to the storage room. We tore down the wall between the two small rooms and made one big room. Before: This is the closet that was in there. We are walling up this door(moving it over about 4-5feet), and making a walk in closet out of the exsiting closet. After: We removed the closet so we can frame up the walk in closet, we're also going to make a small linen closet for the bathroom that is in there.

See the hole in the wall? For some reason they made this hole...then patched it up with a piece of paneling which they then painted white. It those little fixes that we're finding that makes you stop and scratch your head.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Kylie as Princess Aurora in Sleeping Beauty!

Mommy and Kylie with the pumpkin.

Fall Leaves

So last weekend Derek raked the front yard...you wouldn't think he did by the looks of it now. But as he was raking i bundled Kylie up in her winter bunting and outside we went. She decided she needed to play n the leaves...can you find Kylie?

There she is!!!

Who wants to lay down...

when you can sit up!!

Kylie got a Bumbo chair and even though we only use it for a few minutes at a time, she LOVES it! So now not only do we do tummy time, we have bumbo time!

I love my Bumbo!!

She was looking at some thing and went cross eyed!

Taquito enjoys tummy time too!

More home improvement

So in our basement we have three rooms. One we use as a guestroom with a bathroom, but it doesn't have a window, so it's not really a bedroom. Then a room that we can only assume was used as a huge closet by the previous owners and then the family room. Well, we decided we needed a bit more room, especially since Kylie will eventually have more toys then I'll know what to do with. So we have decided to knock the wall down between the large closet and the bedroom and put in an egress window. We found a guy who did it in a day!! Here are the before and after pics.

Here is the large closet, the wall on the left is coming down and the small window is becoming an egress. The picture on the left shows the small window.

Here is the same large closet with the egress window. They got it done in a day! We just have to wait for the inspector to come on Tuesday!

Now that it's done we can begin demo on the rest of the basement!!

Also, I got a new chandelier for over the kitchen table and new window treatments in the livingroom!!

Home Improvement

So the City of Crystal has this event every other year that we like to call...Take Your Crap to the Curb Day. You bring your unwanted stuff to the curb, there are a few stipulations, and the city has it hauled away. This year we brought a bunch of furniture, including our kitchen table, down to the curb. Most of it gets claimed by the peeps driving around looking to add other peoples crap to their house.

So for the past couple weeks we have been sans kitchen table. Which is fine, we normally eat in the livingroom. But that will all change now that Ky-Ky is here. Time to start eating around the dinner table! We also got a matching buffet, which kinda made it all seem like alot of stuff in a small room, but hey, we're still working on the home improvement stuff.

Here are pics!

We root for the home team!

Our friends Matt and Niki got Kylie her first Twins shirt. It has a name on the back and everything...this one is Justin Morneau's shirt. We'll get to wear it one more time this year(unless...)

Afternoon Contemplation

So in the rare moment that i find myself being able to sit and surf the net as my daughter is quietly snoozing, i find myself staring at her and wondering "How did i get here??". It's not a bad thing for me to think this, i think it's because i used to look back on the past and think...really carrie? What were you thinking? or i wish could change that. But i see now that all roads pointed here. I went down the road of "the wrong guy" numerous times till i found the right one and i couldn't imagine my life without him. Especially now that i look at Kylie snoozing in her car seat; i see both her daddy and myself in her and think that is the greatest thing.

At Target today, a little old man stopped to peer in at Kylie. He asked the normal questions...how old? Boy or girl?(She was wearing pink today...lots of it) I gave hm a break on the boy or girl question cuz he was so nice and such a sweatheart. Then he looked at me and said..."I have three girls, the time went by really fast. So you make sure to hug her everyday and enjoy your time with your husband and duaghter as a family." Then he actually patted my hand and walked away. I almost started crying in Target! So i think that is my reasoning for my afternoon contemplation...i guess i just took a moment to "stop and smell the roses"

Three Weeks

Man, i cannot believe how time has flown by. Kylie is three weeks old as of friday the 25th. My little one will be a month old soon, you can tell she's getting bigger, but she doesn't look like she's bigger. If that makes any sense at all.

Grandpa Atkinson was here this past weekend. I'm glad he got to sit with her for a while, with him living in Florida, we never know when he'll get to see her again.

Favorite baby item?

Johnson's Bed Time Bath wash and lotion. Kylie passes out and sleeps pretty good once we rub her down with the lotion or after sh gets a bath!! Love it!!!

This past weekend - Hockey and 1st bath

This past weekend Derek had a hockey tournement in Bloomington. He had one game friday night(Kylie and I didn't go, it was too late in the evening) which they won. Then Saturday Kylie and I went to BOTH games that daddy had. They won both and went on to the championship game on Sunday. But we didn't go to Sunday's game, we were both pooped!

Here is Kylie snuggled warm at the ice gardens for the first saturday game!

Here is daddy playing in the first game.

Kylie at the second game! See the cute hat Derek's co-worker made? I love it!!

Then Sunday we were visited by Kevin, Wendy and their son Blake, and Mike and Michon. It was great to see all of them. After all the fun this weekend, we decided to give Kylie her first bath. She actually wasn't too sure what was going on, but she didn't cry.

Here she is coming out of the warm towel.

What are you doing to me??

All clean!!!