Christmas!!

What a wonderful Christmas we had! It started Thursday (December 20th) when Craig, Sydney and I opened presents together. Sydney got a highchair from us (we decided to be practical since we were anticipating a big Christmas with family) as well as some other little toys. Her dad got her a fake remote control since she always loves to play with our real ones and guess what???...She still loves the real ones more!! On Friday evening we drove down to Houston and started our Christmas festivities at Craig's parents house. When we showed up they were on their way back from running errands so we walked in to their home and noticed everything was gone. Turns out they had moved everything to their new house as a surprise to us. So we got to spend Christmas in their new, beautiful home. On Saturday night we opened presents with Craig parents, brother, sister-in-law and nephews. It was so much fun! Then on Sunday morning we went to church and came home and opened presents with Craig's mom's family. That afternoon we drove out to the lake and celebrated Christmas with Craig's dad's family. On Monday morning (Christmas Eve) we drove over to my parents house. My brother and sister were in town and we went to church that night with the whole family. We decided to keep Sydney with us for all the singing at the beginning of the service and then took her to the nursery for the sermon part of the service. After that was over, we went and picked her back up so she could participate in the candlelight part of the service, and more singing. She LOVED it! Then we went home and had tamales and played Cranium with everyone. It was a lot of FUN!! Christmas morning we woke up and I made a really good (everyone tells me) breakfast for us. Then we opened presents with my family. Around 2pm we went to my Grandma's and had Christmas AGAIN! That's right...5 Christmases in 3 days! Sydney really raked in the gifts too...just as we predicted. We were lucky we didn't have to rent a U-Haul to get back to Dallas!! We came back Christmas night and got to unpack and hang out all day Wednesday since Craig and I were both off. What a fabulous Christmas!!

Sydney meets Santa

We took Sydney this weekend to see Santa. She didn't cry and was very intrigued by him.

8 months!!!

Wow! Mom is a little behind this month on posting all of Sydney's new accomplishments! First, she now officially has 2 TEETH!!




We have also gotten rid of her baby bath tub and now she gets to splash around in the big tub. She LOVES it!!

She loves to eat her wagon wheels!

And she is officially crawling!! She isn't very fast yet but she can definitely get to where she wants to go. Most of the time, she likes to go after our remote.

So much to be thankful for...

Craig and I have so much to be thankful for this year. We have an amazing marriage and a beautiful daughter. But this year is different. For those who haven't heard my dad had a bad accident back on October 25th--he was thrown from his horse, life flighted to Hermann hospital in Houston, in ICU for 3 weeks and in rehab for another week. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving my mom called and said my dad was well enough to come home from the hospital!! Does it get any better than that?? We were able to spend Thanksgiving together as a family and it was very special to have my dad back at home. He is still walking with a walker and has very bad blurry vision (the eyepatch helps him see better). All in all though, he is making tremendous strides everyday and we know it is because of all the prayers being said for him. Here are some pictures from our weekend together:

Big week for Sydney!

Sydney has done so many new things this week so I just had to make a post about it. She got her first tooth last Saturday! And the one right next to it is pretty close to coming in as well. Just in time for Thanksgiving dinner! (I don't have a picture of it yet)

Then she learned how to pull out all of the toys out of her toy box.

She also started rocking on all fours...not quite crawling yet but she's getting very close!

Strike a Pose

That's it, I'm outta here!!!

I think it may be time to put up the bouncy seat. Sydney thinks that she can try to escape out of it now. The problem is, when she gets in this position, she can't get herself back up again.

Seven Months Old!!!

It's been pretty crazy around the Atkinson household lately so I'm a little behind on posting Sydney's 7 month pictures. Sydney was actually home sick on her her 7 month birthday, November 2nd. I took her to the pediatrician the day before that for having a 101.2 fever and a bad cough and it turned out she had an ear infection in one ear and RSV. Apparently RSV is super contagious so the pediatrician told us not to take Sydney to daycare for 10 days!!! She is finally starting to feel a little better now so that's good. Craig and I will be so happy when she stops getting sick so much--we feel so bad for her!

Sydney is still working on crawling. Or maybe I should say, mommy is trying to help Sydney learn how to crawl. Really she has no interest at all in doing it! :) We've also be practicing finding her eyes, nose and mouth and clapping and waving hi and bye. Sydney loves this new exersaucer/jumper that we got for her. She has so much fun playing in it. She also just loves to sit on the floor and play with all her toys. She has said "mama" and "dada" though not consistently yet and not necessarily to one of us. Oh, well--we'll still take it!! She is so amazing and we just love her so much!