Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Kippleys! I'm not sure if we were bad this year but Santa brought us the flu for Brian and I and double ear infections for Charlie. Poor us!! Last Saturday all of the Bakeman family got together for Christmas and I think about 1/2 of us ended up getting sick -either food poisoning or the flu but since Brian got sick with the flu this weekend...it makes me think it was probably the flu. Last Tuesday Charlie came home from daycare with a lot of eye gunk so we took him to Urgent Care incase it was pink eye but it wasn't. Just a double ear infection!! Apparently that's the way we can tell with him because he sure doesn't exhibit any other syptoms.

Santa was very good to me this year - he brought me NKOTBSB tickets in Chicago for this summer!! I guess when Santa saw me almost pee my pants when they performed at the AMA's he thought that would be the perfect present..and he was right. So watch out Chicago...my mom and I are coming this summer and you might never be the same :)


Charlie was anxious to open some presents before Christmas and I told him no - love the pouty lip!






One of the many crazy outfits my Mom got Charlie for Christmas. This isn't very "parent friendly" as it zips up the back but it sure is cute.





But other than being sick, we had a great holiday and are very exited to head to South Dakota this weekend to have another Christmas with my family! Apparently the weather gods are trying to keep me out of SoDak. Shouldn't they be trying to keep people in?? It is South Dakota...:) Anyway, we were supposed to go a few weeks ago but it snowed so we had to stay home. Here's to hoping the weather holds out so my mom can see "my Charlie" this weekend. Oh yeah..and the rest of us are invited too I think!

On Thursday, our daycare had their Christmas party. The kids drew names and exchanged gifts. We got Kate who is one of the only girls. During the day when school is in, our daycare has only boys at home!! Then there are 2 kindergarten girls. I don't know how she stays sane with all those boys all day long!

Charlie with Karen. We are so blessed to have Karen watching Charlie - she's amazing and takes such good care of him!

Kate opening her Barbie. Charlie is hoping she likes it!

All the daycare kids.

Charlie had fun opening the presents but mostly he just loved all of the bows. He also was pretty content after opening the first gift so it was hard to keep him focused and put something down to open the next one! Our house is beginning to resemble Toys R Us though...

Santa knew Charlie liked the basketball hoop at his friend Colin's so he brought him one of his very own!




A present as big as Charlie from Grandpa Frank!




Notice him clutching his ball from the previous toy...




Charlie is getting into books and loves to sit and read them (or chew on them.) Here he is opening a book from his cousins in NY!

Grandma came over for dinner on Christmas Eve and brought Charlie some toys to open up before Christmas morning. He got a book with a coordinating puppet which he thought was hilarious.

Charlie also loved Grandma's bows on all the presents.

We had dinner at Grandma's on Christmas day. Here Charlie is just chillin out with Uncle Ben.

Charlie loves to crawl under things..like Grandma's table.

His Christmas sweater was a little too tight...too many cookies I guess!

Christmas jammies from Grandma

Charlie has grown so much in the past month. Brian and I just keep looking at him and saying, "He's such a BOY now." He's just into EVERYTHING and shaking his head no at us all the time. We went and visited a friend today who has a 6 week old and let's just say I'm glad I don't have another baby around the house because Charlie is not what I would call gentle. He's really giving Stella and Sasha a run for their money lately too - he pulls on their hair and uses Sasha's backfat to pull himself up to standing. Good thing they are so gentle with him!!

I'm sorry for the horrible quality of the video but Charlie's new favorite game is peek-a-boo and he could play it for hours! He loves crouching behind the ottoman and then when we say "Where's Charlie?" He pops up and giggles uncontrollably. He also will lay down on the ground and turn his head away which is another version. I guess he thinks if his head is down, then he's "hiding."

Snowmaggedon!!!

Wow - today is Charlie's first blizzard. He's pretty unimpressed only because he doesn't get to go out in it! My mom asked if we were going to take him sledding. Umm..not today Mom, it's a BLIZZARD! Poor Brian is on his second round on the driveway. So much for a relaxing snowday for him. Luckily, I don't have to help shovel because I'm very busy watching Charlie! A big first (need to get photo documentation still) is that Charlie can crawl up the stairs. Exciting but at the same time, now we have one more thing to watch out for!

Really bad lighting but the side of the house had such big drifts, I had to let the dogs out the front door after Brian was down shoveling the sidewalk because I couldn't get the side door open! Charlie wanted to go out with them.

Here is Brian doing the 2nd pass on the driveway. I don't know how many actual inches we've had but both times he has plowed, it has been about a foot tall.

We tried to take a little Christmas photo shoot for Grandma in his pj's because you never know if they will fit at Christmas time. It is so hard to get him to sit still - he's just too busy!

His top says, "What Santa doesn't bring me, Grandma will!"

I think he's concerned because there's only 3 presents under the tree. Amazingly, he's been really good around the tree. Normally we get a huge real tree but this year between Charlie and the dogs, we took pity on ourselves and just got a small fake tree to see how things go. Charlie likes to look at it but I think it might scare him (probably because I make a loud buzzing sound when he gets close, hehe).

A few weeks ago we thought we'd brave a night out with all the kids. We fed the kids (we didn't give them beer contrary to the pictures!) and then Colin went to bed in his crib and Eloise and Charlie went down in their pack and plays. Charlie had a hard time getting to sleep (and woke poor Eloise up once) but he did great when we woke him up at 11 to drive home and went right to sleep when we tucked him back in. It's not ideal for many nights but if we are all needing a night out to play cards, we now know we can do it!

Charlie also had a big first a few weeks ago with his first haircut!!! He was looking a little rough aorund the edges when his hair would fall over his ears. I guess I'm not that sentimental about his hair but it's because I know as it grows, it's not going to get all cute and curly. He's been cursed with hair like his mommy and daddy - straight, fine, unmanageable, and lots of crazy angles.

Lucky for him, his godmother is a hair stylist!! He was a little unsure but sat very quietly throughout the whole thing! She even used the trimmers :)

Not looking so confident...

Hey - this feels nice.

Saving some for Mom to put in an envelope.

All done!! Looking good :)

We didn't do a very good job taking pictures at Thanksgiving but Charlie enjoyed a taste of all the food and quickly went into a comatose after eating (following in Daddy's footsteps!) But we got one quick picture before we cleaned up.

Gotta run - someone is up from their nap!!!