Erin, Author at The Sunny Side Up Blog

Giveaway

11.22.12

Thanksgiving Book Giveaways!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Popping in on turkey day for a fun giveaway! I’m giving away two books and I’m so excited about both of them!

I’m grateful for a long list of things each Thanksgiving but motherhood is always at the top of that list.

Being mom to these three pretty much tops everything. They drive me crazy on a daily basis and I wouldn’t have it any other way. And yes, I know I need a more recent picture of my three kids all together, but once Kole started moving we said good-bye to calm, posed family pictures. Most of my recent pics of him now are of the back of his head running away. :)

The first book I’m giving away is all about motherhood. In fact, it’s a book written by a group of mothers. A group of wonderful mothers who all have such inspiring words to share.

The book is titled Deliberate Motherhood: 12 key powers of peace, purpose, order and joy and was compiled by the women at The Power of Moms. I’ve been to one of their motherhood retreats and learned so much. I knew I would really enjoy this book. Motherhood is such a journey of highs and lows and this book is full of wonderful stories and uplifting ideas from over 60 mothers. I just received this book and have enjoyed reading it so much! I started with the chapter written by my friend Sarah from Clover Lane and couldn’t put it down! She is always so inspiring to me and so were all of the other mothers who’s chapters I’ve read so far. I’m so excited to give one copy of this book away to one of you! You can also check out 71Toes and MaisyMak (two other fun blogs) for another chance to win because they are also giving away one copy of this book. SO fun. :)

OK – so if motherhood is my ultimate favorite topic a very close second would have to be organizing. I know – this is not news to anyone reading. :) I’m so excited to give away three copies of this fabulous on-line book:

The Staying Organized Survival Guide. You guys. When Chloe wrote me and asked if I would do a giveaway for her book I told her that I needed to check it out first. Obviously I’m pretty protective of my blog and only want to do giveaways for things I really stand behind. (Which is why I politely turn down most of the giveaway offers I receive). I was planning on just skimming this book to see if it would be a good fit for my blog and before I knew it, time had flown by and I had read the whole thing! I loved it! I felt myself nodding the whole way through and have blogged about a lot of the same things Chloe mentions in her book. This book is great for someone who wants to be organized but doesn’t know how or where to start. You will spend just 15 minutes a day for 30 days organizing your home and along the way you will learn strategies to help you get and stay organized. What a great way to start out the month of January! *You do need to have an Amazon account to get access to this book.

I have truly enjoyed both of the books I mentioned above and think either one of them (or both!) would make a great Christmas gift for you or someone you know. You can read more about Deliberate Motherhood here and you can read more about The Staying Organized Survival Guide here.

If you would like to win one (or both) of these books, leave a comment below that includes your name and city. Let me know which book you are interested in winning and I will pick some winners on Saturday. YEA! :)

I can’t believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving! It crept up so quickly. If you are planning on starting your Christmas shopping on black Friday good luck! For those of you who are new to my blog (hello and welcome!), here are the links to some of our favorite toys and gift ideas if you need suggestions…

{FAVORITE TOYS 2011}

{FAVORITE TOYS 2012}

{TOYS POSSIBILITIES FOR THIS YEAR}

{GIFT IDEAS FROM MY FRIEND’S ANNUAL FAVORITE THINGS PARTY – 2011}

I’ll be posting a few more fun gift ideas during the next month!

Happy shopping, good luck with the book giveaways, and have a fabulous Thanksgiving everyone!

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

11.21.12

A Thanksgiving Performance

Hello friends! Slow week on the blog. Like so many of you we are preparing for Thanksgiving and spending time with family. Plus I got a nasty cold last weekend that has forced me to actually go to bed at night instead of staying up until 2 a.m. blogging. My late night blogging habit and lack of sleep in general is probably the reason for my nasty cold. Not that it’s going to stop me from blogging. Merely a minor set back. :) But I need to get feeling better by Thursday! I can’t be sick on Thanksgiving! This time of year is the best. My mom and I are laying the bread out to dry tonight so that we can make my grandma’s stuffing. My mom always assigns me simple tasks to help with Thanksgiving dinner – break the bread, peel the potatoes, set the table, come up with a craft to keep the kids entertained… she clearly knows my limits in the kitchen. :) My family was all joking tonight that next year we are having Thanksgiving at the new house and breaking in my new kitchen. I said “NOOOOO! I would love to have you all come and we can ohh and ahh at the new appliances, but we can’t actually use them! We will call Claim Jumper and I’ll treat everyone to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner – Erin style.” ;)

Last week my toothless pilgrim put on quite a show for our school’s annual 1st grade Thanksgiving performance. Ad was one of the few kids who had a speaking part and we practiced religiously all week to get it right. She ended the show with “We hope you all have a groovy Thanksgiving!” She was brilliant and will no doubt be making her debut in Hollywood or on Broadway. It’s really just a matter of time.

I went to her classroom after and the two of us enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast together.

Then we watched a slide show where the kids had all drawn a picture on the computer and shared what they are thankful for this year. Addie’s was so precious. Clearly she has mad artistic skills as well because our family has never looked better. I especially love Kenny’s pink pants. Super hot.

Watching the slide show reminded me of just two years ago when I was at Ellie’s 1st grade performance. It also reminded me of what she was thankful for:

I accepted my “mother of the year” award shortly after her picture debut.

Pilgrim #1 with mom two years ago.

I can’t believe how fast my kids are growing up on me. Ellie’s 1st grade performance feels like last week.

These two were so little two years ago. Just look at all of those chubby cheeks!

Addison and her darling teacher who we both love. She and I have become instant friends and Addison adores her. We are so grateful for both of my girls’ teachers this year. Good teachers make a world of difference.

Addison was anxious to change out of her pilgrim hat and put her headband back on. She was supposed to wear all black to the performance but really wanted to wear her silver sparkle skirt. I tried to convince her to wear black pants and to lose the big flower headband but she wasn’t having it.
I said –

“Ad – I don’t think pilgrims wore stuff like that and you are supposed to look like a pilgrim.”

“Mom – the only reason they didn’t is because they didn’t have a choice. If pilgrims had a silver sparkle skirt they would have chosen it over black pants too.”

How am I supposed to argue with that logic? So I didn’t. I replied “sliver sparkle skirt it is!” And she was one stylish little pilgrim.

I took countless pictures of her so that I wouldn’t forget our fun morning together.

Until I started getting poses like this.

That’s when I know picture taking time is over. :)

And now we are ready for the big day! Our house is decked in Thanksgiving decor (along with the beginnings of my Christmas decor) which makes it official. Time to bring on the turkey! We have so much to be grateful for this year.

If you are traveling, be safe. I’ll be popping in tomorrow with a fun giveaway, but until then happy Thanksgiving week everyone!

xoxo, Erin

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Kole

11.16.12

Catch up day

Happy Friday everyone! Kole and I are enjoying a nice morning at home. A bit of a catch up day for me that I’m so grateful for. Which basically means that I will be doing lots of cleaning and laundry and organizing while Kole does lots of…

piling and stacking

and climbing. :)

the paper mulberry

I pinned this beautiful picture last night because I love the look of every day dishes organized on open shelving. I’d love to do this in my new kitchen, but then I start to think about my everyday dishes. I just don’t know that the blue and green sippy cups would have the same affect?

Have a great weekend everyone!

xoxo, Erin

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Family

11.15.12

A Baby Garland

Me and my little sister. Much like my girls, the two of us were thick as thieves growing up.

And here is my beautiful little sister now. All grown up with a family of her own. Love these four. If you’ve read my blog for a while these aren’t new faces. :)

I just wanted to pop in today to share a fun idea for a baby garland. Carly (my sister above who I call Carbon Monoxide – long story) threw a baby shower at her house last weekend and made the CUTEST baby garland for the party. I had to share it with all of you!

Isn’t that adorable!? And so fun and creative!? I love it! They are ALL random pics of my niece and nephew. Every single picture is a different baby pic of these two:

I know. They. Are. Adorable. Claire is my girls’ partner in crime and sweet little Jonah doesn’t go anywhere without his pink blanket. Love that.

(btw – this is my sister’s house in the background. She and her husband have totally renovated their home over the past few years and it is so modern and sleek and cool. I need to get out to visit again so I can take some more pics! And so I can love all over these two.)

Anyway – back to the adorable baby garland!

Cut some party hats out of cute scrapbook paper and hang the pics on a string with clothespins. So simple and easy and fun. If you are hosting a baby shower with a room full of moms another idea is to have each mom send in a baby picture to hang up before the party. Then everyone can guess which baby belongs to each mom. :)

Love it.

And since we’re on the topic of my sister and babies, here is one of my favorite pics of the two of us –

My mom snapped this soon after Car delivered her first baby. Happy times.

Sisters and babies and fun party ideas. Good topics indeed.

Have a great Thursday!

xoxo, Erin

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New House

11.14.12

Siding and Stairs

SO many things have been going on with the new house! My intention was to blog a lot more than I have been about decisions being made, but everything is coming at me so fast that I don’t have time to sit down and write about it all. Here are a few things I am working on at the moment —

I was torn about the siding for the peaks on my house (staggered edge vs. straight edge) so my siding guy put some up on the house for me to see…

STAGGERED

STRAIGHT

(obviously these aren’t painted the right color yet)

I love that he did that because I’m such a visual person. I was still a little unsure so last night I pulled up some of my exterior inspiration pics that have the shingle siding on them. I love all of these houses and pulled pieces from a lot of them when we were in the design stage…

this old house

better homes and gardens

houzz

house of turquoise

my uncommon slice of suburbia

houzz.com

james hardie

What do you know! Every single one of the pictures above have the straight edge shingle siding. And I love every single one of the pictures above.

Decision made! Thank you Pinterest! :)

A few other house happenings in the past 5 days. We have completely re-designed my girls’ bathroom to give them a separate tub and shower vs. a tub/shower combo although I had to shrink the linen built-ins to do it so I’m still debating that change. We’ve decided to change the location of our family room fireplace to the side wall instead of the corner of the room like I originally had it. LONG story on that one! I still need to see and approve the new sketches but I think I’m going to like the new plan better. We’ve started talking about swimming pool options (fun!). I’m still debating some open shelving in my kitchen. SO torn about that one. I love the look but don’t want to do something that I’ll regret like having too many clear/open cupboards and not enough closed cupboards to store things that aren’t so pretty (thoughts on open shelving anyone?). We’ve changed and finalized the formal dining built-ins and ceiling plan. Kenny is sending our builder an e-mail this very second about all of the soffit plans throughout the house. I didn’t even know what a soffit was six months ago and now I could write a book about them. Kenny is also working on finalizing plans for the solar panels that will be on the side of the house (I lost one of my fireplaces because of them – boo). Air conditioning and heater ducts have been established throughout the house. The block wall between us and our neighbors that will be in the whole development has been chosen and agreed upon. Fireplaces just arrived at the store and are waiting to be installed. And Thursday I have a meeting to go over stair case design.

See why my brain is fried? I’m sure there’s more but right now I’m too tired to keep typing.

Who’s crazy idea was it to build a house!?

Here are a few inspiration pics I’m taking to my stair meeting this week —

This is what I want the banister to look like. Love the window seat in this picture too. I don’t have a window seat in my stair landing, but I have others throughout the house. I hope Kole ends his pillow obsession at some point so they will actually look pretty and not completely bare like my couches and beds currently do. :)

I’m thinking of doing a wood/carpet combination on the stairs like this picture. I love all wood stairs, but want them to be safe and comfy for the kids.

And I’d LOVE some planks on the walls (or any other type of molding), but I doubt that’s happening near the stairs. Every time I say the word “plank” Kenny gets a nervous twitch. I’m trying to reign it in and not over plank the house (if there even is such a thing). And I’m trying to not blow the budget. And I’m trying to not send my husband off a cliff. Especially since he is dancing awfully close to a very steep one. :)

To be honest, we both are these days!

Did any of you build your house? I’d love to hear some survivor stories.

;)

xoxo, Erin

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Holidays

11.12.12

Gratitude Journal

Gratitude has been on my mind a lot lately. Aside from the fact that it’s November and almost Thanksgiving (a natural time to think about gratitude) I’ve also been thinking a lot about gratitude because a few weeks ago I read this quote and can’t seem to stop thinking about it:

I know this is true. I know that happiness doesn’t come from buying the next thing or by moving on to the next stage in life. I know that to be happy we need to live in the moment and be grateful for what we have right in front of us. We need to be grateful for how our life looks right now in its present state (regardless of whether or not it is how we thought our life would look). But how do we do that? That is what has been on my mind a lot this month. How do we recognize and appreciate all of the wonderful things in our life on a daily basis? Life can be so busy and sometimes stressful and just overwhelming. I have been feeling that a lot lately. Busy, stressed, overwhelmed. How can we make gratitude a part of our every day lives? I was talking to Kenny about this a week ago on Saturday and was suggesting some things I want to do in our home to help us focus on all of the positive things in our lives. Then on Sunday I went to church and was asked to speak the following week… on gratitude. It gave me chills! Although I have to say that maybe I’ll think twice next time before pondering topics like this. Speaking in church was NOT the outcome I was looking for! :) But I did speak in church – today – on gratitude. And I was nervous. But I was more nervous for Kenny because he had to manage all three kids while I was sitting in the front of the room with the other speakers and he definitely had his hands full. Let’s just say that Kole didn’t do him any favors. :)

I don’t want to bore you with all of the details of my talk, but I thought I’d just mention three things I spoke about – the three ways that I think we can make gratitude a part of our daily lives.

Find Joy in the Little Things

Accept that God is in Control and Trust Him

Love and Serve Others

When I was talking about finding joy in the little things I mentioned a time in my life when I was really unhappy. About a year after Kenny and I were married we moved to Virginia for him to attend Law School. The first few weeks were so fun – being in a new city, decorating our little apartment. I was all ready for a new adventure! But soon the “newness” and excitement wore off. I was always working – teaching school, tutoring students after school, and working several nights a week at a clothing store at the mall. Kenny was always studying. We hadn’t made many friends, we had no money, and I was terribly homesick. It was the first time I had ever been away from my family and friends and all I could think about was how much I missed my life in Utah and how miserable I was. I had a bit of the “poor me” syndrome and I didn’t like it. So I decided to start a gratitude journal. I had read about it in the book Simple Abundance. I started writing down five simple joys from each day – a funny e-mail from my sister that made me smile, the beautiful trees on my commute to work, and some days – harder days – I wrote that I was grateful that the day was over. That was ok. Real life isn’t perfect and wonderful all the time. In the beginning I was just looking for the good in my life so that I would have five things to write down, but before long I was looking for the good in my life period. An inner shift was happening. Taking time each day to reflect on the simple, every day joys and the abundance in my life (instead of what my life was lacking) made me realize how wonderful my life really was. My situation didn’t change – the way I looked at it did. Now I look back on those three years in Virginia with such good memories. My time there helped me become a better person and my gratitude journal I kept while we were there is so special to me. It is such a neat glimpse into my life during that time and it truly taught me how to find joy in the little things.

I want my girls to experience the same thing that I did. I want them to feel the happiness that comes from focusing on the positive things in their lives. We celebrate the every day joys already, but it’s different when you have to write them down. All of the good in your life becomes even more apparent.

So I bought some inexpensive notebooks from Target. These are my girls’ new gratitude journals. (I added a label with their names on them after I took this picture.) Every night after they read stories with dad they are going to write down what they are grateful for from that day. They can write down three things or one thing – it doesn’t matter. I just want them to end the night thinking about how blessed they are.

I also bought this book to read to them to introduce the gratitude journals. It’s called Thanks for Thanksgiving and is such a darling book. I love children’s literature. I could spend all day in the children’s section of Barnes and Noble! This is a perfect book for this time of year and also a perfect book to introduce gratitude journals because it just lists simple things to be thankful for…

Isn’t it fun!? I love the simple rhymes and the beautiful illustrations. A great book to add to our holiday collection.

Because I need to practice what I preach when my kids are involved, here are five things I’m grateful for today:

1- I’m grateful that my church talk is over. :)

2 – I’m grateful for a fun phone call with my mom. She is the queen of gratitude and positive thinking and sets such a great example for me.

3 – I’m grateful that the dinner I made tonight didn’t blow up or taste awful. It was a newish recipe for me so the fact that it turned out ok is rare and in need of celebrating.

4 – I’m grateful for all of our Veterans.

5 – I’m grateful that our weather is finally cooling off. The heater clicked on for the first time last night and it smelled like Christmas! Plus I finally get to start wearing all of my boots. Oh happy day. :)

Kids are out of school tomorrow for Veterans Day. Here is our agenda:

– Meeting with our builder to establish where all of the air conditioner/heater vents will go (exciting stuff).

– Help El finish up her school turkey project

– 45 minutes at the gym (my girls love the kids club)

– Begin Christmas decorating (I just can’t wait one more minute!)

– Potluck at the park with friends

Not bad! I’m also grateful for a fun/low key schedule. :)

I ended my talk today with my favorite quote on gratitude. I shared this quote last year around Thanksgiving but thought I’d share it again. I never get tired of hearing this and feel like I always need the reminder. Maybe some of you will enjoy it too. Have a great Monday!

xoxo, Erin

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Uncategorized

11.08.12

A lost tooth and more gift ideas!

Talking toy ideas again to help with your Christmas shopping! But first I have to share some important news…

Someone lost her first tooth today. :) I mentioned this on facebook already, but need to document it here on the blog so that we have this milestone in our family scrapbook. And what a milestone it was! After two years of patiently watching her sister lose teeth and get money/attention from the tooth fairy it is finally Addison’s turn. She pulled it out herself and then came running down the stairs yelling “Mommy! It came out! My tooth came out! I pulled it! It’s bleeding! I look like a vampire!” HA! :) Ellie and I were laughing. As soon as we got it cleaned up she instantly got to work writing a note to the tooth fairy asking if she could please keep her first tooth to show her class tomorrow. I think “Liliana” will be ok with that. :) I have to say that after things calmed down a huge wave of sadness swept over me. I love that little baby tooth smile so much and within a year or two it will be gone. Kind of a reality slap of how quickly my babies are growing up. If I could freeze these girls in their current age forever I honestly think I would. (Kole at age 2… not so much – I’d give him a year or two before I’d freeze him.) ;) We went to get yogurt at Addie’s favorite place to celebrate and had a fun afternoon despite the fact that several times mom had to hold back the tears.

And now on to the toys! Several of you have asked what I’m getting my kids for Christmas this year so I thought I’d share a few ideas I have. Of course who knows what Santa will come up with last minute, but here are some things I’ve bought and some things I have a feeling we might see come December.

My girls love their Princess Toddler Dolls and over the past two years they have collected most of them.

But they don’t have Mulan. So when I saw her in Costco a month ago I picked her up thinking I was being so smart starting my shopping so early. I brought her home and set her in my closet and that night my girls found her! I was so bummed! I told them she was for a birthday gift and they stared at her longingly in her package all night long. They are getting too smart and know all of my hiding spots so from now on all toys will be shipped/taken straight to Kenny’s office. I can just see Kenny working with all of his big shot clients surrounded by princesses and polly pockets. :)

Another doll option I’m considering are these fun Strawberry Shortcake dolls. Wouldn’t they be cute stocking stuffers!? I love them because I had something similar when I was a little girl.

Plust I just have a feeling these two might enjoy them. :)

Kole has loved his nesting blocks so much that I thought it would be fun to move on to some real building blocks.

Kole also LOVES puzzles and has mastered everything we own.

I know these Thomas the Train Wood Puzzles will be a huge hit. By the way, if you are thinking of getting puzzles for your kids, my FAVORITE puzzles are Melissa and Doug Puzzles. Two of Kole’s favorite puzzles that I forgot to take a picture of and mention yesterday are the Magnetic Fishing Game Puzzle and the Latches Board Puzzle. He has loved both of those and plays with them all the time.

While we’re on the subject of trains, I’m also thinking of getting Kole a Train Table. I would love to hear from any of you boy moms – what is a good one to get? Do I want one that has the track nailed down (sounds nice for right now because Kole gets frustrated when he can’t keep it together) or will he want to put the track together when he gets older? Are they something boys play with for years, or will it be collecting dust by January? Thoughts? Opinions? Thank you in advance! :)

Wanna see what I am the most excited about getting Kole this year for Christmas!?

A toddler trampoline! Kenny and I have always planned to get a big trampoline with padded sides once we get into the new house and have room in our yard for one, but I can’t wait one more day. My boy has WAY too much energy and just needs to bounce! He is constantly jumping on beds and loves to be in motion. We had one of these when Ellie was a toddler and she loved it. But most of the time she just sat on it and played with her dolls. That won’t be the case with Kole. :) I’m hoping this helps on days that I can’t take him to the park. I haven’t decided which one to order yet (so many fun choices on Amazon), but definitely something like the one above with a handle bar for him to hold. Usually I would hesitate to buy something like this because I don’t have the room for it, but I am so desperate right now I don’t even care! Drop that baby right smack in the middle of my living room floor! You want to eat fishy crackers in there too? Go ahead if it will keep you entertained for 5 minutes. This is what having three kids has done to me… :)

Another fun thing I’m looking at for my kids this year is the Chest-R-Desk. My cute friend Kami at No Biggie told me about this one. It’s a chest, a chair, and a desk all in one!

This is Kami’s cute little boy testing it out. It’s great for kids 3-12 so all three of my kids could use it. One of my biggest pet peeves is how my kids’ art projects and homework end up all over our kitchen table making it hard to clean up and feed them every 30 minutes (I swear I’m feeding someone every 30 minutes!). I love that they can keep all of their paper and art work inside of the chest and then pull it out and have their own little work space. How fun and functional is that!? I know my girls would LOVE these. I may need three of them. :) You can purchase them at Chest R Desk or check out the Chest R Desk Facebook page. You can also see more pictures and a video showing how they work on Kami’s fun blog – No Biggie. Such a cool gift idea.

The girls need new rain gear this year for Christmas. I know most people buy snow hats and gloves, but around here we gear up for rainy season in Jan. and Feb.

I haven’t found “the ones” yet but I’m searching for cute rain gear so if any of you see some let me know!

My girls have LIVED in their American Girl pajamas. And so have their dolls. They have grown out of these beloved pj.’s so I’m looking at some new ones for Christmas.

These pj’s are a bit of a splurge, but they are made of the softest material and my girls want to sleep in them every night so I’m spending a bit more and getting one pair of really nice pj’s instead of buying them multiple pj’s that are cheaper quality. (Of course, that doesn’t include Christmas pj’s… they may end up with a pair or two.. or ten of those.) :) It goes without saying that anything from the American Doll Store would be a fun surprise for little girls on Christmas morning! That store makes me want to be a little girl again.

My girls told me the other day that they hope Santa brings them another doll house. I said “what!?” No way. You already have several.” So my girls will not be getting another doll house, but I do think a doll house is such a fun gift! I’ve loved seeing my girls faces Christmas morning when they see the doll house of their dreams in the living room. There are so many fun options to choose from. I mentioned our favorites here.

Another gift I’m considering are some new Animal Bath Wraps from Pottery Barn Kids. We have worn ours out! We’ve had them for years. My elephants love them.

And so does my little frog.

Ribbit.

I have more fun gift ideas for my three peanuts, but I’ll have to share them another time. I need to go check and make sure a certain tooth fairy is on call this evening. :)

Happy Shopping!

xoxo, Erin

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Uncategorized

11.07.12

Favorite Toys 2012 (Christmas gift ideas!)

Sharing some of our favorite toys from the past year! If you’re like me, you are starting your Christmas shopping early to avoid the December madness. I’m going to be doing most of my shopping on-line this year (which is a first for me!). I LOVE being at the mall in November/December, but I just don’t have the time to do my usual frequent trips. So Amazon is quickly becoming my new best friend. :) I’ve added links to most of these toys if Amazon is your best friend too. Hope this gives you a few ideas for Christmas! (You can see our favorite toys from 2011 here.)

This isn’t a great picture, but I’d have to say my girls’ number one favorite toy this year was their Razor Scooters. They have LIVED on them. Ride them almost every day. My girls have the red ones (they come in all different colors) and they only cost around $30 each. Perfect gift if your kids don’t already have them. But I bet they do. :) My mom bought these for my girls the last time she was here watching the kids. I told her she shouldn’t have spoiled them with such a big surprise, but she of course said that’s what grandmas are for and I of course was grateful because these have kept my girls so entertained. Grandma’s know their stuff. :)

Of course helmets make the best fashion accessory (when mom remembers them). :)

A new bike is always a fun surprise on Christmas morning. This was our year to say good-bye to training wheels! Woot Woot!

Several of you have asked where I got my play kitchen from. It is called the Kidkraft kitchen and we’ve had it for years. I found the newest model on-line and it is really similar. I love the fun pastel colors. Every penny we spent on this play kitchen was well worth it! (So were the hours we spent assembling this thing. It is quite a project to assemble so if you buy it give yourself plenty of time!)

Our table and chairs match the kitchen and is the Kidkraft Nantucket table and chair set.

Every little one needs a little table with little chairs. :)

My kids all love these Boogie Board LCD writing tablets. I only get them out when we are traveling so that they are a fun new thing to keep them entertained in the car.

Out of all of the bath toys, the biggest hit with my girls are still their Barbie Mermaids.

They have played with these in the tub every night for YEARS. I will be so sad when the day comes that they don’t want to play with them anymore. I can’t tell you a favorite because they play with them all. (And that’s saying a lot since we have collected an embarrassing amount of these over the years!)

Another fun toy my girls have played with a lot this year are their La La Loopsy dolls. Kenny’s mom bought them each one last year for Christmas and the girls loved them so much that she bought them more for their birthdays. (It seems both grandma’s love to spoil!) :) These dolls above aren’t in their original clothes by the way. Another bonus is that they are skinny enough to fit in the barbie clothes. My girls are all about switching up the outfits! This crew was just settling in to watch the new Tinkerbell Secret of the Wings movie last weekend. Another fun gift idea for little girls. Of course Kenny and I couldn’t wait until Christmas. The two of us were more excited to see it than Ellie and Addie were. True story. (It didn’t disappoint!)

My girls have loved and played with their pink canopy doll crib for years. I love that this set has baskets underneath for doll accessories. Kole destroyed the mobile, but the rest in still in tact. He isn’t quite as gentle with the dolls either, but we’re working on it. :)

I think a chair is such a fun gift idea for little kids too. My girls still sit and read in this chair and Kole loves to rock in it. I think kids love having a comfy chair that is just their size. I couldn’t find this exact one on-line, but Pottery Barn Kids always has darling chairs for kiddos and you can have their name personalized on the chair.

My girls have been obsessed with Littlest Pet Shop toys this year! To tell you the truth, I think they are kind of ugly. I wasn’t that excited to buy them last year at Christmas when the girls asked for them, but I did because that’s what they really wanted and they have played with them non stop. In fact, that is what they want again this year. More Littlest Pet Shop stuff!

My girls LOVE the Littlest Pet Shop Treehouse Playset. They have played with this thing so much that I finally stopped putting it away in their closet. It is just out on their floor all the time.

Another Littlest Pet Shop house of some sort.

Guess we will be seeing more of this kind of thing Christmas morning!

My girls love crafts of any kind and this was a fun birthday gift they have really enjoyed. It’s a Mosaic Jewelry Box and they are having so much fun putting it together. They work on them a little here and there and keep their jewelry inside. A fun gift for Christmas or a birthday party.

Other fun toys we play with a lot around here are kept in Ellie’s closet. I didn’t have time to get individual pictures of everything, but here are a few items they love:

Polly Pockets
Jenga
Lincoln Logs
Zhu Zhu Pets
Magnetic Dolls
Disney Figurines

Of course I can’t mention all of those “girl” toys without sharing what my little dude has loved this year.

Here are a handful of Kole’s favorite go-to toys.

Playskool Busy Poppin’ Pals

A My First Set of Legos. Sounds like from all of you “boy moms” I have a lot of legos in my future??

A simple set of stacking/nesting blocks. Funny how the simplest toys are often the ones played with the most. Kole has LOVED this basic set of blocks. He stacks them, crashes them, lines them up, nests them back inside each other, and then does it all over again.

Gotta love the Fisher Price Cash Register. Kole loves it and my girls still play “store” with it. I bought it because it brought back so many fun memories for me. I was “queen pay lady” in my hood growing up. That’s right. I had mad cash register skills and was proud of it.

Kole is getting too big for this now, but the Fisher Price Piano was beloved by all three of my kids at around age one. It’s perfect for when little ones are just learning to pull themselves up. My kids would “stand” at this and play music for over 10 minutes. Which is huge at that age! I’m keeping this one for the grand kids. :) (Again check around because Amazon’s price is high on this one.)

K – if you have a little boy age 1-2 this is my NUMBER ONE toy recommendation! It’s the iPlay Fun Time Tractor and Kole LOVES it. You push the orange thing in the front to make the tractor drive. When you lift the farmer out it plays “Farmer in the Dell” and when you take out or put in each of the animals, it makes their sound. A great toy for teaching animal sounds which is why I bought it for Kole. He honestly played with it every day for over six months. Such a fun toy!

My sweet Kole is obsessed with “choo choo’s” and this Melissa and Doug Wooden Farm Train is his current favorite. It is such a cute train and comes with fun things that ride inside. Who knows where they all were when I took this picture? I’m sure the pieces will turn up under couch pillows or in the girls’ beds.

Of course Thomas will always be a popular choice as well.

I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I have to include my ALL – TIME favorite book for toddlers. This Wheels on the Bus book with movable parts has been such a hit with all three of my kids. It’s my go-to gift for baby showers because it is just such a fun book and all little ones love it.

Each page is so interactive and fun. I’ve bought a new copy with each of my three kids because this book has been so trashed from each child reading it so many times. A great Christmas gift for any toddler.

And last but not least, our Little Tykes red toy car. Supposed to be for the toddler but always ends up carrying an extra heavy load. :)

Whew! That felt like a lot of toys. No wonder I am constantly re-organizing them! They have taken over my house! I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few so I’ll add them to future posts. I’m also going to post a few of the things that Santa might be contemplating this year for Christmas so more gift ideas will be coming soon.

Hope this was helpful to some of you!

Happy shopping everyone!

xoxo, Erin

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New House

11.06.12

The perfect grey

Hi friends! Today I received 3-D renderings of my new kitchen! My cabinet guy is going to start making the cabinets soon. So exciting! We’ve worked out almost every detail and are just tweaking the oven hood. I sent him an e-mail this morning that said “I don’t know why I’m so stressed about this oven hood! I just want it to look exactly how I want it to look. But I’m not sure exactly how I want it to look.” Ha! :) I’m sure he just loves working with me. ;) He has been the best. SO patient. Kenny along with my parents and siblings often joke that aside from being decisively indecisive I’m the worst kind of high maintenance because I’m totally high maintenance but don’t think that I’m high maintenance.

I’m not high maintenance by the way.

But I am decisively indecisive. And I am happy about my kitchen! I will share lots of details at some point for those of you who get as excited about kitchen design as I do. I mentioned that my cabinets are going to be white and grey so this past week I’ve been searching for the perfect shade of grey for them to be painted. It has been a lot harder than I thought it would be! Here are a few pictures from various sites that I’ve pulled inspiration from…

Southern Living

Love this. I’m doing something similar in one of my bathrooms and I’m hunting for similar sconces. Aren’t they fun!? We are just starting to think/talk about lighting and I have been really anticipating this part of the building process. I love light fixtures! They are the perfect accessory to a room and can make or break the look. Much like a good pair of shoes. Wouldn’t you agree? :)

Design Seeds

Love this grey. And the rest of this color palate!

Westerbroek

Love the way that white farmhouse sink pops against those grey cabinets!

The Fat Hydrangea

Holly Mathis Interiors

A Perfect Gray

Here are a few of the samples I’ve narrowed it down to. It’s interesting how grey looks so grey until you compare it to another grey sample. Then you immediately see all sorts of greens and blues in the grey. A lot of these samples don’t look great with the wood floors I’ve picked out so back to the drawing board! (On the shade of grey or the floors.) It’s so easy for me to pick out what I like, but making everything come together is a horse of a different color.

A grey horse to be exact. :)

(Yeah… it’s late. I’m going to stop there before I hurt myself.)

Do you have a shade of grey you absolutely love? Do tell!

xoxo, Erin

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Uncategorized

11.05.12

Girls’ Week

Homework time at our house! Not so bad when you’re surrounded by ~~books~~ doll houses. On the bedroom carpet. Eating a bagel. Mom’s in a good mood today.

My girls are out of school early all week for parent teacher conferences. I love it! We can get homework done early while Kole is napping (SO much easier) and then play all afternoon. We have decided this is officially “girls’ week” and are planning some fun things. We may or may not be listening to Christmas music right now at this very minute. I turned it on and said “what do you think girls… too early?” They said “NO! Can we turn on the Chipmunks!?”

Done.

I’ve raised these girls right. :)

Happy Monday afternoon!

xoxo, Erin

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Uncategorized

11.02.12

New house update – week recap

I can’t believe October is over! I hope everyone had a great Halloween. We had fun. I took so many pictures that I’ve overwhelmed myself so I probably won’t post any. HA. :) Except this close-up of my little witch. And maybe a few more next week. :) Kenny stayed home and did therapy with Kole Wednesday morning so that I could help with the girls’ classroom parties. They were so happy to have me at their school all morning. It was a treat for all of us. We partied hard all day and by the time it was dark I was SO tired. But I perked up again taking Kole trick-or-treating for the first time. He was so stinkin’ cute. LOVED being footloose and fancy free outside at night. He walked right up to each door step with the girls and said “a treat!” Then he tried to run inside everyone’s house. :) This morning he woke up and ran to the front door and said “a treat! a treat!” because he wanted to head outside and do it again. Pitched quite the little fit when I told him we were all done with “a treat.” And I have to say, as fun as the festivities were, I have no problem being done with Halloween. This week has been such a whirlwind around here. Our designer and cabinet guys were in town and Kenny and I were at the new house almost 24/7. Kids were farmed out and total chaos ensued. Halloween was the cherry on top!

I prepped for the first big day by making everyone banana bread muffins.

No surprise there. :)

They sat in my new kitchen window and didn’t last long.

Most of these pics were taken with my iPhone so they aren’t great quality, but here I am with my builder and designer. Love these two! Which is a good thing because we have been spending a LOT of time together lately.

Kenny and my designer going over facts of some sort. Kenny handles the not so fun stuff – budget and logistics. While I handle all things design. One morning I was dropping Kole off at a sitters and when I got to the house there was a group of six guys standing in a circle relieved to see me because they know they can’t move forward without my stamp of approval. They call me “the boss” and I have to say, it’s not a bad thing to be called. :) I do my best to be a nice one.

Aside from laying out the kitchen and cabinets in other rooms we also started looking at floor samples. These are a few carpet samples my designer brought. Kenny sometimes gets frustrated when my designer and I get together. We tend to get sidetracked easily. We’ll start out talking about the bathroom layout and the next thing you know we’re going on and on about tufted headboards with silver nail heads. Kenny is always trying to rein us in. But I can’t help it! I’m so ready to be done with the building and onto the decorating so seeing things like this carpet that make it feel more real is so fun for me.

We are putting in wood floors for most of the main level so we’ll need a big carpet-like rug for the family room. I loved the one above. It’s hard to see the true color, but it has a lot of grey strands in it. Most of my cabinetry is white or grey. Plus this sample was just SO soft. It said come and take a nap on me! But I might go with something more simple like plain grey.

I loved this stripped pattern for a rug too. You?

We made a lot of decisions for the outside of the house. The style of the home is ‘Nantucket’ so there will be a lot of grey siding, white molding, and some rock. These two spent a couple of hours walking around measuring everywhere we are putting rock so we can start getting quotes.

Our siding guy stopped by and brought samples. This isn’t painted yet, but is one style to choose from. We are putting the short shake shingles on the peaks of the house and I need to decide if I want this staggered pattern or a straight, even one. I like the one above, but our roof tiles are going to be staggered and I don’t want to over do it and make things look too “gingerbready.” Kenny loves it when I use that word. (I’m kidding. It drives him crazy. But how else do you explain something looking too gingerbready?) I thought the decision for the rest of the straight siding that will be on most of the house would be made for us, but nope. I can choose between smooth or grained, 7 inches apart or 8 inches apart… The big decisions are easy, it’s these little decisions that really won’t matter much one way or another that are killing me! SO many decisions. I can’t even think straight anymore.

The back of my car today — groceries, cabinet samples (not the exact style or knobs I’m using, but samples of the white and grey finish), a stroller, wood floor planks, some quartz squares… all in a day.

I’m so looking forward to the weekend. I need to take a break from the new house and spend some time cleaning our current house. I’m anxious to take down all things Halloween and start planning for my favorite time of year! I’m also anxious to sleep more than 5 hours at a time. That’s always a bonus.

What are you excited about this weekend? :)

xoxo, Erin

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Uncategorized

10.31.12

Happy Halloween!

From a spooky witch (who knows how to cast a spooky spell).

And her not so spooky black cat (who just wanted to be comfortable this year).

As always, they are quite a pair.

And let’s not forget Santa.

Because when you get on a roll with a Snowman and Elf costume, Santa is the obvious choice. Plus I figured I had ONE more year before my little dude figures out what’s going on and starts to care.

(But if not and I have TWO more years, Rudolph here we come.)