Erin, Author at The Sunny Side Up Blog

Addison

01.24.11

Valentine Mantel and Tissue Art

Hi everyone! Happy Monday. Hope your week is off to a good start! The girls and I are getting excited for Valentines day so I decided to spruce up the mantel and makes things a little festive around here.

I just hung a heart wreath on the mirror and put a little candy in my favorite black jars – because what’s more fun than edible decor? Hoping this candy sticks around longer than last year’s Easter candy did!

Then Addison and I made a tissue heart banner. Tissue art is so fun and so easy. I used to do this with my 4th graders when I taught school. I would draw something big (like a rainbow, Christmas tree, American flag, etc.) and the whole class would work on it for weeks. Here is what you need to make a tissue heart banner with your kiddos…

Trace and cut out a few hearts. I used my heart cookie cutter because well, what are the chances that I’ll ever use it to make cookies? Slim to none. Made a great paper tracer though. :)

Cut your tissue up into little squares and put the square tissues in cute, mini heart shaped bowls. You could use regular bowls, but I can’t guarantee that the outcome will be as …well…cute. ;) The bigger your squares are, the longer the tissue will pop out.

Then place a pencil eraser in the middle of a tissue square and twist the tissue around it.

Next, dip your tissue in a tad of glue. Emphasis on the world tad. Too much glue and the tissue will become a wet mess and won’t stick. I had Addison dip her tissue in the glue and then wipe it off on the plate each time.

Then stick the tissue on your heart and hold it for a few seconds.

I like to do the outside first and then fill in the middle. You can start in the middle first, but again, I can’t guarantee as cute of an outcome.

Addison has been sick a lot lately and this was a perfect sick day project. The two of us had fun watching a movie and crafting together in our pajamas.

Bring on February! Can you feel the love? :)

Oh! And can I just say thank you so much for the comments on my last post for El’s birthday. So thoughtful of you all to leave such sweet comments and birthday wishes. They meant a lot to me and I’m sure they will to Ellie too someday. I told her I wrote her a letter on my blog for her birthday. She asked if grandma could read it too since it was on my blog. I said “yes – grandma… and a few other people….” :)

Have a great week everyone!

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie

01.19.11

Dear Ellie,

Is it true? Are you really 7 years old today? It’s hard for me to think of you as a 7 year old. It happened so quickly. One day I was buying you and Addison matching outfits in the toddler section of Baby Gap – size 1 and 3, then 2 and 4. That feels like last week. And now, today, you’re 7. And you’ve moved way out of the toddler section of Baby Gap. And I’m having a harder time buying you clothes because everything your size looks so “pre-teen” and hip and cool and way too grown up for my sweet little Ellie. And all I want to do is keep buying you tops with little butterflies that say “cute as a bug” on them.

But as much as I want to keep you little, I am loving every minute with you at this stage in your life. You are such a happy girl Ellie. You always have been. You are vivacious and full of life from the minute you first wake up in the morning. Your daddy and I start every day with a smile because of you.

You were meant to be a big sister. Kole adores you and Addison counts the seconds each day until you get home. They both rely on you to entertain them because it’s always a party when you are around.

You are extremely social and are loved by all of your classmates at school. I hear constantly from other moms how nice you are to everyone. How much you care about other people’s feelings and how much their children love being with you. I’m always so proud. You have a way of making friends so easily. A couple of weeks ago we were at Nordstroms and you were waiting behind me while I bought something. All of a sudden I heard you talking to a lady close by…telling her your name and all about the doll you took to school for sharing that day. By the time we left the store the two of you were hugging good-bye like long lost friends. Just like that. It’s so easy for you to talk to people.

You love to be “comfy.” You care much more about being comfortable than you do about being fashionable (unlike Addison). You won’t wear anything that is “itchy” and you put on your pajamas the second you get home for the day. You love being home in your p.j’s – playing with your little “friends” (dolls and stuffed animals). You take such good care of everyone. I know that someday you will be an amazing mom.

I love how content you are Ellie. You love just being with your family. We hear several times each day how much you love us all. Even when you’re mad about something, you always make it clear that while you’re upset, you still love us. (see hairstyle post) :)

When I was growing up I always loved the number 19. I remember once soon after your daddy and I were married he asked me why I liked 19 so much and I said “I don’t know. I’ve just always loved that number.”

Then you came into my world on January 19th and suddenly it was very clear why that number always felt special to me. YOU are so special to me. You make me smile every single day. You make me happy every single day. You make me feel gratitude every single day.

Happy 7th Birthday Ellie. I love you so much.

xoxo,

Mommy

xoxo, Erin

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Scrapbooking

01.18.11

Project Life Tuesday

Hope everyone had a good weekend! The weather here has been so nice – 80 degrees on the coast. Seemed crazy to be using our flip flops and sunscreen in January, but use them we did! Leaves on a lot of the trees have turned and are falling too. Guess San Diego decided to have summer and fall all at once for a weekend! Anyway – more on our weekend later…

For now, a little scrapbooking. I’m going to attempt to keep up with Project Life Tuesday on The Mom Creative this year. I was keeping up with my girls’ PL albums so great until baby #3 came along and haven’t done much since. Time to kick it in gear and hopefully catch up on their albums! Some of you have asked me if I’m ordering Becky’s new PL albums and the answer is yes, but I want to finish my other albums for my girls first. I’ll order one for Kole too and start his PL album when he turns one. (Love that Becky created two album choices this year – works great for the way I use them for my individual kids.) If you are new to my blog (hello and welcome!) you can see how I scrapbook for my kids under the Project Life links at the side of my blog under popular posts.

I had great expectations of getting so much done on Addison’s book last week. And then realized that I have three kids now and great expectations are just that. :) So I’m sharing what I did accomplish which was basically just all the prep work. Crossing my fingers I’ll find a minute to work on her book this week.

First I cleaned off my scrap space. It was a mess. Again.

Then I did a quick layout for Addison’s book. And by quick I mean this took me ten minutes and now it’s bugging me because it looks like I spent ten minutes on it and I know it would look better if I would have spent thirty.

I got the next set of pictures developed and started going through her school work to see what I want to include in her album.

And that’s as far as I got. :)

I also wanted to share a quick tip several of you have asked about. This is helpful for any of you doing Project Life, or if you have Photoshop and would like to know how to develop two vertical 4×3 pictures as one 4×6 like I did with the snowman picture of Kole for my holiday tags.

I use a lot of 4×3’s for Project Life and it’s so easy to do. (middle section of this spread are all 4×3’s) If you have downloaded Picasa, you can simply collage two vertical photos and save it as a 4×6 to develop. If you want to do this in Photoshop, follow these instructions:

Start by creating a 4×6 document. File>New>Blank file. Then a screen will pop up with some options for you to choose. Select 4 for height, 6 for width and 300dpi for resolution and RGB for color. Then you’ll see a blank white screen.

Now open the two photos you want to collage in Photoshop (file>open>select for each picture).

Select one of the photos so that it’s showing big on your computer screen. (The blank file and other picture are now at the bottom in your photo bin.)

At the top of your screen under the menu bar leave the Aspect Ratio alone, but change the width to 3 and the height to 4. Keep the Resolution at 300 pixels/inch. Crop your picture how you want it to look (using the crop tool on the sidebar). Then select the other picture from the photo bin and crop it exactly how you want it.

Once you have cropped both pictures then select your new file so it’s showing big on your computer screen. Then select your move tool on the sidebar (looks like a plus sign with a triangle pointing to it). Use your move tool to select each picture from the bottom photo bin and place it on your new file (click and drag). Move them around until they fit perfectly next to each other filling the blank file.

Now this step is important. On the right side you will see the layers menu. You can see your right picture on one layer and the background white layer and the left picture – all separate layers at this point. At the top menu bar, select Layer>Flatten Image. The layers menu will put all 3 layers into one layer. (your picture doesn’t change)

Now save your new picture. File>Save As> (name your picture and make sure it is saved as a jpeg so you can print it).

If you wanted to do a collage with more pictures, just change the cropping sizes but do everything else the same.

I know that seems like a lot of directions, but it’s really so quick and easy once you’ve done it a few times. Hope that helps!

Happy Scrapping everyone! :)

xoxo, Erin

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Food and Cooking...or lack thereof

01.14.11

Random pics and a recipe

Not much time to post tonight – I’ve been watching Modern Family and The Good Wife (two of my favorites) while attempting to organize my pics in i photo. So far this new Mac and I have developed quite a love/hate relationship. Love all that this computer is capable of, hate that I can’t figure out all that this computer is capable of. There is a definite learning curve coming from a PC! Anyway – just wanted to share a couple of pics from our Utah trip and a quick and easy dinner.

My little man taking a bath in my mom’s kitchen sink.

Lunch with my BFF’s from High School. Our annual get together after Christmas with whoever is in town. Love these girls!

And a really AWFUL picture of some chicken. I can photograph food about as well as I can cook it. But don’t let my crappy picture stop you from making this meal. It’s so tasty and fast and easy. Cook and chop up some chicken –

then add some Cashews and a bottle of General Tso’s Sauce and Glaze. You can find it in the grocery store with all of the marinades.

Stir it all together and you have really yummy Cashew Chicken (that looks a lot better live than in this picture). I usually cook some rice and broccoli with it and the meal looks and tastes like you spent a lot of time! My friend told me about this Tso’s sauce a few years ago and it’s now a family favorite. Sure it’s only competing with about four other recipes, but still….it’s a keeper. :)

Hope you all have a lovely three day weekend!

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

01.12.11

Family goals

Love this family portrait Addison created in pre-school. It’s hanging in the kitchen and reminding us to all be more friendly to each other. Although I wouldn’t say that is really something our family needs to work on. I could write a list a mile long on things this family could work on, but friendliness – I think we’ve got that one covered. :)

When my parents asked Kenny what his goals for the New Year would be he said that his goal this year was to not set any goals. If you know my husband, you know that this will actually be quite an accomplishment for him! He is extremely goal driven – almost to a fault – the kind of person that has a harder time enjoying the journey because he is so focused on the end result. After the crazy year he had last year being up for partner at his law firm and dealing with everything we had going on at home, he is ready for a low key year with no pressure. I am completely supportive of this! Although I could maybe think of a goal or two for him….perhaps keeping his annoying red shorts off of the bathroom floor…..or immediately rinsing out his cereal bowl instead of leaving it for me to do later when the cereal is hard and stuck to the bowl and a total pain to clean…..just sayin’.

As for me, I am always setting goals and plan on continuing with the things I am always working on. But I do have one MAIN goal this year and that is to get my kids eating healthier snacks/meals. My girls are so picky and I haven’t been as good as I should be about making sure they eat a wide variety of healthy foods. It’s so hard for me! You all know I enjoy decorating, cleaning, and organizing my kitchen MUCH more than actually cooking in it!

I did some research, checking out blogs and magazines, to get ideas for healthier snacks and ways to make them easily accessible to my girls. And I’ve been stocking up on lots of fruits and veggies – less crackers (my go to snack for my kids).

One thing I’ve loved snacking on are these Sugar Snap Peas. They taste so good! Well – I think they taste good. My girls tasted them and turned up their noses and then asked if they could take them outside to eat. I said sure and then ten minutes later went in the backyard to check on them and found them doing this –

planting their snack! I laughed so hard! I thought they were eating their peas, but instead they were watering them.

Clearly we have a ways to go. :)

xoxo, Erin

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Family

01.11.11

A new addition

Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my last post. They all meant so much to me. I know so many of you have had similar or even worse struggles with getting and staying pregnant. I was shocked after my miscarriage when I realized how common it really is. Everyone I talked to about it had their own story to tell. It’s such a miracle to get babies here safe and healthy. And speaking of getting babies here – it seems I gave some of you the wrong idea with that post. I am so NOT pregnant! Emergency hysterectomy – remember? It would be completely impossible for me to have another baby. And I’m ok with that. Kenny and I knew three would be it for us even before my surgery. The surgery just sealed the deal and made things final!

BUT…I do have some other fun baby news to share.

For those of you who don’t know my family, this is a picture of me with my siblings. My sister, Carly is 2 years younger than me and then my brother, Austin is 5 years younger than her. All three of us had babies in 2010 and all three of us had boys!

Meet Jonah. The newest member of our family. Christmas came early for Carly! She delivered a beautiful baby boy on December 20th. He came home in the same Christmas sock his mommy did. (Car was a December baby too) :)

Isn’t he the sweetest? I can smell newborn perfectness just looking at him!

{Carly, her husband Shawn, and little Jonah} We are so happy for them and I can’t wait to meet and hold my sweet little nephew…and play with my three year old niece who I’m quite sure is needing a little extra love and attention right now. Planning a trip to visit them soon! Carly will know without a doubt how much I love her if I actually fly to Salt Lake City this time of year. BRRR! I’ll have to buy a whole new winter wardrobe just for the occasion. Wonder if I can convince Kenny I need some new Uggs to face the frigid tundra that is Salt Lake City this time of year? I’ll get to work on that one…

Before 2010 my parents just had the three grand daughters…

(Ellie, Addison and cousin Claire with their new princess dolls from grandma for Christmas)

Then in March I had Kole…

And my brother and his wife had Drew in May. Now with new little Jonah my parents also have three grandsons to even things out!

Kole and Drew are the best of friends and get along great.
Except for when Drew tries to turn Kole into a Bronco fan. Not cool. Poor Kole is clearly hanging his head in shame. ;)

Oh…and the mini van? We bought one in November. Had to wait a couple of months for the 2011 Odyssey in the colors we wanted. This is the new addition to our little family –

I LOVE it. Totally over the mini van mom thing. It’s so practical and perfect for our crew. I love that my girls can head to the back and buckle themselves, I love that there is so much room for all of their gear, I love that I don’t have to stress about kids swinging their doors open and hitting the Porsche on our left and the Lexus on our right in every southern Cal. parking lot, I love the seat warmers that we really don’t need in southern Cal. but are just so fun to use anyway, I love that there is so much room for friends when I carpool, I love the big TV screen and headsets that made our trip to Utah oh so heavenly, I love that there is a trash can and a mini cooler inside, I love that the stereo records and remembers every CD I play so it’s like I have an i pod in my car….

I love that one of my best friends also got a mini van this year. I love that we said we would NEVER own one and now we don’t care what we said.

And I especially love my screen saver on my dashboard. This picture is up whenever I’m not using the navigation system. Did I mention that I love the navigation system?……

xoxo, Erin

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Mom Adventures

01.09.11

A story

A couple of months ago I was asked to give a talk in church on trusting in God. At the end of my talk I told a story about an experience I had and then when I got home from church, I typed the story in blogger draft. Then I chickened out and didn’t post it. I don’t know why… because it was from a church talk? Because it was too personal? Because it happened over six years ago and really isn’t relevant to my life right now? I woke up this morning thinking about that story and how relevant it actually is to my life right now and how the lesson I learned from my experience will stay with me forever. And I guess I’m feeling a little bolder today so I’m now going to hit “publish post” and share my story with all of you.

————————————————————————————————-

Kenny and I got married young, but despite our ages we were an extremely responsible couple. We are both planners and we had a “life plan” all mapped out. I would teach school and get him through law school, we’d save every penny, get his career started, get into a house, and then we would start our family. We followed our plan to the letter. He attended UVA Law school in Virginia while I taught Elementary school. We moved to San Diego and bought our first house. I continued to teach while Kenny passed the California Bar and started his career at a great law firm. Finally after six years of getting things in order, we were ready to start our family. I got pregnant immediately and we were thrilled. I was beyond ready to have a baby. Because we are both the oldest in our families this would be the first grandchild for both families. We told our parents at Christmas and everyone was ecstatic. So excited. I found out a close friend of mine was also pregnant and we were thrilled to be going through everything together. I had waited so long and been so patient and it was finally happening. A BABY! I had wanted to be a mom my whole life. Kenny and I went straight out and bought a brand new Honda Pilot. We were finally starting our family and would need a bigger car with more room.

I still remember how giddy and excited I felt sitting in the doctor’s office at the beginning of the second trimester waiting to hear my baby’s heartbeat. I still remember the shock and overwhelming pain I felt the moment I realized it wasn’t there.

I had miscarried. This was NOT part of the plan. I was completely devastated and so depressed. Because it was my first pregnancy I was also scared. Scared that something was wrong with me. Scared that I would always have difficulties carrying a child. I remember the day after I found out about the miscarriage the phone rang and it was the man who had sold us our Honda Pilot telling me that the car had come in and we could pick it up anytime. I started crying on the phone to him. Sobbed on and on about how we had bought the car because I was pregnant and now I wasn’t. Poor guy. I’m quite sure he thought I was a complete lunatic on the phone. I remember him saying “you’re still buying the car, right ma’m?” We did buy the car and I remember driving it to work everyday and how sad it made me. It felt so big and empty and was just one big constant reminder of what I had lost.

I remember praying a lot. And listening a lot. Trying to understand why. I knew that I had no control over the situation – which is such a difficult thing for a planner who likes to be in control. I knew that God was in control and I would just have to trust Him. I would have to trust God and remember that things happen for a reason. Even if it was hard to understand the reason at that time.

Months later I got pregnant again and was a nervous wreck the whole pregnancy. Everything went textbook perfect and on January 19, 2004 Ellie was born. I can’t imagine life without my Ellie.

I ended my talk saying “I’m still driving that Honda Pilot we bought 8 years ago. Now when I look in the rear view mirror I see my three beautiful children. All scrunched in next to each other. Their faces remind me every day to trust God — that things happen for a reason.” At this point in my talk I was crying and added “In fact, we are now getting ready to upgrade to a minivan — which is probably the real reason for all of these tears.” ;)

xoxo, Erin

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organization2

01.06.11

Hutch Organization

My hutch – which is getting a major makeover as far as decor in the near future. (Kole looks so little in that swing! *sigh*) Here is a picture of what the inside looked like a few months ago…

It was becoming a major catch all for any and everything. So! Back in October I spent a morning getting any and everything under control.

A beautiful mess! Here are two of the four drawers after I finished –

Extra school supplies. I just love a drawer full of school supplies.

And a battery/flashlight drawer. I like having this stuff indoors in case of an emergency or power outage. And yes, I buy a lot of batteries! Seems we are always needing them for a toy or clock or something around the house.

Remember this post about my little trip to the Container Store? I did a post on how I used the clear boxes for toy organization, but I spaced sharing what I did with the red boxes.

They hold keepsakes from the kids,

cards that are worth saving, and other childhood keepsakes, pictures, letters, etc. (Things from my childhood and Kenny’s – I have a different system for the girls school/art work that I’m saving for them. Hopefully I’ll remember to share that at some point too.)

Special boxes to hold special stuff. If my house was on fire I would grab the kids, the scrapbooks, the red boxes, and my favorite pair of Sevens For All Mankind.

You probably think I’m kidding about the jeans – but I am SO totally not. :)

**hutch organization part 2.

xoxo, Erin

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Blogging

01.05.11

THANK YOU!

Oh my goodness! You are all so kind to comment and help me out with my little dilemma. Can I call it that? A dilemma? That makes it sounds so serious. I loved hearing from so many of you! Even though half of you chose #1 and half of you chose #2 making it no easier for me to decide! :) So I came up with a little compromise. I’ll use the one above for January and the header below for February.

See. I’m a people pleaser. An indecisive people pleaser. I would spend more time mixing it up from December’s look but I just don’t have time right now. Kenny and I are completely consumed with some changes that will be taking place for our little family. More on that later…

Thanks again for your help! You were all so kind – don’t be surprised if I start turning to you more frequently to make important life changing decisions for me. You know – like which jeans I should put on in the morning, whether or not I should toast the bread for my turkey sandwich for lunch, or if I should take off my make-up right after I put the kids to bed or hours later right before I actually go to bed. I dread doing it, but I’m always so glad I did it early when it’s midnight and I’ve been up too late blogging again…

xoxo, Erin

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Blogging

01.04.11

Help

It’s late and I’m very tired. I am really struggling with my “winter” header. I always struggle with my winter header. It’s my least favorite header every year because we don’t have any snowy winter pictures. I told Kenny that we need to go snow skiing again. Aside from the fact that we love to snow ski and haven’t been in forever, there is the added bonus of getting some snowy pictures for my winter header. I made three options and don’t love any of them. But like I said, it’s late – I’m tired – my to-do list for the next few days is a mile long – and the reality is that it’s not going to get any better. Help me out by picking your fav of the three. I’d call my mom but it’s midnight in Utah. I’d ask Kenny but he’s asleep on the couch and he’d just mumble a number without really looking anyway. You’re all I’ve got!

{Option #1}
And yes. I know we’re all sick of the snowman picture. But I don’t have much else to work with and snowmen are usually a January/February theme, right? People who live in snow? Back me up here? I’m really milking that costume. Got to use it for Halloween, all things Christmas, and now it works great for January. I’m thinking next Halloween all three of my kids need to be snowmen.

Did I mention that it’s late? And I’m really tired?

{Option #2}

{Option #3}

Blah blah and another blah. I know. Not much to choose from, but thanks for your input!

Heading to bed now.

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie

01.03.11

Party’s over

Well – it’s official. Vacation is definitely over. I was bummed to pack the girls’ lunches today and get back into the routine. I always feel a bit of post holiday let down. Kenny is usually in a funk this time of year because football is coming to an end and I have a hard time letting go of December.

Still working on unpacking from our trip…

and taking down all the Christmas decor. I organized some of my holiday wrapping supplies in these clear sacks I had on hand. It made it easy to see my supplies while I was wrapping gifts this year.

Ellie was so great yesterday to entertain Kole before church so I could get a few things done. The two of them have such a special little bond. She absolutely adores him and he completely lights up whenever he hears her voice enter the room.

Still trying to learn how to use my new computer. I’m in the process of transferring all of my photos over and MAN — I take a lot of pictures! :) I need to become better buddies with my delete button this year. I especially need to go back to a few years ago before I was blogging and sort through what I want to keep and what can go.

One thing I love about January…it’s a great month to organize! Time to get things in order for a new year. Looking at my pictures last night I realized I never shared my hutch organization pictures from last October so I’ll post that soon.

Time to go take down the tree decor. Happy Monday everyone!

xoxo, Erin

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Family

01.02.11

2010 Wrap Up

Hi friends! I’m back. :) Took a little computer break over the holiday. Kenny had the week off and that is RARE. Had to take full advantage. We had a wonderful Christmas at home with our little family and then a couple of days later we drove to Utah to spend time with the rest of our family.

Santa came! The girls got the dolls they had been wishing for all month –

and Kole had a delightful morning chewing on wrapping paper. I told Santa I was so grateful for my three kiddos and already had everything a girl could ever want for Christmas. Then I added that I of course wouldn’t mind a new Mac computer and a flip video camera for my purse to help document all I already have. You know – if he INSISTS on bringing me something. ;) Next post will be done on my new Mac! If I can figure out how to use it. Hopefully Santa will also be generous enough to provide a little tutelage along the way. :)

It’s the first day of the New Year! So excited for everything 2011 has in store. Isn’t it wonderful!? A whole new year ahead. Clean slate. I need to sit down and think about my goals for the year. But before I jump into 2011 I wanted to wrap up 2010.

{JANUARY}

The girls’ first time in the snow. Hilarious. From the Target sack duct tape boots to their reaction five minutes after this picture was taken. 2010 was off to a great start. :)

{FEBRUARY}

{MARCH}

Welcome sweet Kole!

{APRIL}

My mom took this picture a couple of days after I came home from the hospital after my surgery/blood transfussion. Hello death. It’s me, Erin. And yes, I felt as awful as I looked. Definitely the most difficult part of our year (and maybe of our lives this far) but along with all of the bad we were reminded of how precious life and family and friends are. I will be forever grateful to everyone who helped me through this difficult time and wanted to thank all of you again for your kind and loving comments, support and prayers. It truly meant so much to me.