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Ellie
02.03.10

Mail Time!

I’ve been volunteering in Ellie’s Kindergarten class this year and aside from working with the kids, I have been working on several creative projects for the classroom – a lunch chart, a gingerbread house, etc. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m totally getting my teacher fix and then I get to leave and come home and be a mom. Best of both worlds. This month her class is incorporating Valentines with a fun unit on the mail. One thing her teacher asked me to create was a mail truck for the kids to “drive” while they deliver their mail. I talked to my dad about it when I was visiting over Christmas to see if he had a box I could use and next thing I knew he was out in his garage putting the whole thing together. My dad is very creative, very smart, and very good to me.

Spray painting with my sweet niece, Claire. (my dad is also a very good grandpa)

All I had to do to finish the mail truck was add some letters.

Thank you so much dad! The truck turned out darling. I know the Kindergartners will love it! Ellie and I sure do.

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p.s. Thank you so much for all of the help with the boy crib bedding! I have so many fun websites to check out now. I really appreciate it.

p.p.s. I finally figured out how to put my “follower” widget up so if you read my blog, sign up! Kind of fun knowing who’s reading. Plus it’s so nice to know that the people reading are friends and other fun women instead of some creepy stalker. If you are some creepy stalker reading this blog you should think twice. I grew up in a totally safe mostly Mormon suburb in Utah the south side of the Bronx and I know people.
p.p.p.s. Did everyone watch the Season Premiere of Lost? So good. Kenny was giddy about it being on tonight. This show is crazy and I gave up trying to figure it out long ago, but we love it!
xoxo, Erin
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home decor 2
02.02.10

Help!?

K – I’m having a hard time with this whole boy thing. I’m excited about having a boy, but not having much fun shopping for one. I went to the mall last week in an attempt to get some sleepers/clothes for our little guy and came home with these:

matching tutu skirts and flower headbands for the girls. A little Valentines Day surprise – cute…right? Anyway, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I venture to the stores on a mission to buy stuff for Kole and come home with more stuff for the girls. I hope I’m a good ‘boy mom’ because so far I’m failing miserably.

So here’s my dilemma. I’m having the hardest time finding new crib bedding I love. After Addison moved out I turned half of the nursery into my scrapbook room. I’m not willing to give that up.

The other half of the room still looks like this:

Nice and girly. I don’t want to change my green paint because I love it and I’m not buying new crib furniture for my last baby so I just want to find some cute boy bedding that has green in it and will go ok with the rest of the girl looking room. I know. Poor third kid. We’re hoping to be in a bigger home within a year or two though and when we are, I’ll go all out with an all boy room – no scrapbook supplies included. But until then, I just need some boyish crib bedding he can sleep in for now. He should have something that looks like it was meant for him since he’ll be playing in a pink playroom and sharing a pink and green butterfly bathroom with his sisters (and wearing pink tutu skirts if I can’t get my act together).

I’ve looked around in a few stores here and on-line at a few places, but I’m not finding anything I love with green in it. Everything has too much blue and will clash with the paint. This one from Pottery Barn Kids will work…

but I’m not in love with it. So my question to you is: do any of you know of any websites with cute boy bedding? Any San Diego stores I might be missing? Your help will be much appreciated!

(especially by Kole) :)
xoxo, Erin
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Mom Adventures
02.01.10

Pregnancy Update: 30 Weeks

(when Kenny was getting ready to take this picture I asked him how I should stand – which angle made me look the thinnest. Then we both laughed.)

I tipped over today. At church. In front of people. I was bending down getting Addison a water bottle out of my bag and the weight of my stomach pulled me forward and off balance and I just tipped over. Talk about embarrassing. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Kenny’s good friend was close by and he laughed – in a nice way – and helped me up. It was pretty comical I guess. I’m just a bit front heavy these days.

My doctor is going to induce me at the beginning of April so I’m down to just two months left. YEA. I was induced with Ellie because I was almost a week late and then she was big (8 lbs 8 oz) and broke her collar bone during delivery. Broken collar bones for babies have to just heal on their own. Made for a VERY fussy newborn (poor thing). My doctor said Ellie was way too big of a baby for me to deliver, so with Addison she induced me a week early. Everything went MUCH smoother (she was 6 lbs 10 oz) so the plan is to do the same with this little one. I don’t want to have him on April Fools Day, but we’ll pick a day soon after that.

I love being induced. Obviously I don’t know any different, but it’s right up my planner personality. I love that I wake up in the morning and know – today I’m going to have my baby. My bags are packed, house is in order, out of town parents are in town to help, Kenny has arranged his work schedule so he can be there. And I feel ready and anxious and excited. Guess I’ll never exclaim “I think my water just broke!” in the middle of a restaurant (which always looks so exciting in the movies), but I’m ok with that. I’m a planner.

This baby is moving around so much and I LOVE it. It’s a constant reminder to me that everything is ok.

I’ve gained 20 pounds so far. Good times.

I’m always hot. Kenny and I are sleeping under separate covers because I can’t stand our heavy blanket.

I’m not quite as hungry as I have been the past few months. I feel full for at least 45 minutes now instead of 10. Rootbeer sounds good all the time – full or not.

I miss sleeping on my back.

Because of my first trip to the ER I was put on “pelvic rest” (great term) and couldn’t exercise. My doctor told me I could start exercising again just in time for my second trip to the ER over Christmas. My knee still isn’t completely healed and this has been the longest time I have ever gone without exercising. I miss it. I really miss it. I miss aerobics. I miss my treadmill. I miss my workout mix on my ipod. I miss the regulars at the gym. I miss the kids club. I miss that 45 minutes of sweaty me time that made me feel good the rest of the day. Very much looking forward to being able to exercise again.

I’m puffy. I’ve entered the retaining water stage and everything is getting swollen. My feet, my fingers, my face. I so despise this part of the third trimester. Like it’s not enough to be gaining weight in every part of my body – but my face too? Can’t I just keep my face the way it is? Can’t I just look in the mirror in the morning and have one thing look normal? Apparently not.

My back is really starting to hurt. Especially by the end of the day. Back pain during the third trimester is the hardest thing for me about being pregnant. I feel lucky that back pain is the worst of it, but still, not fun. It’s getting a lot harder to do things like bathe the girls and bend over to wash their hair. They might not smell as good as they usually do during the next two months. :)

Speaking of my girls, they are so excited about this baby. They talk about him and to him non-stop. I seem to have little hands on my stomach all day long. This baby boy will have three mommys and more love and attention than he’ll know what to do with.

So…two more months. I can do that. We are all anxiously awaiting this little guy’s arrival!

xoxo, Erin
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Ellie and Addison
01.28.10

This week

This week we’ve been missing the rain. Last weeks’ showers were a nice change from our always sunny always the same weather. Plus kids look so cute in their brightly colored rain gear. I love taking Addie to preschool and seeing all the fun patterned rain boots lined up.

Rain boots make great accessories, even with ballet tights.

Although it’s nice when your rain gear actually fits.

BUT…not much rain this week. Nope. It’s been nice and sunny… again. I took this picture at Ellie’s school when I went to see her become “Star Student of the Week” for her birthday.

She made an ‘All About Me’ poster that she was awfully proud of.

It included some of her favorite things, one of her least favorite things (snow), what she wants to be when she grows up (a whale trainer at SeaWorld), and a picture of our family. And no, we aren’t a family with exceptionally large ears…those are our shirt sleeves.

She had fun sharing her poster, making a b-day crown, and being the line leader.

She also had fun sharing the Valentines/Birthday cupcakes we made the class.

This week we’ve started getting out some of our Valentines Day decor. It’s easy to make my house look festive during Christmas and Valentines because I already decorate with so much RED. Love it.

This week I have been amazed that my red Target rug from this post is still holding up so great.

This week Kenny is heading up an IPO at work. For attorneys this translates into “Initial Public Offering.” For attorneys’ wives this translates into “kiss your husband good bye for two months.” It’s only been a few days and I’m really missing the extra help around here.

This week, aside from playing the single mom role, I’ve also been working on my Project Life scrapbooks for the girls. I loved what Ali is doing with her book and the way she is adding memorabilia gave me an idea of how I can combine these books with the girls’ school kit books. I’m playing catch up because I decided to start the books in August when both of the girls started school this year. Hopefully I’ll get caught up soon and have something to share. I’m feeling the urge to get “caught up” on a lot of things since I’m down to two months before baby #3 enters the picture. You might say I’ve been “nesting” a lot lately, although truth be told I think a part of me is always “nesting,” pregnant or not.
This week the girls have been racing around in pillowcases,


hiding out in their princess tent which takes up the whole nursery,

and playing a whole lot of “restaurant.” They’ve been serving up all kinds of yummy food like (quoted by Ellie) “hot chocolate stew which tastes just like hot chocolate only a little more cakey.” If you count all of the fake food I’ve been shoveling in I can pretty much say that this week I’ve been eating non-stop. A good friend of mine (who must really really love me) brought me several Cadbury Eggs this week. I love Cadbury Eggs and as this post shows, if they are in my cupboard I have an incredibly hard time resisting the urge to eat them all. I didn’t do so well resisting the other day and when I was down to one egg left I decided it best to just eat it as well and conceal all evidence that they had even been around. This way Kenny wouldn’t see it and wonder if there had once been more. Made sense at the time.

Then I felt so guilty for eating all the eggs in one day that I decided to have just broccoli for dinner. Baby Kole didn’t like that combination too much.

I’ll eat better next week.
xoxo, Erin
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Ellie
01.26.10

Having another boy around our house

…is going to be a really good thing.

xoxo, Erin
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Ellie and Addison
01.24.10

El’s birthday weekend

Our good good friends from Utah, Ryan and Josie, came for a much anticipated visit to help us celebrate Ellie’s birthday. Kenny and Ryan have been best friends since High School and Josie and I hit it off from day one. Plus our kids are the same ages and get along great. Doesn’t get any better than that! Pierson (their 6 year old son) and Ellie are best buddies and all she wanted for her birthday this year was to go to Disneyland with Pierson. She was so excited for them to come that she spent the week before drawing all sorts of pictures for them and talking non-stop about everything we would be doing for her birthday. It was like Christmas round two! Ellie has learned from her mother the skillful art of milking your birthday for all it’s worth and then some. :)

Addison was clearly just as excited as Ellie to have our friends for a visit.

We decided to hit SeaWorld while they were here too. We never get tired of the place. Clearly.

{Kiddos on our way to church} Sunday was a fun day in between the theme park days. We relaxed at home together, celebrated Ellie’s birthday, had a BBQ and let the kids play play play while we talked talked talked. I love days like that.

We got hotel rooms and spent two days at Disneyland. I think the kids had just as much fun playing in the hotel rooms with their new toys as they did at the park!

We had heard that the two days we were going to be in Disneyland were going to be full of rain. More rain than Southern California had seen since 1950! Massive downpours. So we were prepared. We packed rain gear for everyone and hoped for the best. It definitely rained on us, but it ended up being the best thing ever. The park cleared out and we were walking on all of the rides. I’ve never seen the lines so short! The kids had fun splashing around in the rain and when it got really bad, we headed to our hotel for a break and then came back to an empty park when the sun came out. I’ve decided that all Disneyland trips need to be planned during rain storms.

I know. We’ve seen the princesses probably ten times this year, but it’s usually a 1-2 hour line to meet them and there was NOBODY waiting. Just us and them. The girls were in princess heaven.


The Roller Coaster in Toontown is one of Ellie’s favorites. She cracks me up on rides throwing her hands up in the air and laughing the whole time. El’s a fun one to hang out with.

The Monsters ride at California Adventure is another ride the girls love. Because there was no line we went on it again and again and again…

Small World was still decked in Christmas decor which was a fun change. Made me wish it was Christmas again.

Such a fun four days spent with friends! We had the best time. Such a great time that I wish we could do it all over again for my birthday. Which is in 47 days. (not that I’m counting)
xoxo, Erin
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Ellie
01.21.10

Ellie’s Birthday

My sweet Ellie turned six yesterday. We have spent the last four days celebrating with good friends and have partied non stop! She had a great birthday and is so excited to be six years old. Mom, on the other hand is not so excited. We got home from Disneyland last night and once the girls were in bed I started to cry and didn’t stop for a long time. Partly because our fun party was over, partly because I’m ridiculously hormonal right now, but mostly because Ellie is growing up way too fast and I want her to stop. Ellie is all the best parts of me and Kenny and there is nothing that beats being her mom. If I could freeze her in time right now I would. I would spend the rest of my life listening to her play pretend with her barbies and stuffed animals, watching her take care of her little sister Addison, hanging her creative artwork all over the walls, and listening to her laughter that fills our house every day.
I love you so much Ellie. Please stay six for a long, long time.

xoxo, Erin
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Christmas
01.15.10

Christmas Card Pages

In 2004 (our first year with Ellie) Kenny and I started sending out Christmas cards. That’s also the year I started saving all of the cards I received from family and friends. I LOVED having pictures of so many loved ones and I wanted to keep them. Now (six years later) my card collection was getting out of control. I knew I couldn’t keep everything so I came up with this solution. Each year I’m going to pick a handful of cards and scrap them (one layout per year). I took the pictures off of the cards and cropped them and then arranged them around making a little collage of sorts. I tried to use different families each year so that at one point I’ll have everyone we receive cards from in our Christmas album. Here’s how they turned out…

I kept it simple so it’s easy to do each year. This honestly didn’t take me long at all and I’m so excited to finally have a solution for what to do with my cards! I’m trying to decide if I should type each families name on a little square to put on each picture or just leave them like they are. Anyway, thought I’d share this idea in case any of you are like me and don’t want to part with Christmas cards, but can’t keep saving them all either! I love that now they will be out in our Christmas album each December for our family to remember and enjoy along with pictures of our past Christmases.
p.s. I know a lot of you reading my blog have your picture on display here…hope you don’t mind. You all look lovely. :)
xoxo, Erin
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Feeling Creative
01.13.10

Junk in the trunk and other randomness

Ok… I try to post some nice family pictures and the comments end up being about my butt? HA! You’re all quite amusing. :) The truth is that my “ghetto booty” (as my friend Malea so nicely put it) has been a bit of a blessing and a curse my whole life. It’s not so bad when I keep my weight under control, but when I’m pregnant – and gaining weight like a prize fighter – I don’t love the booty so much. Right now I think my stomach and butt are having a competition to see which can pop out the furthest the fastest. I’m not sure which is winning…it’s close. Very close. That being said, it did land me my husband (always nice to hear from you on the blog babe) so I guess I should be grateful. And here I thought he first fell in love with my glowing personality.

Also in the comments on my last post a few of you asked about making your blog into a book. I’ve started one, but haven’t finished. Go to www.blurb.com and it will walk you through everything. You download their “Book Smart” software and then it will let you “slurp” your blog. This just pulls your blog up on the sidebar so you can create a book by clicking on the pictures/text from your blog and then dragging them where you want on each page of the book. For each page you pick a layout based on how many pictures/text you want to include. It’s really easy, just time consuming. Which is why I’ve only started this little project and not finished it. If anyone else has experience in making one and wants to add something helpful, feel free to in the comments. I’m sure many of you can explain it better than I can.

So this morning I had so many things I should have been doing. Like cleaning this playroom.

Or doing laundry or cleaning the rest of my house which resembles this playroom. But instead I got Ellie off to school and since Addison was tending to her dolls all morning…

(putting them in beds under the toy Ellie hung from the stairs to entertain them), I found myself with some time. Time that I didn’t want to waste cleaning.


So instead I ate WAY too many cherries. And did some scrapbooking.

I started our Halloween book. Yes, this is Ellie’s first Halloween six years ago – like I said, I’m a bit behind. And then I decided I wasn’t in the mood for Halloween pages and I switched gears and started working on my Christmas book. I finally got around to doing something with all of the Christmas cards I’ve saved from family and friends and I’m so excited about having it done! I’ll post it as soon as I find some time to take pictures or scan my pages.

In other fun news, our guest room won’t be empty for too much longer.

We have some good friends coming to visit this weekend to help us celebrate Ellie’s 6th birthday and I’m so excited! The weekend can’t get here soon enough…although I have a lot to get done before they arrive. Better start with that playroom.

xoxo, Erin
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Ellie and Addison
01.11.10

Photo Shoot

Some pics from our Christmas card photo shoot (for a time – in the not too foreseeable future – when I get around to making this blog into a book).

xoxo, Erin
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home decor 2
01.08.10

A clean view

My left kitchen window has been driving me crazy for over a year now. The outside and inside panel weren’t stuck together tight enough and dirt has been getting in between them making my window always look dirty no matter how clean I scrub it. I called to get an estimate for a new one and it was $300! Who wants to spend $300 on a window? So Kenny and I put if off because we had so many other more appealing ways to spend our money. :) Every day though, I’d open my kitchen blinds and that dirty window would bug me every time I glanced outside. A few days ago Kenny called home from work and said “I know that kitchen window is driving you nuts, why don’t you go ahead and get it fixed.” Sweet! I called and scheduled a new one to be put in ASAP (before he changed his mind). Just got the new window put in and what a difference! Now I am loving the clean view of my little lemon tree and the flowers growing on my backyard hill (you can’t really see them in the picture, but they’re there…looking lovely). Thanks again babe.

Hope you all have a great weekend and take some time to enjoy the view. :)

xoxo, Erin
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organization2
01.07.10

Today

Today I’ve been craving rootbeer.

Today Addison heard the song “Soul Sister” on the radio and decided it was about her and Ellie.

Today I got a Golden Spoon yogurt. Pomegranate blueberry. It was SO good. Might be my new favorite. I felt guilty though, getting one without Addison. She’s my yogurt girl. She would eat yogurt every day for every meal when if I let her.

Today we ate cereal for lunch. Not yogurt.

Today I got my glucose test done. Had to drink that nasty orange drink. Why don’t they give you something tastier? Like rootbeer.

Today it was so sunny and warm outside. Felt like summer time.

Today I put the last of our Christmas stuff away. I was bummed to take it down this year. Especially the tree. I love the lights so much. I seriously debated leaving it up all year. I thought about making it a Valentines Day tree, and then decorate it for St. Patty’s Day (a personal favorite), and then for Spring, and the 4th of July… but then Kenny took it down. And I let him. Maybe next year.

Today the girls continued to enjoy their new Christmas toys.

Today I attacked my scrapbook room and started cleaning up my Christmas card explosion.

Today my Project Life kits came in the mail. YEA! I’m so excited.

Today I spread them out along with my baby kit (yes, I love Becky Higgins. And her scrapbooking kits) and starting putting everything together. This is the beginning of my “stay on top of kids’ scrapbooks in 2010 plan.”

Step 1: Put everything together ahead of time. (use pre-planned kits taking away a lot of the creative process that I love, but just don’t have time for in this phase of my life).
Step 2: Organize folders on computer for each child’s book. Inside each month’s picture folder, I have a folder for blog post pics, random pics (ones I want to keep but don’t blog), and a folder for each child’s scrapbook pics. As soon as I download pics, they get deleted or edited and put in the correct folder.
Step 3: Print Print Print! The one thing that’s not so great about this digital picture/blogging craze is that I never develop my pictures anymore. I miss seeing actual pictures in books. Pictures to hold and touch and look at and remember. 2010 is going to be my year of developing!
Step 4: Be selective with what I print. I take A LOT of pictures. I’m going to work really hard to just pick a picture or two from an event that really tells the story of what’s going on instead of feeling like I need to scrapbook all twenty for each child. Hoping this helps with feeling overwhelmed by it all.
Step 5: Show progress once in awhile on my blog. Hopefully that will motivate me to stay on top of things! (***but I make no promises during newborn stage – April through June. I know I’ll be lucky to take a shower during that phase, let alone scrapbook)

Today I’m feeling good about my scrapbook plan and everything I got done. I think it’s time for that rootbeer.
xoxo, Erin
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