Erin, Author at The Sunny Side Up Blog

Feeling Creative

04.21.09

Inspired by the weather

I’m loving this Springy time of year! I’m not usually a crafty kind of gal but this weather has inspired me to create! When I saw these fun button butterflies in Pottery Barn Kids I decided I could easily make something similar with scrapbook stuff I already had on hand. So on a sunny afternoon, I blew the dust off of my circle punches and ended up with this –

I just painted a wooden scrapbook frame green (you can buy them at Michael’s for $6.00). Very cheap. Very simple. Very quick. For now, my butterfly’s home is in Ellie’s room on this shelf –

I’m kind of into butterflies. I’ve had these butterflies (also Pottery Barn Kids) hanging in the playroom for awhile…

Whenever I walk by the girls’ playroom and see these butterflies hanging I remember the day I hung them. My mom was visiting and I was being a bit of a perfectionist and kept hanging and re-hanging until I felt I had them all three exactly how I wanted them. My mom gets so annoyed by my tendency to over analyze small details so when I asked her what she thought for the 20th time she answered, “I know what those butterflies are thinking. They’re thinking how do we fly out of this window and be free!” I always think of her and smile when I see my perfectly placed butterflies…and then I re-adjust them so they are facing the right way.

Some Springy flowers also in the playroom and a favorite picture of my sweet little Ellie smelling the flowers – 18 months old.

My windows are open right now and we are enjoying the nicest ocean breeze. Outside my petunias are blooming. :) Happy Spring!

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

04.17.09

To my sister, Carly

Just wanted to thank you once again for the brilliant Christmas gift you gave the girls. We’ve so enjoyed listening to their melodic recorder tunes over and over and over again…ALL DAY LONG. In fact, to return the favor Kenny and I have something extra special planned for Claire’s birthday.

JUST. YOU. WAIT.

xoxo, Erin

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Family

04.15.09

Carlsbad Flower Fields

xoxo, Erin

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Family

04.14.09

Easter Weekend

My cute parents came to visit for Easter and we had such a fun weekend with them. Took them to our annual egg hunt at the park, went shopping (thanks for tending dad!), colored eggs, visited the flower fields (pics to come soon), watched movies, ate out, and drove scenic routes along the ocean. The girls enjoyed lots of attention and hugs.

{Egg Hunt}

{Surprises from The Bunny}

(decided to be rebels this year and get Easter pajamas instead of Easter dresses…comfort first)

{Decorating Eggs}

We have so much fun with my family that it’s always hard to say good-bye. This morning when my parents left, Ellie cried. Her sniffles made me sad, so we huddled together under a blanket on the couch and watched Miss Spider. I reminded her of the party that her group at preschool would be having today and that made her feel a little better. I drove her to school (lucked out getting a great parking spot), went to the gym and the grocery store with Addie (where I bought my favorite peppered turkey), came home and re-organized my kitchen pantry. And then I felt a little better. Thanks for spending Easter with us mom and dad. As Ellie said, “This was the best Easter we’ve ever had!”

xoxo, Erin

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Birthdays

04.10.09

Happy Birthday Darla!

Happy Birthday to Kenny’s cute mom! We all love you so much and hope you have a great birthday today. I asked the girls what they love about their grandma and this is what they told me:

Ellie:

-“She plays with me.”
-“She has princesses and bricks to make houses with.”
-“She gives me chicken fingers and Twinkies. That’s my favorite part!”
-“I love her cause she likes me.”

Addison:

– “I love grandma.”
– “I love to have cheese at her house.”

So as you can see Darla, you are very loved. :) Thanks for all you do for our family and for being such a fun grandma to the girls. We are so lucky to have you in our lives. We’ll be thinking of you today and hope you have a fabulous birthday!

p.s. Thanks for raising such an incredible son…and for giving him your killer calf muscles. :)

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

04.08.09

A few facts

Fact 1 – Easter candy is the best candy and Cadbury Creme Eggs are the best of the Easter candy, making them the best of the best….of the best…of all candy.

Fact 2 – A girl can never wear too much jewelry.

Fact 3 – I’m typing this post right now in a desperate attempt to keep myself from eating a Cadbury Creme Egg.

Fact 4 – One Hershey’s Cadbury Creme Egg contains 170 calories, 6 fat grams & 28 carb grams.

Fact 5 – Daddy’s make the best pillows.

Fact 6 – I ate so many Cadbury Creme Eggs when I was pregnant with Addison that I was surprised she didn’t pop out as one.

Speaking of Addison…

Fact 7 – My little elephant is growing up.

Fact 8 – This isn’t working.

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

04.06.09

Weekend Recap

We kicked off our weekend Friday night with the Gabba Gabba gang and special guest star Jack Black. Oh – our little family had been looking forward to this show for weeks! If you remember this post you know that my girls get pretty excited about Yo Gabba Gabba. Kenny and I get pretty excited about Jack Black. He was in rare form as always and his performance was hilarious. Seeing him in DJ Lance’s orange suit was the highlight of my week. It is an episode I’m sure we will all watch over and over and over…

Also this weekend:

more waffles
bought Ellie a booster seat (a nice one that matches the car…the hideous multi-colored seat that she picked out just didn’t come in her size. Darn!)
Conference
coloring pictures for the Easter bunny
lots of the channel 212 for Kenny (NFL network). He is having major football withdrawls. The 2009 season will be announced soon and meaning will be brought back into his life.
watched Marley and Me and Slum Dog Millionaire (loved them both!)
{Could add the next weekend highlight to this post} I woke up in the middle of the night (still half asleep) to use the bathroom and instead of walking into the bathroom door, walked smack into the wall next to it. It’s all good. The goose egg on my forehead goes great with my Spring wardrobe. All of those yellows really make it POP. :)
A few hours of Sea World (surprisingly slow if you hit it early in the morning). Addison’s favorite of the day – “all the fish.” Ellie’s – “the sharks, but I really just wish Sea World would get some mermaids.”

And my favorite pictures from the weekend: Addison stealing Ellie’s grapes…

and then doing her victory dance afterword. Oh..this child of mine.

Hope your weekend was a good one too. :)

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

04.03.09

Just a bit of sibling love

{Spring 2009}

{Fall 2008}

xoxo, Erin

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Ramblings

03.31.09

Blogging

Last year during my favorite month (that would be March) I started this blog. Since March has come and gone again and I have now had this blog for one year I wanted to take a minute to reflect on all of the things that I LOVE about blogging…

Top Ten List:

1) Since my blog is our new family album I am always caught up with at least one scrapbook. (by the way… “slurping” your blog to make a blurb book is the coolest thing since Seven jeans).

2) My blog book includes a lot of the little day to day things. It gives a much better picture of what my family and our personalities are like than my other scrapbooks. It is full of the stuff I believe my 70 year old self is going to want to read and remember.

3) With just the click of a button I can feel close to my friends all over the map (those who are cool enough to blog that is ;) I’ve also made new friends and grown closer to old friends who left my life for a short spell. I love knowing what my friends are up to. I love seeing pictures of my friends and their families. I love getting to know my friends’ kids. I love peanut butter but that’s beside the point.

4) Blogging is something that I can do in front of the TV. I’ll admit it. Kenny and I love our TV. Each Fall we make a spreadsheet of all of our must see shows and set the DVR to make it all happen. I love sitting on my comfy couch at the end of the day with my laptop on my lap, my husband to the right of me, and something entertaining on the tube. Oh…and don’t forget the popcorn. It’s multi-tasking at its best.

5) My mom hasn’t given me nearly as much grief about moving back to Utah now that she can always see what my girls are up to. (Seriously, we’ve gone from her asking a few times every day, to only asking once every few days…major improvement!) Love you mom.

6) It is now perfectly acceptable to spy on other people. I prefer to use the word ‘spy’ instead of ‘stalk’. I’ve never liked the word stalk. I do, however, like the words calamity, optionality, and frigid.

7) Because of blogging I’ve become much more computer savvy. Now I only bother Kenny with computer questions every 20 minutes each night instead of every 5. Like my mom…major improvement! Life is all about improvement, isn’t it?

8) Blogging hands down beats doing laundry, vacuuming, cooking, or dishes. Plus research shows that writing about personal experiences improves memory and sleep and boosts immune cell activity. (whatever that means…it’s straight from Wikipedia and I plan to recite it every time Kenny catches me blogging instead of doing the above daily chores)

9) Blogging is such a great way to be inspired! You can learn new recipes to try (or in my case to just write down), new activities to do with your family, new ways to decorate or organize your house, new crafts for the kids. After reading blogs you often feel completely ~~crappy about your life and everything you’re NOT doing~~ inspired to try new things.

10) Comments. Comments comments comments. I have to be honest and throw this one out there. What blogger doesn’t love comments? Who doesn’t love constant, daily, positive feedback. Someone always telling you how great you are, how cute your kids are, how amazing everything about your life is. You cleaned the house today….WONDERFUL! Your kids are making cookies…..DARLING! You and your husband went on a fun date…..PERFECT COUPLE! It can be incredibly addicting. For my photography class I had to upload pictures each week (our assignment) to have them reviewed by my teacher. After my first assignment, he too left me a comment. It was basically a really nice way of saying that my pictures looked awful. Something about “determination and never giving up….just the way they should look for your first class”…blah blah blah. I panicked. I didn’t know how to act! What!? I’m used to only receiving over the top nice comments. All of my pictures are wonderful! Just ask my blogging friends! I told Kenny I didn’t like my photography class or my teacher. I was going back to blogging….because in the blogging world….you are perfect. Just read the comments.

So thanks. Thanks to the person who invented blogging. Thanks to everyone who cares about me and my family and takes the time to read this silly blog. Thanks to those of you who drop a comment once in awhile – they really do make my day. And thanks to Bobbi Brown for creating a foundation that is a sunscreen and a moisturizer all in one. But that’s beside the point.

xoxo, Erin

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Ellie and Addison

03.29.09

Lately

Lately my Saturday morning cardio kickboxing class has a new teacher and he is ruthless. He also makes various noises while doing roundhouse kicks that I’m not quite sure about. I’m am sure that my roundhouse kicks have improved and I am now ready to take out anybody who gets in the way of my cardio kickboxing class.

Lately after heading to the gym Saturday mornings we come home and Kenny makes waffles with the girls. It’s a fun thing the three of them do together and Ellie looks forward to it all week… “is tomorrow Saturday yet?…how many more days until we make waffles with daddy?”

Lately I too have been working on making my girls a nice, warm breakfast every morning…it’s called toast.

Lately I’ve been learning more about photography. Mainly all I’ve learned is that I have a lot more to learn.

Lately we’ve been really into rainbow toe nails at our house.

Lately Pat and Oscars’ (a pizza place we frequent too often) BBQ chicken and Lemon chicken is tasting the exact same. Slightly alarming.

Lately the economy seems to be doing a little better. Shopping efforts have paid off! Everyone should do their part… if you really love your country.

Lately there seems to be a lot of multi-tasking going on while I’m driving …turn on music, hand back pretzels, put on lipstick, turn up music, hand back sippys, turn music to Ellie’s favorite song because it’s her turn, answer cell phone, turn down music so I can hear cell phone, tell caller on cell phone I can’t talk because the kids are complaining too loud that the music is turned down, turn off music, chew out kids… oh yeah – drive the car.

Lately Ellie performed in her pre-school’s rendition of “Peter and the Wolf” and she played the part of the duck. The duck is an important part to play because aside from the duck-sounding instrument she had to learn, she was also eaten by the wolf. She was a very cute, very clever, very tasty, very amusing little duck. Take a bow baby – your parents thought you were fabulous.

Lately Tostido Crispy Round chips have been my drug of choice. My thighs are not impressed.

Lately we’ve been staying away from Disneyland. All you Utahans come for Spring Break and make the place crazy! ;)

Lately I’ve been running into the San Diego firemen all over the place. They’re at the grocery store, at the gym… very nice guys. They could make a calendar. Or go fight fires. Or hang out with stay-at-home moms at the grocery store and the gym which seems to be their preference.

Lately I’m really missing my sweet niece, Claire.

Lately Kenny and I have been staying up way too late. And then I’ve been getting up really early with the girls and hooking them up with a great babysitter (Peter Pan) and then going back to sleep for half an hour. This really just makes me more tired than I was when I first woke up with the girls.

Lately all of the ankle socks I’ve bought keep sliding off my heels and it’s really bugging me.

Lately Addison has been up to her usual tricks. You know when your child is playing upstairs and it’s too quiet…sometimes it’s better to not check to see what she’s up to. I’m just glad she amuses herself.

Lately I’ve decided the main reason I need to have another baby someday is because Addison was meant to be a middle child. She already acts like one. Having another baby just hasn’t been a high enough priority on my to-do list.

Lately anyway…

xoxo, Erin

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Ramblings

03.25.09

Have you ever?

realized just in the nick of time that you were about to brush your teeth with Desitin (diaper rash cream) instead of toothpaste?

had a toilet clog and (after multiple plumbers check it out) discovered that you have a tree root growing in your pipes? And the pipe is right below your kitchen which means your whole kitchen floor has to be torn up? And this is all taking place when you have a newborn and are trying to potty train a 2 year old?

gone to pick up your child’s birthday cake at the grocery store and after putting the cake in the cart your kids tip the cart over on top of themselves ruining the cake and causing a huge mess along with a multitude of tears?

driven your child to preschool only to discover once you get there that she doesn’t have shoes on?

spent hours making a pasta dish to eat later that night for dinner (and several nights after for leftovers) and while sliding the glass bowl it’s in into the fridge dropped it, shattering glass and pasta all over your kitchen? (and then after bawling about it on the phone to your husband he saves the day and rushes home with pizza in hand?)

taken your 2 year old into a public restroom and helped her go potty and gone on and on really loud about “what a big girl she is” only to walk out of the stall and see men standing at urinals and realized a little late that you are in the men’s restroom?

taken the groceries out of the back of your SUV and then closed your garage door BEFORE closing the back door of the SUV? (SCRAPE!)

Have you ever?

Or is it just me.

xoxo, Erin