Thanksgiving Weekend

I am so happy that we had visitors this weekend!  Grandma Jan, Grandpa Larry, Uncle Steve, Steven, and Brad all came out to see us on Friday and Saturday.  Uncle Steve and Grandma Jan taught us how to play Pinochle (my new favorite game), and we enjoyed two delicious dinners together (thanks, mom!).  Here are a couple of pictures -

Golfing With Brad

Snuggles with Gma Jan and Gpa Larry

Hanging out with Uncle Steve

Cousins

Carter is so lucky to have 2 cousins so close in age - Josh is just 27 hours older, and Elle is 15 months younger.  Now that we have moved back to Central Phoenix, we are much closer to them, and we love to get them together to play.  

Little Engineers

Silly Dinosaur, Elle!

Teamwork!

Definitely the adventurous one!

Good Morning!

5:30am is way too early to wake up on a Saturday morning... but apparently no one told Carter that!  We heard him yelling, "Up with Daddy!  Want to go play now!", and I tried to ignore it in hopes that he would just go back to sleep.  Luckily, Chris was being especially thoughtful, and told me to keep sleeping while he got up with Carter.  They seemed to be really quiet, until about 7:15, Carter came into the room with two donuts on a plate for me - yum!  These boys sure know the way to my heart!  Chris had taken Carter on a little adventure - he let Carter pick out new DVDs and "sprinkle" donuts (think he's got daddy wrapped around his finger?). 

Election

Another thing our family is thankful for - the upcoming change of power in the White House.  Thank the Lord that change is coming! 

I just downloaded some pictures, and found this one that I took a couple of days before the election.  I LOVE the "YES WE CAN" shirt that Carter had on... it survived crushed raspberries, spaghetti, and lots of dirt - still looks great!  I think it'll definitely be a keepsake :)

Thankful

I'm always amazed this time of year - it always seems like the holidays are so far off, and then *poof*! Here they are :)

I'm up early today... thanks in part to my early-bird baby, and the need to bake 4 pies before dinner.   The pies are well on their way to completion, Carter is occupied with Elmo, and I have a minute to think about why I'm thankful.

1. I have a husband that, after nearly 8 years of marriage, still sees the importance of working to make our relationship better everyday.

2. I have a gentle and sweet little boy - who always makes me smile.  Even as I'm writing this now, I had to take a break when he asked me to hold him like a "tiny baby" and sing to him :)  It doesn't get any better than that.

3. My beautiful sister - so thankful to spend a couple of days hanging with my favorite girl :)

4. I have a job that has given me amazing friends and a great sense of fulfillment.

5. Certainly not last:  The Grace of God - in every aspect of my life.

Sending lots of love and wishes for a blessed Thanksgiving for you today - 

Oh Boy!

I thought I was being so proactive... I checked on Carter late last night, just to make sure that he didn't undress himself (I definitely didn't want a repeat of the past few days!). He was sleeping soundly, with his pants on, phew! What I failed to notice was that my little stinker had actually taken his pants/diaper OFF, then just put the pants back on. Sooooo... when we woke up this morning, Carter's pajamas were filled with.... yuck.

Code BROWN

Seriously... the worst thing to hear in the morning, especially when I only have 40 minutes to get up, make breakfast, get Carter ready, and out the door... Chris yelling - "We've got a code brown in here!!!"  Without going into the glorious (smelly) details, I'll just say that stripping my child, his bed, and running a bath put me seriously behind schedule.  Ahhh... the life of a toddler's mother :)

An afternoon of "Cheese"!

I am so lucky to have an amazingly talented friend, who takes the most precious family pictures. So, after lots of hassle - shirts ironed, Carter's hair combed (sort of), juice cup filled, extra diapers packed - we finally got out the door this afternoon to make the trek up to Anthem. We met Janelle at the park, and started taking our pictures - we only had 30 minutes, and didn't want to waste any time! Of course, Carter refused to put his juice cup down, and so it made it into the first dozen pictures. Carter wasn't really thrilled to be forced to sit still, so we tried to distract him by looking at the train and the ducks - it worked for a couple of minutes! It was so cute to watch the silly face he made everytime he said "Cheese!"... not really close to a smile, but pretty cute anyways. I think we are going to be getting some fantastic photos back. I can't wait! Hopefully they'll be ready in about a week, and I'll post some (maybe I will have told someone about the blog by then?).

I want to be cool, too!

So, it looks like everyone has a blog these days... including me! I guess the difference is, no one knows that mine exists. Maybe that is why I only put two entries in it before I totally forgot about it. But, after looking at Summer's blog last weekend, I feel re-inspired to continue to chronicle life in the Erickson family. Let's just hope I can keep it up more than a week this time...