Last night we celebrated the New Year quietly, in the literal sense, my dad went to bed early because he worked today. Our cheers were on the whispered side.

We woke up to huge snowflakes falling. By afternoon, the snow was starting to melt, not that it made too much of a dent in the 2 1/2 feet of snow still on the ground. I am sure there is more in the forecast.

2008 was a really good year to us. We bought our first house in February, bought the CricKet store in August, Brinley started Kindergarten in August, and the best part...our sweet baby Sarah came in November.

Last year I had no goals, I think that after losing Olivia, I just wanted to make it through the year. This year I hope to accomplish the goals I set for myself.

*lose all of the baby weight (although I am thrilled with the outcome, I don't recommend having babies a year apart)

*spend more time with my little family

*more dates with Matt

*cook dinner more often

*eat healthier

*sewing projects, such as quilts and clothing for the girls

*read more books

*read and study the B of M

*organize, organize, organize

*insulate the house

*new roof for the house

*start finishing the basement

* more craft projects with Brinley

*put in a garden

* remember family members birthdays and send cards

* keep up on my blog better

*exercise

* work on scrapbooks

*run bloomsday (its been a few years)

*cut out soda completely

*get Brinley into gymnastics

*get Brinley swim lessons

*spend more time outside

*travel to see some family and friends

I think this is just the start of what things I want to accomplish this year. We'll see how this goes and go from there.

I hope that everyone has an awesome 2009.

Christmas day.

This is what Sarah did while we

did this.

Brinley got Legos, but I have had more fun with them. I built this and then let her tear it down so that I could build another one.
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Since most of the family had other things going on Christmas Eve, we had the Erickson celebration Christmas Day. We played games ( Trivia Pursuit and Would You Rather?), chatted, ate a ham dinner, watched movies, ate snacks, put a puzzle together, ate pie, and ate some more.
Gotta love the Holidays.

New Years Eve should be fun. It is my Mom's birthday and it's become a tradition (7 years, I believe?) to go out to eat at Wolf Lodge in Couer d'Alene

MMM...the BEST steaks ever.

It's so worth the 40 mile drive to get there.

Merry Christmas

It is 9am. I am the ONLY one awake...can you believe it? So, I thought while I wait for anyone to get up, I'll blog a little, with a sleeping baby Sarah in my arms. She is getting heavy.

We got home last night at about midnight, after making the rounds, to the sound of cracking and popping. I looked across the street, as we opened the door to our home, to see our neighbors garage roof collapse. Nice Christmas gift, huh? Matt went over to make sure that nobody was in there, but we are waiting for the rest of it to cave in. We helped them move a car from under the carport, located right next to the garage. The neighbor had just gone out about 30 minutes earlier to throw garbage away. They are in their late 70's maybe 80's. We are so glad they are okay. We have heard more cracking and popping throughout the night.

Matt spent the next hour knocking the snow and icicles off of our house. We got to bed pretty, late...well, early. I had to wait for Brinley to FINALLY fall asleep so that I could play Santa. That could be the reason most of the house is still asleep.

Hope you all have a SAFE and happy Christmas!

wants and wishes

It's getting close to Christmas and I still haven't figured out what to get Matt. The kids are easy peezy (lemon squeezy). I am not even sure what to tell Matt to get me. However, I have wants and wishes. Most are way out of our Christmas budget, but they are the only things I really want, so do you think that I could just combine Christmas with my birthday and Valentines and whatever else holiday should arise in the next few months? Or we could just skip paying any bills this month to please me...

So here is my list of wants and wishes

A Bernina White Pearl sewing machine

and

AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED lens

and
SB-800 AF Speedlight

and

Bare Minerals Makeup

just to name a few.

santa

Last night I took the kiddos, including Coders, to see Santa at our Ward Christmas party. It was entertaining to see the little kids react to Santa. This was the 4th time this year that Brinley and Cody had seen Santa. Cody's words:

Santa: "What would you like for Christmas?"

Cody: "I already wrote you a letter Santa."

Brinley didn't want to sit on Santa's lap, but realized that you can't get your candy cane unless you do. This kid LOVES candy canes. She sang with the Primary kids with one in her mouth.

Sarah was easy, didn't complain, just sat there like a good little bean.
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on another note, I am back to volunteering again. Matt stayed with the girls last night while I was at the hospital photographing a sweet little baby. Sarah was good for her tired Daddy, I just pumped a bottle for her and she was happy...SO OPPOSITE of Brinley.

the button tree craft

i have been asked by at least a hundred (okay, not really, but it sure seems like that many) people about where we got all our buttons. Well, we collected them over the year, bought some at Walmart bought some through a favorite site of mine, ETSY.com You need about 500 buttons for a large tree.

The best place to buy styrafoam cones is at Michaels (with the coupon, of course).

The pins are the most expensive, so buy them at Walmart, enough to pin on 500 buttons. we like the large pearlized ones.

Whalaa...hours of fun. It will keep your children, or yourself, busy for a very long time.

As for the pom poms, for the garland, the dollar store is the cheapest place I've found.

Have fun crafting!

pom pom garland

to keep Brinley busy while i got a few things done, i had her make garland for her tree. this is an easy and cheap craft. just make sure your child is old enough to use a needle and thread.give your kids a pile of fun pom poms.

have them thread them onto a somewhat "sturdy" thread/string...
in any order they want.
let them place it on their oh-so-pretty-sparkly pink Christmas tree.

what did we do for Thanksgiving, you ask?

My day before Thanksgiving was spent with the flu. It wasn't fun. I don't recall the last time I was that sick. Luckily, Julie and Becca were around to do the prep work for Thanksgiving and I just laid on the couch and got up every few hours to nurse the baby.
Thanksgiving morning I was feeling much, much better and Sarah even let me get a little sleep through the night.

With a bunch of cousins in town, Brinley was in heaven and I haven't seen much of her. She has been spending the nights with them and having a blast.

So, with me feeling better and family in town, the Thanksgiving Day festivities began with me picking up the turkey from Longhorn Barbecue. I will just say that it is so nice to have someone else cook (smoke, in our case) the turkey and leave the oven open for other things to be baked. By the way, the turkey was DELICIOUS and I think it should become a tradition...

Then Matt and I took Sarah out to Olivia's grave for the first time. Actually, she's been out there, but sat in the car with Matt while I visited her site. It was a little...okay, a lot...emotional for me. I guess because when I saw Sarah there, it just brought back a flood of memories from a year ago and the thoughts of where Olivia would have been if she were here.

Since my Mom is staying with my sister, Corinne, until she has her baby and my dad worked Thanksgiving day, we crashed at their house, because it can fit everybody, and made button trees again this year...Do you have any idea what 10,000 buttons looks like? Well, it's a lot and no that wasn't a typo, i really meant 10,000 buttons.It was fun. We also played a little RockBand again, until my dad came home. He doesn't particularly like that game. It's a bit noisy.

We also spent a good chunk of time going through ads for early morning shopping. That's right, we are some of those crazy people that get up at 4am to go shopping with the 8 million other crazy people just to get a good deal. And I took Sarah with me...she was perfect and I bundled her up for the 23 degree weather. I actually ran into quite a few new babies with their moms while shopping. I say" If your going to be up with the baby at 4am anyway, why not go shopping."

When we got home, it started to snow and has been snowing all day...it was perfect for the start of the Christmas season. I got my Christmas decorations out and will work on the outdoor lights tomorrow. Since Matt had to work today, we are going to wait til tonight to decorate the tree. It should be fun.

thank you Merv for watching all the kids so that Julie, Brian and Becca and I could go shopping. And sorry, Julie, for giving you the flu...

happy thanksgiving