Birthdays...

Today is my MIL birthday... she got the greatest gift! 3 new great-grandbabies all born on her birthday.
For those of you that know, Betsie, her twins were born this morning. They are doing fantastic and weighed in at 5 lb. 10 oz. each and were even 5 weeks early! Prayers were answered. Jennidee and Emma are there names. Pictures are posted here.
My SIL, Toni, became a grandma today for the first time. She got a grandson named Samuel Caleb.
That makes me a Great Aunt...yes, I said great...to 10 neices and nephews. Why wouldnt' I feel old. How many 30 year olds can say that?

NKOTB

did any body catch New Kids on the Today show? I hated them then, i can say I hate them even mor now. Sad thing is, I remember the songs. All of the audience was women my age. Boy i feel really old. I am sure there are teenage girls out there that have no idea who NKOTB is. I feel old.

twins

I thought I was going to be spending my day cleaning and organizing my basement. Instead, I got a call from Heather and spent the afternoon at Sacred Heart with twin boys. They were so tiny and perfect, born at 21 weeks. They were strong and lived 1 1/2 hours.

My heart breaks for the parents, especially the fathers. They don't get the bonding like the mothers do, until the baby is born. Such a sweet family.

I wish I could at least show you a picture of their tiny feet, but they aren't my pictures. so to give you an idea of size, the babies weighed aprox. 1 lb each and the longer one was 11 1/2 inches.

I feel blessed to be doing photography for these families. It has really been healing for me. I have always wanted to work with babies, I never thought it would be like this. I know things such as these happen for a reason, I would have never had the opportunity to do what I am doing now if it hadn't been for Olivia. I feel that not only did her life have a purpose, but it gave me one too. Photography has always been a hobby of mine, I never really wanted to make a career out of it, so why not use it for a greater purpose.

6 months

I guess I forgot to mention that Olivia would have been 6 months old yesterday. A huge milestone for me. Matt hadn't realized it and I felt a little on my own although I had mentioned it to him all week. I can't believe that are halfway through our first year without her. Time just goes by so fast. I was not looking forward to Mother's Day for this reason.

The first time I was pregnant, I found out on Mother's Day. I spent the next year going through my third misscarriage. From that time, Mother's Day was just a reminder that I would never be a Mother, until Brinley was born. And I still thought of Mother's Day as a day to buy a card and get a flowering plant at church. Then this year, I realized that I don't get to spend Mother's Day with all of my children. I was quite emotional all week and I blame it on being pregnant, but I have just been really reserved about it. I feel like I would be burdening others with my grief. I did get a few emails from friends and I was so glad that someone thought about how hard yestersday may have been for me. I thought about all of us mom's going through our first Mother's day without our babies. It's not something I wish for anybody to have to go through. I wonder how Matt will handle Father's Day.

Mother's

I can't say that my mom and I have always been real close. I guess I could blame it on middle-child-syndrome or me just being independent and stubborn. I've learned a lot from my mother over the years... her kids came first, having fun didn't mean you had to spend money to do it, sometimes it's okay to skip school and go to San Fransisco for the day, you do the best you can with what you are given and family is important. My mom has always been one to keep everyone happy even if it meant she would have to go without and she is still like that. She's a beautiful woman and I have no idea where I came from. She is very faithful and has a strong testimony. I love you Mom! I hope you enjoyed your Mother's Day.

I have only had Barbara as a Mother for 8 1/2 years. She is the sweetest lady and raised an amazing family which I am so blessed to be a part of. She has always made me feel welcome. We constantly tease each other and joke about keeping a notebook with all the things we do to each other. She is a patient woman and very understanding. I couldn't have asked for a better Mother in Law. She hates having her picture taken, but I love seeing the joy in her face so I take them anyway. I love you Barbara and hope that you had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Mother's Day

I had a nice Mother's Day. It was emotional, but nice. After church we had a picnic with Olivia. The weather wasn't perfect and we got a few sprinkles but it was really nice to be with both my girls. I think the people that stopped by the cemetery thought it was a little odd to see us but I didn't care.

Brinley picked a handful of tulips from our yard for Olivia. We also left an apple for the deer.


A family portrait. Brinley was done by this point.
We visited Matt's mother after our picnic for a while and then headed to my mom's house where we took a Sunday afternoon nap. I'm sure my mom enjoyed watching Brinley while we slept, which wasn't on purpose. THANKS MOM...for the nap.

May MISS meeting

Can I just say it has been a very emotional day for me! First with the whole doctors office incident and then tonight, I had a MISS meeting. The meeting went really good. I missed last months meeting and I didn't realize how much I need to go. I just needed a good cry and lately I just haven't given myself time to do that. I have enjoyed meeting these women, it could have been under better circumstances, but still, I would never have met them otherwise.
We discussed Mother's Day, which is going to be really hard for me. Olivia would be 6 months old Sunday. It doesn't help that I am pregnant and emotional.
We all decided to do an act of kindness on Mother's Day. The MISS Foundation makes these little cards to hand out with your act. Hopefully, the act will be passed on and we know that our child was remember by someone else.
I always thought of Mother's Day as a day for Hallmark to make a buck. Now, it has so much more meaning especially this year. I'm not really sure what our plans are, but I believe it will be spent with both of my daughters.

baby news

Today I had a Doctor appointment. Matt had to work and couldn't go with me. It went something like this:

Got on the scale. Hadn't gained a pound...yet. YIPPEE!
Looked for a heartbeat. Couldn't find it. Got another machine and still couldn't find it.
Doctor Barrong came to see me. Talked about how I am feeling and how things are going. Scheduled an ultrasound so that I wouldn't have to worry for 2 weeks.
Got an ultrasound 15 minutes later...did I ever mention how AWESOME my doctor is?
The ultrasound went great. The baby is just really, really wiggly. It would not stop moving around. The heartbeat is 159 and they moved my due date back to November 14th.
I am off of Prometriun and everything is going awesome.
I will be 13 weeks tomorrow. I am hoping for a very boring pregnancy and so is my doctor. He says I deserve it and I think I do too.

Dreams

I am not one to have a lot of dreams, except when I am pregnant. I have really off-the-wall dreams that don't make sense and I actually remember them. I think that because Matt has the radio on at night, I tend to incorporate commercials and things into my dreams. So here are some bizarre dreams I have had in the past few nights.
The first one: I was with Matt and Brinley at some wierd building with columns when I get a phone call from Bishop Creagh saying he would like to teach us a Family Home Evening lesson. "Okay, sure." I say. Then he says he wants us to meet him at Office Depot for the lesson.
That was the dream. I am not sure why Office Depot is a good place for FHE, but I am sure there is a great visual lesson somewhere in that store.
The second: I was in a room full of people I knew. I had a bag of fried chicken and I was munching on a piece. We were all waiting for something and I'm not sure what, but nobody wanted a piece of my fried chicken and I kept trying to get people to have some. I kept trying to force them to eat a piece. It was odd.
Maybe a KFC commercial came on the radio or a Foster Farms Chicken commercial.
I should write more of these stupid dreams down. Does anyone else have really vivid imaginations when they are pregnant? Or just in general? Because I know men can't have babies, even if Oprah called it a miracle.

Bloomsday 2008

Well, another 47,000+ bloomies come and gone. This year was especially enjoyable. I wasn't able to run it, but I got to be a spectator. I also became the official 'Erickson family babysitter' for my brother, Brian, and my sister, Julie. Church clothes were forgotten by my nieces and it was easier to just have them throw something on and drag them downtown than deal with 4 kids during church. The kids had a great time hanging out by this guy... and listening to some great tunes at the 5 mile mark, the top of "Doomsday Hill". The vulture is a Bloomsday tradition. He sits at the top of the hill and as people run by they give him a hug, take a picture with him, or give him a high five. It was originally a Halloween costume. It has a wing span of 16 feet and is over 10 feet tall. Just as we sat down, I looked over to see... the people from our favorite news channel. We sat right next to them. I am sure you might have caught a glimpse of us in some footage. Bloomies are known for dressing up in odd clothes so that they get noticed. Most of the people we saw were Elite runners and finished the race in less than an hour. It is the best people watching! Here are a few of my favorites:
Super Girls! There is a third in the background.
Ghostbusters! These guys sprayed the kids with that foam string stuff. They loved it!
Love the shorts. You know he only pulls these out on special occasions.
Nice legs! The kids were cheering on the runners, giving them high fives. The runners loved it.

This guy had to be dying inside his costume. I love were he posted his number...nice.
Batwoman.
this guy was awesome. I think he has muscular sclerosis or something like that and his time was amazing. Those are not real tattoos, by the way.
Merv was the first to pass us. Giving Cody a big hug on his way by.
This guy HAD to be hot in that polyester suit with those tight pants.

Julie came up next, gave Cody a hug and kept on running, trying to keep her time under an hour.
Look, even Santa is trying to keep in shape.
Here comes my SIL, Becca. Hugged her girls and off she went.

That fro is awesome.
I saw alot of the 80's leotard look. Especially on teenagers.
Kami shows up with camera in hand.
Brinley got a bit bored waiting around and tried to get a tan.
This lady was great she was all over the road, talking to people, taking pictures, just having fun.

Last of the Ericksons, my brother Brian and...
my mom. She gave us all hugs.
The 5 mile water station was the last on the course. The next one ran out of water, so it was pretty busy here. The picture does not do the water cups justice. They were EVERWHERE!
Nothing like buying an ice cream on the course and they sell tons of them. I don't get it!
The end of the race. Good job guys! It was a lot of fun.

A few facts about Bloomsday:

Bloomsday started in 1977 with 1,400 people. Today it brings in about 50,000-60,000 participants. The course is 12K long. It is usually won by a Kenyan. There is a Bloomsday run in Iraq for soldiers who would like to participate. In 2005, a couple was married on the course. It is one of the largest races in America. The original entrance fee was $3.oo. Today is you register late is will cost you $30. Want to know more? Check it out.