hey.

summer had been unbelievably busy.

my blog suffered.

I have a few minutes to update.
July: my sister and I shot alot of weddings this month and then headed down to Seaside, Oregon for a big family reunion for a few days. It was nice to see so much family and chat till the wee hours of the morning with cousins we hadn't seen it years.

August: we had more weddings to shoot along with some family sessions. Business has been good to us.

At the beginning of the summer, Brinley and I had made a list of all the things we wanted to do. We got the most of them done in August.

we decided to make one for fall and also for winter. It's a great idea for busy kids who think they have to have something to do every minute of the day.

we got our first egg from our chickens. it was egg-citing...ha, I couldn't help myself. We love our little chicken pets. Sarah calls them 'chicka babies'. They follow us around our yard and are really fun to watch.
we also celebrated my niece's birthday by riding horses and having a hotdog dinner at my sister's house.

September: a few more weddings to shoot.

Brinley started 3rd grade.

she loves it!

we had our first field trip this last week. It was the easiest field trip I have ever been on as a parent. We watched the kids and chatted about the school and parenting. We ate lunch with the kids and parents got to talk some more in the afternoon. I chatted with Brinley's teacher for most of the afternoon. I really like her and I think she will be great for Brinley.

October, it seems, is going to be a little less nuts. I love fall and am excited for the change of weather. I've started on Brinley's halloween costume. I hope it comes together as I imagined it. Sarah wants to be a horse...no surprise.

I hope to update more often now that our wedding season has ended. I miss taking pics of my kids and the things we have been doing. I'll get right on that :)

getting big.

All of the sudden, Sarah got big.

And became the "not so little baby." Because of her...
We were laughing while taking pictures of these two together because it's like Matt and Merv laying next to each other and awfully close to the size proportions.
Sarah looks an awful lot like Matt as a baby, I have been calling her Matilda.

lola joon.

My sister Julie's baby:

Lola Joon

Februaru 18th, 2009

4:30am

7 lbs.

19 1/2 inches

proud brother, Cody.

I will let Julie give you more details when she gets home from the hospital.

her name is Lola.

Julie's sweet little baby was born this morning.She is adorable. I'll post pictures later.

random things.

I have been tagged by about 5 people to list 25 random things. I 'm not even sure I can come up with that many things, but here it goes. I was tagged on facebook, but I am so lost when it comes to that.

1. we have two goldfish. we have been trying to secretly "kill" them for about 1 1/2 years...they won't die. Their names are spot and spot.

2. I have the most boring closet of clothes. I like solids and dark colors...SO BORING, i know.

3. I don't eat rice. Except for fried and sticky.

4. I love Matt's hair. It was one of the things that attracted me to him. 5. I have a crooked toe to go with my crooked smile.

6. My sister, Kami, made a cat in a pottery class. I bugged so much about how much I loved it, she let me "borrow" it for as long as i want, she wants it back someday. It is one of my favorite decorations.

7. I HATE cats. I am allergic to them.

8. I am allergic to very random things and I am pretty sure people think I am lying (honey, pineapple, citrus fruits, pecans and walnuts, etc.)

9. I have been craving a salad for about 6 months, but can't eat it unless I want to be up with a gassy baby all night.

10. I drove a Rolls Royce as a Chauffeur for a hotel.

11. I hate my hair. I can't do anything with it. It's thin and it doesn't curl.

12. I buy the newspaper just for the ads. I throw the rest away.

13. I am usually at the mall to walk, not shop. I don't like shopping all that much.

14. I've eaten haggis. If you don't know what that is, you won't want to know. It wasn't as bad as I expected, but was still gross.

15. I hate scary movies and will not watch them.

16. I can remember my phone number from over 25 years ago...623.4756, I was six.

17. I do not have a green thumb, and tend to kill house plants accidentally. I love that my yard doesn't take much to take care of.

18. I hate going to the movies downtown because of the escalators. They freak me out.19. I would love to visit Dubai, just to see the architecture.

20. I love to watch my girls sleep.

21. Everyday after Brinley gets home from school, I make lunch and we watch The Cosby Show together.

22. I have never broken a bone, I don't count toes.

23. I love stars and have them hanging throughout my house.

24. I love to paint houses, I want to repaint my bedroom.

25. I think it's really hard to think of 25 random things to write about yourself.

mike and claci.

I had the pleasure of photographing these two last Saturday. Claci is Matt's niece.

Poor Mike was frozen. He's from Arizona where it's not quite so cold. She kept him warm.

happy birthday to me...

Of course I got a new cell phone...what else would my husband get me?

I now have texting (megan and juli).

My mom and sister's took me out for lunch on Thursday and we got pedicures too. I forgot to bring my camera (I can't believe I did that) but my sister did, I haven't got pictures from her yet. Brinley went with us and peed her pants. that was fun.

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.
******
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.

chloe lana

My sister, Corinne, added another member to the family today.

Meet

Chloe Lana

December 15th

6:56pm

5 lbs. 15 oz.

19 1/2 inches

I think she looks a lot like her brother Graham, maybe it's the cheeks.
A happy Corinne, who had a HORRIBLE pregnancy. I am sure she feels that it was all worth it now.

Congratulations you guys! We love you and can't wait to meet her.

(2 babies born, 1 more to go...)

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...

sleep deprived

please forgive me for not posting as often as before...my brain remembers only things like...well, nothing. It's pretty blank up there.

Sarah still has her nights and days mixed up. I don't always get a chance to take a nap, however, today I did (thank you PBS kids).

This week is filled with Brinley's school, food shopping, family in town, cooking, baking, crafting, Christmas shopping and sleepless nights. I am sure that I might be able to catch a nap in there somewhere with family in town.

Matt's birthday was yesterday. Did we do anything? Nope. We didn't even make it to church. (I finally fell asleep at about 6:30am) I feel as if I am becoming inactive. I can't see that it is going to be any better in December. My intentions are good, but I really think Brinley should be at Primary on Sunday.

Things that did get done:

We threw my sister, Kami, a birthday party at my parents house. I'm glad my dad enjoys having us come over so that we can make a mess of his house instead of ours. I made navajo tacos and brownies, while Julie provided the ice cream, whipped cream and exploding hot fudge. Kami brought over RockBand...such a fun game. I got to sing a few songs, off tune, of course. (Our family was NOT blessed with music skills...absolutely zero!) We had a blast though. I know this is like the third time you've seen a photo like this, but literally, this is what Brinley loves to do with Sarah...just hold her and give her the binky.
Our lawn is free of leaves.Thank you to the nice man/student that stopped by our house and asked if he could clean our yard...YES! YES YOU CAN! (did I sound a little too excited about the thought of having a clean yard?) He raked our billion leaves from our yard and it was worth every penny! I can't believe it only took him 4 hours to get it done.

Cody was staying with us and LOVED playing in the piles. The man was very nice about letting the kids play in the piles of leaves.

Brinley did not want me to take her picture, but I wanted to show you her loveley outfit that she picked out herself. My personal favorite thing about this particular outfit, the skeleton gloves.