Hey Santa

Please read the title to this blog as the great Wilson Phillips would sing it in their classic Christmas song Hey Santa.

Santa visited the very nice and once in awhile naughty Erickson girls. You'd think with all the new toys these ladies received there would be nothing to fight over...you'd think wrong.

Here's Elsie playing with the school bus Santa gave to Margot.

Elsie was thrilled about the tutu and fancy headband Santa left for her. She only takes it off for meals.

Christmas Eve

We celebrated Christmas Eve with the Ericksons in Eagle Lake. We had a great day eating, opening presents, playing with new toys and trying to keep Margot away from anything she could break or kitchen and bathrooms drawers she wanted to explore.

Soren gets into the Christmas spirit by gazing at a Santa snow globe.
Grandpa and Grandma Erickson have a pool table in their house and Elsie and Margot love to roll the balls across the table. It looks like Soren is refereeing a bar fight here. Of course, Margot plays the role of little sister bully.

I'm so excited to open the presents behind me!! I can't believe we have to take turns!

Wisconsin Dells

We went on a mini-vacation with my family to Wisconsin Dells and four days later are finally beginning to not smell like chlorine! We had so much fun that the 3 1/2 hour car ride with a cranking Margot who refuses to sleep in a car didn't erase all our fun water slide memories. Elsie LOVED the water slides. Soren's favorite Elsie quote from the trip goes like this. They walk up at least 4 flights of stairs, go down the water slide together and once at the bottom Elsie looks up at Soren with a huge grin and says "I want to go again Dad!" Back up the steps.

Here's Elsie just getting down a slide. She would always jump up and yell "I did it!!" Even after she had done the same slide like 29 times.
Safety in numbers.

Margot spent a lot of time climbing up the three stairs on this slide and then refusing to do down it. Such a weird gal.

Christmas Cookies

It took 4 adults to bake cookies with 4 children under the age of 3, but the results were great cookies and lots of fun. My parents, sister, niece, and nephew trucked out to Farmington to bake cookies with Elsie and Margot. No one got sick from eating cookie dough or too many cookies so the day was a success.

Elsie and Gabe decorate and sample the cookies while Grandma and Grandpa supervise.
Margot dumped at least 2 cups of flour onto the floor and Stella did a great job playing with the cookie dough.

"Best Cousins!" as Elsie likes to say. The way cute aprons are courtesy of Auntie.

2010 Blizzard

Soren was out of town all week and thought it was the BEST thing to be snowed in for a day. I was not a fan of being snowed in for these three reasons: 1. I had a hair cut scheduled for this morning. 2. I had a coffee date with one of my favorite peeps. 3. I had just spent 5 days close to home with the girls and no hubby and was looking forward to getting out.

Soren talked me out of my grouchy snow mood and we had a wonderful day baking cookies, playing in the snow and enjoying a day indoors.

I told you Soren was happy about the snow day.
I love bundled up Margot.

Elsie and Margot spent most of the time admiring the snow from inside the garage.

I had lots of helpers in the kitchen today!

p.s. Elsie stayed in her pjs all day - perfect snow day attire.

Happy Thanksgiving

And now a word from our sponsor...

No More Margot Mullet

Margot had her first haircut today and lost the party-in-the-back do she sported so nicely. It's safe to say Margot was not happy about her first time in the barber's chair. In typical Margot fashion she made things a little more challenging than necessary. No sucker, TV show, or toy could distract Margot long enough to stop crying.

I think the tears were worth it...here's her new do.
Margot freaking out during her haircut.

Here's the before picture that should be first in this post, but I can't figure out how to move the pictures around. Her mullet was glorious and Soren misses it a bit.

Winter Rule

New rule in the Erickson house: the time we spend outside has to be equal to or more than the amount of time it took to get ready to go outside. Of course we LOVED playing in the snow, but as they say in computer world -- OMG! It was a lot of work to get these two out the door.

Elsie works on her snow dog.
Margot wonders what happened to the green world we used to live in.

Fashion Police Please Be Kind...

Let me walk you through this outfit starting from the top: sunglasses on upside down, sweater with the sleeves pushed up, every shirt now must have the sleeves pushed up which for some reason drives me CRAZY, purple tutu and my red shoes. Elsie is holding onto a princess doll and is claiming to be a princess herself.
Margot makes a bold statement by wearing Elsie's underwear for everyone to see. It took Elsie about an hour to notice that Margot had something "green on her bottom," she then yelled "NO, Margot can't wear my undies she's too little!"

November 9, 2010

Dear Blog Diary,

Today Margot, Elsie, and I went to the Minnesota Zoo with my sister, niece, and nephew. Here we are outside having a picnic lunch, not wearing jackets, and enjoying a warm Minnesota day in NOVEMBER! I will cherish this memory in mid-January.

A Matching Moment

Here we are wearing the latest fashion of gray and white stripes. However, my shirt does not have a cute bear peaking out from the side. I'm sure those of you who know me will be shocked to realize I have gray in wardrobe.

Busted

Trouble maker Margot got into the cereal and dumped it all over the floor. Next time she should find the healthy, good-for-you stuff and fling that across the room instead of the not-so-good-for-you sugar cereal (the box said it has whole grain)

Elsie investigates and eats the crime scene.
Elsie holds the criminal in place as I take photos to document the scene. The girls then ate as many pieces of cereal as they could as I went to get the broom.

Tricks and lots of Treats

We were all about Halloween this year. We went to Halloween parties, storytimes, and of course went trick or treating. I think my girls are happy to be rid of their monkey suits for a while.

Who needs candy when you can eat the wrapper?
Soren and Elsie covered a lot of ground trick or treating this year. Here's what Elsie said at each house: "Trick or treat! Thank you! I want to go to the next house daddy!"

Classic Anne - I'm really excited to carve pumpkins with the girls. They last about 4 1/2 minutes and I'm left with 3 pumpkins to carve and the clean up.

Margot really liked the messy stuff.

Elsie stayed away for the "yucky" stuff and painted her pumpkin.

Party People

Grandma and Grandpa G hosted their 2nd Annual Halloween Party and really out-did themselves this year. They made some spooky looking but good tasting food, came up with some unique games, such as bobbing for donuts, and most importantly spoiled their grandchildren.

Here's Ladybug Stella.
Margot and Elsie are monkeys, Gabe is a spider and Stella a ladybug. The two not in costume are papa and grandma.

SOOOOOO impossible to get a picture of these four crazies. I have yet to get one where everyone is looking at the camera. I wish I had video though so you could hear my dad making this crazy noise in attempts to make the kids smile. It's funny but not ha-ha funny.

Elsie and Gabe with a spider pizza. I'm so impressed with my mom's skills.

The Pumpkin Patch Post

This year our pumpkin picking experience included a corn maze, farm animals, and Elsie getting clotheslined by an excited 8 year-old boy running for a tractor ride. Both boy and Elsie are OK.

Soren training for the World's Strongest Man Competition.

Elsie finds the perfect pumpkin and carries it by herself - thank you very much.

Margot scoping out the scene. I think it looks like she is perfecting a danceline move. Maybe she will follow in her mom's footsteps.

Our fearless leader. Elsie guided us through the corn maze. It took forever and I got a little nervous after 15 minutes of dead ends.

The ultimate staredown.

Girl Got Style

I can't decide what's more outrageous, the huge flower in Margot's hair (which she demands to wear) or the sunglasses. Obviously, her fashion sense comes from her mom.

A is for...

Anne, Alligator, Awesome, and of course Apple. We had lots of fun at an apple orchard near our house and as Elsie would say enjoyed the prettyful (pretty + beautiful) season of Autumn.

Here Elsie leads Margot around the hedge maze. Is this a trust exercise where the little sister has to close her eyes and hope she doesn't get led into disaster...or is this just another photo of Margot with her eyes closed?
Elsie puts the apples in and Margot takes them out.

Elsie looks for the perfect apple.

A happy moment for Margot. Minutes later she tripped on the apples and gave herself a good bump on the head.

The Rain Watchers

Sometimes you have to get your kids outside even if they can't actually go outside. Genius Mr. E distracts the girls so I can have five minutes to clean the kitchen and drink wine.

State Fair Time!

Sören and his family are State Fair pros. Growing up Sören’s family would arrive before daybreak and leave after the fireworks. We did a modified State Fair trip with the girls this year. Six hours on a 90+ degree day was long enough. We had a great time, ate tons of food, went on rides, and saw some animals. As we were leaving the fair Elsie says “When are we having lunch?” In the mind of our 3 year-old it’s only lunch if we are sitting at our kitchen table.

Margot looking slap-happy tired at the fair. Her silly parents thought she might lay down in her cozy stroller and take a nap, but there's way too much to see and eat to waste time sleeping.
An Erickson favorite...fruit sundaes from the dairy building.

Elsie would like some fries for her ketchup addiction and Margot would just like to get out of the stroller and pick up cigarette butts!

Elsie did a solo trip with Soren to the fair last Friday. She took a snooze with her new friend Corndog. Soren adopted him from the billards game.

Elsie LOVED the Ferris Wheel. If Soren were in the picture he would not be as smiley.