Happy Reading

Here's our little bookworm reading to some of her best friends, Elmo and Piggy. Recently Elsie has become much more attached to her stuffed friends. We learned the hard way that it's NOT OK to throw her baby doll across the room when cleaning up. The anger and fear in Elsie's face when she saw her beloved doll fly across the room was hilarious. By hilarious I mean trying really hard to not let Elsie know we are laughing while acting very concerned about the head injury Bobble (Elsie speak for the doll, who we call Lupita) had sustained from the random act of violence that happened in the Erickson household.

Do the Elsie

The hot new dance craze, sure to take the world by storm:

The Picture Says It All

Elsie is proud to announce that she will be a BIG sister in late July. I (Anne) am finally enjoying food again and am having lots of fun living a nauseous-free life.

Christmas Fun

Well, we made it through several gift openings, lots of travels in the car, and our house is a bit smaller with the addition of Elsie's HUGE new toys. It seems relatives love to buy toddlers big toys. This year's haul includes oversized stuffed animals, a Dora couch and an indoor/outdoor slide. I'm not complaining about the fact that Elsie is spoiled just making a new a new parent observation and wondering if our cute/cozy (MN nice word for small) house can keep up with Elsie! Of course her favorite thing to play with was dad's Gatorade mix stocking stuffer, see picture below.

In this next picture I like to think Elsie is looking excitedley at all her gifts waiting to be opened. In reality she is looking happliy at the fireplace saying "hot hot!"

We were lucky to get a visit from Santa, a.k.a Uncle Matt. As it turns out, all Santas are kind of scary, even those of the "uncle" variety.

Snow is fun, right?

Well, trying to be good Minnesota parents, we bundled Elsie up and went out to have some fun in the snow! Not sure if we got to the fun part, but we did get outside. We quickly learned that 5 minutes outside takes at least 20 minutes: at least 5 minutes getting all our gear on, 5 minutes picking Elsie up each time she fell down, 3 minutes trying to take a picture, and of course lots of time to bring in a crying baby who lost her gloves but does NOT want to come back inside. Oh, how I envy those moms in warm-weather states right now.

Father Daughter Bonding

Here's how Soren and Elsie spend some quality time on Sunday afternoons. Elsie in a basket and they are both looking very interested in something. I bet they are listening to their wondeful mom/wife...

Nope, it's the game.

Trick or Treat...a little late

I'm sure it's been a suspenseful week for our peeps out there...sitting around wondering "What was Elsie for Halloween and when are those lazy Ericksons going to make a post?" Well, here it is people. Our little lady was a bat this year. The costume was picked for two reasons: 1. We had a few bats in our house this summer, which is a whole different post and a story I (Anne) still cringe about when telling; and 2. I (again, Anne) have been borderline obsessed with a series of books revolving around vampires, so it seemed a bat costume was appropriate.