A Trip to the Windy City (edited)

The Erickson crew took our show on the road last week. We drove to Chicago on Monday and spent three days enjoying the windy city. We made a pit stop in Wisconsin Dells on Thursday and enjoyed waterslides, card games, and adult beverages with my sister and her family.

Soren here, chiming in (all blue type is me) w/ my 2 cents as an edit to this post after it went live. You see, I'm of the opinion that this post isn't Anne's best work. She agreed, and asked me to chime in. One thing to note: It's not entirely Anne's fault if her original post was lacking. Margot is acting like a full-fledged 2-year-old this week, complete with crazy tantrums and Elsie rarely takes naps anymore (read: naptime is Anne's prime blogging opportunity). So if Anne is off her game, we can hardly blame her.

Chicago lived up to its windy city reputation when we were there. Soren had to chase after two hats. Elsie spent lots of time hiding in the stroller. Not the most compelling photo, but certainly tells the story. What's with the twisty leg in the upper-right corner? Oh, that's me. Nevermind. Might be time to teach Anne how to crop photos ...
Don't blow away Margot! In case you were wondering since Anne neglected to inform you, this photo was taken at Navy Pier, where we spent half a day keeping the girls busy inside because the wind was intense the threat of rain was imminent. Somehow, we spent about an hour looking at an impressive collection of stained glass ... WTF? I guess all that NPR is turning us into a new brand of weirdo ...




Margot being super silly in her pack and play. Both the girls did surprisingly well sleeping at the hotel. Although the city noises, especially police sirens, were a little troublesome for E. Nothing to add here except Margot is crazy ... usually in a good way.

Family dinner at Gino's Pizza....yummy deep dish pizza. I have no idea why Gino's Pizza is highlighted. I asked Anne and she doesn't know either. I asked her if she tried to link to the Gino's Pizza website. Her answer, "No, but that would have been cool." See, totally not on her game with this post, right? But, you get what you pay for ...

Picnic lunch while we were on the road. I didn't mean for this picture to get on the blog post, but here it is and I can't figure out how to delete it and I'm running low on my patience and time, so you get to see this random pic. You know what else you get? Random, inconsistent spacing before and after photos, inexplicable centered text from time to time, etc. It might be time for us to upgrade our blogging software. Wait, what was I saying about "you get what you pay for?" Nevermind.
Anyway, other things we did in Chicago: Went swimming daily in the hotel pool, ate Chicago dogs and Italian hot beef sandwiches in the hotel room, learned that takeout in the hotel room is much less stressful than bringing a 20-month-old to a restaurant, taught a 3-year-old that it's not just OK but actually a really good idea to learn how to go to the bathroom during long road trips away from home. Oh, and we spent the better part of a day at Shedd Aquarium, which is awesome. But you'll see none of that here. Not because we don't have photos. But rather because we're not going to post them. Always leave 'em wanting more ... that's our motto, I guess.

Easter Festivities

We spent Easter Sunday with my side of the family and had an egg-celent day. (man, I am so bunny, I mean funny!) I admit that I stole this way too cute bunny cake tradition from my friend Katie's family. The kids had so much fun decorating and eating the cake.
Margot looking marvelous! (and on a sugar high)

Elsie and Margot digging into their treats from the Easter bunny.

Surprise visit from the Easter Bunny (aka my cousin). Margot is so excited she can't even open her eyes.

A Work of Art

We went to an Easter Carnival a few weekends ago and waited very patiently to have Elsie's face painted. Elsie loved the butterfly and had a tough time taking a bath that night.

A Stranger in the Night

Last week I woke up to Elsie screaming and as I walked to her room I prepared for lots of different scenarios such as: a nightmare, upset tummy, needs a glass of water. It turned out a box elder bug had made its way onto Elsie's bed and was taking a nap on her special pink blankie. I have to admit that this is a great reason to scream in the middle of the night, poor lady. It took about an hour of stories and being on bug patrol before she was back to bed. The next morning she came up the stairs and tells me "Well mom, I think that bug might have been thirsty and was looking for a home." Life isn't as scary when the sun is out and now we were ready to make nice with the bug. So, here's Elsie making a home fit for a bug:

yes, she has a tutu on with her jammies, makes sense, right?

Oh, Margot

I must say "Oh, Margot" at least 10 times a day. When I say "Oh, Margot" I'm either laughing, rolling my eyes, using my trying not to be mad voice or my crying on the inside voice. Our 20-month old is turning into a silly little lady, and at times can drive you a bit crazy, but most days her cuteness makes up for the craziness. Here's just a few of the things Margot's up to these days... Loves, loves, loves going down the slide we have off the deck Finding dirt to play in Putting her plate, cup, and/or bowl on top of her head Using her hair for a napkin Last week when we were out to eat with the Parks family she fed her belly button a french fry. (this was a laughing till you cry "oh, margot"

This is what every meal with Margot looks like...a mess.

Margot spent lots of time putting stickers on herself yesterday.

Making the best of it...

How's this for a perfect storm...
1. It's snowing on March 23, a time of year when snow is really not fun anymore. Most of the Erickson blog readers are locals, so I don't need to get into how annoying this snowfall is.
2. Margot and Elsie are both under the weather and need to be close to a bathroom. (I'll let you read between the lines here to understand where I'm coming from)
3. Soren had to take the car with both carseats in it to work today, which leaves us stranded at home. Even though we can't leave the house, see items 1 & 2 above, it's still a little unsettling to not have the means to do it.

So, us Erickson ladies bravely faced the above circumstances and decided to make it a p.j. day and have an indoor picnic. Thanks to Elsie's fantastic imagination we enjoyed our lunch even though the wind was really blowing our hair around.

Matching elephant jammies and p&j sandwiches on the floor, what could be better? I'm pretty sure Elsie is telling us about the wind in this picture.
Margot spent more time feeding the little ponies than eating her own lunch.

I promised Elsie someday we will really would get to enjoy our lunch outside for real. She looks like she doesn't believe me. (at this point I'm not sure I believe it either)

Elsie and Margot Quotes

Margot is starting to use more and more words, which means Sören and I get to laugh at all the the crazy things Elsie and Margot are saying.

Margot's new word is yeah. Sometimes it's a question type of "yeah?" or an excited "yeah!" or a very serious "yeah." I bet you never knew there were so many ways to use yeah.

Here's a recent conversation at dinner between Sören and Margot:

S: Margot, do you have tiger blood? (charlie sheen reference here)

M: Yeah. (dead serious yeah, and her look was like how do you know and what are you going to do about it?)



Elsie's vocabulary is getting very eclectic. After coming in from playing outside she said "I'm going to go bask in the fireplace." She also loves to recreate scenes from the Diego Animal Rescuer videos...rescuing pumas and other animals of the rain forest is what she does in her down time.

Margot, George, and Elsie. Curious George is Margot's BFF.

Take note of the too cute pigtails.

I wonder if Elsie has tiger blood too?