Hello 2011

Dear Eisley,

This year was fabulous, but you probably won't remember the best moments as you're only 2. Please enjoy this video/slide-show of some of my favorite moments {set to a Flogging Molly song, oh my!}:






Love,
Mommy
P.S. You are beautiful.
P.P.S. Next year you'll have to share the spotlight.

Eisley. Dancing.

Happy Halloween!!

In celebration of Halloween... {I'm a total sucker for these things.}

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

This is Eisley

As if turning one wasn't recent enough, she's almost 14 months now!

She's morphing into a little girl before our eyes. Like magic.

In the mornings she likes to eat scrambled eggs {her favorite} and then likes for us to put on Yo Gabba Gabba {also her favorite}, lower her high chair, and she climbs in and out of it while the show runs.

Eisley delighted us last month when she started rolling her arms around each other without having to be taught. It's her own little dance. We've also been able to teach her to blow kisses and give a high five {although she usually refuses to do it when put on the spot before others, making us out to be liars...}

She chats and babbles. She smiles at everyone. She loves to play with piano and softly plunks at the keys, sometimes even trying to copy my rhythm when I play a one-finger tune to inspire her.

In a room full of kids, say 19 girls and 1 boy, she will find that one boy and follow him around attempting to win him over with smiles and curious finger pointing. Yep, she's boy crazy. Watch out, Justin.

She is scared of play dough. Doesn't like the texture I think. And, no, I don't just mean that she doesn't like play dough. She actually runs from it.

Speaking of running, we're on our way. Daddy likes to chase her. See for yourself, and don't mind the mess, this is a typical Paris Street week mess for us:

Smörgåsbord

I have blogger's block.

Have you noticed?

Can't think of anything good to blog about these days.

Well, actually, I think of a lot of things, just not many good things.

Driving home in the storm we had today I was thinking - maybe I should just post a smörgåsbord. Here are things I've played with posting about lately. Little topics. My smörgåsbord.

• A smörgåsbord is Swedish for "large heterogeneous mixture" {or buffet/mixture of foods}. And how appropriate considering I'm Swedish {well, of descent}. My Grandpa used to call me his "Svenska flicka" {Swedish girl}. His father was quite Swedish {hence the Erickson, which I'm told used to be spelled Ericsson.}
  
  
• When chosing a bank, DO go with Key Bank. DO NOT go with US Bank. {Why? I love Key Bank. My business and our personal accounts are with Key Bank. They're great, and recently were rated very high for customer service. US Bank on the other hand, well thats a whole other post. But ask me sometime and I'll be happy to enlighten you on how those criminals swindled us out of hundreds of our wedding gift money. They're evil.}
  
  
• My Favorite Songs of Spring 2009 is a hang up between Love Story by Taylor Swift {who is the cutest darn girl that ever happened, after Eisley of course} and Pirates from The Blue Sky Project.
  Pirates is a song based on this commercial - which I've loved loved loved ever since the first time I've seen it {so much I had to go hunting down the composer on AdTunes.com}:
  
  

They made a whole song out of it, WONDERFUL:



And I have to post the Love Story music video, too, because I am equally in love with it - it's chock full of regency era romanticism:

Click Link - embedding video is disabled

• Peonies are in season. :::sigh::: Approximately two weeks out of the year I get to enjoy my favorite flowers in real life instead of just in pictures. They're so delightfully shabby pretty.
  
• Eisley is walking. Sort of.
  

• I actually wrote a blog post about guacamole the other day. I'm glad I decided not to post it. It was lame {lamer than my smörgåsbord}. Who blogs about guacamole?
  
  
• I got a birthday gift in the mail already. From Anthro! A 15% discount card. Not that big of a deal but the adorable little envelope it came in was super cute. If you don't have an Anthro card, make sure to sign up for one, they're free and come with perks.
  

• Speaking of my birthday, it happens to fall on Justin's first Father's Day this year.
  
  
• I drove past a tornado last weekend. On my way down to a family dinner with my family I was taking the "scenic route" and it was really stormy. I saw what looked like a tornado but I wasn't sure. It was a couple miles away, some people were pulling over but I didn't. It went away soon after that. I didn't actually know it was a real tornado until Justin told me later that there was one down there. Weird.
  
  
• At the said family dinner my parents recently confessed that they actually pulled the "replace the dead pet with one that looks just like it" stunt with my pet fish. I had always thought it was amazing that Cocoa lasted like 9 years. {Who does that with fish? My parents, apparently.}
  
  
  That's all. Did you enjoy my smörgåsbord?

Now hopefully my blogger's block will past soon or we'll be stuck with more of this...

Wait, one more thing. Do you get Showtime? If so, you should be tuning into Nurse Jackie. It's really good. So far.

Miss California: my new hero

I'm not trying to start a debate here, but I just have to say, Miss California is my new hero. She stuck to her guns under HUGE pressure. I think it was incredibly unfair to give the poor girl a completely loaded questions - no matter which way she answered she would have upset people. This is a touchy topic in this country right now.

My opinion - I don't care whether two gay men living together are able to get the same tax and social benefits as my husband and I. However, to me marriage is a religious sacrament that I believe God intended to be between a man and woman only.

Finally, I adore the level of class and poise she exhibited. Whether you agree with her or not you have to admit she made her opinion known in a much more respectful way than Mr. CRASS P. Hilton who just offended millions of women by using the "c" word. For shame!

Cake Decorating & Silly Eisley Video

Tonight was my second cake decorating class. Last week was just learning how to frost a cake, this week we actually had to bring one to decorate. It was so fun!

We all were to bring a two layer, blue frosted cake. Here was mine at the beginning of class:
And here it was at the end!

Eisley figured out how to make blubbering noises this week. She even lets mom and dad do it:

{ Frustrations }

I'm fairly certain that picture gets the award for best picture of Eisley ever taken. We got that hat at the mall the other day, at the most adorable kids store, Janie & Jack. It was on clearance for $5 and Eisley and I decided we had to have it.

Today that photo is cheering me up. I'm frustrated. Lots of little things.

I'm frustrated that Eisley has inherited her daddy's eye problems, because we were so hoping she'd get my genes on this area. We took her to the eye doctor yesterday morning. He confirmed our suspicions. Eisley has accommodative esotropia. Basically, she's farsighted to such an extent that her eyes "over focus", causing them to cross sometimes. It annoys me, even though I know it's not that big of a deal, glasses will eradicate the problem when she starts wearing them just like it has for Justin. But as a mom, I just don't want my baby to have to deal with anything like this. The logical mom in me knows it's impossible to provide this for our children and that no one is perfect, but you can't help but want the best for your child. It's a mom thing, I'm sure you understand if you are one...

I'm also a little frustrated because my oatmeal decided to try and escape from the bowl while it was being microwaved this morning. Grr...

And I'm frustrated because I've been sleep deprived lately. That never makes for a happy Heather. But this is my own fault because I stay up late trying to get things done.

Eisley gets frustrated sometimes too:

Eisley Frustrated



If you're having a bad day, just scroll back up to that adorable photo of my girl. It's quite cheery.

Raspy Voiced Baby

Today we gave Eisley some rice cereal (after getting the go ahead from her doctor) and she made really funny noises during her first feeding.

Raspy Eisley


She's a funny kid...

This past weekend we had Justin's company Christmas party, which was really nice and YUMMY. We went to a Tuscan grill restaurant called Brio and it was SO good. We won gift cards. Fun. Mine was $100 for Ticketmaster.

And Sunday was Nutcracker! It was even better than the last time I went. The CO Ballet does an INCREDIBLE job. It was so fun to get out for the holidays. Mom even gave me an early Christmas present, which I love, but that's all I can say...

Piggy Pie got an early Christmas present from my mom too! A tea party themed exersaucer. She loves it!

What I want for Christmas

A Griddleman!

Thought we could all use a little laugh...

Kittens!

Yeah, so, *that* was kinda psychotic...

To make a long story short, my cat Sugar (named after the prostitute in the book The Crimson Petal and the White - as suggested by my sister) , has been expecting kittens and we've been watching her get bigger and bigger and we've known the day has been coming...

Well, I knew she was about to give birth - she's been showing the signs - but it was still a surprise to me this afternoon when I came upstairs and looked under my bed to find Sugar in labor, 3 kittens already born. One was stillborn, sad :(

One was just fine and nursing happily.

But the third, was still attached to the cord, which was still attached to the placenta that was still IN Sugar.

NOT good.

I called the vet, she needed to go in. Holly (Justin's mom) came to help me, thank goodness, because Eisley was fussy and Justin was working a long day and I was a bit frazzled.

$80 later, they got the placenta out. The vet told me that at least one more kitten was still on it's way...

It was born on my lap in the car. Niiice.

Oh well, all is well now! And we have 3 adorable kittens!
See for yourself:

Video & CANKLES!

I have two treats for you today!

First, a video of Eisley! Since many of you have only seen her asleep and many others have only seen her in emailed pictures and don't even know this child is actually real. So I'm posting a video (pardon my stupid commentary) of Eisley with her eyes open and awake!
Eisley awake


Second, I'm being very brave and posting what I consider to be a show of my "birthing battle wounds": CANKLES. See, for c-sections they pump you full of saline and it takes a week or two to lose the water weight which all falls down to your lower extremities. So I'm posting pictures of my postpartum cankles and what my real ankles look like today - a week later! Prepare for the shocking images.

Viewer discretion is advised:

So there they are! My postpartum cankles! Admit it, you all thought I was exaggerating with the picture of the Marshmallow Man a few posts back... well now, SEE?!

Yes, I actually felt resistance trying to flex my foot back. I actually felt my feet jiggle when I walked. And yes, my ankles actually had rolls. I mean, I'm used to having extra weight on my thighs and butt - but your ankles are supposed to remain thin! It's just the way it goes!

So here, thank goodness, are my ankles today. They've recovered quite nicely. Just excuse my poorly manicured toenails. I couldn't reach them for months so give a girl a break!
Woohoo! Yay for my bony ankles and their victorious return! After 9 months, I had actually forgotten how small they were...

Luna helps out

Luna offered to help test out the toys and things for Eisley before she gets here. Today she took a ride in the glider chair, and her review of it was pretty good:


Luna enjoys the baby's room

IT'S A...........

baby!
No seriously, had my 16 week checkup today and got an ultrasound! Mom and Justin came along, it was very good to see my little baby again. And yes, we found out that it's 95% likely to be --- well, we could just tell you, but it'd be more fun for you to watch:
(turn it up, can be hard to hear the technician's guess. If you can't hear, look in the comments below to see what it is)
16 Week Ultrasound- Gender Determination

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The cat has been evicted from the bag...

We told the rest of our family today- all Justin's side, all at once. It was fun. I basically set it up like I was going to take a picture of everyone at Christmastime but instead of saying "Say cheese!" it was "Say, Heather's pregnant!" and I actually video recorded it. They didn't believe me at first, which I can't blame them for since I'm a total April Fool's type of person all year round. Here it is! I'm relieved the whole family knows finally... (I HATE my voice on this recording!)


Telling our family

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