Holiday cards

Well, we decided to do a few cards this year with some home-shot family pictures. The one we ended up with is OK, but it sure beats many of the others we took. I also included one of the more comical ones, but there are some that are just plain terrible. You know, with everybody wanting to be a professional photographer--even if you're only 2 or 4 years old. (Can you guess which one we're using?)
Anyway, I'm up to date (look below for six new posts), so stop bugging me about updating my blog! (At least for another week. Then feel free to bug me again.)

Merry Christmas from the Erickson family!!

December (first part)

First, you see Kayla and Blake reading books at the window sill.

Then, you can see that we got absolutely clobbered with snow on 12/10. I haven't seen snow like this since we've lived here (May '07)! Sarcasm aside, this was the first snow I've seen since living here and it was gone in no time. But it was cool to see *snow*, however lame it may seem to those who get dumped on. As I'm writing this blog today, our house is 75 degrees with no heater running all day. It's been rather warm. We've had a couple of cold fronts in the last month or so, and we're getting another one tomorrow. By cold front, it usually means that we'll hit 30's or 40's. Brrr.



I also wanted to point out Stacy's "before" picture. Look for the change on the next blog.

November

I absolutely love this first picture of Chelsea! It's currently my desktop picture at work. Kayla is always around to teach Chelsea a thing or two (for better or worse). The three of them together are just so cute...we just love these little morsels to pieces.

October videos

Don't you just love all that chunk?! My goodness, so do I...


Stacy had a fun idea for our Halloween cake. We cleaned out some egg shells, put some Almond extract in them, and then lit them on fire! Woohoo!! Just make sure to try it with low lighting because we kept adding extract and trying to light it because the flame isn't very bright. But in the dark, it gave off a nice blue glow.

Halloween

Well, Halloween was fun this year. We got a cool costume for Blake and at the ward Halloween party they did face paint. Excellent opportunity to put a mustache on the kid. He looked really good until he smudged it off. And of course Kayla was an absolute princess (pun intended). Chelsea was just plain big and cute. I'll next post the video to prove it.

October

Good, the kids still haven't gotten up (and I'm hoping it stays that way). As you can see by the way we're dressed, we're not exactly cold here in the Lone Star State. Ice cream outside at the end of October? Love it. We do a lot of playing outside, but even when we stay in, we love to fly and jump, etc. We've discovered that Blake can even fly daddy a bit and both parties are happy about that.

End of September

At last. I'm finally putting something on my blog! At least, unless the kids get out of bed again. Here are a couple of cute pictures from the end of September. I wish I had a good story, but I can hardly remember last week, let alone last quarter.

Chelsea!

So I admit that I haven't been as good at this blog thing as I should've been. Even worse, I've hardly put anything about Chelsea on here, so I thought I would make a post just for her. Here she is saying "Look at me, I'm gorgeous."


"I'm too sexy for this dress..."


"I love this dress so much, it makes me want to scream!"


And last, but definitely not least, our girl just started to smile. And notice herself in the mirror. At the same time! Perfect opportunity to show both at once...

Playing with fire (ants) and dozing at dinner

Mommy went to a baby shower on Saturday and our little drama queen was devastated, so what did daddy do to survive? Distract the kids, of course! We decided to put up the tent in the backyard for the kids to play in. In the process of putting up the tent, I happened to discover a new fire-ant hill. Oh joy! I was only bitten once as far as I can tell. Any responsible father would then warn his children of the impending danger if they happened to stumble upon the hill of fire. Being such a father, I did so. Who would've then guessed that as I was finishing up putting the tent together I happened to notice Blake over in the vicinity of the ant hill and ran over just in time to see him grabbing the entire mound with his right hand. Classic blunder. He immediately started flailing his hand and slapping it against his shirt. I slapped my fair share of ants as well in a desperate attempt to get them all off of him. After slapping them all of his hand, I realized I had a few on my leg and quickly made them regret that before taking off Blake's shirt to make sure he didn't have any more ants elsewhere. Sure enough, I saw some ants around his back as the result of him slapping his hands on his side earlier and they appeared to even be going down around his diaper. I guess they've never changed one of his diapers before... I'm glad we have a fence and not too many neighbors with two-story houses, because I stripped him down to nothing to make sure I got all of the nasty little guys off of him. For all of you readers outside of fire-ant country, the trick to stopping the stinging is to use ammonia on the bites (they're technically not bites, but stings). After administering the stinky yet effective relief, I decided to take a picture so you can see what fire-ant bites look like. Without ammonia, they'll itch for two weeks before giving up the fight--not pleasant. I can't remember how much better off you are when you use ammonia, but it seems to help quite a bit. (I'm usually lucky enough to not feel the bites as soon as they happen, and ammonia isn't very effective once the venom has set it.) He got a couple on his back above his diaper, but his hand is now covered with little white pimples all over. Note that this picture was taken minutes after the incident happened. They're nasty critters. (I hope they like the yummy yellow pellets I left them...)


Blake was up Saturday night quite a few times, and as a result, was kinda cranky today. Of course he didn't want to take a nap, even though the afternoon was filled with Blake, the walking zombie. So, true to form, he was extremely tired and fell asleep at the dinner table after claiming he didn't like chicken pillows. Those ant bites must've been affecting his brain. (For those of you who don't know, chicken pillows are my favorite meal.) Anyway, I thought it was pretty hilarious how badly he was nodding off. Stacy thinks it's mean, but I can't help but laugh. I hope you side with me. Stacy also hoped I could crop the video to not include her in the background, so please ignore the fact that she's there :-)

Our three...angels

Well, I haven't updated the blog much this month. I guess you could say we're pretty busy. But I was playing around with this new photo editor that I got from Google called "Picasa" and I have to say it's already proving to be much more user-friendly and powerful than PhotoShop. Since it's late and I really need to head off to bed, I just thought I'd put some of the newest pictures up here that caught my attention. We have the two goofballs at the top and our newest angel during a bath at the bottom. Sometimes I find it so hard to not count my blessings for such wonderful children.

3 kids = bigger ride!

Well, what are we up to now? Besides staring at Chelsea every moment she's awake, attempting to keep the other two quiet when she's asleep, and feeding/changing her when she needs it, we thought we'd mix it up a little! (As if we're not busy enough...)

We've been looking at minivans for a while and once our AirCheck Texas voucher arrived (Friday), we headed down to the dealership (Saturday) and enslaved ourselves to our first auto loan--well, after we chose a nice 2007 Toyota Sienna LE (8 passenger). It's got the optional power sliding door and driver's seat. We had a mechanic check it out and had an AutoCheck (like Carfax) report run on it. It's squeaky clean and we're going to pick it up this Tuesday (8/19) once our loan check arrives from Utah.

"Get on with the pictures, Mark," right? OK...

Videos

I'm going to try out this video-posting thing. Enjoy! (hopefully)

There's a story with every one, right?

Well, there certainly is a story with this one. So here goes...

After not packing our hospital bag until Blake's due date (July 2006) and during regular contractions (you can guess the story with him, can't you?), we decided we should get a jump start on things this time around: a couple weeks should do it.

Because our due date wasn't until Sunday, July 27, I didn't think too much of Stacy's infrequent, mild contractions that started on Tuesday, July 22. I also didn't think anything of staying up late working on my dad's river trip DVD. So around 11:15 we said our prayers and got into bed...or so I thought, as I was barely able to tell Stacy to try to get some sleep through her now more frequent contractions before I zonked.

July 23, 2008

1:45 am - "Mark." Zzzz. "Mark!" Zzzz. "MARK!!" Huh, what? Sleepily I discovered that my legs were getting me downstairs to the all-too-familiar scene of Stacy on the couch having contractions.

My brain functioned well enough to understand that she hadn't gone to sleep at all and was handling herself fine until now and needed my help. I helped her through her contractions, which I realized were 5-7 minutes apart and lasting usually over a minute. It's baby time. No problem. Back and forth: gathering items on the 'last-minute list' (contacts, glasses, toothbrush, etc.) and administering relief through effleurage (light circular motions with my hands on her stomach).

2:30 am - OK, things are definitely progressing, so let's call our backup babysitter (Thanks, Tiffany!). Left a message, got a call back shortly after. She's on her way over. Great!

2:35 am - It's also time to call the doctor. We left a message and got a call right back. "I'll meet you there" we heard. The reply was something like "Nah, we're still a couple of hours away, so the hospital should call when we're close to giving birth." "Are you sure?" "Yeah."

Before 3:00 am - Tiffany arrives. Do you want to eat anything Stacy? No. Mark does. Hang on while I have a small bowl of cereal (in between contractions, of course.) Yum! Meanwhile, contractions are getting stronger and effleurage isn't cutting it. "Rub my legs" she says. (This is about the time I think it could be a girl because this is what she wanted with Kayla and hated with Blake.)

3:15 am - All right, bags are packed, we're in the car. Contraction. Rubbing legs. Go a few minutes. Contraction. Pull over, rub legs. Go a few minutes. Contraction (big ones now!). Pull over, rub legs.

3:30 am - Finally at the hospital! First set of doors open for Mark, but the second doesn't. Nobody appears to be around, either. Hmmm. How do I get in here? Force open the sliding doors of course. "Hello, anybody here? My wife's having a baby." Nothing. OK, run to the women's center (third floor). "Hello? Anybody here?" Whispering in one of the patient rooms, but no response. Two or three attempts are equally fruitless. Ah-hah! Leave a note while I get Stacy out of the car. Found a paper towel and rummaged through their drawers to find a pencil. Wrote "My wife is having a baby. Please call Mark @ xxx-xxx-xxxx [censored] 3:34 am" Ran down to get Stacy, found an employee and asked for a wheelchair. She brought one back with a guy and he told me to go in through the ER after I parked. Parked. Ran just in time to be graced with the helpful question: "May I have your insurance card and ID?" What?! Stacy's contractions are minutes apart and my fingertips are about worn out from rubbing so hard! So naturally I gave them to her. (By the way, we had already pre-registered, so this seemed completely unnecessary...) After several hard contractions, the lady came back and somebody had finally come down from the women's center to take us up. But then...

3:50ish - A security guard wanted to talk to me for 'a second'. HELLO! MY WIFE'S HAVING A BABY!
"Did you write this note?" Yep, that's my note he's showing me.
"How did you get up there?"
"I opened the door because nobody was there."
He looks as if he's asked me 20 times today to clean my room and I still haven't done it. (I know how to do this look.) "Now, I understand the urgency of the situation and all with your wife having her baby, but this can't happen again. This is borderline criminal trespassing."
Criminal trespassing for trying to get some help at a hospital?! "I'm sorry, we had the tour a week ago and nobody mentioned where to go after hours..."
Blah, blah. I didn't hear past that point. He finally let me go and I had a few more obstacles getting to the delivery room as the security points were working properly for the employees. But, all things considered, that was minor.

4:00ish - I get to the room and jump on the bed to help rub Stacy's legs and help her breath properly. Nurses are scrambling, Stacy's asking if our doctor is there yet, how far she's dilated, if she can get ice chips, etc. I ask for lotion as I'm about to peel off her legs. Stacy wants to push, the nurses say no. Breath, Stacy, breath. Don't push, you're not ready. Is the doctor here yet? She's on her way. Stacy wants to push. Breath, Stacy, breath. The doctor's coming. They're trying to give her an IV just in case there are any complications later, but never get it in as her contractions are almost constant now. Instead, the nurse just let Stacy squeeze her hand. Thanks!

4:12ish - "WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?! I'm having this baby now!" The poor nurse looked so nervous, but replied that she would be here any minute. "Can you deliver this baby without her?" The nurse responds affirmatively and Stacy, relieved, starts pushing. The head's on its way out! The doctor shows up just in time to deliver the baby from the neck down. Woo!

4:13 - As I had previously stated our wish for me to declare the gender (as it was a surprise to us), I was filled with excitement to declare "It's a girl!" (Complete coincidence that Stacy, previous to the hospital gown, was wearing the shirt she bought with Kayla, as seen in the picture above. They were just her pajamas for the last little while.)

So there you have it: Our third birth story. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I had writing it. With stories like this, I think we'll have to do it again. ;-)

Pictures!

It took a while to figure out how other people were doing photo albums, and it looks like the one I want to use (Picasa) has temporarily "moved" somewhere. Funny (annoying) thing is: it redirects you to the same "moved" page. Oh well. So the old-fashioned way is to just put 'em all here in a big, ugly string. So...enjoy, I guess.


2 minute-old Chelsea Marie Erickson.









Look, folks. We're going to say 8 lbs. 3 oz. No crazy fractional ounces, all right?

Daddy's girl!











Hmph. Whadda you want?

All natural feels so good!
(Yes, having a baby naturally means no epidural.)


OK, I guess we give consent to have a baby here (especially since we already did).

Who's going to win the stare-down?

All eyes on you, kid. (Her eyes have antibiotics.)

How do you not love this new little spirit?

We've expanded to five!

In case you haven't heard: Stacy had our baby on Wednesday, July 23. We didn't know the gender ahead of time, so it was really fun for me to be able to declare "It's a girl!" after she popped out. Speaking of popping out, it only took 22 minutes from the time we got to the room until we had a baby. Crazy! (I'll save that story for another post.) Anyway, Chelsea Marie was born at 04:13, weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long. She's got a bit of dark hair and is sooooo cute. We're really blessed to have a healthy baby. I'll put more info on here as quickly as possible.

Testing...testing...1, 2, 3.

There have been a few changes to our lives recently, and one of them is figuring out this blogging phenomenon. Hopefully I'll get it down.