Traveling

The trip to Madison was such a whirlwind trip - from planning to returning it was 2 weeks, or just over - yep that includes buying plane tickets! We did have some time to watch a show all about airports (one of the episodes in Mighty Machines, one of his favorite shows!) 

I think having him see the airport and watch all about airplanes helped him - he LOVED the flight out (the flight back was a little more rough since we woke him up about 4:30 to catch it - no luck keeping him asleep while getting him in the car!)

 Flight out, this was actually the flight from Chicago to Madison.

 Airport in Madison bright and early Saturday morning on the return trip. He loved looking at the planes, trucks while waiting for our flight!

 "It's an airplane!"

 Flight from Chicago to Salt Lake City.

 Look at those clouds!

 Another shot of the flight from Chicago to Madison.

 Somewhere in the Midwest...

The Rockies! I always love to see how massive these mountains are when flying.

Eric also enjoyed riding the bus while in Madison. We rode it a few times to and from campus (and downtown.)

 He loved looking out the window at all the cars and trucks we passed by.

 He started riding like a regular bus traveler!

 He'd walk to the back of the bus and sit in the seat like such a grown up!

 Except the pacifier and playing with his ears...

Eric really loved the bus rides!

More to come later... Eric really did enjoy the traveling part of the trip though so I thought it warranted a post all of its own!

May 2011

 Almost two months late, we took Eric to his 2 year check up. He's doing great ;). Not even a week later, he came down with an ear infection... We knew he wasn't feeling well when one night he managed to climb out of his crib even with his sleep sack on and came upstairs dragging his blanket and pillow. He then proceeded to lay on the couch and look pretty pathetic.

May also brought more edits with Daniel's thesis and having to redo one measure of complexity due to finding an error in the formula. (We don't think he would have noticed if he didn't have a math minor from undergrad studies.) He was able to complete the edits and get it back to his advisor who gave him the okay to schedule his defense. The defense was planned and our plane tickets bought by the end of May.  Daniel also had his 28th birthday!

We don't have a lot of pictures to show... I was busy trying to help Daniel with his thesis however I could and also finishing a room remodel in the basement so Eric could finally have his own room. (After 2.17 years, Eric is out of our room!) However, we still need to do the edging and get a floor in.

That's about it for May. Here's some of the photos -

 Birds I saw on while walking the dog.

 Here's Eric's room. I really need to wash the chair cushions - I didn't realize it until seeing this picture!

Here's the crib... which he can climb out of even with a sleepsac on!

 Dresser, fan, humidifier (duck) and lamp (we still need to put in a light fixture).

 Temporary flooring and rug... The rug will go with the flooring but not so much with the current colored tiles... kid of busy!

 Curtains. I made these with fabric I bought while pregnant... finally got them made!

 I also tacked a black background to help keep light out and hopefully let him sleep later... hasn't worked so far, but he does sleep until 7 so I don't want to remove it and have him wake up at 5!

Coming soon... our trip to Madison, Wi complete with lots of pictures (and multiple posts.)

Preparing

Just a note on my preferred way to travel... if traveling by air, I LOVE to have the flight booked at least 1 month (if not 3 months) in advance. I love to have time to research everything and know EXACTLY what I am doing... However, from time of buying plane tickets to actually boarding a plane for Daniel's defense is exactly 7 days! Commence me freaking out... could also be that this is the first time we've taken Eric on a plane.

Not that I'd be writing a post instead of actually packing...

April 2011

Now that is almost the end of May, I thought I'd post about April... April started out with my sister and her family visiting. Eric was so sad when they left... he'd yell 'cousins' outside hoping they'd come back in! He loved having his 4 cousins to play with (all boys!)

My little sister spent some time in the hospital again (about 2 weeks) this month. We're hoping she avoids hospital stays for the rest of the year!

Eric has definitely started to show a few more of the signs of the 'terrible twos' - it almost seemed like it happened overnight!  The other day, he was feeling upset because he was in the bath getting ready for bed and his cousins were not and so we tried to cheer him up with singing, 'If you're happy and you know it'.  His response was a yelled: 'No Happy!'. Also during bath time during April, Eric reached up to Daniel as if he wants a hug only to grab his head and dunk it in the water... Water dripping off his Papa's head is great fun!

April also brought Daniel sending a draft of his thesis to a few people for proofreading. Then finally getting a draft to his advisor! We were pretty excited about that! On the job front we still feel like we're in a black hole as no one is getting back to us! We hope that will change when the thesis is actually done... Speaking of the thesis being actually done - I'm not going to wait until I post about May to let you know that we have a defense date!! So what if it is the last possible week to defend and submit the thesis without having to pay tuition again. Luckily it is on Monday and not Friday! So we will be heading to Wisconsin in JUNE!

Daniel and I have been having a rough time with our class in Primary (we teach the 3-4 year olds in our Church). We can have up to 10 children in class (usually 6-8), and 3 are quite the handful! Things vary so much from week to week it is crazy. We have found that playing games and only talking for a few minutes at a time work best. Takes a lot more time to prepare, but is worth it when we don't have 10 minutes at the end where we have no clue what to do!

Now for the fun part - PICTURES!!

 Eric was watching Cars and kicking his legs up and down, it was so cute!

 Eric is also a budding artist - he loves to color.

 I found Eric with this piece of chocolate one day - he'd found where Grandma had put it! Eric LOVES his chocolate.

 He's also learned to use a tape measure. He loves playing with it.

 Easter Egg hunting!

 My mom has these great rocks that are perfect for hiding eggs.

 Eric has also loved spending time 'helping' on the ranch. He likes petting the cats there.

 He also loves seeing the calves.

 He is so adorable while sleeping ;).

I also made this German Chocolate Cake for my best friend's Birthday. I was so nice to make sure to include the fact that she was turning 30 on the cake. I'm such a great friend... Love you Lisa!

March 2011

First the good news with the thesis: Daniel submitted a draft of his thesis to his advisor in March, but unfortunately he did not get it. Fortunately this came to light sooner than later and Daniel was able to re-send it again, with a more complete results section. However the results section does still need work...

We've been working on a room in my parent's basement to move Eric to his own room. It's getting close and would have possibly been done by now except my sister and her family came to visit at the end of March! We're glad they came to visit. It was fun for Eric to get to play with his 4 cousins (all boys).

One night we went down to go to sleep and Eric had thrown his pillow and blanket out of his crib and stolen Daniel's pillow off our bed (his crib is at the head of our bed.) We now leave the pillows towards the middle of the bed when we're not in it!

On the job front, I had an interview but didn't get the position. Daniels still applying for jobs but has not been hearing anything back from them. He's mostly focusing on finishing his thesis right now though.

Towards the end of March, I was one of the lucky food bloggers chosen by foodbuzz to host a dinner. (They choose 24 each month out of those who submit an idea.) I did a boardgame dinner - each part of the meal 'looks' like a boardgame. I had fun dreaming it up ;).

Settlers of Catan Pizza

 Now for the pictures:

 I was doing dishes and happened to look at Eric after he'd gotten into a package of rolls. He'd taken a bite out of each one. When I discovered what he'd done, he decided to put away the evidence. It was so classic!

 This is his 'big smile'.

 My parent's water meter needed replaced and Eric enjoyed watching the Backhoe (from the second story window.) He called it a Backhoe, but when he went outside the only thing he said was "it's a big!"

 We went to the lake to see this ice - the ice had actually pushed rocks/mounds of dirt up onto the shore in places. It was really cool.

Eating grandpa's birthday cake. Eric sure enjoys his chocolate!

 This is one of Eric's toys we got him for his birthday.

 He loved playing with it.

 He also loved his cake... or rather he loved the Thomas train on his cake.

 I'm actually quite proud of how good this cake looked!

 This is the second time I've worked with fondant...

We had a waterfall and rocks - some of the rocks helped hold up the track that ended up being a bit too long for the cake... Note to self: always measure the cake topper before making the cake!

Something Eric and I did recently was make these bird's nests:

  we adapted the recipe for Little Critters to get these. We loved them!

Eric's 2 Year Photos

I decided to post these separate from the rest of March's post (which will be coming in the next week...) These are all 'posed' shots, I haven't gotten a chance to take the outside photos I want to do as well.
These are also the photos I love the most and have edited. They were ALL taken with a white sheet background and some have a '2' in the photos that was colored and cut out of paper.

These first two are the same, except one is black and white (well mostly).

He was looking at Daniel during this shot, I love it!

Fishy Face

This one above and below are the same photo as well, just one color and one black and white. You can tell he had been coloring in the one above as there is a mark on his arm. I tried to edit it out of the one below.

And yes, I did give him a sucker while I took his photos. It made it go so MUCH better!

I had him play with this ball with me for a while... this is the only shot where it wasn't blurry!

I adore this photo, that's all I can say.

Look at how small the green monkey is now!

Photo-shopped this background and loved it!

Yes, he was holding a sucker in his right hand when I took this picture. However, I think I did a great job getting rid of it!

Classic mildly upset Eric, he was yelling about something!

And this is one of my favorites. I Love the smile!

Which photos do you like best?