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...
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
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!!
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!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
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 ;).
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!
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:
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!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
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).
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.
Which photos do you like best?
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
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!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
February
Daniel had another hiccup with his thesis but is pretty much past it, we've decided to have him push to get a draft of his thesis to his advisor by the middle of March. He spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out some statistical stuff (and as I HATED my statistics course I'm not going to go into any of it here.)
Daniel got to further his farming experience by helping feed the cows and was also involved in loading the calves the day they were sold. I actually got to go help feed the cows when Daniel wasn't feeling well about mid-month. Eric got to go with a couple of times (the days when I was able to go and take care of him while they did the work.) The cows were scared of Eric and the first time we went, Eric went running toward them, and almost spooked them enough to start a stampede. We caught him before they cows really started running! Eric loves the tractor, but didn't like getting too close to it. Pictures of feeding cows to follow.
My weight loss did not do as great this month, I lost 3 pounds. Then I gained one pound back at the end of the month (net loss: 2) - I got sick and had a drill drop on my foot (it hit where the drill inserts into the thing -luckily no drill bit was in it at the time. and it hit on the front of my ankle in between the bone. I had quite a nice bruise, and I couldn't point or flex my foot without it hurting. Or walk normally for about 3 days.) So I couldn't breathe and couldn't move my foot very well - didn't help me with my weight loss.
We were all on kind of an unlucky streak (the drill was just part of it!) Daniel cut his finger with a pocket knife the same day my aunt burnt her foot with boiling water while trying to thaw the calf water (calves were in the corral). If you want to read more about the things that happened to me, click here.
Eric learned to make faces. He also has been saying some great stuff - one thing is - Ready, Set, GO! He has also learned how to say, 'sorry'. Now we just have to help him learn how to be sincere and not do the same thing again right after saying sorry!
One thing Daniel loves to do with Eric is have him repeat our names (including Grandma, Grandpa and my siblings who live here). We were doing it at bath time and Daniel said, Uncle Dennis and Eric said: Uncle Desitin. We found this ironic because when my oldest nephew was younger and his parents were going to have another baby, they mentioned naming his soon to be brother Andy, and he said, AD, Ahhh. (He'd say that for the A&D ointment that made his bum feel better!)
Eric loves to jump, stomp and clap. He loves farm animals, actually animals in general, cars, trains, and trucks. He also loves playing with Tiny (the dog).
Daniel got to further his farming experience by helping feed the cows and was also involved in loading the calves the day they were sold. I actually got to go help feed the cows when Daniel wasn't feeling well about mid-month. Eric got to go with a couple of times (the days when I was able to go and take care of him while they did the work.) The cows were scared of Eric and the first time we went, Eric went running toward them, and almost spooked them enough to start a stampede. We caught him before they cows really started running! Eric loves the tractor, but didn't like getting too close to it. Pictures of feeding cows to follow.
My weight loss did not do as great this month, I lost 3 pounds. Then I gained one pound back at the end of the month (net loss: 2) - I got sick and had a drill drop on my foot (it hit where the drill inserts into the thing -luckily no drill bit was in it at the time. and it hit on the front of my ankle in between the bone. I had quite a nice bruise, and I couldn't point or flex my foot without it hurting. Or walk normally for about 3 days.) So I couldn't breathe and couldn't move my foot very well - didn't help me with my weight loss.
We were all on kind of an unlucky streak (the drill was just part of it!) Daniel cut his finger with a pocket knife the same day my aunt burnt her foot with boiling water while trying to thaw the calf water (calves were in the corral). If you want to read more about the things that happened to me, click here.
Eric learned to make faces. He also has been saying some great stuff - one thing is - Ready, Set, GO! He has also learned how to say, 'sorry'. Now we just have to help him learn how to be sincere and not do the same thing again right after saying sorry!
One thing Daniel loves to do with Eric is have him repeat our names (including Grandma, Grandpa and my siblings who live here). We were doing it at bath time and Daniel said, Uncle Dennis and Eric said: Uncle Desitin. We found this ironic because when my oldest nephew was younger and his parents were going to have another baby, they mentioned naming his soon to be brother Andy, and he said, AD, Ahhh. (He'd say that for the A&D ointment that made his bum feel better!)
Eric loves to jump, stomp and clap. He loves farm animals, actually animals in general, cars, trains, and trucks. He also loves playing with Tiny (the dog).
Eric's started making faces.
He's also started puckering his lips to give kisses.
One night Eric was 'listening' to his foot.
Feeding cows
Helping Papa push the bale of hay.
Standing on the bale of hay. He's having so much fun!
Look at that cute smile!
Petting a cow. This cow is one of a very few that actually have a name and is more people friendly.
Oh, this looks good! (Decorating cookies at a Primary activity)
Tasting the frosting...
Frosting the cookie.
Finished cookie.
Caught! Snitching the candy.
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