Shiny, Shiny Dress-Up

Susan's kids came home last week which meant on Tuesday I was back to work. Sophie and Calvin were both THRILLED to have their playmates back! I took these photos after Sophie and Natalie came downstairs to show me the "pretty princesses". They had obviously been into Sophie's make-up stash which consists entirely of lip gloss. Evidently they decided that the light cream lip-gloss should be used as foundation thus resulting in the terrifically shiny faces they are sporting below!

Sunday Adventures

These photos are from a couple of weeks ago taken on a Sunday afternoon at Lebanon Hills Park. It has been fun to see the park changing as the summer progresses. The lake was about half covered with lily pads and flowers and the kids founds several little frogs on the paths as we walked.

Girl's Night Out - Breaking Dawn

Finally! Here are the photos from our Breaking Dawn Release party! We had soooo much fun! Eleven of us met up at the theater to see Mama Mia - we took up almost an entire row and were the rowdiest bunch in the room! After the movie we walked over to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner where we were joined by another 2 gals from the ward. What a fun group of women! We had such a great time eating and laughing together and just having a night away from being mommies!

At eleven, we drove over to Barnes and Noble where one of the managers recognized Tiffany as being from the Eagan group by her Cheesecake Factory bag (the schedule of events was mentioned in the Star Tribune article)! There were about 150 people at the bookstore - mostly teenage girls and we all picked up our copies of the book and headed home by about 12:30. Our group was reading aloud from the first chapter on the drive home and we had another car on speaker phone listening along as we drove!

The book. I finished Saturday afternoon after Julie and Kelly. It was kind of hysterical to get so many phone calls on Saturday from people wanting know how far along I was and what I thought so far. I enjoyed the book but Twilight will always be my favorite from the series. I thought this one seemed a bit rushed and I was very shocked by the whole honeymoon baby (I hate baby's name)! Once I got over the shock, I loved how she handed the pregnancy, birth and transformation - I cannot imagine how they would film those scenes and keep the movie under an "R" rating. I missed the whole Cullen family in this book. It felt like most of them were absent and poor Edward spent 80% of the book in angst! I am glad that Jacob got his happy ending thought I have to admit I was kind of rooting for him to end up with Leah somehow. I loved all of the new vampires though when I finished the book I felt like it was missing a big battle scene at the end.

I would like to read it again, slowly to get a better feel for the book - this first reading was a speed reading. Overall, I love a happy ending, but I felt like Bella did not have to sacrifice enough. Becoming a vampire was supposed to be this huge sacrifice and in the end Bella got Edward, the wedding, the baby, the wolves are happy, Jacob is happy, she gets to continue having a relationship with Charlie, no one close to her died during the confrontation with the Volturi - it was all just a bit too tidy/happy for me.

The ABC's of Maxwell Erickson

I was cleaning out the school pile (I realize school ended in June) and found this worksheet Max completed in computer lab.

A is for alphabet game. I like playing it. Most often in the car.
B is for Bryan. I love him. He's my Dad.
C is for Calvin. He is my little brother. He's three.
D is for Dads. Mine is the best of all. He's awesome.
E is for Erickson. That's my last name. I'm proud of it.
F is for Forrest. That's my middle name. I like it.
G is for gazelle. That's my favorite animal. It's interesting.
H is for the Harry Potter books. They're adventure books. I like them
I is for ice cream. I love ice cream.
J is for jaguar. I like Jaguars.
K is for kerosene. Kerosene is used for rocket fuel in Canada.
L is for lemons. I ate a lemon candy stick today.
M is for Maxwell. That's my name.
N is for nil. That was once zero.
O is for oranges. Dad juggles oranges for us.
P is for Paul. He's my uncle.
Q is for queens. They're high in War (the card game).
R is for reading. It's my favorite.
S is for Stacey. She's my Mom.
T is for TV. I like TV.
U is for umbrella. Umbrellas are useful.
V is for violin. I like music.
W is for watermelon. Watermelon tastes good.
X is for xylophone because it is the only thing I could think of.
Y is for yak. They are heavily muscled.
Z is for zebra. Zebras are cool.

Movie Reviews

I recently read and loved the book Stardust by Neil Gaiman. We finally bought the movie at Target and it is brilliant!! The movie is every bit as good as the book with perfect casting (look for Ricky Gervais , Mark Strong and Rupert Everett). I loved the humor (the dead brothers are a riot) and the movie has the best sword fight I have ever seen. Definitely worth seeing for the whole family (I'd give it a PG-13 rating).

Go and see Mama Mia with a group of your very best girlfriends. We saw it on our Twilight outing with 11 of us together and it was hysterical! I seriously wanted to climb into the screen (the shots of the Greek islands are gorgeous) and I had to restrain myself from singing along to every song! Meryl Streep was so good and her singing was really impressive (she stole the show). Pierce Brosnan is the only miscast in the film - he cannot hold a tune at all!

We had a large number of Pride and Prejudice fans in our group, so there was a collective sigh of "Mr. Darcy" as he came on screen. Here is a completely gratuitous shot of Colin Firth in my favorite all-time movie.

Rain gutter Regatta

Max participated recently in the Rain gutter Regatta (not to be confused with one of my favorite events in Boston - The Head of the Charles Regatta). This is one of the Cub Scouts things that I am still unclear about. Bryan took charge for this event and made Max's boat sea worthy. Max contributed by putting Pokemon stickers all over the boat and sail. Evidently the two of them were a good team because Max won his division - wolves? cubs? bears? and was extremely pleased with himself!

My Girl

This is my Sophie girl who somehow manages to get taller every time I look at her. The sweet dress she is wearing was a gift from her Grandma Erickson when she was here to visit.

Thing I want to remember about Sophie right now:

• At age 6 she LOVES school. When I told the kids today that school was starting in less than a month Sophie cheered "hooray! I love school!"
• She loves reading and can stay in her room for hours immersed in a good book. She has read The Magic Tree house series a dozen times - at least.
• She still loves bugs but has decided she is afraid of spiders (like her mom).
• When she is hungry she comes to me and lifts up her shirt and sucks in her stomach as far as it can go (she is a skinny little thing and I can count every one of her ribs when she does this) and says "look Mom at how hungry I am. I'm starvin' Marvin'."
• She loves make believe and is always making up stories out loud with herself and with her friends while acting them out.
• She is both a girly girl (loves her dance classes and lip gloss and dresses) and a tom boy (loves bugs, mud and soccer).
• She sleeps in the strangest positions I have ever seen - usually like a frog or bent way back like a long arc in the bed. I can't figure out how it can be comfortable?!
• She loves to unload the dishwasher and clean the downstairs bathroom, but she loathes cleaning her room.
• She has my hair - stick straight. It will hold a curl for about 15 minutes!

We love you Sophie!

Summer, please stay

I just printed off the kids fall soccer schedules and practice starts on MONDAY! What?! We just finished spring soccer and we are not ready for anything to do with fall around here! I need a couple more months of hot summer lunches on the beach . . .

and pizzas on the grill.

Grandparent's visit

Bryan's parents drove in (from Rochester, NY) for a short visit. They brought our nephew Gregory with them which made our kids completely happy! We so enjoyed having them stay at our house for a few days and then they moved over to David and Trisha's for a couple of nights before making the long drive home.

That's a rhubarb crumb cake from Bread for Breakfast on the table. We are still eating rhubarb from our "garden" - we only have rhubarb and mint really. I cannot get rid of the mint - it spreads like crazy and how much mint can one family use?!

Gregory wanted to see the zoo and the Mall of America so despite the July heat, we walked the 2-mile loop at the zoo and saw the new Russian grizzly coast exhibit as well as my favorite, the bird show. Because of the hot weather, all of the outside misters are on which was the kids favorite thing too see at the zoo! They were all completely soaked by the time we left.

At the MAll of America, all of the kids went on some of the rides in the 7 acre amusement park in the center of the mall. The three oldest braved the swing and the ferris wheel while the little ones rode the train. Max used to be completely afraid of rides, so I was glad to see him brave them with Gregory!


One of the nights they were in town, we have David and Trisha and the boys over for a BBQ. The kids ate outside on the deck together and generally made a mess and had a great time! They were particularly fond of the fudge bars - I love these photos of them!

Another night, we drove over to David and Trisha's house for dinner. It dawned on me as all of the cousins were playing, that Sophie was the only girl in the bunch. She brought some books and spent most of the time reading outside on the play yard!

I preferred to hold sweet little baby Matthew and watch So You Think You Can Dance on their clever TiVo. I want one, even though we do not have cable. I guess I'll stick to watching the You Tube clips!

Here is my attempt at getting a photo of all of the cousins in one spot. Guess who's kid was being the biggest twerp? This is seriously the best shot!

What a strange way to get into the newspaper!

The article about Twilight came out today in the Star Tribune - you can read it here. Don't you wish when you gave an interview, you could write it all down and proofread it before letting anyone publish it? Oh well, I am very excited about our evening out tonight and anticipate a long night of reading!