I heart green eggs and ham

My friend Emily, who I have literally known my entire life ( she was born 5 weeks before me...happy birthday tomorrow by the way), sent Mike an adorable Dr. Seuss onesie for Christmas. I have to say I think he DOES like green eggs and ham.

Moving Out

Yesterday was the big day. The day that we moved Mike out of our room into his own. I cried. I know its silly and he is literally next door, but not having him right next to me each night in his little bassinet made me realize how fast time is going by. The next thing I know he will be leaving for college. Of course Brad found all of my teary-eyed-ness absolutely ridiculous. "He is literally 20 feet away Erin." Boys just don't understand. But in his defense he still held me while I cried. Fortunately his first night in his room went just fine. Here's hoping night 2 will see less tears (on my part).

Belly Laughs

Today Mike laughed for the first time. It was the most adorable, sweetest sound ever. We were at the pediatrician's office for Mike's 10 week check-up and I was trying to keep him happy while waiting for the doctor to come in. He was already smiley so I started kissing his belly and making funny noises, next thing I know he is rewarding me with deep belly laughs. I just hope we can recreate it for when Brad gets home tonight.

As a side note...10 week stats:
Weight: 13 pounds 0.5 ounces
Length: 24 inches
Head Circumference: 41 cm (16.1 inches)

His weight and length are around the 75th percentile and his head circumference is around the 60th percentile.

Busy Week (Mike's perspective)

This was a busy week for me. Mom, dad and I flew out to Wyoming to visit Grandpa Mike and Grandma Cami.



Grandpa Mike and I liked watching the Olympics a lot. My favorite was snowboarding and hockey. Dad tried to explain the rules of hockey to me, but I was more interested in other things.



I took my first trip to Grandpa's barn. Unfortunately I didn't get to meet the horses because I was sleeping, but next time I will try to stay awake.


I did a little modeling of the nice things that Grandma Cami bought me. This is my new fishing hat. Grandpa Mike tried to make it into a cowboy hat.


My aunt Sarah drove all the way from Salt Lake to see me, not once, but twice during the week so I got to spend lots of time playing with her! She gives really good smooches, and makes very nice hats!


I also got to meet my cousins Alia and Lyreal and my aunt Amber. Alia was great! She was really good at holding me and keeping me calm.


I also went cross country skiing with mom, dad and grandpa. I didn't fall at all!


Grandpa also played with me a lot. In this picture he was flying me around the room like an airplane.


But there was also work to be done. Here I am helping grandpa plow the snow with his tractor.

It was a great week!

Bode calls and Shaun White analogies

My family loves the Olympics. We watch the events we love right along with the ones we find stupid (read ice dancing) and talk about all of the athlete gossip. At no other time during the year do Bode Miller or Lindsey Vonn come up, but during the few weeks that the Olympics are on they are regular topics of conversation. So it should come as no surprise that as my dad was holding Mike and watching the men's downhill he started wiggling Mike's torso side to side and talking about doing the "Bode wiggle" and "Bode calls." Also, as we were getting ready to fly back to Saint Louis my dad came up to me and said. "Well, Mike is like Shaun White, the first time he got a gold medal (referring to when my dad was in St. Louis right after Mike was born), and this time he blew it out of the park." I heart my family.

Doing the "Bode wiggle"

Up up and away

I had been dreading it and stressing about it for weeks...taking an infant on an airplane. We have all been on planes where babies cry incessantly the entire flight, and I was worried that my adorable sweet little baby would turn into a little green monster the minute we boarded the plane and would scream from Saint Louis to Salt Lake. So in the days leading up to our flight I worried and stressed and tried to plan as best as I could to help turn the tables in my favor of having a happy baby on our flight.

When we arrived at the airport we asked the woman at the check in counter if we could plane side check his carseat. She told us our first flight wasn't even close to full and we could just leave him in the seat for the flight (one good reason southwest doesn't assign seats I suppose). So my worry subsided a little bit ( he REALLY likes his carseat). Once we are on the plane I keep glancing (or maybe staring) nervously at my little guy waiting for him to wake up and scream. I was met with this for the first 2 hours of the flight:

After 2 hours he woke up and decided he was hungry. After eating he spent the remainder of the flight smiling and talking to us.


All and all a great flight!

Valingtimes Day

Brad and I are REALLY bad at Valentine's day. For the first 7ish years of our relationship we tried the "traditional" Valentine's day thing. You know what I'm talking about, flowers, chocolates, dinner, etc. Well, we would always get into a big fight. For example, one year he got me a camelback for Valentine's day. Now, not that I didn't like the gift, but it wasn't what I expected for Valentine's day (read: I expected flowers...hey, at least I'm honest). So every year we would get in a big fight over stupid things. So after years of this happening we decided to just stop trying to celebrate a "traditional" Valentine's day. Not to say we gave up entirely, we would normally go out to dinner together and then roam the aisle's of Target or Wal-Mart and buy chocolates at 50% off, and if we did buy any sort of a gift we would buy it together and it would be something we could both use (last year we got a Sam's Club membership...romantic I know). Since we have stopped having expectations of what Valentine's day should be we haven't gotten in a fight. So imagine my surprise when this showed up at my door yesterday while Brad was at work.


Two dozen beautiful roses AND a box of chocolates. Now one of my favorite phrases is "boys are dumb." Think about it, there are a million examples of how true these three words are. This is NOT one of them. Brad...you did good :)

And Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

Grandma

My mom was giving me grief for not having enough pictures of Michael on here (or not putting up new pictures often enough). So in order to appease grandma here are some recent pictures...

He was really excited about seeing himself in the mirror in his book.

Playing on his playmat.

Getting ready to go visit Kari, Bill and Will.

Snuggling with mom on the couch during the playoffs.

Happy Birthday Dad!!! (A day late)

Happy Birthday to the greatest dad in the world. I have no idea what I would ever do without you!

Mike, meet Mike. The first time my dad met his grandson. December 2009

He liked the butterfly house so much it hurt. July 2008

Cross country skiing, March 2009.

While I am away the boys will play...

I went to the gym yesterday and when I got home this is how I found my boys. I guess Brad is teaching Mike the intricacies of video gaming at a very early age.

(by the way, thanks for the cute hoodie mom!)

Maple Pecan Pull Aparts

I figured every once in a while I better talk about something besides Mike or you all might think I have a one track mind (which I do, but that's besides the point). So I decided to post the recipe for one of my favorite desserts (it can also double as a breakfast item).

3/4 c. chopped pecans
~1/2 c. butter
1/3 c. syrup
~1/2 c. sugar
1/2 TBS cinnamon
2 (12 0z) or 3 (7.5 oz) cans of refrigerated biscuits

Preheat oven to 400. Pam a bundt pan and sprinkle the pecans in the bottom of the pan. Mix 2 TBS of melted butter with the syrup and drizzle over the pecans. Melt the remaining butter. Mix the cinnamon and sugar. Cut the biscuits into quarters and roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Place into the pan and intermittently drizzle with butter. Bake 25-30 minutes. Allow to cool one minute and invert onto a serving dish.