Papa: December 23, 1923 - September 29, 2010

Goodbye Papa. We love you and will miss you. We are so glad you get to be with Nana again.

Great Aunts

My girls are blessed with many great aunts and great-aunts. We were lucky enough to have Aunt Molly (Troy's sister) come visit us for the week. We are so excited for her little girl to arrive at Christmas. Yay for girl cousins.

Molly smothered the girls with attention and helped me out a ton at home. We miss her tons and wish she lived closer. She even made little stuffed bunnies for each girl.


Thanks to Molly, we were all able to get away last weekend to visit the beach. I'll do a separate post about those adventures. We miss you Molly!!!

3 Three III

I have about 4 million blog posts in my head. I will attempt to get 4 of them done in the next week or so.

First up - Erica just turned three. Yeah!!! We had the obligatory professional cake decorated by TegTap Company (aka Dada). If you can't tell, it is a pink princess.


An elaborate serenade by family and neighbors. She still doesn't know about birthday parties with friends. We are trying to keep her in the dark as long as we can about that.


She was lavished with riches...


...and jewels.


In all seriousness, it was a great day and we had been talking about it for over a month. She loved celebrating and is already looking forward to next year. She even scored a few presents from her awesome baby sitter.

Here are a few highlights about Erica right now for those who want a more in depth coverage. We have a doctor's appointment tomorrow, so I will get stats then.

• She threw her pacifier in the garbage. This was also talked about for at least a month. She does better when she has time to prepare for things. She did fine the first night and I thought we were home free. The next couple of days, she cried and said she missed her pacifier. We didn't cave and she seems to be doing better now. She did ask if she could have it back when she turns two. I assured her she could.
• She attends preschool 2 days a week and absolutely loves it. So do I. She loves learning, loves the friends and I think especially loves the snacks and play time. She is the youngest in the class, but seems to be doing ok as far as I can tell.
• She is about to finish up her first ballet class. She thinks it is the greatest thing ever. Her first dance recital is on Saturday, I will post some pictures of it later.
• She is OBSESSED with princesses and princes. She requests multiple "Erica/Ariel stories" everyday. This essentially involves Erica taking the place of Ariel, Ursula tying her up with seaweed and Prince Eric saving her. I'm getting a little concerned about such stories. She never seems to remember the part where Ariel saved Prince Eric. Hmmm.
• She finally walks into nursery and doesn't look back. I never thought this day would come and now that it is here, it doesn't seem like all the separation anxiety was as big of a deal.
• She is about 95% potty trained. We still have an accident every now and then, but she does pretty good.
• She loves Barbie/princess toys, books and movies. She likes to do art projects. She loves to jump on the trampoline, swing, swim, dance and do gymnastics.
• She is getting a lot better about playing on her own and not needing mom for every little thing.
• She says a lot of funny things since she has started preschool. The other day she said, "I just can't resist" without any understanding of what that means.
• She repeats herself a million times. It is really trying my patience and I'm not dealing with it very well.
• She does great with Sadie. If Sadie is playing with something Erica wants, Erica will take it away and give Sadie something else to play with. She loves to make faces at Sadie to get her to laugh. She is getting better about using a quiet voice when Sadie is asleep. She loves to do things with Sadie like take a bath and eat. Now, if only we could get her to nap with Sadie.

Overall, this has been a great year for Erica. We didn't have a "terrible" age two. I hear three can be worse. She is by no means the perfect child and we have our typical struggles, but she is a good kid and we love her. We are grateful for the spirit she brings into our home. She is a little joke-ster and a sweetheart. I am looking forward to watching her grow more this next year.