It's about time

Yes, we've been total slackers about updates. But today the guilt finally got the best of me and we'll try to catch up a little bit.

Matt and I had some time off together last month. It has been years since we had that much time home together and it was really fun. Erin had a blast with both parents around the house and we actually managed to complete a few of the projects on our list.


For the last two weeks of our time off, we went on vacation. Matt, Erin and I flew out to Portland for a few days. We saw the usual suspects and got to reassure everyone that Matt did still exist since it had been almost 2 years since he'd been able to come. Then Matt and I left Erin with Mom and flew to Hawaii for a week. It was amazing. Not only being in a warm, tropical wonderland, but also just being alone with nothing that we had to do. We hiked, boogie boarded, saw the sites, lounged on the beach and accomplished nothing. It was wonderful. I read 6 books on the trip and finally relaxed.Erin had a less magical time in Portland. She caught some bug and was sick a good chunk of the time we were gone. Being a trooper as always, she didn't fuss much, but just spent several days subdued, sleeping a lot and eating very little. She managed to save all of her toddler behavior for us. When we got home, you get the feeling that she was really happy to see us, but also pretty sure that she was upset with us. Erin did get a chance to go Mall walking with Mom, have story time at the library and have some quality time with her cousins. It is lots of fun to see all the kids together and Erin is still rather taken with Brennan.

We got home in time to have one day to put life back together before heading back to work. While we were gone, Jan and Dean painted the cabinets in the kitchen, so we got to put all of the stuff back in cupboards and enjoy our new kitchen. At this point we have finished everything in the kitchen that we are going to do now. There is still a little painting to be done, but it's just touch up and trim and I think that we will just wait to do anything else. It's amazing how good the kitchen looks, the cabinets brighten up the whole room and look great with the floors. Wow. Jan and Dean did a great job and we couldn't have done any of this without them. Below is the old and new kitchen for comparison.


Erin is 18 months old now (soon to be 19 months) and gets funnier every day. She likes to answer incorrectly in a coy tone of voice when you ask her a question she clearly knows the answer to. Her favorite is to say "no" when asked if she loves Mom, Dad or her grandparents. She smiles as she does it and knows that it's funny. The only person she will say yes, she loves is Andy. Go figure. She also does this with her shape sorter. She has a running commentary as she tries to fit the shape. She deliberately puts them in the wrong hole so she can say "no, no." and then "yeah!" when she puts it in the right hole.

She's learning new words every week and now can tell you that Santa says "ho, ho, ho," and she learned apple, yogurt, and poop this week too. Off the top of my head her list of words includes:
Mama, Dada, Ga-Ga, Boppa, Laura, Duncan, Oscar, Dando, Button, Bottom, More, All done, all gone, Hi, bye-bye, night-night, ball, banana, apple, yogurt, hot, yeah, no, poop, uh oh. She also has animal or noises for monkey, elephant, dog, cat, cow, turkey, ghost, Santa, chicken, sheep, horse, pig, crow, lion, and bear. Unfortunately, she has been reluctant to learn such helpful words as milk, water and Erin. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. She is using lots of word combinations and loves to say things like "more banana," and "uh oh Laura."

She is climbing a lot more and goes up and down off of the couches, chairs and our bed with ease. She likes to test the limits and stand up on chairs and in her high chair. She likes to tell us when things are out of place and will pick up dog hair or crumbs off the floor and bring them to us and say uh oh. She finds the outlet covers that are off and again, tell us uh oh until we fix the offending danger.

She is still a pretty good eater, but has good days and not so good days. She likes to feed herself with a spoon and is getting a little less messy about it. She still loves crackers, yogurt, apple sauce and cheese. She was a little less than thrilled about thanksgiving dinner, you know potatoes are evil, but enjoys pie and ice cream a lot. What a good Lee girl.

Erin is still too young to get the idea about Christmas, but has fun looking at the toy catalogs. She has a Target ad that she looks at each time she gets in the car. I guess this is just an extension of her love for books. She still brings us books to read to her many times during the day, but is now pickier about what we get to read. There are some pages that she likes better than others and we only get to read those. It must be the OCD, but it drives me crazy to skip pages in stories. I'll just have to deal with it.

She continues to love Oscar and Duncan. She helps feed the dogs and stacks their bowls after they are done. She looks out for Oscar by asking for more water for him , "more ah, more ah," and still chases Duncan around the house with her baby stroller, laughing maniacally. Poor Duncan. She loves for Oscar to knock over towers that she and Matt build.

It's tough to get good pictures of Erin these days. She's moving too quickly and always runs at the camera when I pull it out. She's figured out that if she hits the right buttons she can look at pictures and loves to look at pictures of herself.

Erin loves to be our little helper. She likes to feed the dogs, sweep the floor, vacuum and now has started helping me cook. Matt was running thanksgiving morning, so Erin got to help make all of the pies. Some of them ended up with just a tad too much flour or water, but she had a blast. Today she helped me make banana bread. She was fascinated by the egg and wanted to poke it and got a little upset when we stirred it in. I'm hoping that soon we can just let her know what we want for dinner and chef Erin will cook it right up. It's ok to dream.

Well after our month of fun, it's back to the real world. Luckily Matt and I are both on pretty low key rotations. So we've still got weekends off and have time to get ready for the holidays. It's still been a challenging transition and I think we'd all like to go back to being home together. At least we've got some holiday fun on the way to keep our spirits up.