Wrapping up April

"Summer" has officially began for Erika since she finally wrapped her THIRD year of school after turning in her final papers yesterday....ah. What a relief! Despite the fact that summer school will ensue all too soon, at least there's only ONE class and NO internship! Could be worse, right? Since it seems that so much has gone on this past month, we'll let the pictures tell the story for this post:

Who new a visit to Petsmart could be so much fun? Ella has a MAJOR fascination with birds and thoroughly enjoyed the bird aisle. Here she is "signing" the word bird...

...and squatting for a better view.

Here's Erika at 19 1/2 weeks - we'll have to post some updated pics since the belly has grown in the past 2 weeks! It looks so tiny here! And, speaking of Baby, we had our ultrasound last week and everything looked great; baby was healthy and ACTIVE. Uh oh.

Easter weekend and dinner at the Carlson's - here's Ella with her "Martini Grandmothers!"

Ella showing off her usual happy demeanor - and enjoying a banana!

Looking through her Easter basket with daddy

The Easter bunny brought Ella some goodies, including some stickers which held her attention for quite some time!

Easter basket grass sure is shinier than the real stuff!

How's this toothy grin, mom?

Showing off her Easter dress from grandma

Ella's second Easter.

Ella and her mommy after Easter mass

The Easter bunny left a little gift for Ella on the doorstep while we were at church (thanks to our neighbor!) and Ella notices that this egg rattles....hmm, what's inside?

Say cheese!

Posing with Grandma

Celebrating Baby Murphy at Ami's shower in Richmond - Ami is about 34 weeks here and Erika is 20 weeks.

Johnson's, Murphy's, and Carlson's hanging out post baby shower

And, while we enjoyed a day in Richmond, Grandma and Pappy had Ella (and Cooper) duty in Williamsburg!

Stopping to smell the flowers...

Is anything sweeter than a sleeping baby? Ella created a nest with all her blankets...

Yellow polkadots!

Ok. Ella LOVES the playground, particularly the slide. What we've learned to do when it's time to leave and have Ella wave "bye bye" to the slide and playground - somehow this helps subside her frustration that it's time to leave! So now, when we leave, she always says "bye! bye!" Hey, we'll take any little trick that'll work!

Posing for a post-bath picture

Getting ready to head out to dinner for Uncle Grant's 26th birthday!

She was a little busy bee before dinner; we were lucky to get even this shot!

Posing with daddy

Ella with the men: Daddy, Uncle Grant, and Opa (with his eyes closed, oops!)

We'll start catching up with this....

Just when we thought we were all caught up on our blog posts! Just goes to show that time goes by way too fast and that we've been a little busy around here. We've had some fun times recently but will use this blog update to share our running adventures during the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile run. On April 5th, we joined Sandra, Shaun, and Meredith along with 15,000 people or so for a beautiful spring morning run! Since last year's run was miserably rainy and cold, we were thrilled that the sun was shining this time around. After filling up on a pasta dinner, we stayed over at the Johnson's home so we could get up bright and early the following morning of race day. Since this was Baby Carlson's first face, we held back on our pace and Erika made sure to drink plenty of water along the way (per doctor's orders, of course!). Shaun and Sandra kept us company although our fast-paced friend Meredith went for the gold! At the end, we treated ourselves to a delicious, and much deserved, brunch at Whitlows. The team sipped Mimosas, Bloody Mary's, and coffee (for the pregnant lady) and just enjoyed the post run morning!

Baby's first race - one day shy of 18 weeks

We did it!

Brunch at Whitlows - ah, so tasty!

Taking Advantage of the Warm Days

Hard to believe that March is just about over but I think I can speak on behalf of all the East Coasters out there that we're ready for the cold weather to move on and the warm weather to move in. We've been so anxious for warmer weather that we've taken advantage of every sunny day that we can and extra points to the outings that don't require a jacket or coat! Although we were wrapping ourselves in winter jackets and sledding down snowy hills at the beginning of March, by mid March, we were wearing short sleeves and leaving the windows open to enjoy the warm air! We stole a couple of day trips out and about, including a trip to the the zoo, to show our appreciation to mother nature! Ella loves it too, now that she's walking, she's in full exploration mode and can't seem to get enough of the environment around her. Here's a perfect example, let's say you go for a "walk" with her outside. It could very well take you a full five minutes to walk the equivalent of lets say, 20 feet. It's not because she's slow on her feet, quite the contrary! She gets so distracted with every little thing around her; it could be a new stick, a patch of gravel, a bird (oh how she loves birds!), a change in pavement texture, fallen leaves, and so much more. We just love watching her and it's so obvious that all her curiosity is encouraging her learning and development. She's so quick to notice little differences and changes that it's really quite hard to get anything past her!

Ok, Ella is USUALLY a happy baby unless she is forced to wear a birthday hat....At Ethan's 1st Birthday party.

All lined up by age - Ella, Claire, the birthday boy, Hayden, and Teagan. The birthday hat is off, but you can see that Ella's holding a grudge by not smiling for the camera.

Mommy and Ella time at the Town Center...enjoying some free time and a chance for Ella to stretch those legs! Afterwards, Ella was treated to her first yogurt smoothie....yummmmm.

At the zoo walking around and go figure, she actually liked to wear her sunglasses that day!

Ella and her daddy looking at the lion!

In Williamsburg getting ready to go to dinner.....

Ella (very shly), shows off her new spring dress from Grandma. She was too cute for words!

At dinner - Monica and Tim

Ella and her grandma share some down time with a story

Wearing another cute new spring outfit and posing in her grandfather's rocking chair!

Life's little pleasures....

.....sometimes have absolutely nothing to do with the usual charms of the day (like Ella, or finishing a lengthy paper, or spending time with friends) but rather just knowing that the house can be left a MESS! Sounds silly yes, but after six months of having our condo on the market and sacrificing precious minutes before scrambling out the door to leave it immaculate (just in case a realtor comes to show it) or constantly picking up, it sure is nice to know that it's a-okay to leave it just how it is every now again. Ah. Sigh. Relief. Gratitude. Joy. Seriously. We can live in our house again....if only briefly.

Our condo has finally sold and we're beginning the ever so fun process of packing up and moving. No major complaints here, though, since we've been looking forward to this moment for a very long time!

Big News from the Carlsons

So we've been absent from the blogging scene for about a month now but for the first time in the Carlson's " we're running late" life, we think we have a really good excuse, or two. Really!

Where to start? Maybe sticking to a chronological time line will make the most sense. So, backing up to January... No, let's take it back another month to December. Here it is in a nutshell:

December: Another little Carlson baby is conceived.

December: Tim and Erika don't know it.

January: Tim and Erika still don't know it. I mean, really.

January (later on): Erika gets suspicious. Tim flies to Vegas.

January (continuation): Suspicions are confirmed. Tim is still in Vegas. Erika wonders if he'll come home now?

January: Yeah! Tim comes home and we celebrate! We are thrilled (and stunned and shocked and thinking "how did this happen?" By the way, this is a rhetorical question, we know HOW it happened thank-you very much).

February: Realities of our living situation set-in. We need to move!

February: We see a house. We fall in love with the house. We buy the house!

March: Settling into our new home March 27th! Yeah!

So, we indeed have alot going on right now, which of course is pretty typical of us, I think. Just when things start to get "normal," we have to go mix things up a bit. Erika is almost 14 weeks and we're all so excited about our next little addition. Our two "babies" will be a mere 23 months apart but we anticipate them to be close friends as they grow up together and we're so excited that they'll be so close in age! Chinese calendar predicts this next one is a boy so we'll just have to wait and see until the big day (yes, we're waiting until the birth to find out the sex)!

Here are a couple of pictures from the past few weeks.....!

Sharing our big news #1 with our family: Ella dons her new "Big Sister" shirt

No, this is not the case of Benjamin Button. But look at the difference! Ella LAST Valentines Day.....

.....and Ella THIS Valentines Day! Amazing, isn't it?

Our little Valentines sweetheart. This smile says it all.

Yeah! Finally a REAL snow day! Daddy, Ella, and Coop get ready for the snow! Bundle up!

Ella's first sled ride and loving it. Just out the video, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUWm6cs-OQ

Close up.
Whoa! This snow is pretty deep!

No!

If you're expecting or have children, chances are you probably receive weekly updates about your child's development from Baby Center. I found this weeks update pretty comical:

Whining and screaming: If your 15-month-old has started sounding like a hyena or worse, you're experiencing his intense desire to interact with you. Children thrive on their parents' attention, and a toddler this age will do just about anything to get yours. When he gets loud or whiny, kneel down to your child's level and tell him you're listening. If he keeps it up, calmly say, "I can't understand you when you talk like that. Please use your normal voice and I'll be happy to listen to what you're saying." Eventually, he'll get the message.

What I'd like to ask the editors is this: Have they really tried this approach and does it seriously work? I bet the answer is a big fat NO!

And speaking of that simple two letter word, Baby Center never warned us in ALL their weekly updates that toddlers Ella's age will actually USE the word no. What happened to it being all about the parents? And what about all our efforts to avoid saying no but rephrasing our intentions so they sound less like, well, no!, but more like refined and polished. Personally, we thought we were doing pretty good at it. Here's a couple of really good (or so we thought!) options to use instead of the no word: "That's mommy's, please put that down," or "Hot, hot! Stay away, be safe!" or "Mommy loves you sooo much so kindly step aware from the roaring fire," or "Look Ella! Your play phone is so much more interesting than daddy's blackberry!" Now, that all sounds all good and fine but seriously, admittedly, we might have used the no word one too many times. Case in point: Ella and Erika are coloring and enjoying some quiet playtime. Erika is drawing a tree (or sun or flower?) and Ella decisively and swiftly (with defiance of course - I think you all can get the picture) grabs the crayon out of her mother's hand and looks at the women who brought her into this world with a face that would make anyone surrender their crayon. A little taken aback, Erika asks Ella for the crayon back (didn't Ella like the picture mommy was drawing?) and Ella coveted the crayon even closer to her chest, looked her mother straight in the eyes, and say "No!" Now, you had to hear it to understand the effect of the little word. See, phenotically, it sounded for like "Noo-ah!" (note: draw out the no and end it with a sharp ah sound, it's really effective this way).

So Baby Center, we'll be waiting for your big weekly update about the use of "No-ah!" and will sure expect some expert yet tried but true advice!

Holiday Celebrations

Like every year, December unfortuntaley seems to fly by way too fast. In a blink of an eye, the presents are unwrapped, the decorations are put away, and the new year ball has dropped! Only because we enjoy Christmas so much is it so sad to see it pass. Plus, Ella seems to bring all the holiday magic back for all of us by stirring up childhood memories, reminding us why we love Christmas and family traditions. And while she was able to rip through a couple of presents (although her attention span didn't last the time it would take you to sing the first line of "Frosty the Snowman" before she found something else more interesting), we had several "Ah Ha" moments this season; truly family and friends are special gifts and loving someone as much as we love Ella is the greatest gift of them all. To us, she is truly amazing!

As for her motor developments, she's beginning to master her walking and has become more confident in her steps. Plus, we've learned that she really does understand what we're saying; just because she can't talk, doesn't mean she doesn't understand! For example, she follows simple directions like "help Mommy pick up the toys" or "Put the book on the table." Her vocubulary is really expanding, too. She can identify different objects by pointing to them when asked "Where is the banana?" or "Where is the chair?" It's so neat! Now of course, all this indepdent thought is coupled with independent behavior - some of it desired and well, some of not so desired but entertaining nonetheless. Tantrums? Yup. Exaggerated crys when she doesn't get what she wants? Yup. Obstinate? Yup. BUT....those are few and far between all the smiles, giggles, hugs, and kisses she showers with us everyday.

All else is going well with the Carlsons - Erika starts her internship this coming week with classes following the subsequent week. Plus, she finally launched www.bringfitness2you.com; a website in the making for several months now but something she is excited about getting started as an opportunity to teach in-home pilates classes.

Here are a few pics from our holiday week(s)!

Starting the Christmas season out right: Caroling at Wolf Trap. Brrr!


Enjoying a yearly tradition of Christmas Eve Guinesses at M&S


Getting ready for Christmas!


After Christmas Mass


Christmas Eve at the Buehrigs

Christmas morning: Ella LOVES her new baby doll




Ella consoles her baby (named Noelle!)

Ella loves her new chair set from Nani and Opa: Such a big girl!

Yes, even Cooper got a few wrapped treats from Santa

Opening presents is alot of work!

Celebrating Christmas Day in Williamsburg - Ella with Grandma and Aunt Monica

Lunch at Greenleaf

Ella with her cousins Peyton and Anne-Perry: Ella was in HEAVEN

We were spoiled! Oyster night at Chez Carlson: Tim and Rick go a shucking

Trying out her first pair of shoes from Grandma!


And....some pics from NYE at the Haykens...ringing in 2009!
We enjoyed a wonderful evening with the Hayken's and Wolff's and ate our way through 2009!

And...happy anniversary to Molly and Wolff!!!