Grandma Shelley

Shelley surprised me by coming out here to VA to help me unpack and move in!  She has been a total lifesaver and I have no idea what I would have done without her here!  Yesterday when our stuff was delivered she jumped right in helping out and taking Nick.  I was very surprised Nick took to her so quickly since he tends to be a mommy monster.  Shelley took him for several walks (in the rain too!), fed him all his meals, got him dressed, played with him - everything!  It was so amazing!  Man, I love being back by family again!

This morning Shel was making breakfast and chatting with Zack while feeding Nick.  She is a pro multi-tasker! While feeding Nick she called him Brother (like she calls Bronson).  Zack pipes up and says, "Don't you mean Grandson?"  I busted up laughing!  He totally called Shelley grandma!  What makes this even funnier is our little conversation about how young people pay to have grey hair and we both don't get it.  So now I call Shel grandma - and I love it....because I'm older, but not in Zack's eyes!

 

England Stuff has Arrived!

You forget how much stuff you have until it arrives on a truck - and you have to unpack it. After months of living out of suitcases, cooking with just a small amount of our things, and sleeping on blow up mattresses, this was a very exciting day for us!  

This piano was such a beast to move into the house. It was so heavy and awkward to move. I just hope we don't decide to change locations!

We are drowning in boxes, brown paper, and more boxes - but we are so grateful to actually have a home to make this delivery to instead of a storage unit!

 

Violent Trees....Who Knew?!!?

 So, I am almost 40 years old and I just learned something new from my very intelligent husband.  Did you know trees are very violent?  In fact, they are constantly at war with one another.  They are viscous fighters too.  They fight to the death.  See this picture below?  This is hand to hand combat via tree.  

Why can't we see this violence you ask?  Because it is in such slow motion and is fought over years.  The trees in our yard have been doing battle for years and years!

So Christopher, the good Samaritan that he is, decided to aid the trees in this war and jump in as the referee.  He decided which tree was closest to winning and cut down the loser with his chainsaw.  He has even recruited Benjamin to this heroic work.

Why did this topic even come up you ask?  That is a very good question.  Christopher wants to cut down all the trees in the front yard - I want to plant more to hid our house and have more privacy.  When I objected to the slaughter of trees, I was then schooled on this great war that was being fought on a daily basis.  These poor trees.  Yes, what else could we do but cut down the loser tree and put it out of its misery.

I should have taken a picture of the yard after the massacre.  It was horrific.  

Painting Day!!

 

 

Christopher and I have very different ideas on how to make this house our home. I want to come in and just redo everything to how I want it - and now! Christopher wants to go slow, do everything ourselves, and leave some of the charm...that I don't think is very charming. I want to paint the whole house top to bottom, rip out carpet, change out the tile in the kitchen, expand the deck, add a pool, add planters in the yard, knock down walls, and add other walls. Christopher pointed out that we just spent a ton of money moving internationally and purchasing a house - so we compromised....

We agreed to paint the whole basement, laundry room, Kallie's room (the wall damage is beyond my skill level), and upstairs hallway. The walls in our upstairs hallway are painted with a shinny, textured type paint. It is a little weird. Slowly but surely it's becoming Erickson-ized!

Smoker

 

We bought this old smoker from the people we bought the house from. Christopher finally had a chance to put it to work. Oh I think we are going to have many more delicious dinners in this house! Smoking KING!

Game Changer

Bliss.....no, not the cinnamon rolls, but having a 15 year old daughter who will MAKE THEM FOR YOU!!!! This is a game changer people!