Dairy Ice Cream

Every summer, my girls' pediatric dentist has an ice cream party. This was our first year and the girls were in heaven!! He rents an ice cream truck and gives each kid a set of tickets for different stuff and one ticket is to pick 1 treat (anything they want) off the truck. Since we've been easing into letting Tatum eat dairy, I let her choose what she wanted. She was practically giddy and knew exactly what she wanted...."DORA!".

Dr. Brandon has these token machines in his office and each visit the kids each get 1 or 2 tokens to get a prize. This day, they earned the tokens by playing the little "carnival" games they had set up.
At the end of the day, they got some airbrushing.

FREEEE the "Dairy Free-k"

We've been battling an annoying dairy allergy with Tatum since she was about 9 months old. She has a serious respiratory reaction to any type of dairy ingestion and so we've been pretty careful about reading labels and letting caregivers (i.e. nursery and babysitters, etc.) know about it. Plus the older girls have been really good at knowing what she can and cannot have.

Each year at Easter, we make sure that the bunny knows that she can't have chocolate and she gets stocked with appropriate treats like Skittles and Starburst (and Oreo Cookies...they don't have milk. I know. Go figure!)

Anyway, this past Easter, Tatum kept hiding behind the couch and eating the other girls chocolates. She just couldn't resist. The poor kid LOVES chocolate. She would come into the kitchen with a thick ring of chocolate around her mouth and I thought for sure we were gonna be seeing the ER in a few days, but about a week later, I noticed that she hadn't had ANY reactions to it.

Over these last few months we started with letting her have hard cheeses. She loves Mozzarella sticks. A few weeks ago I let her eat a 1/2 of a gogurt. Nothing. Then we had an ice cream party at the their dentist's office and I let her have "dairy" ice cream (that post is on it's way with pics). Nothing, again. A few days ago, I started putting "dairy milk" on her cereal. Still, nothing.

HALLELUJaaaah...

......oh. wait. Roxelle was born with the same allergy. She got her first runny nose at about 9 days old. I couldn't eat dairy while nursing her and that was HARD! Hers manifests a little differently than Tatums. Her first symptoms are goopy eyes. Tatum would always start with the wheezing and hacking cough. Roxelle has only worked up to the cough once or twice after someone accidentally gave her something with dairy. I can only hope that she grows out of it as quickly as Tatum did!

Tatum turns 3!

Tatum wanted to have her party at the "water park". Luckily, downtown Vancouver has Ester Short Park with this great water feature and it's FREE!
Tatum was in her own world most of the day! She wasn't going to let anyone or anything bother her! She even got to see her favorite cousin, Hannah. They are like 2 peas in a pod, but couldn't be more opposite at the same time!!
We let the kids play in the water for a good long time and then we had cupcake cones, snacks and juice.
Will had to work, but I had my mom there to help and lots of friends, too.
When we got home, we did another cake and sang Happy Birthday and then she wanted to jump on the tramp, so she did just that!
She is such a funny girl and so much fun to have around! She is our family "clown"!

Mom's Salon

Clockwise from Roxelle: Mariah, Asia, Tatum, Brinlee

I decided to give each of the girls a "real" pedicure and paint their finger and toe nails. They thought they were real princesses getting the royal treatment. They didn't even mind having to take turns in the foot soak bath.

They each chose their own colors for their fingers and toes. Tatum insisted on black polish for both fingers and toes. Silly girl! LOL!!

She loved the water!

and now here's.....the rest of the story

Today is Will's birthday so I thought it would be fun to take a cake to his work. While I was getting ready upstairs, this is what the girls were doing downstairs...

Don't they EVER learn?! SHEESH! I guess I
didn't scare Asia enough with horror stories
of chopping her own little fingers off with a knife.
I even put it up and she dragged a bar stool over
and got it anyway.

Going to see Will at work was fun! The girls were so surprised to see him at a hospital "where babies come from" ~Asia. The girls created quite a stir among the staff. Sadly, this is the first time we've been down to see him at work and he's been there a year this month!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!

Will's Birthday Surprise

Will had to work today and it's his birthday, so we decided to surprise him with a cake at work. He has worked at Providence Milwaukie Hospital for a year now and we have never been in to visit him. His co-workers were beginning to think we didn't exist! LOL!

The Great Watermelon Massacre

Yesterday, Asia and Tatum were banished to their room until they cleaned the entire thing. They were in there from 9 am to 6:30 pm with only 1 break for lunch and 1 for dinner and the room was still not clean at bed time. I made them share a bed because I am tired of clearing a spot on the floor to drag the trundle out for Tatum to sleep on.
This morning after breakfast, around 9, I sent them back up there. At 11-ish, Asia came to report that the dress ups were all put away. I congratulated her and gave them a small snack and sent them to clean the rest.
At 1, they came down whining and I asked if it was clean. "Nooo." So I took them back up there to find that a Barbie doll and accessory explosion had occurred. Plus the Polly Pockets and all their teeny weeny pieces were still out along with other random toys and books. (It's been a long standing rule in our house since Mariah was very little that they are not allowed to mix and play with their toys. They can play Polly's, but have to put them away if they want to play Barbie's or dress-ups, etc. If they break that rule then those 2 or more sets of offending toys are banished for any given number of days).
I yelled a little (ok...a LOT) and told them to clean. it. up.!!!!
So Asia came down around 1:45 to report that the Polly's were all picked up. I told her I would cut her some watermelon, but she had to go put the bin in the closet first. So she hurried off to do it. Well I didn't hear her come back down and a little while later Mariah came into the living room and said "Asia made a mess of the watermelon".....

It was whole with only the very end cut off. And,
YES, that's the knife she was using. And, YES,
they ate what is missing. UUUGGHH!!!!!

National Neighborhood Night Out

The first Tuesday in August each year is National Neighborhood Night Out. I had asked around to find out if our neighborhood does it and no one had heard of it, so I decided to put one together for the people on our street.

We had a pretty good turn out and my neighbor, Lola Downs, let us use her big open field as the staging area. It was potluck and we had a great time!

Lola Downs, Roxelle, Kristy

Our next door neighbors Vitaliy, Elena and baby Angela (Alvena not pictured)


"Uncle" JR Roberts brought some friends for the kids to see.

Erickson girls manning the sign in table (Artem and Vitaliy pictured)

After all the festivities, we were cleaning up and I caught 10 mo old Roxelle, who barely even crawls, trying to climb the stairs. She actually makes a pretty good attempt!

Tatum's Pics

I took Tatum yesterday to get her pictures done for her 3rd birthday (Aug 24). She did pretty well considering we had to wait about 2 hours. It was a struggle at first, and I am NOT a fan of prop in pics, but after I relented to letting her hold that bear, she was all smiles and goofy expressions. I'd have preferred she not hold the bear in every pic on the first background, but she would not smile without it. Oh, well....
www.kiddiekandids.com always does a great job!

IN charge

After only 8 months of working with Providence Milwaukie Hospital (in April), Will was asked if he'd like to start training as a charge nurse. He excitedly agreed and absolutely loves doing it! He has been on his own for a couple months now and has received a couple emails from the head nurse at PMH praising his efforts. WAY TO GO, Honey! I am so happy for you!