*won an art contest at school today for a watercolor she did. Grandpa E. will be proud.
*she also lost an ENORMOUS molar today. Quite the bloody mess. Seriously wondered if it was an adult tooth when I saw it.
*is taking tumbling classes with her sisters. Very entertaining, but she'll never see me laugh.
*had a boy at school tell her yesterday that she was "too pretty to be the shark" in a game they were playing. This made her (and my) day! Love playground innocence- if just for a few more months!
*was Cleopatra for half of Halloween and a Karate Kid for the other half. Perfectly reflects her girly girl and tomboy sides.
*FINALLY enjoys playing the piano. This is a miracle and might only last till next week's lesson.
*knows about Santa Claus and everyone else and is the perfect pretender in front of her sisters.
*still loves to cuddle and give me kisses. Something I treasure and hope will last longer than the playground innocence.
*has many nicknames. Maddie and Max are the two most common at the moment. For some reason she is NOT okay with occasionally changing "Max" to "Maxi Pad". Can't understand why.
*turns 11 this month. Where did the time go?
I love you, Madylin Elise Ericksen.
*I'd love to add a photo here, but our most recent ones were taken with Mark's camera and are still in a RAW format. Soon, I hope to erase this message and post one. :)
It's half time during a high-stress Alabama vs. South Carolina football game. The girls can tell I'm worried for the Crimson Tide. The score is 21-9 and South Carolina is in the lead and playing a near-perfect game.
Celeste just came over to me with these coupons and said, "You can use them as much as you want, millions of times." From the top left the coupons read, "Masaj," "Masaj feet," "Tickole," and "Play with here." Or, "massage," "massage feet," "tickle," and "play with hair," if you need it translated.
Maybe I should calm down a wee bit. Love my girl. :)
UPDATE: We lost 35-21 and those "masajes" are really gonna feel good.
Celeste just came over to me with these coupons and said, "You can use them as much as you want, millions of times." From the top left the coupons read, "Masaj," "Masaj feet," "Tickole," and "Play with here." Or, "massage," "massage feet," "tickle," and "play with hair," if you need it translated.
Maybe I should calm down a wee bit. Love my girl. :)
UPDATE: We lost 35-21 and those "masajes" are really gonna feel good.
I have a brown, kind-of rusty metal file box filled with letters from my college days. A time before cell phones and when email was still very new and only the rich kids had a pc. No one in college had laptops. Long-distance calls were expensive and rare. My parents actually paid to have a 1-800 number so my frequent calls home weren't so expensive.
This little box of mine is stuffed full of letters from friends and relatives who kept up with me while I was at BYU. I sat down to go through some of the letters and I remembered friends I'd forgotten and hilarious (and not-so-funny) experiences from my college days. Many envelopes are decorated with stickers or drawings. Some handwriting is sloppy and hard to decipher. I even have a 4-leaf clover a high school friend sent me for good luck.
My little box holds the emotions and LIFE of my past. It is filled with love and heartache and sometimes even silly, bathroom humor. It is priceless to me and I treasure its contents.
There's something uniquely special about opening an old envelope and unfolding the stationery and personal writings of a friend. Something invaluable is lost through emails and texts. The care, the love, the trueness of the message is lacking.
I don't hand write very many letters any more. I even subscribe to a card-sending service that literally does that- I type a message and the card is stamped and sent for me. But, as I reflect, I'm not sure I'm okay with this. How personal can a letter really be that comes from a business- even if my words are inside the card? How meaningful?
I never read my old emails because there are always more in my inbox. I don't treasure them. I might star a couple here and there, but usually even the starred ones are forgotten.
Can I fix this? Will my girls feel the excitement of getting mail in a mailbox when they're far from home? I am determined to make it so.
Ahhh, how I LOVE my letters. They still bring me joy, 15 years later. I can't wait to call up some of my friends and remind them of our college-day DRAMA! And I want to thank my Mom for her words of encouragement. Something I'm sure I took for granted back then. I am forever grateful for so many happy memories, preserved in my little brown box.
This little box of mine is stuffed full of letters from friends and relatives who kept up with me while I was at BYU. I sat down to go through some of the letters and I remembered friends I'd forgotten and hilarious (and not-so-funny) experiences from my college days. Many envelopes are decorated with stickers or drawings. Some handwriting is sloppy and hard to decipher. I even have a 4-leaf clover a high school friend sent me for good luck.
My little box holds the emotions and LIFE of my past. It is filled with love and heartache and sometimes even silly, bathroom humor. It is priceless to me and I treasure its contents.
There's something uniquely special about opening an old envelope and unfolding the stationery and personal writings of a friend. Something invaluable is lost through emails and texts. The care, the love, the trueness of the message is lacking.
I don't hand write very many letters any more. I even subscribe to a card-sending service that literally does that- I type a message and the card is stamped and sent for me. But, as I reflect, I'm not sure I'm okay with this. How personal can a letter really be that comes from a business- even if my words are inside the card? How meaningful?
I never read my old emails because there are always more in my inbox. I don't treasure them. I might star a couple here and there, but usually even the starred ones are forgotten.
Can I fix this? Will my girls feel the excitement of getting mail in a mailbox when they're far from home? I am determined to make it so.
Ahhh, how I LOVE my letters. They still bring me joy, 15 years later. I can't wait to call up some of my friends and remind them of our college-day DRAMA! And I want to thank my Mom for her words of encouragement. Something I'm sure I took for granted back then. I am forever grateful for so many happy memories, preserved in my little brown box.
Today at Old Navy Celeste grabbed the buns of one of the mannequins and squeezed them. She thought her risque behavior was hilarious. (and so did I!) When she's being mischievous, her right eyebrow arches up and it is the cutest thing. I love that girl.
Tonight I had the privilege of listening to President Thomas S. Monson speak to the women of our church. I feel spiritually fed and eager to be better. The theme of his talk was to follow Christ's example and "Judge Not!" He quoted Mother Theresa who said, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them." How true! I love that! I am quick to negatively judge people (especially strangers). He counseled us to "wear the mantle of charity" and to be tolerant, lenient, forgiving, patient, sympathetic, compassionate, and merciful- especially in times of weakness and error of others. He encouraged us to be charitable towards the unnoticed and discouraged. He also quoted Horace Mann as saying, "To pity distress is but human, to relieve it is God like." Love it!!!
I am resolved to be kinder and more loving. Just tonight at the grocery store, the check-out lines were long and I noticed two people in line behind me who darted towards a newly opened line. The woman had been in front, but gestured for the man to go in front of her. The man didn't hesitate, but immediately took her up on her offer and moved to the front. My natural, reactive thought was, "Where is chivalry? I can't believe he had the gall to get in front of her! Pig!" Then, I stopped myself and tried to re-train my thought process. The Christ-like way to look at the situation would be to praise her gesture and her charitable act. And, then to assume that maybe he needs to hurry home to help a sick child or something noble like that. {Sigh} Thinking this way will take some major practice on my part.
I am grateful for my Savior and His sacrifice on my behalf so that I can repent and be better. I wonder how many times I will have to hear His words before I will actually heed them. I'll try today and then tomorrow and hopefully better habits will one day become second-nature for me.
I am resolved to be kinder and more loving. Just tonight at the grocery store, the check-out lines were long and I noticed two people in line behind me who darted towards a newly opened line. The woman had been in front, but gestured for the man to go in front of her. The man didn't hesitate, but immediately took her up on her offer and moved to the front. My natural, reactive thought was, "Where is chivalry? I can't believe he had the gall to get in front of her! Pig!" Then, I stopped myself and tried to re-train my thought process. The Christ-like way to look at the situation would be to praise her gesture and her charitable act. And, then to assume that maybe he needs to hurry home to help a sick child or something noble like that. {Sigh} Thinking this way will take some major practice on my part.
I am grateful for my Savior and His sacrifice on my behalf so that I can repent and be better. I wonder how many times I will have to hear His words before I will actually heed them. I'll try today and then tomorrow and hopefully better habits will one day become second-nature for me.
We just took our 1992 Toyota Camry in for some repairs and the total came to $1100. Yeah, a pretty big chunk, but everyone says Toyotas run forever and I know Madylin is going to be THRILLED to drive a car that is 7-yrs older than her one day. I think we'll even drive it to the high school on her birthday and put a big bow on it- just to humiliate her! I love planning more ways to harass and embarrass my kids. So fun!
The repairman told me they have a Camry that comes into the shop with 750,000 miles on it!!!! What the?!?! That means ours still has more than a half million miles to go! Makes me think we might actually take ours to get a Maaco-ver. Toyotas rock.
The repairman told me they have a Camry that comes into the shop with 750,000 miles on it!!!! What the?!?! That means ours still has more than a half million miles to go! Makes me think we might actually take ours to get a Maaco-ver. Toyotas rock.
I've recently discovered a GREAT way to get under my kids' skin. I simply refer to their Furreal pets as "robots". HEHEHEHEHEHEHE, Cackle, Cackle, Cackle!!! Sometimes it is TOO fun to be a parent! :)
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