Dec 26: Merry Christmas!

I decided to "splurge" this year and take a full week off work over the Christmas holiday.  My work schedule is very hectic from December until mid-February(I know, when is it ever not?!), so taking a week was truly a splurge.  I did have to work remotely for part of one day, but I was still out of the office!  We spent Christmas with the Chalker family in Greeneville, TN at Kirstin & Lee's home.  All of us were able to be there, which is the first time in several years.  We were able to get a complete family photo which was one of my main goals after learning that we would all be able to make it!  The funny part of the photo-taking process, is that while we were waiting for the camera to be set up for remote shooting, Erik started kicking Jake in the back.  I tried to hold Erik closer to me and further from Jake, but that didn't work very well.  Then Erik started putting his feet on Jake's shoulder, so I decided to go with it and just put Erik on Jake's shoulders!  Jake was a great sport and actually thought it was great fun.  Erik does love his big cousins!

The complete Chalker Family!

I found that I did have the typical Florida-resident problem of packing for warmer weather than what we actually encountered, so I was cold a good part of the time we were there!  In my defense, I had looked at the weather forecast before packing and the temps weren't that different from Florida, really.  However, a cold & wet weather system came through the day after we arrived (no idea why that wasn't forecasted!!).  Oh well, thankfully, I did pack significantly warmer clothes for Erik!  I also did one better than inadequately packing:  since we flew up almost 6 days before Christmas, I decided that I would finish my Christmas shopping in Greeneville, assuming that everywhere has stores just like Orlando does!  A big oops on my part!  Greeneville has a Wal-mart, Belk's and a JCPenney's and that's about it unless you drive over an hour to a larger city.  I was flabbergasted!  How do people live like that?!!  (I know, I know, I'm totally spoiled)  Thank goodness for Amazon prime & free 2-day shipping. :)

Even with my Floridian issues, we had a wonderfully relaxing time while in Tennessee.  Due to the wet weather, we couldn't spend much time outdoors, but had a lot of toys to occupy us indoors.  Kirstin's house had 2 separate flights of stairs, which Erik absolutely loved!  Kent & I were on constant alert, being prepared to jump up from whatever we were doing to rush to the stairs to monitor Erik.  I think we climbed up & down the stairs 20 times a day.  Made me so very thankful for my 1-story house in Florida.  By the end of the week, Erik was begging to go outside to play and wouldn't want to go back in even if he was cold & wet!  Kirstin & Lee also have a terrier-type dog, Stella - Erik would follow that poor long-suffering dog around saying "daw, daw", patting it, poking it and even trying to ride it!  And no, Erik's fascination with the dog doesn't mean that he will get one of his own. :) 

Erik playing with Stella, the dog

Opening gifts-the boxes were more interesting than the toys!

Getting a hug from cousin Caden

Helping Auntie Kirstin put away silverware

So happy to be outside!

Dec 8: First Haircut

Erik has had his first haircut!  We held out until he turned 16 months old and then all three of us couldn't take it anymore!  Kent had been mentioning a haircut to me since before Erik turned 1, telling me that Erik was not allowed to have long hair!  I thought his hair was cute until probably the beginning of November and then I decided it had gotten long enough, and with no curls to make it look cute, I also was on board for a haircut.  I think Erik was ready before either Kent or I!  He had taken to pulling at his hair in the back when he would get frustrated.  It was almost as if he was saying that he was upset and this hairdo was just making it worse!!  It was especially bad during his baths; when we would wash his hair, it would hang down past his neck onto his back.  That seemed to drive him nuts and he would pull and scratch at his neck.  Poor little guy.  We were all set to get it cut mid-November, but then Grandma Johnson asked for us to leave it long so that she could see it.  Not sure it was worth it, because again, no curls!!

We got his haircut on Tuesday, Dec 4, after work.  In our rush to pick Erik up and get to the salon, we forget our camera of course.  Thankfully, Kelli's iPhone was handy so we did get plenty of photos and videos.  Erik did pretty good during the haircut, all things considered.  He is very curious, so he would keep turning his head whenever someone would walk by or a blowdryer would turn on.  He sat on Kelli's lap for the first part of the cut, but then we stood him on the floor for the rest of it so the hairdresser could get to the back and sides better.  Some of the pictures below show how we had to bribe him with snacks!  Erik's hair is so fine that the piece we saved had to be stored in Kent's shirt pocket as it fell out of both the tiny rubber band and the bobby pin that we first tried to use!  Now I just have to figure out how to save it in Erik's baby book.  With all my scrapbooking supplies, I should have something!

Here are some before, during and after pictures of Erik's hair.  Since it has been awhile since I've updated the blog, I'm opting for a short entry with plenty of photos!!

Before: Fly-away hair

Before: Long enough to have little tufts come off the back

Before: Wet, spikey hair during bath

During: Bribing Erik with snacks to get closer to hairdresser!

During: Kent giving Erik more snacks with the buzzer is being used

After: Success - we're done! 

After: Not the best post-haircut pose, but the best that I could get!