My Favorite Time of the Year!!

With December comes many wonderful experiences: picking out a fresh Christmas tree, decorating the house, baking cookies, and ElfYourself! That's right, I consider Elf-Yourself an essential ingredient to a successful holiday season. Much to my surprise, they have introduced more versions this year!! Take a look for yourself...

I present to you, the Erickson Family 2012 Elf-Yourself!

Every version (click the links to follow through): Classic, Hip-Hop, Soul, 80s, and Charleston.


I love ALL versions. Please note my dad Mike and Kona (the family dog) high-fiving in the first few seconds of the Soul version!!  And my parent's cute little solo dance in the Charleston version!  (actually, we might change places every time, but you have to trust me that these were hilarious).

I invite everyone to make their own here, I promise you will not be disappointed.

After that belly-laugh, I am back to studying for finals. I swear if I read the words "fecal-bulk" one more time this quarter, I am going to barf... yay for Fiber!! ;)

Pumpkin Spice Addict

This is the look of a dog newly addicted to Pumpkin Spice Hershey's kisses. I was eating a few and he would not stop begging, so naturally I gave him one. Normally when he is begging for something weird (fruits, vegetables, pumpkin spice kisses) he will just spit it back out. Not this time! I have created a furry little monster.

(Disclaimer: This short little post was actually written about two weeks before I published, but I must have hit "save" instead of "publish", and then forgot about it. I found it in my files and thought it was too cute not to share!) 

The Beach and a Jewelry Thief.

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend (aka- 3 days with no school!) so Adam and I took a trip home. We got to see a good chunk of Adam's family including visiting siblings- Kevin, Shalee (Hi, Shalee!!), and Kristi with her family. I sped home to hang out with my mom before she left for a church retreat with my sister. This left me with my dad and four year old dog, Kona, for the weekend. We kept busy by planting flowers and tomatoes, grilling pizzas and burgers, and we even took Kona to the beach!

Remember the Mother's Day planters I made? Look how much they've grown! The "flowers" in that lower pot were actually weeds- ha! They've been replaced with much prettier flowers since then.  

Kona loves the beach. He's about to pull my arm off!

Eyeballing me.

I never understand why people swim/surf here. Soooo cold, windy, dreary, and miserable!

He got a little too brave. That little speck is him!

I didn't catch a picture of it, but the stinker decided to root around a dead, rotting seagull and later found a nice pile of dog poo to sniff at. Later, we took him to walk around the shops in Westport and one of the owners came out to say hi to my cute pup. She proceeded to let him french kiss her. Dad and I were both holding back fits of laughter/gagging because she was doing this not 10 minutes after he licked everything dead on the beach. YUCK.

One benefit of Mom and Morgan both leaving for the weekend is that I had full access to Morgan's closet and makeup stash.

Sidebar- I got to right here in writing this post when our lovely toilet overflowed for no apparent reason (this is the SECOND time this has happened. Grrrr). Looks like I get to do multiple loads of toilet-water towels tomorrow. Yay. 

Anyway, back to my point.  I scavenged through old boxes and came up with a ton of old jewelry (which may or may not have been my sister's...):

Exhibit A

I also found an awesome Ikea rack I bought years ago with good intentions but never used. It is now holding pens and misc. crafty goodness next to my desk. I got so excited after finding a stash of my old cds. Unfortunately, I could only find all the burnt mixed cds which were okay but not what I was looking for. Adam and I skipped through them all the way home... until he couldn't take anymore early 2000s R&B ;)

Adam thoroughly enjoying my rediscovered Savage Garden. 

I'd better get to bed so I can go to the laundry mat early in the morning. Oh, the joys of living in an apartment with horrible plumbing and no washer. :)