Work, PTA, and repeat

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful in the Erickson household.  Steph got less than encouraging news on her follow-up appointment.  For anyone who doesn't know, she had a hysterectomy on December 3rd and has been off work since.  She was planning on going back to work on February 7, but her stitches have not healed and she was told to take it easy for another four weeks.  She did start back at work part time, working just the mornings and only at a desk.  I got bad news a week ago when I was informed that the company was doing some corporate re-structuring.  I have now spent 6 days without work and I have cleaned the house more than I would like to admit.  Haven't had any job offers yet, but have met with three different recruiters and hope that I will have something sooner rather than later.  Carter has been doing really good at school, he has gotten almost all of his spelling tests right this year and we have been told he is one of the smarter kids in the class.  A couple of weeks ago Steph and Carter had a mother/son event for the school's PTA.  In true Steph fashion, she is the vice president of the PTA, and was running this event.  They had a scientist come and do some chemistry experiments and while they waited the kids created paper rockets that were shot off by air compressors.  Needless to say, they kids had a great time and it was an even that they will be having again.  This last weekend was the father/daughter dance that the PTA put on and even though Hadley is far from going to it, I still went as our neighbor, who is a truck driver, could not get back to go with his daughter.  It was a good dress rehearsal, but going to a father/daughter dance with someone other than your daughter is awkward to say the least.  Yesterday Carter and I had a "guys" day, we went over to Iowa City for the Hawkeye wrestling meet and basketball game.  It was a long day, but I think that he had fun, if only the basketball game would have had a better outcome.  He did get his picture taken with the Insight bowl trophy that Iowa won last December.

Basketball

Carter has once again started basketball.  He is still in the type of league that does not allow steals, blocks, or keep score, but he enjoys it just the same.  Like most years, he is one of the tallest kids on his team and has a mixed team of girls and boys. He has had two games so far, scoring two baskets in each game and getting in trouble multiple times for blocking shots and stealing the ball.  His team has 12 players on it however, so he spends more time on the bench than he does in the game and he is always the first one to volunteer to go in if someone gets injured.  When he is on the bench, he is sitting on the edge of his seat pining for his turn to get in.  His game has gotten much better since last season, he actually dribbles now instead of just picking up the ball and running like a running back.  He loves playing point guard so that he can have the ball in his hands as much as possible.

The last week in sports

Soccer-
Carter has grown leaps and bounds in the last few weeks in soccer.  Two weeks ago he scored his first goal, Mom and Dad were super proud.  We taught him how to do a slide tackle when playing defense and he did great job with it, even forced another kid to face plant.  Before we taught him this, his defense consisted of him running up and giving the kid with the ball a forearm shiver, don't get me wrong, I was proud, but there were nasty looks from the other kid's parents.  Of course at the next practice the coach informed us that a slide tackle is illegal in the Under 8 division.  Oops.  Now last week, he stepped it up even more by scoring two goals!

Golf-
Golf has had trouble with the rain that we have gotten the last week, but Carter has had two "meets" this week.  They let the kids play one hole and start from the 150 yard marker.  The first night Carter scored an 8, which is better than his dad usually does.  The second night he scored a 9.  He has to use a set of clubs from the course, beings that he is left handed and we only have right handed clubs.

Much needed update

So I just noticed that it has been since March that I updated this.  So much for frequent updates, huh?  I will try to summarize what has been happening the last six months. 

Hadley-
The last update she was on just a couple of foods a day, now she is on to the Gerber graduates, and even feeding herself with some of them.  She now has six teeth, two on the bottom and four on the top.  She loves the Gerber puffs and Cherrios, that way she can feed herself.  She has gone from rolling over, to army crawling, to regular crawling.  Now she is standing up and walking around things, but the stubborn Haas in her comes out when she goes to take a step and she plops down and crawls.  She will however walk behind her walking toys or when you hold her hand, so it is only a matter of time.  She had her 1 year checkup and is growing at an average rate, she is in the 50th percentile for height, weight, and head size.  She really enjoyed taking walks around the pond and looking at the ducks.  Her favorite summer time activity however, was swimming, whether it was the pool, bathtub, or the lake she loved splashing and being in the water.  She really enjoyed having her big brother around all summer, she would follow him all over the house and just wanted to be close to him.  When she wasn't busy bothering her brother, she enjoyed the neighbor girls coming over and spending time with her, it also afforded some much needed quiet time for dad to work.

Carter-
Well despite the fact that he is fighting his mom's inferior genes, Carter did pass kindergarten.  Over the summer, he played baseball and had swimming lessons.  He loved baseball, but didn't like the fact that he had to hit off the tee, he really wanted to hit live pitching.  We found out the hard way that we need to sign him up first, because apparently they have a draft and if you sign up late, you get put on the scrub team.  He enjoyed swimming lessons, but didn't want to jump off the board.  He spent a lot of time with the neighbors on their boat and would jump off the boat into the water and had a blast tubing.  For a week he had basketball camp at Drake, he learned a lot and was voted best teammate on his team.  His team ended up getting second place and he was upset about it, but getting a medal made up for it.  Carter spent a lot of time playing with his friends in the neighborhood and had several sleep overs.  Now Carter is in 1st grade and we have been told that he is good.  He started riding the bus now this year, so he gets to sit next to his best school friend to and from school.  We started soccer again this fall and he seems to like it, he is light years ahead of where he was two years ago when he played.  He also started golf, his first meet was to be tonight, but got rained out, of course now that he is playing golf, he thinks that he needs new clubs.

Steph-
Steph has been at her job for a little bit less than a year now and seems to still like it.  She does love working with the elderly, so that part of her job is great.  This year she got involved in the PTA, and like everything she dove in headfirst and is now the Co-VP.  So between work, PTA, and Carter's activities, there is very little free time for her.  She does however still find time to keep the house spotless and my clothes always seem to get washed.

My job is going great, we recently hired some new guys in New Jersey and that has been an adjustment.  I have kept busy with Carter's events and taking care of Hadley during the day so my days are equally full.

Sleep Walking?

So this past weekend we had our first confirmed sleep walking incident from Carter.  Steph and I were watching a movie on Saturday night about 11 when Carter came walking up the stairs.  Once he got upstairs, he laid on the couch for about ten seconds, then he got up and walked into our room.  Mind you the whole time he is doing this he is holding his nether regions.  I get out of bed and lead him to the bathroom where he attempts to pee on the sink.  After completing his business he climbs into our bed only to have Steph attempt to wake him up and walk him back downstairs.  This is shortlived as he gets to the top of the stairs and laid his head down and goes back to sleep.  We get him to the couch and he slept the night through, in the morning he had no idea what had happened.  Carter had a sleep over on Friday night with his friends Jack and Cole, of course they stayed up late playing video games and watching movies.  Of course on Saturday morning they were up bright and early to eat their pancakes and bacon.  Carter enjoyed his week off for spring break, but I don't think he was ready to go back to school.  He spent a lot of time over break playing with his friends outside and the weather cooperated.  Hadley has her 6-month check up this week, so I will update her height and weight later this week.  She has been eating about two foods a day and is doing really well, even getting upset at mom and dad for not getting the food into her mouth fast enough.  She is still sleeping through the night and allows her dad to get his work done during the day.

Half Birthday's

So Carter has learned about half birthday's this year and has tried to capitalize with gifts. Little does he know that his dad is one of the cheapest men alive. When he asks for gifts I start in about how there are people in this world who don't even know what television is and here he has one in his room. He then tells me that those people should work harder so that they can afford a T.V., at that point I have no rebuttal. Hadley turned 6 months last week and is rolling all over the place, there are times that I catch her rolling multiple times in a row to get somewhere. She tries to sit up, but is still pretty top heavy. She is mesmerized by her brother and Jax the cat, if either one of them are in the room she is fixated on them. Of course we had a photo session last week to commemorate her six months, but she spent more time staring at the camera than smiling at it. That is of course until the camera was put down, then she wouldn't stop smiling. There were some good pictures, but we are going to get them done in a month or so when she is hopefully sitting up. She has moved on to foods now, we do food twice a day and so far she hasn't found a food that she doesn't like, however, peas did do a number on her "pipes," so we probably won't be doing those for awhile. Carter found out that his baseball team this spring/summer will be the Pirates, he even got a hat with the Pittsburgh logo on it and hasn't taken it off since Saturday. Hadley had her first church experience this last weekend as we went to our neighbors son's baptism. She did pretty well and probably would have made it through the service, but I think Steph pinched her leg so that she could get up with her.

Steph's job has been going great, she is busy as every, typically working 55-60 hours per week. Hopefully it ends soon as she has been covering for a position that a new person is starting next week. She did go to Oklahoma a couple weeks ago, so I was flying solo as a dad, wasn't too bad, Carter and I got to have the meals that we like and Steph doesn't. Carter liked it because I think I am a little bit more lax with the rules than Mom is and he thinks he is getting away with something.

My job got interesting a while back as our partners from Israel bought out the other partners, so there were some tense moments where I thought that I would be updating my resume, but they retained me. There is about an 8 hour difference in time from there to here, so we only cross over a couple of hours in the office, so a lot of communication is done via email. It is an interesting way to work to say the least, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

Basment Update

So it has been a looong time since I updated this, sorry.

The basement renovation is complete, it was a long process, but so worth it when we almost double the size of our living space. Carter and his friends fit a lot better in his new room as opposed to four boys trying to squeeze into a 10x10 room with furniture. Even though she didn't know it, Hadley is happy to be out of our closet and into her own room as well. It is nice to work on my desktop computer again instead of the laptop. In the future we are hoping to get a new TV down there and new furniture upstairs so that the furniture upstairs can move downstairs. We really appreciate all the help from friends and family to get it completed.