erica danielle

Last year in my 30’s! I am here for it. I kicked off birthday weekend with a night at the Hewing with girlfriends. We went to dinner we sauna’d and hot tubbed on repeat, we got pastries and went shopping, and had such a great time.  Cold walk to dinner  Our table view at Sanjusan . This place was delicious and warm and such an experience and I wish I could re-live it again.  Saturday morning the sun was shining and Mary and I tanned in the hot tub for a solid hour and my arms got burned. 😂  One last picture before heading home.  On my actual birthday I had many small surprises and felt the love all day long. We ended the day at Knokes where the kids had ice cream and sten and I picked out some of our favorite confections.  A door dashed coffee from Haley was the ultimate surprise!!!!! And I ran in SHORTS!!! I ran my age in kilometers on Sunday with my awesome running club. 24.233 miles is exactly 39 kilometers! Yay for fun ways to ring in a new year. ...

On this day 14 years ago I wrote my first blogpost. Feb 20 2011 That’s a long time. 😂 why have I kept up with this habit? I don’t know, but I’m glad I have a digital diary of my life for the last almost 15 years. Maybe subconsciously I knew that bc I have such a terrible memory this will be my scrapbook that will be a lifeline when I’m making graduation books for the kids or what we did for the Super Bowl in 2016.  Whatever the reason…I feel thankful for this corner of the internet!  xo. edc.   

 Sigge boy turned 6 yesterday! How can it be? My squishy little baby is now a lanky little boy. This year for his birthday he got: a new sketchbook with fancy pens the green Ninjago stuffy a hockey 🏒 stick water bottle  lion 🦁 stuffy The presents tell me: still little boy and also not a baby. 😭 He’s full of emotions, the best snuggler, so funny, so fun, so sweet, so mischievous, so creative and makes me so happy. I do NOT want him to grow up. It’s more a me thing then a him thing. I don’t want to exit the stage of little kids yet and I am knocking on the door, (if not already outside the door), of  this stage. We celebrated with donuts, skating, Pier 500, and cake pops with presents.  Happy Birthday to our favorite 6yr old.  Next: Valentines Day Our Valentine’s Day was spent with a dinner at home. It was so fun to have courses and a menu. It was cozy and special and my favorite. I made Marry Me Chicken and it was maybe the best thing I’ve cooked in a while. P...

A bonfire happened! On February 2nd! We were wrapped in blankets, but it was lovely and it made  me happy. No it’s freezing cold again.  Youth take over was heart warming and inspiring and just plain old good for the soul. Was I crying for most of the service? Yes. I loved seeing Jenny’s girl do announcements and kids singing their hearts out in an all out way for Jesus. And then the baptisms 😭 if you’ve lost faith in the youth of today, head over to Midcurrents YouTube page and watch 2/2/2025.  Olle man had his first basketball 🏀 game and is such a baller. ⛹️‍♂️ loved watching him play.  Lucy is just getting so old.  The most beautiful sunrise ever.  Mom dad Jessica and I went to the Simon and Garfunkel concert last week and it was so good.  Hung up this print (made by yours truly) by my coffee maker and it adds a great little pop of color and whimsy to make our mornings brighter.  It’s my favorite month! February 🩷 xo. edc.   

In the chilly-est days of January I find myself wondering if the sun will ever shine again and if the ground will melt and if the buds on the trees will bloom again. Why do I doubt? The sun always shines, the ground always melts. There is always new life in the spring. And then I get outside on a day that’s chilly, but not the chilly-est and I love it. I wonder to myself how anyone could live without experiencing winter. How you could go through life never wondering if the ground will melt. I remember when Sigge was 3 and we had SO much snow that year. He asked me one day if we would ever seen the green ground again. And I seriously struggled to answer definitively yes. But the good thing about living here almost my entire life is that I KNOW we always swim in the lake in the summer. I ALWAYS get home from a July run and I can’t stop sweating and the sun is so hot I think it might burn off all my skin in the best way possible. So even tho the days have been bitterly cold and I don’t un...

 I am certain written on my gravestone will be the words: everything can be solved by homemade bread.  I am firmly in this camp. I try to give it up, to eat eggs, and I can’t. I literally can’t.  And you know what. it's ok.  We had a no school day and I made bread and bagels and granola and homemade meatballs and this also gives me life. Cooking when there’s time and there’s no timeline and the kitchen will get cleaned up again because I don’t have to rush off somewhere. There are moments that I think I could stay home while the kids are in school. Where I could be a stay at home-r, long term. but then I think about the joy of the weekend, and the way I’m kind of falling in love with what I do, and that I still have the ability to still see my kids a lot but also have a totally separate life, and I think: this is truly what God wants for me right now. It’s a re-building in a way. It’s a re-learning of who I am. I went through the last year and a half a little lost. I...

Friday was Hansel and Gretel at River Crest with Lucy as our #1 actress (Gretel) extraordinaire. She did amazing and knew all her lines and pretty much everyone else’s and she definitely shone bright.  Most expressive child ever.  Olle rocked his “Taffy Troll” role as well! Although I am not sure he has the same intense love of theater as Lucy does :)   We also did some skating at Jessica’s house which was so fun and rewarding and being outside just does something good for me.  On Sunday the run club went for an epic 7 mile snowy run at Willow River. It was: snowy! And wonderful! Also— we officially have an Olle man who is 9 1/2! Can’t believe he’s halfway to double digits. Makes me happy and sad all at the same time.  xo. edc.