Month: April 2006 (Page 1 of 3)

My good friend, Melinda, Happy Birthday!

She’s known me since about 1st grade!

This is actually a picture from second grade. Can you spot us both? It’s not that hard, as we still look pretty much the same, right?

Even though we’ve known each other for a long long time, it was in high school that we began to rely on each other. We sang together in choir, played bells together in Bell choir, and were partners in many antics, which I won’t begin to go into here.

We were roommates in college, with schemes and plans of all kinds. She’s been with me through a lot of growing, learning, and laughing.

Our kids are friends now, and we hope that friendship continues for a long time to come.

Happy Birthday, Mel. I really love ya!

My preschool kids were watching one of our new favorite shows, the Wonderpets, (Yes, I caved, and let my little kids watch tv while the older kids are at school–what did you expect?) and Jenna came and asked me for a piece of celery. WOW! So, she and John sat munching on celery while singing, “What’s gonna work? TEAMWORK!” How cute is that?

Of course, they both chewed on about one bite of the stuff before they decided they weren’t guinea pigs and asked me to throw it away, but it was a step in a positive direction.

And the other day on Sesame Street, who should we see but Norah Jones singing “Don’t know why ‘Y’ didn’t come”. I love it!

Here’s the best family picture we could get from all the shots taken at Julene’s wedding. John was cranky and feverish, as well as on cold medicine or advil most of the day, so he spent the day pretty much hanging on mommy. Oh well. But what cute kids!

Here’s a good one of all the Erickson grandkids with Julene. Notice how everyone is looking at…not the bride, but the cranky two year old. We took him out for the next picture, which turned out cute.

Here’s my favorite of Italo and Julene.

Of course if you want to see ALL the pictures ad nauseum, just click here.

Well, it’s tv turn-off week, and so far the kids went a whole day without tv. I didn’T realize it was the week to turn it off until Natalie brought home the note from her 1st grade teacher. Well, I can just record all my tv for this week and watch it all next week. But I don’t know if my tv addicted, still has this nasty cold/fever thing going on 2 year old can survive. Any suggestions?

I took the kids to the grocery store for our FHE activity tonight (after a really short lesson). They were each to pick out a snack that they wanted for $1 or less. I thought it would be a quick–10 minutes or less shopping trip, and I could look for dough enhancer for my bread making while I was there. No bread enhancer–that’s the 3rd time I’ve been there and looked for it! The kids walked up and down every isle, to make sure they weren’t missing anything that they could possibly buy with their (well, MY) one dollar.

This is what they finally settled on:
Jenna picked Nerds and Peanut Butter M&M’s right off the bat. She never changed her mind, either. Good girl.
Natalie picked Pringles, after much deliberation.
Cole picked Strawberry-Kiwi Shasta after changing his mind about 28 times. He’s my worst one to make up his mind and keep it made up.
Megan picked Shasta Tiki Mist.
John was happy with the free cookie from the bakery!

So, that was our snack for FHE. How exciting is that?

Oh, the baby books.
You faithfully document all the firsts: first smile, first solid foods, crawling, rolling over, first steps, the first cute words. We lovingly write down all these precious moments for the First child. The baby book entries tend to get a little bit sparse for children on down the line. It’s not that we love you any less than the first child, my dear second or third child (what was your name again?), it’s just that as parents, we forget to do the writing. I think I’ve written about 3 things in the baby book of my 5th child. Why did I even buy a baby book for that one? We’ll never know.

Well, my first child has just had another first. Since it’s not really something he’ll want put in his baby book, I’ll just blog about it. Are you ready? … He has his first—–ZIT! I’m so proud! I guess we’ll have to explain things like skin care and don’t touch you face all day and how to wash his face at night. Ryan I’m sure wanted to pop it for him immediately, but I think it’s actually going away on it’s own after only one day, so we’ll leave the popping until we get some really good ones!

Last night at Julene and Italo’s reception (which was so much fun and I’ll blog more about later), I overheard a little girl asking, “Mommy, is this the ninas or the hombres?” That’s not something I hear every day, and it made me laugh.

Happy Birthday to my friend Michelle, who’s been my friend since….well, forever, I guess. She was my friend back when we looked like this:

and we danced like this

and this

and helped at a teacher’s wedding

We have dressed up in Matching Halloween Costumes, helped each other plan numerous parties and various capers, and laughed a lot.

Even though we now look something like this

We are still friends, and I’m so thankful for that friendship. Happy Birthday, Mich! I hope it’s a great day!

I just have to put up this picture of the cutest two year old we know. Amy took it on our Easter Egg hunt, so thanks for sending it to me, Amy.

Today I managed to go to the temple, which was a nice break from the kids and the housework. When I came home the kids had *mostly* done the jobs that I asked them to, so they were almost ready to go to the Dinasaur museum at Thanksgiving point. We looked for hidden gnomes, but even with the girl at the desk giving me clues as to where they were, we didn’t find any new ones. The impatient kids don’t like it when Mom stands for more than 5 minutes staring at the trees and walls of the display.