Sunday Morning

Skyler likes to help out with Kimberly whenever he can.  Sunday morning, he was determined to do her hair for church... It was quite fascinating to watch! (Notice his tongue sticking out in concentration!)

Playing with toys afterwards...

New Pictures!

We obviously got some new family pictures on here & we wanted to give a BIG thank-you to Laron's sister Candace for taking them for us at Jesse's wedding a few weeks ago... They were just what I was hoping for, and even better, they were free!
Thanks again Candace!

Outdoor Fun

We've had fun lately enjoying the outdoors & Kimberly has been trying out our new swing.

Skyler loves to push her & is a very helpful big brother.

It's SO fun to watch them playing together...

I'm glad that we can have good quality fun in our own backyard!

The Iron Rod

Yesterday for "Family Home Evening" Laron went all-out and set us up an Iron Rod all around our backyard. Here's Skyler & Laron at the beginning & here's the last half of it, ending at

the Tree of Life:

Here's Skyler going under the trampoline to follow it...


Yeah! We made it to the tree with our family!  Here we are partaking of the white, delicious "fruit".
(a.k.a.= marshmellows!) Skyler LOVED it!

Kimberly loved it even more!
I think she just about sucked the marshmellow to death!

Some neighbors came over to bring us some cookies soon after we finished & they wanted to try out our Iron Rod as well...

Thanks Laron for such a fun FHE!

Kimberly's New Skill: Sitting Up!

Kimberly's been a little wobbily for a while now, but I think we can officially say that Kimberly can sit up on her own! Not to say that she still never face-plants when she's reaching for a faraway toy, but she's doing really well...

You're growing up SO fast on us Kimberly! You're already 7 months old now... Where has the time gone? I feel like with my second child, milestones are coming up so much quicker. Probably because I have another needy child to occupy my thoughts and actions, but still, I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on the little moments of watching you just grow-up. We sure love you more & more though the longer we get to know you & your sweet personality! :)

Skyler's 3rd Birthday!!!

Skyler's 3rd Birthday was today & boy was he ever excited! Laron & I decided that we would rather spend the day doing fun stuff with Skyler rather than just buying him presents, so our day was a busy one... And we even got my mom to watch Kimberly for part of the day so that it could just be him & us (since he doesn't get that one-on-one time with us quite as much anymore now that Kimberly's around!).

A couple weeks ago I asked Skyler what he wanted for his birthday, just curious to see what he'd say. He thought about it for a moment, then declared with a grin on his face, "Cupcakes!" I figured that was a present I could handle, so the very first item on our agenda today was making cupcakes. I hope Skyler will always be this easy to please for his future birthdays!

Then Skyler spent some good ol' quality time with his Daddy (which is probably his absolute favorite thing to do!), while I got Kimberly ready to go... They jumped on the tramp & played hide-and-seek & just had fun hanging out.

We then dropped off Kimberly & headed over to the movie theater to see "Toy Story 3!" Skyler had never been to a movie theater before & we figured that on a day all about him, this would be something extra special he would love. He was a little scared of the very loud big screen at first, but warmed up to it quickly.

We then headed over to the park to feed the ducks. Sometimes cheap, easy fun is the best fun of all...

We then sang Skyler "Happy Birthday" & let him open his two presents from us. Of course Skyler was super excited about this part of the day...

This was his face when he saw that it was a Buzz Lightyear toy! He immediantly said, "To infinity, & beyond!"

I think he likes it! When he started opening his second present, he said to Laron with a twinkle in his eye, "Maybe this is a Woody toy." Laron & I just looked at each other with our mouths open & enjoyed reading each other's minds: How did our kid get to be so smart?

And, of course, his second toy was a Woody toy. Even though he'd already figured it out, I'm still pretty sure he liked it. After that we spent the afternoon at the park playing on the playground & throwing the Aerobe. What fun.

That afternoon, Grandma & Papa Erickson came over to give him some presents. They, of course, gave him more presents than we did... I guess that's what Grandparents are for. Thanks Mom & Dad!

Skyler went through the bag & quickly set aside all the clothes, and went searching for the toys, which of course he had to immediately stop and play with.

Wow! What a spoiled boy! Skyler definitely is loved. We're grateful for a fun day & for the opportunity to make fun memories with our Skyler... And those we know are priceless.

Where did our garden go?

Well, after a few months of growing, we finally decided to really tackle the weeds in our garden... Laron's been hoeing between the rows off-and-on, but we've never really taken care of the weeds on the rows. So this week we finally figured it was about time...

Here's our lush, green garden BEFORE being weeded & the pitiful amount left over AFTERWARDS...

Where did our beautiful garden go?

We thought we had such a nice garden... until now.

But then we put in some cute little Marigold's to border the edge of our garden, which helped spruce things up a bit...  There's something about flowers that just makes me smile!

Well, we've still got half a garden to go...  I sure hope there's something left in there by the time we get done!  I guess we're still learning how to do all this gardening stuff.  Our parent's made it look SO easy!

Painting Projects

Our latest project was painting the trim and the front door of our house... And boy did it ever need it! As my mom so kindly pointed out today, "The front door was the eye-sore of our house!" I'm embarrassed to admit it, but she was totally right! It was one of those projects that we were going to do very first, but of course we got side-tracked with other projects instead. But it finally made it to the top of our "to-do" list...

I wish I had taken a BEFORE picture for you, but you'll just have to believe me when I say that it looks TONS better than it did before! (Other than those darn yellow 80's windows that I hate!) And I have to say, it took me two days to do between taking care of kids, but I think I did a pretty good job painting the front door, yellow windows and all.

"My Best Friend"

The other day Skyler said this: "Kimberly is my best friend. When she grows bigger, I'm going to hold her hands and jump on the trampoline with her."

I sure hope you always consider her your best friend...

A Day at the Zoo

Last week Laron had a work-party at the ZOO...

What a great place for a work party!

Skyler absolutely LOVED it, as did we all.

Here's a peak into our fun day:

Even Kimberly liked it!

What a cute family we have...

We are so blessed!

We had so much fun at the zoo!

Thanks for working for us Laron

so we can do fun things like this together...