Our 8th Anniversary!

We celebrated our Anniversary this year 2-weeks after the fact because we were at Laron's step-sister Leslie's Wedding, but we still had a good time.  Laron's mom came up to watch the kids overnight for us, so we took advantage of it!  We started out our first afternoon by watching the fountain show (with fire!) at City Creek in Salt Lake.  Then we went & got some ice-cream on our way to our hotel.  The next morning we ate a quick hotel breakfast, then went swimming, went to the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple, did a little shopping to waste some time, had dinner at the Olive Garden (my favorite restaurant!), then onto a play of "The Sound of Music" at the Hale Center Theater.  I had hinted to Laron last December that I would love to go see this for our Anniversary, so he splurged & bought us tickets.  Overall it was a fabulous weekend & SO nice to do something with just the two of us for a change!  Love you Laron!

Manti Pageant

So we decided that the kids were finally old enough to appreciate going to the "Manti Pageant" this year, so we tried it out... On our way down we remembered that some of our good friends from college (Mike & Anne Scottorn) lived down in Ephraim there, so last minute we stopped by their new place to visit them.  It really was one of our main highlights of the trip!  All of our kids really had SO much fun playing together & it was fun to see the life they've made for themselves there.

Then we quickly went & set up camp at our camping spot & headed back to the Pageant just in time.  Surprisingly, ALL of the kids stayed awake for the entire thing (which got over at like 11:00!) & they were pretty excited about watching everything.  We had to explain a lot of what was going on & Skyler was a little nervous about the Lamanites, but overall it was a good teaching moment.

The next morning the kids LOVED just hiking around & exploring.  And it got SO hot SO fast that that's about all we did all morning.  A little later we decided to try out the canoe we had borrowed from my parents, but Bailey just cried the whole time because she didn't like the life-jacket, so it wasn't as long of a ride as I'd hoped for.  And then Laron got the great idea to bring a tube to tie onto the back of the canoe for a kid to ride in, which Skyler LOVED for the first few minutes, that is until he got too confident on it & started rocking it until it fell over.  He was pretty scared at first, but luckily he had a life-jacket on so all turned out well.  I think it kind-of scared Laron though, so no more kids got to ride in it after that.

 After lunch my family showed up (they were going to go to the Pageant THAT night) & so we went canoeing again with them.  This time Skyler decided that he never wanted to ride in a canoe again!  And Bailey of course was done.  So we all took turns & had fun rowing around.  One time I even tried riding in the tube on the back & was surprised at how tipsy it was (at least for ME)... But it was fun for one ride I suppose!

Here I am holding a little water snake that the kids kept following all along the water's edge.

 It was fun to have some company to break up the day & to distract us from the heat & lack of shade at the campsite.  Thanks for letting us borrow your tent trailer and canoe Mom & Dad!

And who'd want to go camping without these little munchkins?!  Without someone being excited about every little stick & rock, I just am not sure I'd even go... So thanks for bringing a little excitement to the trip guys!

Aunt Leslie's Wedding

Laron's step-sister Leslie just got married (on OUR Anniversary actually!).  It was kind-of cool to re-live our wedding day of 8 years ago by going to the same temple we got married in (Salt Lake) & reminiscing about life before kids.

My parents watched the kids for us for the day & took them to Hogle Zoo while we went to the wedding & had a nice meal at Benihana's in Salt Lake for the luncheon.  Our cook found out it was our Anniversary & even shaped the rice he was cooking into a heart for us (if you can tell from the picture above).  Kinda nice to have a free, fancy meal for our Anniversary, despite our busy day.

Then we drove up to Evanston for an AMAZING reception!  Everything looked perfect from the ceiling down to the chairs.  They had fresh fruit, a chocolate fountain, a photo booth & a candy table (my kid's favorite feature!).  One of the cutest things was watching Skyler dance with his older cousin Kenzie on the dance floor.  He was a little nervous to ask her, but he couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had dancing with Kenzie for DAYS afterward.  And it's always fun to see the kids all dressed up... So fun!  Congrats again Ben & Leslie!

Working with Daddy

Over the Summer we've been doing lots of house projects & surprisingly, the kids have LOVED it!  They've loved all the ladders to climb up & the scaffolding to goof around on.  They've loved occasionally trying to hammer a nail into a piece of wood just for fun.  Skyler often says lately, "Mom, I'm going outside to work with Daddy."  Which pretty much means that he's going to play right around where Laron is, mess up his tools & "borrow" his nails.  Who could ask for better helpers, right?!

Bailey's 1st Year!

Before Bailey was born, I saw the cute idea of taking her picture every month to document how much she had grown from month-to-month & it's been SO fun for me to go back & look at how much our little Bailey has grown!  She has turned into quite a special little girl in our home, with a spirit & an attitude all her own! So without further ado, here's how much our little Bailey has changed over her 1st year of life!

Bailey was a little grumpy on her 1st Birthday because she had some teeth coming in & had a fever that day, so unfortunately no smiles for the last picture... But what an edition Bailey has been to our lives over this past year!  We're so grateful that Heavenly Father sent her to be with our family!

Bailey's 1st Birthday!

Well, our little Bailey is growing up on us... She just turned 1!  On her birthday I tried putting her hair in pigtails for the first time & they turned out adorable!  Pigtails alone make her seem older AND cuter.

Grandma & Papa spoiled her with presents the day before her birthday.  It this stage I think she may have just enjoyed their attention more than the presents, but I sure was thankful for the new clothes & toys!  Thanks Grandma & Papa!

Her birthday was fun, but a little bit of a disappointment as well.  It took me all day to get a picture of her just half-way smiling.  I think she's teething right now & not really feeling well that day, so I was bummed for her to have a grumpy day on her big 1st Birthday.  And then I had worked SO hard to make sure all her presents were wrapped up & that her cupcakes were made & stuff, that when Laron came home not feeling very good & wanted to just have her open up presents the next day, I was pretty disappointed.  She DID at least eat her cupcake, but I had to leave like 5 minutes later for my "Young Women Music Specialist" calling that I missed most of it.  But she didn't seem too shy about eating it & seemed to definitely go for the frosting first.  But as soon as Laron started putting little pieces of ice-cream on her tray, she wasn't too interested in the cupcake anymore.  Apparently she's more of an ice-cream type gal!

 So the next morning we opened presents... The kids seemed MORE than happy to help her, but she actually did a pretty good job at ripping little pieces off of the wrapping paper.  She could tell there was something exciting about all this!  But as soon as the presents were unwrapped, one of the other kids would immediantly start playing with it.  She had to fight to get her presents back, but I think this was the funnest part of her whole birthday.  Just playing with toys in their PJ's, with no other plans for the morning.

Well, Happy Birthday Bailey!  We sure love you & love the sweet spirit that you bring to our family!

Dinosaur Park

Last Christmas my parents gave us tickets to go to "Dinosaur Park," so we finally went there as a family this summer & had a blast!

Skyler was pretty proud of himself when he started realizing that the dinosaur sound effects came from hidden speakers, so he started hunting around to try & find them at each dinosaur.

My favorite part of the whole day was watching Kimberly climb under the guard-rails to go give each dinosaur a kiss & a hug before we moved on to the next one!  Here were these fearsome, scary, dangerous looking dinosaurs & Kimberly was kissing each one on the nose & putting her arm around them like they were best buds & that she was sad to have to leave them to go see the next one.  So precious!

Skyler loved digging for dinosaur bones & the girls loved swinging in the swings.  All in all, it was a perfect summer day, making fun family memories with the ones I love!

Bird's Nest

Well, our little baby robins have finally flown the coop.  It was a fun process for the kids to watch, although I would have preferred them build their nest a little farther away from our front door :)  It was magical to see their blue little eggs, exciting when we heard their first little chirps, fun to see how both the mommy robin & the daddy robin would search for worms for the birds all day long & kind-of sad when they started venturing off on their own at only 2 weeks old!  But their nest was getting pretty stinky, so it was probably a good think for us both.  Skyler was the lucky one who first spotted them trying to fly off.  I saw one little bird trying to just make a run for it, with his mother following him the whole way with a little worm in her mouth for him.  You could tell that he was ready to be on his own, because not even a worm was exciting enough for him to come back for.  When Skyler saw a dead baby bird on our neighbor's sidewalk a few days later, the kids all started praying that the birds would be safe.  Those bird's probably needed their prayers because we've got lots of cats around our house.  I sure hope they made it!  But what a fun process to watch!

One of the most exciting days was when the Mommy bird flew in our house one day when the front door was open.  It practically scared me to death when I walked into the family room to find a bird flying around frantically, pooping all over the place!  But luckily Laron was home to take charge of the situation & calmly suggest opening the window & taking out the screen so she could fly back out.  Exciting times!

Outside Fun

I LOVE watching the kids jump on the trampoline... They just have SO much energy & enthusiasm!  And when we've got company over for them to show off their "cool tricks" it's even better!  So thanks Robert & Jeff for playing around with the kids & allowing them to show off for you.  They loved it!

 And it's always nice when I can find someone willing to take MY picture with one of my kids... Bailey's such a sweetheart & we look forward to all the fun we'll have over the summer!

Family Pictures at Cousin Carter's Baby Blessing

This is MY side of the family...  My Grandparents: Leland Erickson, LuCene & Hugh Hougaard.  My Parents: Dennis & Lori Erickson.  My Sister's Family: Emily, Adam, Rachel Belle & Carter Nelsen.  My Brothers: Robert, Chris & Jeff (Tim's on a Mission in Chile).  And of course, our little family: Michelle, Laron, Skyler, Kimberly & Bailey Pace.  Yeah for family!

Grandma & Papa with all the grandkids!

So fun to all be together!