A night at the Home-tel

We didn't have plans to go anywhere for Spring Break (and I came across this cute idea in an old Family Fun) so I decided to have a home-tel for the kids and do fun things at home. It was so much fun to think of ideas for our activities. We are kind of following a beach theme.

5:00pm check in at the Erickson Home-tel

complimentary treats
(custom stationary, twix and magic wash cloth)

We had dinner in the formal dining room.

Paul learning fancy ways from Emma

Spill number one - a broken glass
I knew that would possibly happen,
but what's the point of nice dishes in a box.
We've got to use them!

Spill number two - no breaks

We had our Family Home Evening tonight as well. We talked about Lehi's Dream - the vision of the tree of life - and how we need to keep a hold of that Iron rod so we can partake of the fruit. I set up a little obstacle course with a rope that they had to hold onto as they went over and under different things. I showed a picture depicting the dream and a really cool picture from the Ensign that shows a family holding the exceedingly white fruit in their hands. We then talked about how we can hold to the rod, or the word of God, and taste of the fruit, or the love of God. It was a good little lesson. (We recently did the Iron Rod activity with our young women and that's what made me want to do it with my kids.)

Dog Pile

Day 2 of Spring Break: A free showing of Alvin and the Chipmunks - the squeakuel at the theater here in town. The kids were so excited all day and played well together. Emma was letting them dog pile on her.

Happy Meals

Do McDonald's Happy Meals really make you happy? Well, today they did. First day of Spring Break: a treat out to McDonald's.

Red Sweater Dream

So I had this really funny dream last night that I remembered so well when I woke up this morning. I kept thinking about it all day. My friend Lisa was having a yard sale (we're about to have one) and a pie sale at the same time (Emma just did a Cyrus O'leary pie fund raiser for her school). The feedlot at my parents house was in the background and Lisa had quite the set up as if she were a vendor at the farmer's market or something. I remember making my way out to her tent and calling to her to save me the red sweater she was trying to sell (I have no idea what made the red sweater so special). When I finally got up to the front table, there were a lot of people buying her pies and clothes, I asked about the sweater. She evaded my questions and changed the subject. So I ended up buying a piece of cheesecake and chatting for a little while. I then asked about this red sweater again. She assured me that she had it but that we didn't need to look at it right then. I woke up with the strange idea that Lisa didn't want to sell me that red sweater in the first place, or worse yet, that she had sold it to someone else. Shocking, to be sure! Lisa drives a hard bargain.

Chalk Art

Cousin Warren with Paul, Ben, & Claire

Lately I have noticed how grown up Paul has become. He is gentler in tone and manner towards Benjamin and Claire. He asks them to play with him more often and exhibits more patience. That's not to say that he still doesn't have his days when he beats up on them, but that's just normal. In this picture, Paul was trying to clean up the sidewalk chalk. He was ever so diplomatically trying to get the last two pieces away from Claire.

Tool Time

We've been cleaning our storage room. Wise words from my mother: It doesn't matter how well you organize. If you don't throw anything away you still won't have enough room. So...we've been on a throwing away rampage. We've also been collecting things for a yard sale, that will happen tomorrow. It has been so much fun to THROW things AWAY. And because we threw so much away, it made room for another Costco rack for Jason's tools. Now they are all in one spot and he can access them more easily.

30 Weeks

and counting...

A Good Deal

We were in Lowe's today and happened to stop at the sales rack. They had some blinds on sale from roughly $55 to $3.82. Our good neighbor helped us measure our window to make sure they'd fit and they did. Awesome! The curtains were killing me because the kids would play in them or pull them down; people would take a seat on that side of the table and sit on the curtains. Now we don't have to worry about it and I can still have my windows covered. I have to have my windows covered at night. It's a must! And you just can't beat that deal.

Spring on Kennewick Ave

I was in Tri-Cities today for a doctor's appointment. It was such a nice day and a lot of the trees were in bloom. Much like this one. Oh, I love the Spring time.

A Confession

I have a magazine compulsion. I don't really like to read magazines. I like to look through magazines to see what cool things I can rip out. One of my roommates at college got me a magazine subscription just so I could go through each issue and rip things out. I have the hardest time waiting in any type of office with magazines because if I come across an idea, recipe, or ad I want to rip it out. Often times you'll see me scrounge a piece of scrap paper and a pen to write down what I find so interesting because I don't feel like I should always rip pages out of magazines at the doctor's office. When I first started this, probably around middle school age, I had folders of words and phrases in all sorts of fonts. (Go figure that now I work with words and phrases in all sorts of fonts in vinyl. hhhhhmmmmm!)

I have the influence of my oldest sister to thank for getting me started and hooked. She teaches Kindergarten and has served in the primary at church for many, many years. She would take pictures from magazines that fit with gospel principles-faith, love, families, service, etc. and file them away for teaching lessons or songs. At school, she lets the kids cut out pictures as they learn the alphabet. It looked like so much fun when she did it, that I wanted to do it too.

I kept a book of the things I really liked and dubbed it my worldly book. In the first stages, it was more of what made up the world around me - actors/actresses, movies I liked, etc. Therefore things of the world. It evolved into things that I saw that I liked, that fit me, or made me smile. I would make collage pages and write why I kept the picture or word or whatever. Now I keep mostly recipes, craft ideas for Emma, and ads.


I'd have to say that the ads are my favorite to collect. I look for the subliminal gospel messages. I love to make analogies so this one is where my compulsion gets really bad. When my sister receives a new box of last year's magazines for her classroom, I just have to go through all of them to make sure I don't miss anything. Sometimes I'll end up going through them twice. Here's a few that I like:

This was a cute one about marriage. You can't change one another. You're still a berry and he's still a nut, but you can make together forever work for you.

You can be something or something great - a comparison to the great potential we have as children of God.

What kind of homes do we want to have? Celestial homes, a little bit of heaven on earth, etc.

The path or life is straight and narrow, but it sure feels like a roller coaster sometimes.

Another one on the journey of life/plan of salvation: Jesus Christ is the bread of life; we need to make sure we take him along on our journey.

I know! Something weird you may or may not have known about me!

Moved Cheese

I know. Here I am writing about cheese again, but it has nothing to do with Benjamin this time. The date for our Craft the Night Away has been changed.

Let me explain the cheese part. I'm referring to the book Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson. Maybe some of you have read it before and know what I'm talking about. It is a book most often used for development in the work place, but also applies to our personal lives. It's a story about how to deal with change. In the story four mice live off the cheese at Station C - Sniff and Scurry & Hem and Haw. The story is of how these mice react when the cheese is all gone. Sniff and Scurry go out to find more cheese and Hem and Haw sit down in the empty station and question "Who moved my Cheese?" So we can draw parallels in our own lives as to which two mice we act like when something unexpected happens. Anyway...

My cheese has definitely been moved because I found out that my craft night is getting bumped from the date that we previously had scheduled. It was quite fun at church today trying to correlate with all the right people to pin down a new date. Well, we have one. Craft the Night Away will now be held on April 30th from 6:30 to 11:00 pm. I had some good practice at being Sniff and Scurry today. :)

Headless Barbie

We have been cleaning things out and piling things up for a garage sale. My sister went to work on some of her stored items and contributed to the cause. We came across these choice barbies from one of her keepsake boxes. Barbie on the right got a bad haircut and barbie on the left just simply lost her head. It was so frustrating when their heads broke because then they didn't have necks. There just isn't the same flare with neck-less Barbie in her evening gown.

Grandma's Glasses

So my mom was here a while back for one of her visits and she lost her glasses. We looked everywhere. We went room to room pulling things out, lifting things up, cleaning and searching, but to no avail. We could not find her glasses. It wasn't such a bad thing because she hated that pair of glasses. So she made an appointment and ordered new ones, which look great on her. Today I was straightening up the sheets and such in the cupboard and much to my surprise the very pair of spectacles we couldn't find just about a month ago showed up from the back of the cupboard.

Girl Scout Cookies

It's that time of year again and I just looooovvvveeeee these cookies (even if the boxes are smaller and the cookies are smaller and the names have changed). These are my absolute favorites-the Samoas, or Carmel Delights if you're old school like me. I bought two boxes and received them on Tuesday. Today, Thursday, this is what's left of both boxes. I'd like to say that I had a lot of help in finishing them off, but I really didn't. I ate the bulk of the most delectable creations. And when they set up their booths at Walmart, I'll be the first in line.

Scripture Story Cakes

Mutual (our weekly Wednesday night youth activity) was a lot of fun. The Young Men were in charge and came up with a really cute activity. It was to decorate the cakes provided to depict a scripture story of your choice. We were divided into four teams and given frosting and decorating supplies to use in our design. It was so fun to see what each team chose. We were Ammon cutting off the arms of the Lamanites when they stood to scatter the kings flocks at the waters of Sebus. I thought the blood on the arms and the sinking wounded Lamanite was a nice touch. The gummy worms around the sea are supposed to be sea scum. Very fun! And the teams were all so creative.

Ammon: Mighty Missionary

Daniel and the Lion's Den

The 2,000 Stripling Warriors

The Nativity Story

Census 2010

We sure had a good time reading our Census Packet today. We found the instructions to be clear as mud. We had some good laughs.

Car Washing Season

It was such a nice day today and the patrol car needed a good scrub down. Jason and the kids washed and I sat back and watched. That's my kind of car washing. haha!

Cinnamon Roll Helpers

So we attempted to duplicate Grandma Erickson's wonderful cinnamon rolls. I told Emma that good or bad we were going to eat them. I have to say that I learned quite a few things to do differently next time. That's always a good thing. But they still tasted pretty good. They were not the delicious creations that Grandma Erickson puts out, but they worked for us. Emma gave me lots of praise and encouragement throughout the whole process so I didn't take it too hard when she said, "Grandma Erickson's are better." The whole experience was fun and I did not lack for little helpers.


Gotta get that brown sugar smoothed out.

We will not be offering to share any, not because they didn't taste good, but because Benjamin and Claire went to town blowing on them to cool them down.

We decided to add chocolate chips. I think most anything tastes better with some chocolate added in. While we were eating ours around the table Emma said in her most impressive voice, "The chocolate chips are a touch."

Smiles

Sometimes all you have to do is look at your kids and smile and it makes everything better.

shine, shine, shine!

Jason takes great pride in shining his boots for work. He just a got a new pair. The ones on the left have been through a year and a half of service. Those on the right have yet to be worn.

Sweatin' to the Oldies

Any Richard Simmons fans?

Breakfast choices

So I have mentioned to some of you that Jason is into the photo a day project just about as much as I am. When he gets home early in the morning, he always checks the blog to see what picture I've posted for the day. Well I think he's taking his support a little too far because now he's starting to take pictures of me! :)

This is what our breakfast routine consists of every time we have cereal. I hold up one choice after another until we hit the jackpot with one and then I do it all over again for the next child. This morning Jason caught on to how silly it sounded- "Do you want this one? This one? This one?" - and so piled all the choices in my arms.


***I just entered this giveaway for the box of awesome from Heidi that I heard about from my friend Keely. We'll see if I win-there's a first for everything right?***

Wrestling Paul

This is our attempt to get Paul back for all of his rough play and wrestling. Benjamin and Claire ganged up on him and I couldn't help but join in.

DoN't FeeD tHe AniMaLs

We had waffles for breakfast this morning. Claire was really enjoying hers and then she took over mine. Watching her eat her waffle this way, I almost abandoned the camera for a "Don't feed the animals" sign.

I found Benjamin eating the rest of Claire's waffle this way. The empty syrup bottle was half full when I inadvertently left it on the table. Whether Benjamin was the one who dumped it all or Claire, I will never know. I do know that Benjamin was sure enjoying his syrup with a little waffle.

A swingin' good time & Burned Buns

Today was Baby Rylan's blessing (parents: my brother Kirk and wife Sharee). It was so fun to get together for lunch after church and just enjoy being together as family.

Mommy Sharee with Rylan

Emma loves to hold the new babies in the family. I caught her making a silly face and got this smile next. Love it!

Grandma Zirker holding Baby Allie
(parents: my brother Kent and wife Julie)

Paul performing a death defying feat with cousin Jenna looking on. I gave him a 10!



Emma and Jenna posing by one of Uncle Kirk's rocks in the flower bed. Yes indeed cousins are definitely ranked high on our lists of favorites. (My brother does some amazing things with his yard and flower beds. He even made the swing set that Emma is playing on above.)

Burned Buns

This is how my first attempt at toasted buns for dinner turned out-discarded on the back porch as quickly as possible. I'm telling you I just can't seem to toast things very well at all. Ask Jason the next time you see him. He has plenty of stories to share. They all involve me putting something in and forgetting only to come running out later hopping and jumping exclaiming "Oh, Oh, Oh!" Now what am I going to eat for dinner?!