Kenzie's Birthday

Yea, okay so I know that her birthday was back in July, but I'm finally getting around to posting the pictures. Sorry! I'm also sorry that there's so many pictures. I should have weeded through them before posting.

Kenzie's birthday was kind of crazy this year. She has bad allergies and once in a while this will cause her tear ducts to clog and become infected. Her birthday happened to be one of these times. So ignore her puffy, gooey eye in all the pictures. Her birthday was actually Monday the 14, but we celebrated it on Saturday the 12Th. She was suppose to have a friend birthday party that afternoon, and then a family party that night. Her friend birthday party didn't turn out so great. She had invited 12 kids and then our good friend Aaron and Melissa's little boy Isaac whose closer to Ashley's age. None of her friends came. The only kid there was Isaac. His parents brought him and Aaron and Melissa visited with me while the kids swam (Blake had to work for most of the party). We did manage to get a couple of Kenzie's neighbor friends to come over for cupcakes though, she was excited about that.

For her family party, my parents and my little brother Thomas came. We had pizza, Little Mermaid cake, and ice cream. She got a My Little Pony rollerskating cake toy from my brother, My First Leap Frog from us, a digital camera from my parents, and then a nursery rhyme story book from her great grandma along with a pink hand made photo frame for her Jesus picture in her room (she had requested this because the old frame was brown and purple and she didn't like those colors). We ended up calling it an early night and taking her into the doctor for eye drops and found out she had yet another bladder/kidney infection. Poor girl! She thought it was a great day though, so no harm done. Monday we took her to Wingers for dinner and she got an ice cream cookie. She loved it.

Conversation with a 23 month old

Ashley was playing in her room and then came running out to sit on my lap. She smelled pretty ripe so I asked her thinking that this was the reason for her sitting on my lap (she hates having a dirty diaper and will ask you to change it as soon as she's filled it). I asked her if she needed to be changed, she smiled huge said, "No, just gas!" and then ran away laughing. She was right of course, but the fact that she knew that means she's past the time to start potty training. She's such a tease, she's going to be a hand full when she grows up!

OUCH!!!

Well, a couple of weeks ago I had (as Kenzie puts it) a little trip down the stairs. Anyone who knows where we live has seen the cement stairs in front of our apartment, well one day we were in a hurry to get some things done so we could go to Salt Lake for the weekend, I was carrying Ashley down the stairs, Kenzie was already at the car yelling at me to hurry up, and I some how lost my balance and fell all the way down the stairs. I was just lucky that Ashley some how didn't go down with me. I think that she must have had a guardian angel with her because she somehow managed to stay at the top. I ended up in a puddle on the sidewalk. (The sprinklers had just gone off and the sidewalk was wetter than the grass of course.) I just closed my eyes and laid there too scared to open my eyes and see Ashley laying next to me, but when I heard her start crying and screaming from the top of the stairs, I finally realized that I hurt in a few places. The worst looking was the line of bruises going down my left leg, and the bruises covering my back and bum. Then I had a little bump on my head, a bunch of scrapes and bruises on my arms, and I hurt my ankle on my right foot pretty good. It's been three weeks and my ankle still is killing me. It was finally decided that I should stay off of it and see if the swelling and pain would go away. So, now I'm on crutches, which kind of sucks, but my girls have been great helps to me, especially Kenzie.




These were taken about 8 days after I fell, things were starting to look better by this point.

4th of July Reunion

Over the 4Th of July weekend, we went to the annual Erikson reunion in Star Valley. It was a lot of fun! Ashley had a hard time taking naps while we were there, and one of the days she was very cranky so Blake threw her and Kenzie on his brother Wade's 4-wheeler and drove them around. Ashley fell almost instantly to sleep. She had to be pretty tired, because she's one who will only sleep in her own bed and occasionally in her car seat and she;s usually a light sleeper but Blake said that her head was flopping all over as they hit all the bumps on the dirt roads and she had the wind in her face the whole time. It was so cute, but as soon as Blake came back and stopped she was awake screaming again. This was also the first time that Kenzie went on a 4-wheeler voluntarily. In the past she's been afraid to even get close to one when it was off. She loved it this year and couldn't get enough of the 4-wheelers and Rangers. This year has also been a tough year for some of the Eriksons financially, so we had a silent auction to help raise money for those that needed it most. Each family was to bring something that could be auctioned. I took a bunch of bracelets and hair bows. To my surprise they all sold. YIPEE! It was great! On the last day there, we borrowed, Blakes cousin's Ranger (a kind of 4-wheeler that looks more like a car with side by side seats and seat belts) and went Geocaching with the girls and Blake's sister Jan and her kids Justin and Emily. We made it all the way up the mountain, found the treasure, and then on the way back, Blake tried to show off and got the Ranger stuck in the still remaining snow that was there. It took some dirt, rocks, sticks and a lot of pushing power to get us out. I just had to roll my eyes and keep Ashley calm (she didn't like being stuck). We also slept in a tent this year. We finally out grew Blakes mom's trailer and had to use a tent much to Blakes dismay. The girls thought that it was the best part of the reunion. Over all it was just a great time to visit with family and relax in between chasing the girls all over.

Farewell to Good Friends

Recently, we had our next-door-neighbors, Megan and Devin, move away to Washington state. He had graduated last December, and got a job with Microsoft, so off they went. It was a sad day, but exciting for them to be able to move on and start Devin's career. Megan and I kept each other sane and laughing, especially when we had kids trying to sell magazines door-to-door. They have a little girl Emily who's just over a year and my girls love her. We watched Emily once so her parents could have a date night, and Kenzie and Ashley wouldn't leave her alone. They had to show her every toy they own, they tried to feed her, hold her, and just love her to death. She was a good sport though and put up with quite a bit from them before running to be picked up and saved. It was fun though, she's a cute girl, we miss her and her parents a lot!

Relay For Life

For those of you that don't know what Relay For Life is, it's an overnight fund raiser for cancer. Different teams sign up and for the entire event from 7pm Friday night to 12 noon Saturday, and there has to be at least one person from each team walking around the track the whole time (including all night). Our team was mostly family. There were a few of my nephews friends that joined. It our first year doing it, and it was a blast. One of the fund raising activities was a kiss-the-pig contest. 4 prominent people from the community are picked and then jars are set around town for people to put money in. The idea was for you to pay for one of these people to kiss the pig. Which ever person had the most money in their jar at the end had to kiss the pig, or match the amount in the jar to make someone else kiss the pig. They kept saying it was just a little baby pig, but you can see for yourself that she wasn't that little. Her name was Christmas. My girls loved her. Someone found out how much money was in the jars at the end and wrote a check to make it a 3 way tie. They were able to raise almost $1000 in just 1/2 hour for this contest.



They also had a hot air balloon. Kenzie started screaming for her aunt Jill as soon as she saw the fire go into the balloon to heat the air and raise it. Ashley was brave though and loved it. Ashley, Blake, and I were able to go up in the balloon. It was so cool! We took the girls back to Blake's mom's house to sleep there, and then Blake and I went back to take our turn walking from 1-2 am. At 3 am they had a Fear Factor game. That was interesting. Blake and I went back to his mom's house at 3:30 and finally fell asleep to be woken at 6 by the girls. It was a great night, we can't wait for next years activities!

I know that it's been a long while since I've updated this, it's been a crazy few months. We've had Relay For Life, a family reunion, Kenzie's 4th Birthday, Blake's Graduation, and our 24th of July celebrations. I'm going to finally have some time next week so I'll spend a few days catching everyone up. Sorry about the delay.