Brooklyn's Special Date

It's been a while since Brooklyn earned her special date with grandma and grandpa Ericson. When I heard that the BYU Ballroom team would be performing at the Sandy Ampitheater, I thought that would be the perfect night for Brooklyn to attend her first show. I invited Steve and Kay to come so we could count it as her date eventhough I was there as well. We first ate at Cafe Rio for dinner then headed over to the ampitheater. Brooklyn did quite well. The first half she was pretty fidgety and asked a lot of questions. During the intermission Steve took her to the grass and she ran around a bunch so the second half she was a lot more calm. Brooklyn loved to watch all the pretty dresses, and she was so excited to see the dancers up close afterwards.

St. George - Sunday/Monday

Sunday was very relaxed. It happened to be our anniversary, but there wasn't much we could do since it was a Sunday. So...happy anniversary babe! We found an 11am church really close so after we ate breakfast we headed over for sacrament meeting. Afterwards we came back for lunch and naptime. Here are the 2 babies after their naps:

 For the evening we invited Jolynn, David, Sally, and their twins over for a bbq. It was pretty crazy with so many people but SO much fun.

 We had birthday brownies for Andrew since his birthday was on Friday.

 On Monday the guys woke up super early and went golfing. They made it back by 10 and we all headed over to a big splash park. The kids loved it and could've stayed there all day!

 Here's Brooklyn kissing the frog hoping for a prince:

 They had a carousel so we couldn't resist sending the kids for a ride:

We went back to the house for lunch while everyone else sent to the Pizza Factory Express. We quickly ate and packed everything up so we could get on the road. We were hoping to make it to Kanosh before Brynlee fell asleep, but that didn't happen. So she got a little catnap right before we got there. We spent about 45 minutes in Kanosh playing with all their dogs, horses, cows, etc. We finally packed the dog up and headed home. We hit traffic in Spanish Fork that set us back another 45 minutes :( Brynlee did not do well the last half hour, but besides that the kids were pretty good! We made it home by 8, got the kids to bed, and collapsed on the couch. What a fun weekend!

St. George - Friday/Saturday

We had such a fun little trip to St. George of Memorial Weekend. We headed down Thursday evening at 7. We made it straight to Kanosh where we dropped our dog Lexi off. We were fortunate that the breeders where we bought her from agreed to watch her for the weekend. They put her in with another dog just a few weeks older than her. It was really fun to see her interact with her mom for a few minutes before we left. We then drove the rest of the way while the kids slept. It was actually a pretty nice drive. We ended up renting a really nice house so once we got there we were able to unload the kids and get a great nights sleep.

Friday was a blast. We relaxed all morning then headed over to Josh's cousin's condo to go swimming. The kids LOVED it! They had no fear...even Brynlee! After we swam we got pizzas and ate lunch with them.

 After lunch we headed back to the condo for naps. Josh had a bunch of work to do so we all just relaxed. Steve, Rachael, and Andrew showed up in the afternoon so we helped them get settled. Rachael had stuff she wanted to do so they took off while we waited for the baby to wake up. We went to Chuck-a-rama for dinner, stopped at the grocery store, then headed back to put the kids to bed. Kay, Michael, and Natalie got there around 11 so we talked to them for a bit and went to bed!

Saturday we work up and headed out for a hike. Luckily the weather wasn't too hot, although it was pretty windy. I left our jackets at the condo, so the girls were a little chilly. Here's Mckinsley all ready to go!

 The kids LOVED climbing all over the rocks:

 We finally found the "Hole in the rock", "Short & Scary Hike", or whatever else people call it. I've heard it called so many different things. Kay and Steve took the babies to the top while we all attempted to climb through. The kids were great and climbed up easily without any help. Josh, on the other hand, barely managed to squeeze through.

 After we headed to a park for lunch.

After lunch we went back so the babies could take a nap. All the girls went shopping for the afternoon which was a lot of fun. Yes...I spent plenty. We went to Pizza Factory for dinner. Afterwards we headed back to the Ridge for more swimming. It was awesome. It was even awesome when we had showered all the kids and everyone was loading up in the cars while I quickly showered and got dressed...only to find out that they took my clothes!!! I ran through the swimming area to the outside in only a towel. Everyone watched and laughed, but luckily I quickly got my clothes and got dressed. What a scene that was!

Preschool Graduation

I still can't believe that my little guy graduated from preschool! It doesn't seem like it's already been 5 yrs since I brought him home from the hospital. His graduation was held at a beautiful wedding reception center. The began singing a bunch of songs:

 Then one by one they were called up to the front while the graduation music was playing:

 "When I grow up I want to be a policeman." We found out later that they had to pick from a couple of options. An NBA player wasn't an option :) You can see the people they colored of themselves behind Brayden:

 They sang a few more songs then it was over! What a wonderful 2 years it has been!

 Miss Teresa:

My Birthday!

For my birthday, Brayden gave me the best present ever....a nice round of throwing up on my bed while watching his morning show. Awesome. Josh and I had planned on going to Leatherby's for lunch, but now that Brayden was sick I wasn't sure what we were going to do. Josh kept pushing that he would be fine and could just lay down on the chairs. Ya right. I finally decided I would just stay home and we would have to do lunch another time. That's when he told me a bunch of my family were meeting us for lunch. So I quickly got ready and brought Brayden and Brynlee with me to Leatherby's. Luckily Brooklyn was at school. Brayden was actually starting to feel better, but he laid on the chairs most of the time. It was fun to chat with everyone and lunch was great!

 Josh got me a new tv for our newly remodeled master bathroom.

I relaxed all afternoon while the kids napped. Then Aaron came over and babysat the kids so I could go to dinner with Kay, Rachael, and Natalie. It was a fun girls night out. Josh was still bummed he had sales meetings, but it was a great birthday!

Planet Play

Josh was going to have his quarterly sales meetings at work on my birthday, so the night before we decided to take the kids to Planet Play for dinner and games. Unfortunately, Brayden wasn't feeling very well. He spent the first 30 minutes in the bathroom while Josh and I took shifts waiting with him. We finally managed to get all of us fed and then we were off to the games. The kids loved it, of course, and even Brayden managed to have fun.

Brayden wanted to go bowling SO bad, but we really didn't want to pay 3 bucks for each of us. We walked over there, and there were 3 lanes that had games started on them but not finished. So we all got to bowl until it was time to move onto the next thing.

Marbleworks

The Ericsons have been cleaning out their garage, so we were able to take a bunch of new toys for the kids. I've always thought the marble track type games looked fun, but always too expensive to buy. I was so excited to see this at the Ericson's house and brought it home for the kids to play with. We put it together and the kids have LOVED it! I was surprised that Brynlee was the one that lasted the longest. She played with it ALL day long and loved watching the marbles go around the track.

Park FHE

Josh's dad's side of the family moved their FHE to Monday bc of Mother's Day. So we met everyone at a park and had dinner and played with the kids. Of course the kids had a blast!

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was so wonderful. We were still laying in bed when Josh told me he was in charge of breakfast. I jokingly asked him if he was going to Mcdonalds for egg mcmuffins since those are my favorite. 10 minutes later the smoke alarm went off. Awesome. I decided that until I heard someone screaming, "Fire!" I would stay in bed...so I did. Josh finally called me down for breakfast. He ironically had made me egg mcmuffins! They were SO good and he got major bonus points having had that already planned. We quickly got ready for church where Brayden and Brooklyn were SO cute singing with the primary. After church we headed off to my parent's house. It's become tradition for the kids to give the grandma's roses and they love doing it. My grandma happened to be at my parent's house so it worked out perfectly:

This was Brynlee's first time giving the roses. She ended up carrying them around for 30 minutes before she would let them go.

 4 generations!

 So sweet!

 We headed back home for naptime. Then we headed over to Josh's aunt's house for a bbq. Again the kids loved giving the roses:

 

Happy Mother's Day!