Remember the good times we had last December?

So I know this has been a couple months, but I really wanted to talk about this first picture and the other things on here are important as well.


The first part of December we went down to Utah. While we were there we got to take a five generation picture. I was wanting to get this picture since Erik was born and it took us a year to get everyone together. This was the first time that my grandpa and great-grandma had even seen Erik.

We also went to Jamie's graduation. Go Jamie, you rock! Erik did well for a lot of it especially whe he was held by his grandpa. Can you see the resemblance?

This was a picture was at grandpa's family party. It is a great profile of Sandy. Isn't she hot!?!

If only Erik was laughing and smiling, too. This is still a fun picture of the guys.

Those are my sisters Jamie and Laurie. Oh yeah, the goofy looking one is me.

Then there is Erik. His tatoo is from the Jazz basketball game we had gone to the night before. Erik now is doing so much all at once. He is quite the engineer. He knows which buttons to push to get out of his car seat (Don't worry. He's not strong enough to actually push the button down.), he did figure out how to open his baby gate the other day and had it topple down as he was using it for balance, he knows how to open ziploc baggies, and what impresses me most is the way he takes two unrealated objects and figures out their relationship to one another (eg. "This one goes in the other one", "I can bang these two together", and "I can take this apart and but it back together again.") I can just see his mind working.

What is just as impressive is what he says. We have been teaching him signs so he doesn't just say "uhh" all the time and we can figure out what he wants much quicker. Well now he is putting words with those signs. He is consistently saying "more" for everything, which actually sounds like "Mo." I've heard him say please, but not much. Words that he doesn't have signs for include "ball", "dog", "mom", "dad", "eye" and our favorite "No." Signs where he is not yet using words include "milk", "up", and "all done". Lots to keep track of, but he is doing it and amazes us every day.

Video!

Erik has chosen some favorites of all his blankets. One morning he found these two blankets and we had to catch it on video. (please excuse me blowing my nose in the background)

So this video took 2 hours to load!!! This is why I haven't posted many vidoes from our new camera-it just takes soooo long! Anyone have any ideas of how I can speed the process up, please let me know :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had the Best Valentine's Day ever! We continued with our tradition of making Valentine cookies. My sister and I decorated these on Tuesday. They were soo yummy, I'm really glad we have some left over!

On Friday night Paul and I went to our Stake's Valentine Dance! They had been giving dance lessons the weeks before and we'd gone to those and learned some great moves that we tried out on the dance floor. It was great fun! There was one line dance song, but we were the only one's who line danced while everyone watched, kinda embarrassing cuz they clapped for us when we were finished. I felt like we were the encore for the floor dance routine they had had just before.

Valentine's morning! I made pink heart pancakes for Paul before he went to work. Erik just woke up before this picture, hence the sad face. My mom always made heart pancakes for us on Valentine's and served them up with red applesauce. It was always a yummy way to start the day that I've continued the tradition with our family!

For dinner we decided to have a Pizza Picnic in our living room. We layed out a blanket and had pizza from Pier 49, yummy our favorite!

We got a 1/2 Embarcadero and 1/2 Nob Hill pizza. It was delicious! I realized that the last time I had had Pier 49 pizza was the day before Erik was born! It was definately time for more!

Then we exchanged gifts. We got Erik some sandals for this summer and my parents got him some puzzles .

Insert Paul's head in this picture.

but it really is all about the shorts :)

Erik and I got Paul some new B-Ball shorts, which he LOVES! He's really been having fun playing ball with the ward every week so now he'll have a new look!

Paul got me these beautiful pearl earrings! He also got me the movie Pride and Predjudice! This was so sweet not just because I really like that movie but because we went to see Pride and Prejudice on our first Valentine's together! He's such a sweet and thoughtfull husband, I love him!!!

And for Dessert, Blueberry Jello, thanks Tannie, it was delicious!

Winter Festival!

We went to the Annual Winter Festival/Carnival this year! It's just 2 hours north of where we live and it was great fun! I was excited to share this family tradition with Pawly and Erik. There are many ice/snow sculptures and a Mardi Gras Parade and sledding, and a lot more. So here are some of the pictures we took.

I think there was a dragon theme this year, this dragon has his tounge hanging out, guess that's better than flames coming out.

This was a float in the Parade. I thought it was one of the coolest.

They threw candy during the parade, but they also threw beads! Erik got some and was happy to play with them!

(Pawly looks really hot in this pic)

This was infront of a pizza place, the fish has a giant piece of pizza in its mouth.
My mom, Erik and I waiting for the next float in the parade.


When Erik got bored with the parade he entertained himself with Pawly's zipper. It's so cute that he's figured out how to work a zipper.


Look how happy he is to pull it down :)


My happy boys, I love em!



This sculpture was the 1st prize winner, it was an awesome castle, even had the king and queen.

And of course a dragon to protect the castle. They also had a draw-bridge and a moat, it was awesome!

We carried Erik around with this backpack, he didn't really like it. He just always had this pouty face while he was in it. So dad is here sympathizing with him. They've got good pouty lips.

Eventually Erik got used to the back pack enough to fall asleep. He's asleep in this picture, which bytheway, added a little more dead weight for me to carry-man this kids getting big!