God Be With You Till We Meet Again...

About 5 minutes ago, Braiden came running up the stairs yelling "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, mom, mom! President Hinckley passed away!" I wanted to record the feelings that I am experiencing now here since I am afraid I will forget. Officials announced that President Gordon B Hinckley passed away tonight at 7pm in his home surrounded by his family.

Isn't it funny how you can feel such love and respect for someone that you never met? President Hinckley has been prophet of the LDS church for 13 years and really for the bulk of my adult life. I have always loved his funny sense of humor and his special way of conveying important messages to the people of this church and others, for that matter. Even if I didn't catch all of Conference, I always made sure to hear him speak.

Just today, in sacrament meeting, the topic was prophets. A part of her talk especially hit me where she said that while preparing for her talk, she was searching earnestly for the perfect scripture or quote or story to convey her message about prophets. But she realized in looking at an issue of the Ensign with his picture on the front that her favorite thing about President Hinckley was simply his smile. She loved to see his smile because she knew that his smile was the Lord's smile and that he was the Lord's mouthpiece in this day.

Although I am saddened to hear of his passing, I smile when I think of his happiness in greeting his loved ones on the other side and though I never met him, I will look forward to the day that I will in another life. I am grateful for the time that he was here and he was such a strong infuence in my life. His voice is the one that my children recognize as the prophet's. That is priceless. I know that his work here was finished so the Lord took him home to be reunited with his wife and other prophets that had gone before him.

Goodbye President Hinckley. We love you.

Confessions of a BLOGaholic

It has been three weeks since my last post and I have no excuses. Really my only excuse is that everytime I get online to possibly post something new, I start looking at everyone elses BLOG and I get totally wound up in other peoples stuff and surfing other link and sites and blah, blah, blah before I know it I have been online for 3 hours and havent written a dang thing and my kids are starving and Cameron is leaking thru his clothes becuase I haven't changed him in three hours and then I start having guilt trips and start thinking about how terrible I am for being on the computer all the time and then I tell myself that I will NOT get on the computer again during my children's waking hours but after 2 or 3 days I start having withdrawls and can't keep myself from constantly wondering what Brenda's latest funny post is or if Carrie had her baby yet or if Whitney has posted another tear jerker, etc, etc, and so I sneak back on while the kids are watching Spongebob, just for a real quick peak, email check and post and botta-bing, the sick cycle continues. Whew! So there you have it. SO, now that I have that off my chest...

Here is the update:

Braiden has finally returned to school after a VERY long off-track break of 4 weeks. I love my children but I love it more when I can send them off to a fun place to learn and grow (and get some quite time :)). He has a hard time during the winter months because he is a very outdoors kind of kids and during the summer our neighborhood has children galore playing everywhere but right now, its a desolate, cold, no mans land. This causes some serious boredom issues and I have had to take drastic measures by joining a Fitness Center so he, and I, dont lose our minds. (more on that to come)

Paige has decided the potty-training is for the birds. Referring back to one of my old posts entitled "Proud Mommy Moment" I bragged about how good Paige was doing with the potty training and Pull-Ups. Well somewhere between then and now, she has changed her mind and doesn't even care about Dora or Tink panties anymore. Advice anyone? I suppose her kindergarten teacher will have to add potty training to her curriculum. She is will be three in June and I am scared it may never happen.

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my kids? That little Paige is a cute one. She will melt your heart with every blink and grin but watch out world, we've got a live one on our hands. Eric and I thought that we would get lucky with her and pass up the "terrible 2s" stage since she has been such an angel for us. Oh, man did she ever have us fooled. Welcome to tantrum and pouting galore. She wants what she wants when she wants it, and that is NOW! (Not sure where she gets that. wink, wink.) She wont eat, unless of course it is 2am or from someone elses plate. She HAS to everything "myself" and she has learned, without a doubt, how to push her big brother's buttons! Gotta love her. On the other hand, she knows exactly when mommy or daddy need a hug or a "I wuv you". This is her latest funny: we will ask: "Are you Cameron's sister?" She will say: "No, I'm Paige!" Haha. She sings to herself all the time (I need to figure out how to get the videos to upload). She has been especially fond of the ABC song and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and sings different lyrics everytime. I love it. She is addicted to Little Einsteins, Micky Mouse Club House, Curious George, and anything with Disney Princesses. She also loves her baby dolls, bubbles and bubble baths, mommys makeup, and Daddy rocking her to sleep. When she gets out of nursery and I ask her what she learned about she will always say "Jesus and Bubbles". Thats Paige in a nutshell. She is changing so fast, I feel like I have to capture it all somewhere. Love this BLOG!

Cameron is such a happy little sweet baby. He is also changing and growing so fast. I love watching how he changes everyday. Recently he has discovered his hands and concentrates on them so hard like he is waiting for them to do something new. Since he has reached the 4 month mark, we tried the rice cereal. Lets just say he wasn't so fond of it but we aren't about to give up. He sleeps about 9 hours at night which I am eternally grateful for. He and Braiden share a room and Braiden has been so good about letting him cry himself to sleep. Cameron loves his little toys and his swing and hanging out with mom and dad in bed.

Eric is working hard and trying to study for his CPA exam. He has been extremely busy working on getting his moms house ready to sell and actually they just officially sold it today. This is a huge weight off his shoulders as it has been over a year since his mom passed away. Its amazing to see first hand how you really do leave all worldly possessions behind. Its hard to process if you haven't seen how after someone dies, their body is no longer there but all their "stuff" is left behind, just how they left it. It has been a hard transition and will be for a while yet but the sale of the house is a huge stepping stone. Last week Eric had to have a colonoscopy just for screening purposes. Everything is fine but, as you can imagine, it wasnt very fun for him. He is feeling much better now.

I am also working and back into it full-swing. I am so grateful that I have a job that allows me to be flexible and still be a good mom. My main focus lately has been on how I can improve myself so that I can be the best person and mom and wife that I can be. I know and have always known that I need to focus on being healthy so that I can be around for my kids for a long time. We recently joined the Lifetime Fitness
here in South Jordan, right by my house and I am HOOKED! Let me tell you, if you have one somewhat close to you, JOIN IT! It has been so great. Mostly because they have an awesome childcare program where I can take my kids for up to two hours a day for 6 bucks a month per kid. So instead of making the kids stay indoors all the time, we go to the gym to play. That rocks compared to other gyms.

So anyway, I have a dream and I am on a mission...I will work out at least 3 times per week and I will get in shape before our trip to Oralando in June. I will even post my success on this BLOG (when I figure out how) for all the world to hold me accountable for. I have even promised my husband that I will not buy a stitch of new clothing until I start reaching my goals. Thats big, really big. So here I go! Updates coming soon!

Highlights of 2007 for the Ericksons

For history's sake, here are the highlights for the Ericksons from 2007:

January: Found out we were expecting a baby after only a month of trying.

February: We were able to get our basement finished which doubled the size of our house and made life much more livable, especialy with 3 kids.

March: Eric and I had our 4th anniversary. Went to Disneyland for 4 days with the kids and had a blast as always.

April: Found out we were expecting a boy!! Gwen Stephani concert with my sisters. (So fun)

May: Braiden turned 8 on May 20th.

June: Braiden was baptized and Paige turned 2.

July: Eric and I went to Las Vegas for a marriage enrichment seminar with our good friends and had a great time. My sister Bonnie had her little baby Baylee on the 31st.

August: I had my 30th Birthday on the 24th. Finally sold our Sequioa! Total Blessing.

September: Cameron joined us on the 10th! I started a 3 month maternity leave. We had the inside of our house painted. Yeah, no more white!

October: I went to Washington to visit my best friend Tamara and her new baby, Marissa. Another trip to Disneyland for all of us including Cameron. Yes, we love Disneyland.

November: BYU/Utah Game (BYU KICKED BUTT). Thanksgiving at my house. Visit from my step sister Christy who lives in Kansas and her new baby Zoey!

December: Snow, Snow, Snow and more snow. Holiday activites with the kids. Kurt Bestor concert at Abravanel Hall. Dentist visit yields NO CAVITIES! Yeah for me!

Christmas and all that Craziness!

So another Christmas has come and gone and here we are left in the dust of the whirlwind Christmas Day. I am always amaed at how long it takes to prepare for Christmas and how its over in seconds flat it seems. Thats probably a good thing though.

The kids had an awesome Christmas Morning as I expected and "Santa Claus" is now in full recovery status although I heard that he didn't get to bed until midnight on Christmas Eve.

Braiden had a Pirates themed Christmas this year as he got everything from a 2.5 foot pirate ship complete with action figures to Pirates PJs. He also got a MP3 Player (What a nice Santa!)

Paige was especially fun to watch this year as she is just beginning to understand the whole concept of Santa so she was soooo excited and amazed. Her highlight present was her Princess Cozy Coupe Car and her baby dolls.

Cameron mostly was asleep while we were opening Christmas presents but when he finally woke up, he got to try his new bouncer. As you can see he was not all too fond of it but he will get used to it.

Later that morning, our family came over and began the true gluttonous celebration. It was really nice this year because we have a finished basement now so there was plenty of space for the huge mess that was left. We of course enjoyed good food and had a great time.

Our Christmas was a great one this year. We had a record Christmas card year as we recieved thirtysomething cards from friends and family. That is one thing I especially look forward to as I love to get updates from my friends and family. We have so much to be grateful for and love to celebrate every minute of it.

Merry Christmas Everyone!