Disneyland Addiction in action- July 09

So mid-July we did it again...yes you guessed it...Disneyland. 2009 has been a year full of the Happiest Place on Earth. I think this is a record year for the Ericksons.

We again found some great deals and could not help but take advantage of them. Cameron loves flying now. It was a really early morning and a long trip to get to the hotel so the kids were totally worn out by the time we got there. Yes, that is Cameron drinking my Diet Coke...don't judge me...it was just a sip...haha.



We spent 3 days there and the very first night poor Braiden woke up throwing up. He and I spent the day in the hotel while Eric braved the park with the 2 littles all by himself. Luckily it was a fast bug and within a few hours he was back to normal AND nobody else got sick!! Whew! We swam, we went to the parks and we had a ton of fun enjoying the California sun.

The kids got to see the Disney Electrical Parade that is now at California Adventure. I love that parade. It brings back tons of childhood memories. One of my favorite things about Disneyland is seeing how my kids faces light up whenever they see anything that they think would only be in dreams. This parade is one of them. They love lights more than anything and that combined with all their favorite Disney characters makes for a wonder that they will never forget.

While there I was able to get reacquainted with my childhood best friend Sherry. We have known each other since 7th grade and sorta lost touch the last few years but thanks to FaceBook we found each other. She lives in Southern Cali so i can see her every time we go there. I even talked her into buying Disny annual passes for her and her kids. I personally think its a crime to live in So Cal and NOT have an annual pass. There really is no excuse.

Another successful trip to Disneyland and more memories...but don't worry this was NOT the last trip this year...hold tight! :)

Pyromania

Every 4th of July and 24th of July we have our own little fireworks extravaganza right in our own driveway. No, we do not drive to Wyoming to spend hundreds of dollars on illegal fireworks and invite the entire neighborhood over to watch the show.

Its just us. Us and our Walmart fireworks. Eric takes on this alter-personality and becomes a pyro-maniac. Cant you see the crazed look in his eyes??
We all sit on our lawn chairs and watch Eric singe his eyebrows until its our turn to singe our eyebrows with the sparklers.

Generally the neighborhood kids come by and watch the "show" while Cameron and Paige cling onto my legs, scared to death of the flames. This year Braiden got to actually light a couple of the fireworks. I suppose every young boy has to experience his "right if passage" into pyromania and some time or another. I love that Eric tries so hard to make sure that we have a good time for every holiday. Pyromaniac or not...

Summer Fun

Last July we took a weekend and devoted it doing fun summer things...we just dont do enough of that. So we borrowed our good friends kids, Whitney and Kobe, who coincidentally are the exact ages of Paige and Braiden and are the best of friends and took them to the good old Hogle Zoo. I am a closet zoo fan. I really love taking my kids to the zoo becuase they LOVE the stinky animals and I LOVE seeing them wonder in amazement and them. We saw monkeys, elephants, giraffes, penguins, zebras, bears, a very pregnant and MeerKat and lots of very stinky birds and spiders. It was pretty fun and a welcomed break for Whitney and Kobe's mom.



That very same evening we took a field trip up to Park City and ate Mexican food and swam at our hotel (that is, until Kobe threw up in the pool which caused them to have to drain it. Needless to say, we hid. People were not very happy.) The next day we went to the Alpine Slides and took Paige and Cameron on the little roller coaster. They had a blast.

Today, its snowing outside and 25 degrees. Boy I already miss the summer. It will be back soon enough, I suppose and then I will be wishing for snow... I just cant be pleased.

I am back...

I really need to get blogging again so I have been looking through my pictures today and trying to decide where to start and I am thinking I have it all figured out. How do I possibly document all the perfect and fun events in my little life? I have decided thats not humanly possible but worth a try...

SO...

Back in early July I braved a camping weekend with my three kids on my own. We were invited to go up to Strawberry Reservoir for a night to be part of the planned surprise proposal by my now step dad and to my mom. It was fun to be there and share in that event with them...but...

I will never take wild 10 year old, a whiny 4 year old, a clingy 1.5 year, a dog, and a tent with a broken zipper camping with no husband on a weekend when its supposed to rain and be freezing the entire time!!! What was I thinking?
Cameron cried all night and we froze, the zipper wouldn't close so water got into the tent, it rained the entire weekend so we were all covered with mud. The kids and I were in the car almost the entire time watching the rain with a wet dog enjoying Sponge Bob on the DVD player. We ate pop tarts and Juice Pouches and raw hot dogs because we could cook anything on our wet campfire.




But honestly, after the treck home and getting the inch of mud out of my car I realized that we had fun and I likely will never forget that trip. Not that I will be doing it again anytime soon...

I believe in Miracles...

Yes I am actually posting something....Darn Facebook has taken my blogging time and run away with it...I am a slacker. But I just came across a great quote and I have to put it somewhere that I wont lose it but where others can enjoy it. This is the perfect place.



For Attractive lips, speak words of kindness

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry

For Beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others."

-Audrey Hepburn

I believe in Manicures.
I believe in Overdressing.
I believe in PRIMPING at leisureand wearing LiPsTiCk.
I believe in Pink.

I believe that Laughing is the best calorie burner.
I believe in KiSsInG; kissing a lot.
I believe in BEING STRONG When everything seems to be going wrong.
I believe HaPpY GiRls are the prettiest girls.
I believe that tomorrow is another day, and

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES.

Audrey Hepburn


That lady must have been a genius...

Happy Father's Day

Eric had a fairly quiet Father's Day this year. Thats how he and I like it. The kids wore matching #1 Fan t-shirts just for the occasion but for the life of me I could not get them to sit still together long enough to take a picture. Stinkers!

The Best Cookie EVER!!

At the end of the rainbow...

This was the view from my house last week. A gorgeous double rainbow.

The Little Fairy Princess

Paige recently had her dance recital so we had to try out the spongy curlers for the first time. Paige's hair has grown like crazy over the last few months so I decided that I need to get a little more adventurous with it. The spongy curlers were great. They bring back all sorts of memories of going to bed with curlers in my hair every Saturday night so I could have gorgeous hair for church.

Paige's costume for her dance recital was so cute and will most definitely be recycled for Halloween this year. She was so cute with her make-up all done and glittering head to toe.

Paige has lots of little friends that go to the same dance studio as she does. They are all so cute together. These two have known each other since they were born and her older brother is Braiden's best buddy. Now that's a recipe for life-long friends!

Memorial Day- Tamara and Marissa

This post is a little out of date but I am working on catching up. As I mentioned back on Braiden's birthday post, Tamara came to town to visit her sister, who lives in Lehi so we got to spend some time together. We had a great time just hanging out.

We had a Memorial Day BBQ at Lara's house and had YUMMY Santa Maria style tri-tip!! Thank you Lara! Thanks for the visit Tam and Marissa. We love you!

No Doubt!!

May 25th, Memorial Day, I went to the No Doubt Conert in at the E Center in Salt Lake City.

It was so AWESOME!!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Gwen Stefani and have been a fan of No Doubt since I was in 9th grade. When I heard that the No Doubt reunion tour was hitting Salt Lake City I HAD to go so we made it a family thing.

~Me and my Lovely sisters~

How Does your Garden Grow?

Three is definitely a magic number. This is the 3rd spring that my roses and peonies have been planted in my backyard and I cannot believe how they are blooming like crazy. My house has been full of bog beautiful blooming roses.

I love it.

Happy, Happy Birthday...

Today is Paige's 4th Birthday...4 years ago to the hour right now i was pushing my sweet little girl into the world in front of an audience of 6 people...don't ask!

I remember when I found out that I was having a girl. I was so excited as I had been seeing pink forever. Paige is a Daddy's Girl through and through.

She, being the only girl in the household gets a special kind of attention that the only girl always gets. She loves her brothers and loves to play.

She loves dance class, McDonaldDuck's, and anything Disney (especially Sleeping "Dooty"). She is very predictable in the sense that she loves to watch any show, always needs a drink and a snack and LOVES to take baths.
She will say "hold you" when she wants you to hold her and she asks if we can go see the airplanes at the "airsport". She is always the first to spot the temple, any of the 4 around us, when we go by them and says that she is going to get married there when she gets married "next week".

Paige has many little sweet quirks about her but her loving little personality makes it impossible to lose my temper or get upset with her. She always says "Thanks Mom" and "sorry Mom".

This was the first year that decided to do a friend party for Paige. I figured she was old enough to appreciate it and Heaven knows there are plenty of little girls that are willing to come to a Hello Kitty Party!!

So a slaved away on the darling headbands they are wearing. Each girl was donned with a headband and necklace upon arrival and they colored to their heart's contents with photocopied Hello Kitty pictures.

Next was the Pin the flower in the Garden Hello Kitty rendition game. I found out that 4 year-olds have a VERY short attention span. They were interested in the for about 1 minute before they were asking what was next...

So on to the painting of the Hello Kitty figurines. I found these at Target in the craft section. They LOVED it. That lasted for a whole 15 minutes... anything over 5 minutes is considered success in attention games.

The girls then found some entertainment in playing in the backyard with ladybugs and in the playhouse until we then went inside for some "DUCK, DUCK, GOOSE". WOW! That game is rough...especially for us 31 year-olds. They loved that game too and it wore them all out.

We then ate Hello Kitty Birthday cake (thank you Wal-Mart) and drank pink 7-Up. Next was the presents and then a half hour of Hello Kitty cartoons. Whew!

Overall the party was a hit and the girls had a grand time. They all went home with green and pink tote bags from the dollar store filled with little trinkets and super high blood sugar...

Success!

Paige made out like a bandit the birthday with gifts from all her sweet friends and from mommy and daddy. I think she was a bit overwhelmed and flabbergasted at all the stuff and all the fun but she loved it.

She said "Thanks for the 'credible' party mom." I think that's a good thing.

Happy Birthday babygirl! Don't grow up too fast.

Adventures in driving...California here we come!

I had the great pleasure of taking a little trip, not a vaction (the distinction is that a trip is with kids, a vaca is without) to California with Braiden, Paige and my lovely new college-grad sister Whitney. We started by staying in Grandma's house in St George one night (as you will recall from the lovely hairball incident). Then made our way the next day to Las Vegas.

We checked into the Circus Circus Hotel (cheap and decent) and spent a little time at the pool with the kiddos. It was HOT! That night Braiden and I went to the Phantom of the Opera Production at the Venetian. I have seen this twice now and it just gets better. We had amazing seats right in the middle of the theater, smack dab in front of the stage. Perfect view of the stage and perfect view of the infamous chandelier as it fell right on top of us. Braiden was totally taken by all the special effects and trying to spot the Phantom whenever he would pop up out of nowhere. It was a really good time. I want my children to grow with an appreciation for the performing arts so Braiden is off to a great start. The next morning we made our way to the obligatory child-appropriate stops such as the M&M Store and the Coca-Cola Store. That was about the extent of our hanging out on the strip. I am not a fan of Vegas. Off to California we rode!


We stayed the night at Dad's house in Southern California and then the next day we were off to the Magical Kingdom to play with princesses, fairies and mice...First stop---California Adventure. Paige was tall enough this time to ride Soarin' Over California and she LOVED it. It was so fun to see her. We hit Monsters, Tower of Terror, Playhouse Disney, Bugs Land, California Screamin', the Ferris Wheel, Braiden went on the Paradise Pier rocket thing (3 times) and then we were out of there to get some shut-eye.

We got a late start the next day as we visited the pool and the breakfast bar and just took our sweet time. During that time I received about 6 text messages from Eric inquiring as to what we were up to. Where are you guys going now? Where are you parking? Have you guys left yet? I figured he was just missing us so I humored him and answered all his questions so he could live vicariously through my adventures... So...

We get through the security gate and are just walking to the Disneyland entrance when I look to my far left as I see a dude walking toward us that looks curiously like Eric...WHAT THE HECK??? IT IS ERIC!! The sneaker had flown in that morning and checked into his own hotel and managed to track us down to surprise us!! I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought I was seeing things because I truly had NO IDEA!! It was a very pleasant surprise and Paige was in AWW at being able to hold her Daddy. She did very tightly for a solid 10 minutes. It was pretty sweet. He spent the next 2 days with us and flew home...oh yes, I drive home and he flew...stinker!

That day we spent alot of time in line to see the fairies and the princesses. This trip we promised Paige that we would do it so we did and the LINES WERE LONG! My Disneyland tip of the day---if you want to see the Princesses, go first thing in the morning and go pee before you get in line. People are ruthless and those mothers are not about to hold your place for you--you snooze, you lose! Ha!

We Spent a second day at Disneyland for which I forgot my camera so you will just have to use your imagination. Braiden pretty much went on every ride in the park. Eric and he stayed as late as they could and Whit and I went to the hotel with Paige and crashed by 10pm. That's just about my limit after being there about 11 hours.

Paige was a trooper...they both were. No freaking out or massive tantrums. No running away or getting lost and no begging for over-priced ridiculous souvenirs. They were both ready to go home when the time came and so was I. Never do look forward to the drive home but when I get there its all so worth it! Until next time...August I think. :)