Birth Mom Photo a Day 27: What I am Thankful For

Day 27: {What I am Thankful for}

Its the obvious but most profound answer. My family is and always will be my saving grace. I have a really large family. I was raised by parents that both have lots of siblings so I have lots of cousins and was lucky enough to have all my grandparents close to me and a very influential part of my life. Both of my sweet grandmothers are still alive and I miss my grandfathers all the time. I am the oldest of 12 siblings, We are spread around a bit but I have been lucky enough to be able to maintain a good relationship with all of them, as best we can. I have lots of in-laws too that I love and am grateful for how they love my siblings. They all make really cute babies too. We have all been through a lot but we have managed to stay close. Family has always been important to me and they are the place that I run for comfort and safe keeping. I am so blessed to have good relationships with my family. We love, we trust, we rely on each other for strength in hard times and celebrate with each other in good times. I can't imagine life with out them and I am so happy that we get to raise our kids to know each other and to appreciate family like we do. I couldn't possibly make a collage that captures all of my family but this basically illustrates it. Happy Thanksgiving.

November 2013

So here I am, all ready to start writing about our adventures in 2014 so far and I just realized that I skipped November and December 2013!!  Maybe I would rather forget??  Freudian slip?  Nah. Those were great months!  There were a TON of pictures from November.  It was a busy month.



The first weekend of November, Alicia came down to do the Snow Canyon Half Marathon with me and Amy happened to be coming through THE SAME WEEKEND!!  WOOT WOOT!!  It made for a fun weekend, indeed!

He took all our 10 animals to the Pirate Island Pizza place.  We sat, they ran amok and nearly got us kicked out.  Ha!  Oh well.

That same night Braiden and his Freshman football team were recognized at the Varsity game for having an undefeated season!

Max particularly loves football games...as you can see.  He does everything possible to NOT actually stay in the seat with us or watch the game.  If he wasn't so darn cute....

Saturday November 2, 2013.  
Snow Canyon Half Marathon 
AND my personal BEST TIME EVER!  Ran with Alicia and Kobe!  (Well, I ran a bit behind them)

Before the race.  I particularly love these races because they DON'T start at the crack of dawn.  8am is a great time to start a race and SNOW CANYON IS GORGEOUS!!  

This is what happens when you hand you camera to a 14 year old and ask them to take ONE picture...this isn't even half of them.  Sheesh. Good thing there is no film to be wasted.

I should mention that this race was almost completely DOWN HILL!  Good for time, bad for the quads.  Wow.  I couldn't walk the next day.

Speaking of the next day, We were watching my nieces so we had a large crew with us.  Nevertheless, we decided to take them ALL to breakfast at the Bear Paw Cafe.  YUUUUUUMMMMEEEEEE!

Did I mention that the Bear Paw Cafe has the MOST amazing pancakes, french toast, omelets, etc.  The pancakes are the size of a dinner plate...or my head.

The next weekend, I was able to go on a quick trip to California with Whitney and of course, we cant go to California without visiting Disneyland. YES, I went without my kids.  I have done it and I will yet do it many times in the future, I am sure. 

We visited with my dad, Norma and the boys a bit.  It was a really fun visit.

Triplets??  HA!

The obligatory scenery picture.  It was November, my favorite time of year to go.  Love, Love, Love the holiday celebration.

Me and Whitney, Me and Whitney, OH and another one of me and Whitney. After all, it was just ME and WHITNEY that day!!  That was a way fun day.  Beautiful weather, not too crowded.

AND...my BFF from my junior high years, Sherry, met us there and hung out with us for a while.   People used to think we were sisters.  Loved seeing her!

Eric turned 41 this year!  We continued our annual tradition of making a cake and decorating it for him.  The kids are getting better and better at this but one of these years, I expect they will ask if they can just go buy one for him.  Braiden is not interested anymore so its totally Paige and Cams thing.   

These were my many attempts to get the kids to wish Eric Happy Birthday on Facebook.  Can you tell that Braiden was thrilled?  Max would not hold still.  It was quite comical. I love these silly kids.

Thanksgiving this year was at my moms house. Ray, her new beau, fried a turkey for his first time for us.  It was DELICIOUS...and quite entertaining to watch.  

I never thought fired turkey would be so yummy.  It was perfect.  Also it was a beautiful day in St George.

Grandma decided to have a little pie with her whipped cream. 

November's favorite RANDOMS and SELFIES!

This is AWESOME.

It's been FOREVER since the last time I posted anything on this blog.  I blame Facebook, my children and my job.   There you go.  The last thing you knew we celebrated Halloween.  I promise we have not been frozen in time since then.  So this is going to be a super-duper awesome catch up post.   K, ready?  Go!

Thanksgiving at my house was awesome.

December Festivities (tree trimming, mall massaging, and family fun) were awesome.

Paige's Dance Recital was completely awesome.

My Christmas gift project (I made like 25 frames).  I thought it was pretty awesome.

Family coming over to play....awesome.

These pictures...I just love them...and they are awesome.

Cookie decorating on Christmas Eve with friends was very awesome.

Baby Max is so, well, awesome.

Christmas Day...there are no words...except awesome.

November 2010 Recap

November was a month for slacking in the blog department so here is the quick November recap:

Not sure if I mentioned it but Braiden started playing tackle football this year for the Ute Conference Youth Football League.  Yes, I said Ute.  Its ok, we are still BYU fans.  Their basic purpose is to train up youngins to play high school football so assuming we still live the same place when Braiden goes to high school, he would be playing for the Jordan Beetdiggers of Jordan High School. To our slight surprise, Braiden wowed the coaches at his try-outs and made the "A"team of the Jordan Beetdigger Mighty Mites.  That was a day of joy and jubilation for Braiden and a day of fear and trepidation for me.  Heaven knows I am proud of the kid. I know he has a talent and potential that needs fostering, but am I football mom material??  Yikes!!

Well, thank my lucky stars that he played with other boys in our ward and one of his coaches is our Bishop so I was given more help than I ever deserved in getting him to 3x/week practices and weekly games.  On top of that, Braiden did great, continued to impress his coaches, learned a ton AND did really well in school all at the same time!  Yeah for Braiden!!  Go 64!!  It made me NOT hate football and actually I have to give myself a little pat on the back for actually learning a bit about the game.  I figure if I am going to be a pro-mom, I better know when to cheer, right? 

 As well as the season went, however, I was singing hallelujah when the end of the season came.  Enough is enough.  I will be re-charged by the time next season comes.

Braiden's Biggest fans are his little brother and sisters.  They love watching him play.  Cameron already has a plan for his football career.

Wigington #64

Family night consisting of Twister and Caramel Apples.  Who could ask for more??

November 19th, 2010

Eric celebrates his 38th year on earth!

A tradition that we have maintained since the kids were old enough on Eric's birthday:  We let the kids pick the flavor, frosting and decor for a birthday cake that they get to make for him.  They have grown to look forward to this every year and Eric is always excited to see what they thought of.  This year was all about marshmallows and sprinkles...ew. 

I think that look is saying, "Oh, heaven help me not to enter a diabetic coma if I eat this."

Thanksgiving 2010

This year Thanksgiving was hosted at my house (Pot Luck style, of course). 

We were graced with a bit of a snow storm right before Thanksgiving.  This is the view from my front door.

Nothing much else happened in November...Oh! Except for our announcement of another little Erickson coming soon.  June 2011 to be exact.  Stay tuned for updates!

Thanksgiving Madness

This year, Thanksgiving was at my house. We had an early lunch feast and ate ourselves silly. Thats what people so on Thanksgiving,right? This is the turkey that died so that we could celebrate Thanksgiving. Thanks Turkey. Gobble Gobble.

The boys came out from Cali to join us for Turkey Day. Ben, Eric, Johnny, Paul.

Ready, set, eat!!!

My mom and her "friend". Ya right.

The fam on Thanksgiving. Thats SaraJane in the mirror. Mad picture taking skills, right there. Haha.

A daring adventure...

Ok so this is kinda lame but I thought hey, what the heck. Its Thanksgiving morning and I just finished preparing my attempt at a Turkey in preparation for the many people coming to my house in 4 hours and here I sit at my computer searching for ads and trying to decide if its worth it to even leave my house tomorrow, so appropriately called "Black Friday". Thus far I havent found a deal thats worth risking my life for (I am remembering the lady that got trampled at WalMart last year. I wonder if it was worth it to her). I actually know a girl that makes it a tradition with her mom and sisters to go out at 4 in the morning "just for the fun of it". She doesnt even care if she buys anything. "Its all for the thrill." She says. Hmmmm. You have to wonder. So, anyway, I came across this little time-waster. My journey to the Target 2day sale. You play this game on the Target Ad Website. You can win a $25 gift card. I will do anything for a buck. Ok, almost anything. I thought it was kind cute, kinda lame, you know. Whatever. Ha. Happy Thanksgiving and good luck Black Friday.