Memorial Day 2011

Memorial Day 2011 with the Erickson Clan was a blast as always! Plenty of swimming, boating, jet-skiing, eating, laughing, and playing of course! These pics are all out of order, but I am not patient enough to fix them :)

Sweet Whitney won the first ever Kidfest portion of our annual triathlon! And Jon won the whole triathlon this year :) Woohoo! Whit was sooooo excited when Uncle Clark said she was the winner...here she is posing with her trophy...LOVE that expression of sheer JOY!!!

Family pic of the 4 of us...not great, but these days, I'm not picky. Its a miracle to get all 4 of us in any pic at all! ;) Caroline was taunting Miles with her beads, so Jon is trying to hide them and hold her hands down, but obviously Miles is onto him...ha!

Caroline looooved swimming with the big girls!

Miles enjoyed his first jet-ski ride with Daddy

Somehow, Uncle Bryce corralled all of the kids and convinced them that washing the boat was FUN! Hilarious. This kept them busy for at least 30 minutes, which is a lifetime when you're talking about 5 kids ages 2-4 :)

Wyatt, Whitney , and Caroline posing after the "run" portion of the Kidfest. Seriously, SO CUTE (and hilarious!)

Grammy and Grandpa with all 9 grand kids!

Emma (4), Benjamin (2), Lainey Ann (11 mo), Wade (11 mo), Wyatt (2), Miles (1), Piper (10 mo), Whitney (4), and Caroline (2).

Ready to Race! The "bike" portion of the Kidfest

The 5 big kids got to eat together for every meal, which of course they loved :)

Splish Splash, Miles! Someone loves the water :)

Caroline had to sit in time-out...ha ha. I can't remember why, but everyone else was playing while she had to sit out (in the wagon that trails behind the mower ;))

Twinkie Boys :) The boy half of the Fab 4...Wade and Miles...Laid back, just kickin it.

Birthday Boarding...

For my brithday, Jon surprised me with wakeboarding lessons on Lake Austin! He lined up a sitter and arranged everything, then told me the night before. It was such a fun and random surprise :)

Waiting for our instructor to pick us up.

It had been a looooooooong time since I had wakeboarded, but I got right up!

I tried to do a 180 and fell. And tried again and fell. and again, and again...etc. Never quite mastered the whole 180 thing ;)

Jon had never wakeboarded before (that he can remember, although I am sure he has at SOME point! :)) He got right up,too!

Then he showed off ;) Going back in forth accross the wake, getting a little air, and even completing the dreaded 180.

Next, we tried wake surfing. I had never done it bfore, and couldn't quite get the hang of it. Plus the water was FREEZING cold :) Nice expression as I completely bust it...ha ha!

Of course, Jon was like a pro. He did great! I could tell our instructor was impressed :)

What a prefect way to kick off our 10 days of fun in the sun!!!! After our lesson, we headed home to load up the kids and hit the road to the Erickson lake house for Memorial Day weekend. Such fun! (I will post on that as soon as I get some pics:))

12 month update...

Can you believe it?!?!?

Our sweet Bear is 12 months old! He is so busy learning new things and exploring everything. He is a curious little bug, and he is still the happiest, most chill and mellow baby ever. Such a sweet, sweet disposition!

These are the pics from our birthday shoot with Carly :)

He is walking. Up to 6 steps at a time so far, and he is practicing more and more everyday.

He says dada, dog (da), and sometimes I think he says mama and actually means it :) I also think he is trying to say Caroline, but it sounds like nana.

He waves bye bye, blows kisses, and is extremely ticklish. I absolutely LOVE his laugh. So sweet and hilarious. He also loves to shake his head "no." He finds this endlessly entertaining...hopefully, its not a sign of things to come ;)

He loves the water...the bath, the pool, and hopefully the lake...can't wait to take him in a few weeks!

He loves to climb, dance, jump, wiggle, you name it. He just loves to move :) Anytime her hears music, he instantly starts bobbing up and down.

He is drinking milk from a cup now. NO more formula or bottles!! Yea!I was a little nervous about this transition, because he LOVED his bottle. And he wasn't super interested in the cup. We just went cold turkey, and he did great!

He is a bottomless pit when it comes to eating. He seriously just eats and eats and eats. I honestly can't even identify his favorites or least favorite tings. He is a great eater!! He basically just eats whatever we eat. And he definitely east as much if not more than Caroline. Guess he is just a growing Bear!

Sometimes when is mid-chew on something he will spot something else on his tray that he would rather eat, so he will spit out the first item and go for the second. gross and funny all at the same time.

We almost always call him Bubba or Bear. Sometimes I wonder if he even knows his name is actually Miles ;)

12 month stats:

Height: 30 1/2 in. (72nd %)

Weight: 24 lbs. 2 oz (70th %)

Head: 48 cm (89th %)

We had a great checkup today, and Miles handled his shots pretty well. Everyone was completely charmed by his sweet smiles and precious giggles. He was friendly and flirty with everyone, of course!

Our doc said the Texas legislature is probably going to pass a change in the car seat law meaning we'll be required to keep them rear-facing til they are 2 :( I know the AAP recommends it now, but I like them facing front sooooo much better!!!! Guess our little guy, may be turning back around soon...

Happy Birthday, Bubba Bear!

Fiesta!

We had Miles's 1st Birthday Fiesta on Saturday. We felt so blessed to celebrate with family and a few friends.

The dining room table...I set out his scrapbook and baby book for people to look at. Plus, party favors, cupcakes, the smash cake, and a place for donations.

In lieu of gifts, we asked people to donate travel sized toiletries to be donated to Mobile Loaves and Fishes. We filled this bucket...and then some!

A set of Maracas for party favors!

The smash cake

In the kitchen we had our Mexican buffet...I didn't get a great pic of the whole table, but we had quesadillas, tamales, queso, fruit, veggies, and lots of chips, salsa, and dips :) Of course, we had beer and margaritas, too ;)

The birthday boy modeling his sombrero






So, we are just getting the party started...kids all playing out side on the swing set, in the water table, and in the bounce house. When all of a sudden... a SNAKE drops from the tree. Not just any snake, but a 6 FOOT long giant, humongous, scary looking snake. All the moms and kids ran inside and all the dads ran outside to check it out. Jon first tried to get it with a shovel...no success. So he brought out the pellet gun (with a scope;)) and eventually killed it. So gross. and so crazy.


All the guys, checking out the snake situation...







Once the snake crisis was handled, we got back to the fun! Miles loves his new water table from Mimi and Papa :)





Enjoying some grub with his best bud, Chase.





Cake time!





Not sure what to think at first...





With our sweet boy...

He totally got into he cake.

He loved it, but who's idea was it to get black icing on the smash cake...oops ;)

Next up, Pinata! We got a pull string pinata, since there were so many little ones. The idea of a bunch of stick-wielding toddlers and preschoolers scared me ;) Rather than having them take turns, Jon had the (genius) idea to have everyone grab a string at the same time...

Woohoo!!! Candy!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you to all our friends and family for celebrating with us!

And thank you for your generous donations! The people of Austin will SOOO appreciate all your donations!

Happy Cinco de Miles!!!!

Happy 1st Birthday to our sweet boy, Miles! We celebrated his special day with lots of singing, Mexican food, and swimming :)

We woke him up by singing Happy Birthday, and he thought that was about he funniest thing ever. He just giggled and giggled. So cute :)

Next, we dropped Caroline at school and headed to our MOPS steering team meeting at church. Followed by YUMMY lunch at Maudie's with Miss Carly. I figured we had to have Mexican food on Cinco de Miles ;)

When Daddy got home, he wanted to do something special, too. SO off to the pool we went!

Miles, modeling his handsome swimwear.

In the pic, he doesn't show it, but his favorite thing is to sit on the edge and kick. He absolutely loves the water, just like his sis :) You can also see his pink swim diaper peeking out in the back. I had some of Caroline's leftover from last summer, and we didn't want them to go to waste!

A poolside picnic dinner...YUM!

Celebrating with his favorite person...Caroline :)

Big boy also got to turn around to face the front now!! Of course, he loves it, and so do I :)

Happy Birthday to my little Bear!