Love the Weather!

We had such beautiful weather today with the breeze and the lower temps!  Thus we headed out to Fountain Hills to walk the lake and play on the playground.  The park was pretty empty, so we had a great time "owning" it!  We snapped some pics of course that turned out just lovely, and enjoyed walking the lake.  Jordan was climbing a tree and fell off, landing on the back of his head--he doesn't get sad easily, but he was definitely sad, hence hurt.  Thankfully, he calmed down pretty quickly and didn't seem to have anything close to a concussion.  We found a green frisbee along the path that was stuck in some bushes--obviously abandoned.  We rescued it and had a great time tossing it back and forth--until it went into the water.  Jared didn't realize that he had a crazy wife was was willing to wade into the reclaimed water to rescue it again...thankfully that's the kind of wife I am and we got it back-woohoo!  I think the nearby Pakistanian visitors thought I was nuts (okay, maybe not from Pakistan, but that't he first descriptive word I could come up with that fit). The kids seemed to relish being outdoors, and once we got about halfway around the lake, JD took off and pretty much ran the rest of the way back to the park--we could see him most of the way, sometimes needing to squint, but he was off like a bullet, and we decided to let him handle himself.  Eventually Jordan and Sara did the same thing while Karianna and I sang Frozen songs with James riding on my shoulders.  Jared closed in on the kids who took off and got them engaged in frisbee again while Jacks talked away in the stroller.

See, these are the kind of afternoons I could get used to.  No stress-just good times.

I just posted this image above, but I'll do it again because its cute and a different angle....

 LOVE this pile of cuteness!

 And oh my heck, LOVE this pile of cuteness too!  He looks like an angel.

 Shall I say it again?  Fine, I will.  LOVE this pile of cuteness!  ;)  I look weird, but at least Jared looks awesome!

 The second mommy in our home.

 Visiting the Veteran's Memorial

 Tossing the frisbee back and forth.

 The fountain!

 The fountain in Karianna's hand!

 My crazy boys with a Sara on the side.

Goldilocks!

 

It's Jordan's turn!  He has seen JD perform in Goldilocks with the kindergarteners, and he has been talking about this play for WEEKS!  Today marked the performance, and he was so adorable, we loved watching!  Jordan smiled the ENTIRE time at us--not at the teachers, but at us, way on the far side of the auditorium.  He sang every song, and busted up laughing when I held Jackson up and started dancing him in the air.  My bad, but it was too cute to resist!  We are super proud of Jordan for learning all the songs, actions, and standing so very still throughout the performance.  Yea for Jordan!

Easter 2014

Easter was lovely this year, and we kind of had a weeklong celebration with eggs, pagaents, and the Savior of course.  So a few highlights before flooding in the pics...

• 12th:  The annual Erickson family Easter Egg hunt, which was topped off with water balloons this year.  Hence the pics.....
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 16th:  Easter Pagaent and some good family fun at Riverview Park for the first time.
• 18th:  More fun at Riverview Park and a BBQ at Grandma and Grandpa Lautenschlagers' house. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 20th:  Easter Sunday!  I got to sing with the choir impromptu (yea for sight reading music!) and the kids did great sitting with Jared.  I gave one of my favorite primary singing time lessons, teaching "Did Jesus Really Live Again" with hand actions (jr) and a powerpoint presentation (sr). The spirit was strong, and I LOVED the focus on the Savior.  We did our own little Easter baskets after church, plus a few very relaxed pics that didn't even have all the kids in them...oh well!  Later that night we went back to the Lautenschlagers' house to do their Easter Egg hunt and eat a delicious ham dinner.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

So overall, we had a great Easter season and are exceptionally grateful for the Savior and his sacrifice for us.  I feel like we have talked a lot about this in our family for the past week, and I love that.  We spent some scripture study time reading the events that led up to the resurrection, and really talking about what that means to us. We know the Savior lives and feel hope in this testimony.  Happy Easter!

Jackson: 5 months

Jackson officially turned 5 months today (which also happens to be my birthday, but we'll go with the more exciting event).  A few updates for this month....

Ooops.  And I accidently put all the pics here instead of dispersing them between the typed updates....oh well.  I don't want to move them, so we'll just include a photo bomb with the updates below.  Its really not too bad, plus he's cute, so it works.

• Jackson's sleeping habits have gotten a little wonky the last month.  He still sleeps well, thank goodness!  But he's being wishy washy about how early i can put him down.  I generally lay him down in his swing around 9pm, and then give him a last very sleepy nursing around 11 before I turn in for the night.  At that point I can lay him down in his bed and he's out.  Sometimes though he'll want to go to sleep as early as 7, but then has to be up from 9-10:30ish in order to actually go to sleep or the night.  He's still young enough where I don't want to deny him sleep if he's giving me signals that he needs it, just makes for flexible evenings in terms of when we can go to bed.  He has also gotten into the habit of waking around 2:30/3; not every night, but often enough to be noticeable.  I won't feed him at this point because I know he's very capble of skipping a middle of the night feeding, so if he won't calm in his bed, I'll put him in his swing, and he'll zonk out again.  Then he usually eats around 6 when Jared gets up for work, and pretty much goes right back to sleep.  I'm okay with the 6am feeding, but I'd like to cu out the 11pm feeing and move it up to 9 eventually so I can get a longer stretch.  Work in progress!
• Jackson is definitely in the mommy phase!  I he sees me in a room but not holding him, he immediately wants me.  If I'm not holding him, he has a hard time.  I still would categorize him as an easy baby, but it has definitely been noticeable this month that he is mommy hungry.  Thankfully he doesn't mind strangers at all, I just have to stay out of his line of sight sometimes and he's okay.
• Jackson is becoming an inpatient nurser.  He will get through a feeding in about 7 minutes flat, and he will whine insistently through almost the entire nursing unless its at a 2 hour interval or his first feed of the day.  Definitely feeling like he wants more than just breastmilk, so I thnk we will end up starting solids sometime this month.  
• Jackson loves toys!  He loves to pick them up and trade them from hand to hand, and of course to shove them in his mouth.  I love this new phase, as it keeps him entertained.  He only has a 20-30 minute attention span in any one activity-sometimes less.  So having toys distract him lately has been nice.
• Jackson still is not a great fan of tummy time, and even thoug he has turned both ways, he doesn't do it frequently. He's starting to push himself up on his hands a little bit, and sits great with support-take away the support and will sit for just a moment before sliding forward.  He is great on his feet and regardless of position, he always has a fist shoved in his mouth. Or two.
• I would estimate the teething process has begun-NOT because we can even remotely see teeth, but because of the fact that Jacks blows rasberrires all the time, most often when he is acting sad.  This factors into his frustration with nursing-he'll break off to blow rasberries, and it makes me think the sucking action is hurting his gums.  Its not terrible by any means, just something of note.
• Jacks loves to stick his tongue out.  He hates cold water, and prefers baths in the sink.  He still has one patch of rough skin on his forwhead that his dandruff shampoo hasn't quite tackled yet, and he occasionally reaches out to grab his own toes.  He poops maybe twice a week and spit up maybe twice this past month.  He has an awesome bald spot on the back of his head, and even though a lot of hair fell out, I can still see his swirlies!  He isn't babbling too much yet, just singing/humming and occasionally pulling out a ma or ba.  He still likes to be swaddled and LOVES to play with his siblings.  Sara is a fantastic babysitter (so to speak) during the day, and Karianna is always the second mom of the house.  JD and Jordan do great as well, and I can finally trust James to help make Jacks happy without accidently hurting him.  

That's around it for now!  Happy 5 months Jacks!