What a weekend!

We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend, packed with fun stuff. On Sat we went to the Discovery Center

 Even Jillian loved all the experiments we could do. Erik spent lots of time controlling robotic cars, not pictured-cuz we have too many pictures to post.

 Using the great invention of a pulley to life his own weight, well Daddy helped a little, but he was soon told that Erik could do it on his own.

Which of these 4 is the REAL Jillian? I'm not sure she knows either.

She spent a lot of time in front of these mirrors. She kissed the other girl in the mirror...

 ...and then she went looking for the other baby, she's gotta be behind the mirror right?

 Go Daddy Go! Make those lights GLOW!!

Ok our kids totally LOVED this kid-size grocery store.

 Check out all that Mac N Cheese, he said he needs a lot of that. And look at Jill taking cans off the shelf.

 Also she's making sure that carrot is fresh. Well sorry to disapoint sister, but that's a fake carrot, don't eat it!

 She's adorable, I love it! I loved watching Erik 'ring' up his groceries too, he's so cute!

 After that we went to the Boise Balloon Classic Night Glow! Check out Mickey!

 Jillian just loved running away from us and having us come catch her.

 Thanks to my brother I have this lovely photo, love the growing baby tummy(not) Oh well.

 To keep the kids entertained until dusk Grandpa brought M&M's. Jillian loves them.

 Grandpa with Jack and Jill. Yup nursery rhyme cousins.

 Check out the Glow!!!

 On Labor Day we went to Lucky peak with our wonderful neighbors and friends.

 The lake was cold but the kids didn't mind, Erik was happy to float and Jillian didn't hesitate to play in the water.

 This was kind of a surprise to me because we went to Bear Lake in June and she was NOT a fan of the water, kept crying when she was in it. But this time there were NO tears and LOTS of smiles!

 Jumping in!

 Even Jillian wanted to jump in, she's so brave.

 I love this plastic dragon in the sand. I think the kids like it too.

 She looks so interested, but once I brought her up to the dragon's face, she wanted NOTHING to do with it :)

 Watch out! Jillian's got 3 squirt guns! Prepare to get wet!!

 We had a great weekend. It was so nice to get out and enjoy the outdoors with our family, I love long weekends!

Fun at the Fair and more...

A package came for Erik! He was so excited! Thanks Grandpa Nielsen for the bow tie, can't you tell he loves it :)  I just missed his smile

 Jillian's become a climber, oh boy this girl we gotta watch. She loves getting into the trash and other mischief

 She also loves to help and be doing what we are doing. Look how happy she is to vacuum.

 Erik took swim lessons for 2 weeks and loved it! I love that he's waving to me, such a sweetie.

 I was so impressed that he learned how to float, blow bubbles under water and was even brave enough to jump off the diving board! It's so fun to see him learn new things and grow.

 In the August Friend magazine there was a recipe for a Birthday Cake that Pres Monson's mom used to make. We thought it was so cool, we tried it out! That was my first time making a 3 layer cake, it was fun and yummy. It felt like we should have sung Happy Birthday or celebrated something...I guess it was to celebrate that we are going to have a baby!!! Our 3rd kiddo will join our family in February, around Valentine's Day and we are sooo excited!

 Jillian's been an early bird lately and she also loves playing outside, she can even say 'outside'

 She was pushing this trike around in circles and I had to snap a picture. Oh and don't you love her mop top hair. This is what it looks like when I don't do a thing with it...lovey huh?

 We went to the Western Idaho Fair yesterday and had fun seeing the shows and eating the fair food.

 Erik got to hold a butterfly. We really love this butterfly exhibit, they let you feed the butterflies and see them come out of their cocoons, so cool!

 Jillian liked them too! And one landed on Paul's leg, but Erik took care of that for him.

 They have a farm animal petting area and the kids got to touch the animals. Erik got to pet piglets and sheep and goats. Jillian wouldn't touch anything but this huge horned cow.

 In this picture she's saying 'moo' and then she touched his huge horns.

 This huge snake was part of a cool animal show that included a cougar, wolves, snapping turtle, lots of snakes and lizards.

 It's Mater! From Cars! Right? Well Erik said, 'no it's not mater' I guess Erik noticed this car looked too nice to be Mater, not enough rust :)

For the first time we checked out the rides at the Fair and got tickets for Erik to choose a ride to go on. He didn't choose a ride, he chose the Jungle Fun play house. He loved it.

Silliness and other recent events

We've been having a lot of silly fun together lately. 

Erik decided it would be fun to try on Paul's pajama pants, don't they fit so well?

One night I had just put Erik to bed then saw this awesome Rainbow out the window.

So I ran into Erik's room and grabbed him and showed him the rainbow.

He loved seeing it, and I'm so glad I grabbed him because a few minutes later the rainbow had faded.

Jillian enjoying a chocolate chip cookie. She's been a picky eater lately. Not a fan of veggies, but a big fan of fruit and sugar, go figure. Oh well, it's just a phase, Erik did the same thing and he eats veggies now.

It's BUZZ LIGHTYEAR TO THE RESCUE!!!

Oh, wait...no that's Erik. His friend has Buzz wings so he wanted to make some too. I love seeing him lean to the side while he passes through a door with these wings on, so cute.

We went CAMPING in our BACK YARD! The kids loved the tent and Erik and Paul made it all night. We put Jillian down in her bed and I went into my bed after the rain/thunder/lightning storm hit. We'll have to try that again on a better weather weekend.

Our ward did a cake auction and I made a cake for it. I was trying out a new 'flower' idea to decorate the cake, but my frosting was too soft for it to work, so I made a polka dot cake instead. Hey, Erik liked it, so it's all good.

This past week we had a family party celebrating some, well half of our family's Birthday's
Including Mr. 1 yr old  JACK!!! He was sooo cute eating his cake, we all had a great laugh watching him.

Hannah turned 11 on the 11th!!! Woot Woot!

Thanks to my friend's savvy garage sale shopping I scored this 

DOUBLE JOGGING STROLLER  for only

$5

Amazing!!! 

If you don't know much about the movie Star Wars, you'll really be out of the loop at our house. Erik is in LOVE with all things Star Wars right now and look he's pulling Jillian into his passion.

She's learning how to fight with light-sabers, we have 3 around here now. Yeah she can hold her own.

This is Erik's scary "lightning Vader" pose. I wish he would want to be a good guy. We're pushing Yoda, but it's not sticking with him, he'd rather be Darth Vader.

A new park had a grand opening party this Saturday so we went to check it out. Bounce houses were awesome, Erik was in heaven!

Jill and I enjoyed snuggling and bracing the wind together.

whoa superman-ing it down the huge slide, who is this kid?

I love this sweet shot of Jillian on the playground. We love our girl.