Clark Nov 23--It was Mike's birthday on Friday and he made some animal balloons for the festivites


One of the photos taken during our annual photo shoot, Nov 22


This should be our official family picture--wait, Haley is missing!


Tim Tam time!!! Sam mythly reminded us of the prisoners sent to Australia and how Tim Tams were a delicacy for them (Rebecca, Sam, Mom B, Lee & Shanna)


Cal working up an appetite for Tim Tams Nov 23, sitting by Jon Erekson


Ruth's Tim Tam straw Nov 23


The mile race is on! Clockwise starting with Clark: Clark, Sam, Michelle Lloyd, Josiah & Jordan Erekson, Sheldon, Lee, Rebecca Erekson Nov 22 Thanksgiving Day 2007



Nov 22--the kid race, Rebecca, Dad, Haley, Ruth, Cal, Shanna & Clark's feet
I participated in the mile race too, but didn't go the whole mile. I crossed the finish line with four kids in the stroller though!


Sam and Sheldon waiting for the race to begin Nov 22

The line-up for the kid race Nov 22

Ethan, Jeannie, Rebecca & Jon Erekson, Clark, Lena & Kirsten Erekson, Dad B & Haley, Ruth with Cal & Shanna

The table is ready! Nov 22

Dad B getting the turkey off the bone--Lena cooked the turkey on the grill! Thanks Lena!

Nov 22

Shanna Nov 19 at the park in Chadbourn

Haley Nov 19 at the Chadborn park

Kirsten Nov 19

Jon Nov 19

Clark Nov 19

Cal Nov 19

Lee November 27th

Henry, Gordon, & Thomas Nov 27 with Cal in background

We had a great Thanksgiving. We hope you all did too. We had Thanksgiving as I mentioned earlier with my brother-in-law's mother-in-law. (My mom and dad.) It was great to be with Lena & Mike and their family as well as Sam, and Sheldon. Mike's parents and three of his siblings were there too. We were also joined by Michelle.



Dinner was "planned" to start at 1:00 pm. And amazingly enough, we started at 12:51!!! And if you know my family, that is amazing! I think it helped a lot that Lena wanted to eat closer to 11 am. We had a great dinner. Before dinner we did our traditional "I'm thankful for". Each person had three Indian corn kernels on their plate and said three things for which they were thankful. I love that!



Also that day we had ads from three papers to look at which was fun. (I love that part of Thanksgiving--looking at the ads.) Later that day we had the great Thanksgiving Day race. The kids ran one to the stop sign and back. Jon Erekson won. The next race for the adults was a mile long. And surprisingly, Sheldon won! (Just kidding...we knew that he would win.) Lee came in second!



After the race it was all about pies. YUM! After pie sampling, we got some family pictures--a yearly tradition for me and Lee, and our kids too. Thanks Mom & Michelle for taking the pictures.



A couple of movies also ran that day, Meet the Robinsons and Ratatouille. (Can't remember how to spell it.) I didn't see Meet the Robinsons but I have seen Ratatouille and it is a cute movie.



The rest of the weekend I went shopping a lot which was super fun. For the amount of "shopping" that I did, I didn't buy that much. Friday morning my mom got me up at 4:15 and we did a little shopping together. It was really fun going early, especially while the kids were sleeping. We got to Belk (like Dillards or JCPenny's) a little before 5 am. We were one of the first 250 people so we each got a $5 gift card. (We were hoping for that special one worth $5,000 but no such luck.) When I got home Lee went to the temple with Dad, Lena, Mike, and his parents.



Friday night we did a traditional Tim Tam chocolate-drinking fest. Sam brought some Tim Tams from Australia and shared some with us. Thanks Sam! Tim Tams are like a wafer cookie thing. There is a chocolate mousse type-of-thing in between two chocolate cookies. Then it is coated in chocolate. What you do is bite off each end, stick the Tim Tam in the hot chocolate and start sucking. The Tim Tam acts like a straw and in turn melts the chocolate mousse and the gets the cookies all warm and mushy. SO GOOD!

Saturday morning I went to the temple and that afternoon Lee watched the BYU game with Daniel, Sam, and Dad. While they did that I went shopping with Shanna and Cal.

We enjoyed seeing Daniel and Amy and their family Saturday night through Sunday night. They spent the night at my parents and we all went to church together Sunday at my parents' ward.



Lee had Monday off, so we didn't get home till Monday night. It was great having that extra day.



The weekend before Thanksgiving Lena and Mike and family stopped by and spent the weekend with us. We had a nice time and Clark LOVED it! He started crying when he found out that Jon was leaving. And he was happy again to find out that Jon would be at Grandma's for Thanksgiving.



Okay, the YouTube Republican debate is going on in the background so I am somewhat distracted. But I think I covered the main points. We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. It is such a fun holiday to get together with family, consider and give thanks for our blessings, relax and then start off the Christmas season the next day!



Only three more Sundays left here...the time is passing quickly. One more thing, last night Lee did FHE. He happened to notice that the recent-past and current First Presidency have the names of trains from Thomas the Tank Engine. First we sang Follow the Prophet (just the first two verses.) Then he pulled out the Gordon train, the Thomas train and the Henry train. He lined them up right next to each other. Then he hooked up the passenger coaches onto Gordon and talked about how we should follow the prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. It went over pretty well. It was kind of tricky because Clark was asking about James. We weren't quite sure if he was asking about James E Faust or James the train. Well we told him that James (E.Faust) was dead and Clark got quite teary eyed and sad. We tried to explain that James the train was just fine--and James E Faust for that matter. Anyway, I don't know how James came up, but we had a good mini lesson about death and what happens after.

News Flash

Okay, this is old (about a week) but on the morning of November 17th, I felt Haley's gums and she had a tooth (bottom middle left (if any of you know Gordon Christensen, Johnathan Gooch, JD Tippets or Jeremy Shakespear, they could give you the technical name/position of the tooth)). Wow, that was easy! It had broke through and everything! I can see a second one coming in.

Sunday Pictures

Haley getting ready to eat!


Haley doesn't like it so well.


Shanna's ready too!


A little more, please, sir?


Clark, Ethan Erekson & Cal


A ghost in the works-Rebecca Erekson, Cal & Clark


Almost ready...


BOO!


Clark, Ethan Erekson & Cal enjoying a Sunday snack.


Clark, Ethan & Rebecca Erekson, Haley & Cal.


Pretty Rebecca!



Handsome Cal--no that's not a scar on his jaw, just red marker.


Cal lounging in the girls' chair.


Cal, Clark & Ethan Erekson getting ready for a picture.


Clark, Cal, Rebecca & Ethan Erekson.

It's Time!

Today was Shanna and Haley's first go at "real" food.

Below you will find a picture and a couple of videos that sum it up nicely.

Shanna and Haley curious and ready for whats to follow:

Of course for Shanna eating is second nature no matter how it's done:

Shanna and Haley not only look different, they apparently have different tastes in food:

Thanksgiving Travels

Next Wednesday evening we will be going to my (Ruth) brother-in-law's mother-in-law's house for Thankgiving. We will also provide our presence at Ruth's sister's husband's father-in-law's house. Wow. It will be an interesting Thanksgiving!

And the stats are in...

As of November 6th 2007

(Girls were 6 months and 4 days on that date)

Shanna:

15 pounds 3 ounces

25 inches long

Haley:

15 pounds 2.5 ounces

25 & 3/4 inches long

Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Lee

Lee finished his “SOAP” reports last night. Since he is doing an extern in North Carolina, the state requires that he does 20 reports on different patients that he sees. I don’t know what the acronym is, but it’s something along the lines of student observation of patients.

Friday Lee got home at 4 pm! It was great. Dr. Lewis and his wife went out of town over the weekend, so they all worked through lunch so they could get done early. On Saturday Lee did sealings at the temple in Raleigh.


Ruth

I have been doing the normal stuff. I have been shopping a few times and enjoyed that. We took two trips last week, which I loved. I did a session at the temple on Saturday while Lee was with the kids.


Clark

Last Tuesday he got to spend the day with his cousin Anthon. He loved it! He is very excited for Jon to come this weekend.


Cal

Cal had a big week. Well, two big events. On Wednesday Cal climbed off the stool in our kitchen. Nothing big. BUT somehow he managed to stick his tongue out and cut it with his tooth. It was so gross that I called the nurse at Dr. Matthews’ office. She said to bring him on in. I was thinking before I called, that maybe she’ll tell me that there’s nothing they can do, and that it will just heal. And it did stop bleeding after a little while. But it looked so gross, I went in. He was acting fine after the initial shock, so I finished up dinner—crockpot, and finished getting ready for the day. THEN I got the girls up from their nap and took everyone to the doctor. I told Clark not to play with the toys at the doctor’s office because they were yucky. When we got there Clark started playing with them and I told him not to touch them. I was up by the window doing some paper work and the receptionist said, “He can play with them, it’s okay.” J Well, I did give in and let my boys play with them. We washed hands when we got home. Anyway, so Dr. Matthews comes in and does normal health check stuff on Cal, and then tells me that’s there’s nothing he can do for his tongue. They don’t stitch tongues. Nice. Overall, it worked out very well that we went in. For a couple things, Clark and Cal got to play with the germy toys—Clark didn’t want to leave—and the boys got free ice cream cone coupons for Sonic.

Friday we were outside and the boys were playing. I didn’t know where they were so I started looking around for them. I got up and heard that Cal was crying. I went over to him and saw that his pant leg was pulled up and he was running towards the house. Upon closer observation I saw that Cal had lots of fire ants on him! I stripped him down to his onsie and told him to run inside. Poor guy! Those little buggers’ bites hurt.

Well, that’s not the end of his adventures. We were loading everyone into the van after our temple trip. Clark and Cal were in some bushes and Lee went to get them. I was sitting in the front seat and Clark told me that Dad wanted me. I thought okay, and thought that was kind of weird. Then I heard Lee say: “Ruth,” in a kind of loud, drawn out voice. I hurried out and saw that Cal had ants on him AGAIN! This time though the ants left pretty bad bites.

Normally Cal loves bugs. I don’t know why. Almost every morning he shows Lee the same dead bug in between the windows in his room and says: “Daddy, Daddy, beeyall! Beeyall!” Lee showed him a bug on Sunday and Cal did not like that.


Shanna

Monday night we took a trip up to my parents. Lee got the day off on Tuesday so he could come with us to Duke University so Shanna could have her head checked out. Her skull is asymmetrical and we wanted to make sure she didn’t need a helmet or surgery. My mom took Clark to Anthon’s for the day, and we went to Durham, NC for the appointment. The neurologist said Shanna does have a mild case of plagliocephaly, but actually wondered why we had brought her in. That was great news to us! Dr. Matthews (the pediatrician here) said she was border line, and recommend that we have a specialist see her. We thought that was a good idea. Before we went, the neurologist had requested that we get a CT scan of Shanna’s head for the upcoming appointment. That made us a bit worried—CT scans sounded very expensive. I called the hospital and found out that the CT scan would cost $1200! Now I’ll do what I can for my kids health, but I don’t have an extra $1200! I talked to a nurse at Duke and she said that we could bring her in, but we may need to get a scan and then come in again for a second appointment. Lee and I thought that gamble would be better. No point in getting the CT scan, and then finding out that we didn’t need one at the initial visit. That would have been a BIG waste of money! But as far as we know, she is just fine. Whew!


Haley

She had a great week too.


Family

We all went up again to Mom and Dad B’s Friday night. Ila’s birthday was on Sunday, and that was the reason for the trip. Saturday we went to the temple and went shopping. Sunday morning we went to church with Daniel and Amy. It was the primary program, so it was fun to see Ila, Lizzy and Anthon in the program. After church we congregated at Daniel and Amy’s for lunch and a birthday party. We had a great time together and I think Ila enjoyed her birthday. We visited with Mom and Dad at their place for a little while and then got home about 10:00 pm. This weekend Lena and Mike and family are coming. Clark is excited to see Jon.

Today I took the kids to the county health department. It is SO nice here—75 degrees and the chd is so close, that we walked over. Well, I walked and pushed all four kids in the stroller. The girls were due for their 6 month immunizations and I wanted all of us to get flu shots. I didn’t tell Clark and Cal that they were getting shots beforehand, so when one of the nurses had him come in to get a shot he thought they were making a mistake. He told me that he wasn’t one of the babies. Cal and Clark got a fun little car after their shots. Cal and Clark each got one shot and Haley and Shanna got four each. Well, Clark and Cal cried longer than Haley and Shanna did!

That’s about it from here. Well, Cal fell today and bruised the bridge of his nose. I hope he isn’t prone to accidents and other incidents…

Cal and his tongue. The doctor told him to eat cold and smooth food for a couple days. It looked even more gross in person.


Ila on her 9th birthday! Happy Birthday Beautiful Ila!


Ila takes the cake.


Anthon on Sunday.


Pretty Lizzy on Sunday.


Clark's profile on Sunday.


Shanna & Cal on Sunday.


Daniel presiding over the cake cutting and ice cream disbursement.


Family dinner at Daniel and Amy's on Sunday.


Mom B & Anthon. Doesn't Anthon look like Cal?


Dad, Lee, Haley & Sheldon. The only people actually asleep are Dad and Haley.


Daniel & Shanna on Sunday.


Clark showing us his fantastic mouth.


Cal giving us a James Bond look.


Shanna& Dad Sunday.


Shanna's big smile Sunday.


Haley looking cute as always on Sunday.


Haley admiring her awesome dad.


Haley showing us her smile!