Erik's Birthday

Erik turned 39 this month. We broke the birthday curse! Every year on Erik's birthday for the past 11 years one of us ends up in the hospital. This year we broke the curse! Erik's family and my parents came over for dinner it was a nice quiet birthday. No hospital trips, no broken down vehicles, no nothing! I am so relieved that is over! We keep thinking we will break it and then we end up back in the hospital. So I am thinking that 11 needs to be Erik's new lucky number! After all that is how many kids he wanted when he first met me (I told him to date someone else if that was how many kids he wanted). I already wrote a posting on how wonderful he is and how much I love him so I don't want to be mushy again. But I love you and Happy Birthday!!!

Erik, Johnny and the Zoo

Last week Erik was asked to shaperone the Kindergarteners on a field trip to the zoo. This isn't the first time we have done this sort of thing. Although the first time for Johnny. With Kimmie and all her seizure trouble we drive up and met the bus at the zoo and when she gets tired or too hot then we put her in the car and leave. We got up and got ready for the day. I was going to work and Kimmie was headed to school while the boys ventured to the zoo. Erik wasn't too happy that I signed him up but he was going along with it for Johnny. Up until I told him he was going to ride the bus to the zoo. I have to laugh at the response I got. I love my husband but I thought I was dealing with one of the kids on a bad day. The short of the long story is Erik survived the zoo trip. Johnny had a great time.

Help Mom it is an Emergency

This has been a really crazy week. My kids are off track this week, so that should say it all. I really would like to start it all over but I really don't want to go through this week again. Monday Johnny got sick. So I stayed home with him. He still wasn't feeling too great on Tuesday but he was really fine just a little clingy and not eating a lot yet. I have been feeling really extra tired lately and keep falling asleep at a drop of a hat. I didn't know what was wrong with me so I went to the doctor Tuesday after and got a work up done. I happened to have had to take both kids and they climbed all over me during the visit. The doctor said that she would be tired dealing with those two. She ran everything imagionable and ordered a sleep test for me. A funny side note is they went to take my blood and Kimmie says I want to help so the guy givers her my other arm and hands her the elastic band thing and gloves and said go ahead. Not realizing Kimmie really knows what she is doing. He took my blood right as he finished she asked for the butterfly (a type of needle) to do her side. He told her next time. Believe me next time I will make sure not to take my daughter. Anyway, yesterday I got up to go to work and Erik said he didn't feel good. He was a little pale so I told him to call into work (he was suppose to close) and I went to work. One hour later I got a call from Kimmie,

"Mom it is an emergency help."

Me, "Kimmie what is wrong?"

Kimmie, "Daddy it throwing up bad. He really needs your help."

I grabbed my stuff and out the door I went. When I arrived home Kimmie had everything under control. She had taken her little play laptop and wrote Daddy Hansen on the top. She put an X for every time he had throw up. She put on the rubber gloves from the whole taking mommies blood the day before thing and was taking his temperature (with her doctor kit therometer). Erik looked like please help me. She was so cute. I wish I would have gotten a photo of her all cute.

My doctor called back checking on me from the day before's experiences. I said I am fine but here is my problem and I told her all about Erik. So she said bring him in. His blood sugar was sky high and he was starting to go in and out of small seizures. They would start at his fingers and move up his arm and go away. But he had a lot of them. The doctor gave him shots and kept him for a while to monitor him. They told me if he still didn't keep anything down to go to the emergency room. Thank heavens we didn't have to go there last night. He is finally doing a little better. Also thank heavens for the new neighbors I have that dropped everything to help me yesterday.

Oh, BTW the test results came back and I am fine I have a very big vitamin B12 deficiency and so I had a shot yesterday I am scheduled for another in three weeks I have new vitamins and if it doesn't come up in six weeks we will start a more rigerous shot schedule.

I can't wait for school to start again.

Valentine's Day

Honesty time here I am not a really big Valentine's Day person. I use to be until I stood in line for dinner one Valentine's Day waiting for an hour and a half then we sat at the table Kimmie had a seizure and we had to go home the minute we got a table. So therefore, valentine's day is a fun day to exchange cards to each other and that is about it. This year we knew we didn't have the money to do anything. There was a stake adult dance and dinner that we planned on attending if we were in the mood to go. Erik arranged the cute girl next door to come and babysit. We had never had her before so I was glad that we weren't going far. Trusting babysitters never has been my strong suit. Anyway she did great and they had a good time but it was new for me so rather hard to leave them. I will use her more often she did so well. Anyway, we got our taxes in! They aren't a lot and a lot smaller than in years past. But I wanted to do something fun for Erik. I bought him a BOSCH about 2 years ago. I love it he still wants a Kitchaid. I bought the bosch instead of the kitchaid for the extended warranty and how hard he is on his kitchen appliances. Anyway I suprised him with the food processor attachment and a cooking class at the bosch store. It was really fun to suprise my husband and put me in a much better mood. I love you Erik I hope you enjoy your new toy!!!

Bragging about Erik time

I have to tell everyone what a good husband I have and how proud of him I am. I give him a really hard time but he is really good to me and an excellent Dad. Over the past few weeks with crop he has taken over everything. I didn't need to worry about cooking, cleaning or the kids while he was home. Then Friday he took both kids brought all my things to the expo center and stayed and helped us. When he was done there he packed up the kids and ran and picked up a few more things for us. Then he made two cheesecakes for my crop committee to eat during the crop. Wait it goes on.... After my brief three minutes of fame on morning news he came in and said to my crop committee, "I have a sexy TV star around here somewhere that I need to give a kiss to her." After coming and taking me to lunch and helping periodically throughout the day so it wasn't that he sat at hom I came home exhausted. I got home my kitchen was clean he bought me a sweater I had been looking at and made me chocolate covered strawberries that he put a cute note on! I was so tired I started to cry and told him I was too tired to even eat them. He put me in bed and tucked me in! Then let me sleep off and on for two days. He even missed a superbowl party so that I could sleep.

All of that plus at work he beat the company record for customer surveys not by just a little bit but by a full percentage point and increased all the numbers for his area! When he took over this job this store was last in the district and near the bottom of the company. He is now in charge and it topping the company and district charts. Not too bad for 10 weeks.

Okay I know this is getting long. But one more thing I need to brag about. He has lost weight. The doctor told him about a year ago that if he didn't change he would be dead in 10 to 15 years. I wasn't too happy about that. It took him a while for that to hit him. When it finally hit he has made a complete 180. He has lost 40 pounds and all of his high numbers are back in line. If he keeps it up he maybe able to go off of the diabetes meds!

Thank you Erik! I love you and am so proud of you!

Erik's Suprise!!!

I have to tell you after all these years there is very little that suprises me that Erik does, especially for birthday's and anniversaries. Although I was suprised last year on my birthday when Erik forgot. That is besides the point. We went out to a movie and dinner on Saturday to celebrate our anniversary. I thought for Erik that would be about it. I bought him a card and a CD to suprise him this morning. But when I left for work this morning I sent the kids to the car while I grabbed my bags. The kids stopped at the door and said, "Mom something is wrong." I went and looked. Erik had gotten up extra early this morning and wrote with sidewalk chalk all over my sidewalks, driveway and stairs. It was so cute that I had to take photos. So if you drive by my house today notice the cute anniversary love note that my husband sent to me! The kids were shocked and suprised that I was happy about it and taking photos!

Anniversary

This year is a little weird for Erik and I's anniversary. On Monday we will have been married 13 years! I can't believe that we have made it through some of the toughest times in our lives and have survived! With Kimmie and I headed to Chicago next week we can't really do much for our anniversary. We are still trying to work it all out. But honey I just want you to know that I love you and appreciate the husband, father, and friend that you are. I LOVE YOU!!!

Pioneer Trek

Erik went on Pioneer Trek. We really missed him. Although he had a wonderful time. I am really grateful that he got to go. He has heat stroke and is majorly sunburned. Yes, for the first time in his life he is REALLY SUNBURNED. When he woke up yesterday his lips were so bad, that they puffed out three times the size of normal. He cooked 3 meals a day for 300 people! He said that he is done dutch oven cooking for a while. Although I don't know if I believe that.

Welcome Home Erik!!!

Pioneer Trek

Last Tuesday night a man from the Stake YM presidency called. He asked to borrow all of Erik's dutch oven things for Pioneer Trek and asked Erik and I to go and cook. There was no way both of us could go. Although I felt really honored that they asked me to attend. Erik has been on cloud nine ever since. They fact that they asked a week before the event was really hard. I am really shocked that Target let him work around that schedule. He is now gone on Pioneer Trek and is having a great time I am sure.

We miss him at home. Kimmie had a hard day yesterday and Johnny is having a hard time with it today. I didn't realize how much I relied on him to do things around the house. It was really nice to be home with the kids yesterday. But I really don't take them much and I had to cart the kids everywhere. I was working on things for the Epilepsy camp and so we went all over. I usually do that kind of thing with Erik watching the kids. It made it a really long day. I miss him although I know that he is having a great time.

Dutch Oven

Erik had his first dutch oven competition of the season today. His new partner is Jarin! They had a great time today. They won! I will have to post photos later. Unfortunately, I didn't get there until after it was all over, but I got a few photos. This was the first time Jarin and Erik cooked together. I am really proud of them and excited to see how they do for the big competition in Lehi in two weeks!

Happy Father's Day!

Father's N What???

My ward made a thing about a father's n sons and needing to be free to bring their daughters. The original trip was planned for a few weekends ago but pushed back due to weather. But that put it on Memorial weekend so apparently it wasn't attended well. But Erik took both of my kids and went. (I had an evening all to myself! Although I spent it making Kimmie's birthday cake and doing Memorial Day flowers so it wasn't really relaxing). I love this photo of my kids. They slept in the van due to the cold weather. Erik didn't sleep much but the kids thought it was fun.

Erik

I was reading a friends blog and she had written all of these nice things about how wonderful her husband was. Then I started to feel guilty. Yes I know that you are so suprised at this idea. Me with guilt. Erik had a bad week a work last week and did some changing to his work schedule and pay and things without consulting with me. I spent all of last week really MAD. I don't know that I was even reasonable in any sense of the word. I really calmed down when he said...

"...this decision has brought me more peace than any other decision I have made in the last three months. I hope you can understand this."

I started to calm down. Things really weren't as bad as I was making them to be. Yes I am very inconvienced by his decision and it makes by life a lot harder but he is at peace. Okay maybe he can regain some of his health that he has lost in the last little while. The doctor said if he kept going at the rate he was he would die in the next 10-15 years. So maybe I needed to calm down. I am still not really happy about the changes to work but I would rather have my husband's health and him here than the 50 cents an hour he is loosing.

With that all being said. Erik has done some amazing things for me lately. I don't know if it is to make up for missing my Birthday or if he just wanted to remind me that he loves me. Heaven knows he will never forget my Birthday again.

Yesterday when I wanted to be up at the capital building early he took off work an hour and got the kids off to school. He even commented on how I looked and found my missing shoe as I was trying to get out the door. He didn't even whine about missing or changing his schedule he just made the changes and kissed me good luck.

He has brought me roses four times in the last two months. He even arranged them for me. One of those times I was stressed getting ready for crop and he put a single red rose on the seat of the van so I would find it when I ran out the door.

He took great care of me while I was sick.

He never said anything about all the crop stuff all over the house for a full month and remaining things still in our garage.

Last night to celebrate my work he took me for dinner. He even said he would go where ever I picked (which is not something he usually says). Although we had the kids with us so I picked a family friendly place.

He arranged a babysitter last Saturday and took me out. I know this sounds really stupid but after fighting all week we needed to get out just the two of us. We used some left over gift cards and just the two of us went out for 3 1/2 hours. The main point is it was his idea and he arranged the babysitting!

Just incase I haven't said it enough lately thank you for being you! I love you.