With the craziness that is life I managed to neglect this blog a bit over the past several months… at least as compared to my once daily posting regime. As such, many events and life happenings manged to go undocumented. Rather than pretend that I could really catch up and write a post for each of these things, I’ve decided to write one catch up (or “ketchup”) post to briefly touch on some of the bigger or more significant things. I thought about doing a nice “10,000 words” post, but I didn’t want to limit myself to 10 images on 10 topics with nothing more than little captions. I wanted to be able to post multiple pictures for any given subject, or video if I feel so motivated, and I wanted to be able to write paragraphs dang it!

So, I’m sorry if this post is too long or overly boring. This is for me, really it is. But if you are interested in a slew of random Ernstrom family happenings, please, keep reading.

Beckie’s birthday party – 8/28/08
We drove down to Dave’s brother’s house to celebrate his mom’s birthday. We had a barbecue and visited for several hours. It was tons of fun. Bridget loved playing with her cousins, and it was nice to have everyone together to celebrate. Dave’s sister even flew in from Phoenix.

IKEA/Friend’s birthday party – 9/27/08
Bridget and I took a little road trip to Salt Lake to look at a low loft bed at IKEA (this prior to choosing the bed she got), and to visit some good friends that moved away. Their little boy is good friends with Bridget so made sure to schedule the trip when we could also join them in Birthday celebration. Check out the cool cake his mom made!

Birthday Chain Countdown – 9/24/08
For weeks Bridget had been asking me if it was her birthday yet. It was a daily question. Tired of the inquiry I decided to help her make a chain to count down the number of days until her birthday. This is that chain.

I also found it interesting to hear the list of things she wanted for her birthday change with every passing day. One day it was a “dark gun” (dart gun), because we gave one of those to her friend for his birthday. The next it was a scary mask, because she’d watched part of Batman with us. lol!

Pumpkin Walk – 10/24/08
Although Dave and I didn’t take her to the Pumpkin walk this year, she was still able to attend – thanks to some generous friends at a time when I was overwhelmed with Halloween costumes. Here are a couple of pictures of her waiting to be picked up and at the Pumpkin walk. Thanks again!

Jacqueline’s baby Shower – 11/6/08
One of my good friends and fellow Hottest Girl at USU recently had her first baby. A boy. We all got together to celebrate! It was so fun to see everyone, to visit and to catch up! Congrats, Jax, on your beautiful little boy!

Leaf Blowing – 11/7/08
We have two huge trees behind our house. Trees that any given Autumn easily drop 100+ 30-gallon bags worth of leaves. After 5 years of commissioning the service of others to mulch our leaves, we finally broke down and purchased our own leaf vacuum. The thing claims a 16:1 compression… meaning that the 14 bags we filled this year would have otherwise amounted to 224 bags of leaves. I’d say it was a worthwhile investment.

Fire Station – 11/11/08
One of the sisters in our ward arranged a trip to the Fire Station for a group of preschool aged kids. Bridget and I attended. She enjoyed seeing the big fire trucks and climbing in the ambulance. And I think she even learned a thing or two.

Disney On Ice – 11/15/08
We entered Bridget in a costume contest at Cache Valley Mall this year and she won 4 tickets to see Disney On Ice. So we invited a good friend to join us and we headed to SLC. We all had a great time, and have to say that the performance was excellent.

Thanksgiving Activity at the church – 11/18/08
Our ward’s Relief Society sponsored a Thanksgiving activity for the kids. It was a fun outing to take Bridget on. They showed the kids how to make these darling turkey cupcakes. Very creative, and tons of fun!!

Thanksgiving at the Ernstroms – 11/27/08
We went to Dave’s parents’ house this year for Thanksgiving. The feast was fabulous! And it was great to get together with everyone. The kids especially seemed to enjoy playing with each other.

P.S. I was going to title this post “Ketchup & Mustard” and then end with a nice picture of a blowout. haha. But I decided that I’d rather not subject my baby to infrequent diaper changes or sit around hoping for a yellow-colored explosion just so I could take a picture of it. So, I guess that means you are all spared.