for your viewing pleasure

I was talking to my sister the other day and she was telling me (as do many people) how she wished that I updated my blog more often. The reason why I don't update it more often is because I don't always take a lot of pictures of the things we do. Sometimes when we are in the middle of enjoying an activity it seems so unnatural to whip out the camera and take pictures or videos. Also, Eric has become interested in the camera these days. He likes to look at pictures and videos on it. So every time I pull out the camera and hears it turn on and comes running to see the pictures.

That being said, I worked really hard today to get two videos that I have wanted to take. One of them is of him building with his blocks. He's gotten really good at putting them together. In the video you can also see him throwing some pretend play in by pretending the blocks are a car and driving it along the floor. If you can hear it he's also making a car sound.

This next video is cute. I told my sister the other night during the same conversation that I'm really going to miss him talking gibberish all the time when he actually learns words. Right now he'll point to things and give a whole story about what's going on with what he's pointing at. He is so sure as to what he is saying. It is the cutest thing ever. So I took a video with my cell phone of him talking about the above video of him that he was watching on the camera. It's just a small snipit of what he does when he talks about something.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

This is kind of a random blog that I'm going to have to tell through pictures because the pictures aren't in order and the interesting events since I've last blogged are in the pictures. The only thing I didn't take pictures of is our adventure to the Little Gym in Westborough for a free trial class. We went on Wednesday. Eric was in a foul mood that day and I found the class to be a little too structured for 1 year olds and I liked Gymboree so much better. The next day I discovered why Eric has been so cranky. He got molar number three. Yup that's right, 3 teeth in 3 weeks and they are all molars. It would be nice if he could finish up his smile in the front and get the rest of his front teeth before he gets any more molars. Something tells me there will be another tooth coming in a week or so. Although everytime I assume which tooth is coming in I get totally blindsided by a molar!

So not this past week but the week before, my parents went to Florida so this week the boys commenced their usual thursday visit to Meme and Pepe's house. I didn't have to work so I stayed the whole time and left with Eric shortly after lunch. He was so tired when he left that he was dead asleep before we left the driveway and slept for 2 1/2 hours at home. He loves being outside, it totally wears him out.
Ok pictures:
My parents have this giant tree in their front yard. Given how tall my dad is he was able to put Eric right up in the tree. The face Eric is making is the face he makes the first time he tries everything. He's not too sure about the tree but I gurantee that the next time he is outside with Pep he will be asking to sit in the tree!


When I was a kid my dad used to put me and my sister in the wheelbarrow and take us for rides and then when the ride was over he would say "All bums out." He continues this tradition with Dylan and Eric and I'm sure Ryan will be in there too at some point! Dylan is such a good cousin holding on to Eric to keep him safe :)

The weather has been so nice lately. I try to get Eric outside as often as I can when it's not too hot. I love the hot hot weather but it's not so fun for a child to play out in unless there is a pool involved. So one day when he woke up from his nap, I packed up a lunch and a ball and some bubbles and a blanket and we went out onto the lawn of our apartment complex and had a picnic.

The day before my parents came back from Florida my sister and I and the kids were at my parent's house because Mike and Eric are doing some work on their house. We sat them on the couch to watch a movie and they all had their silkies. Too cute :)

Eric needed to wash his truck because he's obsessed with it so we went to my parents' house to do it (I just realized that this blog is revolving around my parents' house! Maybe someday we will have a house of our own so we don't have to use theirs so much!). Eric Charles loves playing in water so while Daddy was washing the truck Eric was busy getting soaked. He was splashing in the puddles and trying to catch the water from the hose in his mouth. We ended up having to stay at my parents' house that day until his clothes were dried in the dryer. What a goober.

Let me get that hose for you daddy!

Hi I'm drenched

weekend activities

We enjoyed a lot of the nice weather this weekend. On saturday we went to dean park for lunch of course. Then we came home and Eric napped. After that we went grocery shopping and then decided to pick up Eli and go out for ice cream. Eli hadn't seen Eric walk yet so they had a blast chasing each other.

Today we went to this train thing in Holliston. My sister had told us about it and it was free which is my favorite word so we checked it out. It's basically a train track through the woods that this organization built and little trains take you on a ride. It's pretty cool. We had fun. Anything to get out and enjoy the nice weather for free!

If Eric was looking this would be the perfect picture


chasing each other

cousins :)

Ok so I think I keep forgetting to blog this picture so I'm putting it in here in case I haven't blogged it yet. This is a picture of Eric's first time at Wright's Farm, yum! The cutest thing was that he kept trading chicken for Daddy's french fries when Daddy wasn't looking!

Random firetruck that was there

I look so happy!

Eric and Ryan love



Going for a ride!

Sights along the way

I see the light!

Daddy trying to show Eric the sights

I tried to get a picture with the trains in the background but they are kind of far away.

Ok this is a video of Eli rolling down the hill at West End Creamery and Eric trying to roll with him

splish splash

First, I want to start this blog with a little shout out to my mom and dad. I want to thank you so much for taking Eric every thursday. He has such a great time and will make memories that he'll never forget. You both take such good care of him and he loves you so much. You make him feel comfortable and safe. My favorite thing is when I come home from work on Thursdays and he has sooo many stories to tell me about how much fun he had at your house. Thank you for taking such good care of him!

On Thursday I dropped Eric off at my parents' house in the afternoon to play with his cousins while I got some stuff done at home. I showed up to their house to have dinner there and he was covered in dirt so I knew he had a fun time! My parents had us all over for dinner (except for Eric because he was at a Union meeting but Mom he enjoyed the leftover lasagna!). My sister wanted to give Ryan a tub before they left the house and then we decided, since my parents have a 6 ft tub, why not put all three boys in the tub??!! Well they had a blast. Ryan was just trying to stay sitting up while my cooky son was climbing all over everyone. My sister took Ryan out so it was just Eric and Dylan and they splashed until they were wrinkled from head to toe. I thought I'd never get Eric out of there and he was not all to happy to come out. After the tub he was on Dylan's bed at my parents' house screaming and going crazy like a wild over happy kid. He had so much fun and passed out in the car before we got home. It makes me so happy to see him having so much fun with meme, pepe and his cousins.

On nice days, if we're home I take Eric outside. My goal is to walk to our mailbox which is at the top of the hill of our complex. Lately he has gotten a little distracted from going to the mailbox now that he is an expert walker. Whenever it rains a huge puddle collects in the parking lot. Eric happened to walk through the puddle and then he fell in the puddle and got all wet. I scooped him up after he fell and then put him back down and he went right back for the puddle. At this point he was already soaked so I just let him play in the puddle. He had an absolute blast. I should have taken a video of it. People in our apartment complex probably thought I was either really crazy or really adventurous. Either way he had a lot of fun. I like puddles. I think they can be fun to play in and every child should be allowed to jump in puddles. They are like nature's wading pools. After soaking his entire outfit we walked towards the mailbox. The last time we went on this walk Daddy showed him how to through rocks in the drain. So the next distraction was the drain. So we sat and I gave him rocks to put in the drain. We spent about 10 minutes just hanging out there until Daddy got home from work. I really enjoy this outside time. The minute I put Eric's shoes on inside he knew it was time for our daily walk. He just loves getting outside. Even though we don't have our own private yard here, there is plenty of grass for him to play in and since no one else is outside he might as well get some use out of it!

Ok so here are the modest tub pictures (there are other cute ones but at least one of the boys is exposed in them so we will save those for future girlfriends and friends):

Crazy Dylan and Eric who insists on walking in the tub

Eric climbing over everyone

Playing in the puddle

Where did that rock go?

and we're back!

I knew it had been a long time since I updated my blog but when I saw that it's been since May 2nd I knew I needed to get something new up here! Now that I am done school and barely working thanks to my awesome "job", I have been trying to keep us as busy as possible. We went to a gymboree class that Eric absolutely loved. We actually get to go to another free trial one because the one we went to was full of kids that were younger than him even though I signed him up for the right age group. Most of the kids weren't even crawling yet so he was running circles around them! But he set a great example and did so well! It makes me so proud to see how well behaved he is in these situations. This week we went to the library on Monday to see "Dan the Music Man". It was a guy who sang songs with the kids and had instruments and various other things for the kids to play with. There were a ton of people there and I wasn't sure how Eric would do with all the comotion but he loved it! He loves being around other kids so he jumped right in. We did various other things as well including visiting friends and family.

For the past week Eric has not been napping well if at all during the day which at times can be exhausting for me because I know that he's tired. I knew he was teething and on Tuesday he was walking around all morning with his tongue sticking out of his mouth. I decided to check and see what was going on in his mouth and bravely stuck my finger in his mouth and found a new tooth. It is not one of the ones I thought was coming in and it's far enough back where it should be a molar but I don't think it is a molar so I'm not sure what's going on there. With our luck he'll need oral surgery because his teeth are growing in in all the wrong places (just being dramatic!).

I will need to take a video to update what Eric's new favorite thing to do is: chase Pokey. He goes after that cat ALL DAY LONG! Poor Pokey takes it so well but every once in a while he'll scratch him to show him who's boss. Eric doesn't even cry when Pokey scratches him so half the time I don't know Pokey got him until a check him out later on and see scratches all over his hands/arms.

So today Eric is 14 months old. He is doing some new things. He says what sounds like "Thank you" and he makes a p-p-p noise for "up" when he wants to be picked up (which is all the time and we're trying to break him of that!). He throws random other words in here and there but he just babbles so much all day long. It is the cutest thing ever. Especially when I'm on the phone and he wants to talk to the person on the other end. He will go on and on. Even when I text someone he thinks I"m calling someone and will start talking in the phone. He is taking baths in the big tub now which he absolutely loves. However, one of the challenges of this is that he walks in the tub which makes me so nervous so when he starts doing that I take him out. I can't wait for him to clearly understand "not safe"! He is becoming much more independent with his new found walking freedom. For the most part it is a good thing and we try to give him as many opportunities to walk as possible: around stores, outside, to the mailbox, etc. However, with this new found independence has come a lot of stubborness and some tantrums because he thinks he can do whatever he wants now. So it's been fun trying to set limits. Thankfully he's fairly easily distracted and will just move on. Tantrums don't last long, especiall if Pokey walks by him! He has also learned how to climb off of things safely. Eric has been working hard with him to show him how to get off of our bed safely which translates well to other furniture. He has taught him to turn around on his belly and slide feet first off the bed. He does amazingly well with this.

Mother's day was much more successful this year than last year. Eric woke up at 5am which he never does but Daddy kept him entertained in the morning while I closed our bedroom door and relaxed until about 9:30a. I remember when I was younger and I used to sleep until 2:30 in the afternoon, I don't know how I did that! We took Eric's mom out for a nice lunch to Mom's Restaurant. After that we went to my parent's house for dinner.

Ok picture time:
Pictures of him monthly are getting harder to take now that he knows how to get off the chair. He does not want to sit there and have his picture taken.




hmmm

Yup that's him with his finger up his nose!

Sitting with his legs crossed, so cute!

Mother's Day:

Squishy kisses!

All the moms, from left to right: Gramma McNeil (Mom's mom), me, my mom, my sister, and Gramma D (Dad's mom). I clearly did not get my height from these ladies!

Love this picture :)

playing

Eric and Meme

Weekend fun in the sun

This weekend's weather was BEAUTIFUL! Saturday Eric played outside all day besides nap time. At 8:30am he was out on the porch playing in his sand and water table. He played until he took a nap. Then we had lunch and went to purgatory chasm and out for ice cream at west end creamery. It was so nice to be outside. When we came home it was back to the porch to play! Unfortunately I think he was so excited about the fresh air that he didn't fall asleep until 10pm and was up at 6:30am the next morning, yikes!
Today we went to our favorite warm weather spot, Dean Park and we took the Leeds along with us. It's crazy to think that last year when we took Eric he was so young. We didn't even go on the playground back then, we just walked around the park. We had sandwiches for lunch at the park and then we hit the playground. The kids had a blast (so did my husband haha). The playground is perfect for all ages because there are several different structures for all sized kids. Eric was apprehensive about everything he tried but we tried to make everything really fun so he wouldn't be scared and it seemed to work for the most part. We left the playground to walk around a little bit and go look at the geese at the pond. Unfortunately the fountains weren't on, maybe next time. We went back to the playground one last time then decided that it was so hot out that we needed some ice cream to cool ourselves down. So it was back to west end creamery. It is so nice to be outside all weekend long and get the fresh air.


Eric got a haircut last weekend and it is super cute. Whenever we ride in the car with the windows open, his hair ends up looking like this:


The cousins

Eric was not a fan of the see saw. That is Dylan's head in front of me. It was a four passenger see saw!

Dylan being a good cousin and tried to hold Eric on the see saw. Needless to say Eric climbed right off right after this picture!

At first Eric wasn't so sure about this swing but he loves the swing at my parent's house so I knew he would enjoy it. Here he is, all smiles!

I kind of missed with this picture but it's so cute that I had to blog it. He was laughing because he enjoyed the swing so much!

Ryan checking out Eric swinging.

Dylan just loved this see saw!

The two boys on the swing

Ryan and Karen

He was not a big fan of the slides. Especially when we didn't go down with him. But he tried at least!

He loved this little bubble. Daddy was on the other side to take the picture

At first he tried to walk through this tunnel but he was just too tall. So he crawling right through.

This was a bumpy slide and When the Erics went down with Dylan they went super fast. Eric didn't like it so much but Dylan thought it was great!

Walking around the playground