silly kid

Eric was being very silly this morning. He was trying to jump and then he'd end up in a somersault. I don't know where he learned to do a somersault but every once in a while he'll do it and it's so funny. I didn't think I would be able to get this on video but he did it right on cue!

Happy 21st birthday to me!

Well it's that time of year... I'm officially another year older. I had a nice day with my family at night. We had Harry's pizza and cake yummy! Even though we have a tiny apartment everyone still managed to fit and have a nice time. The kids enjoyed themselves and my husband did a good job sitting on his hands because he really wanted to wrestle with all the kids but there is just not enough room here for that with a full house! At one point there were a lot of balls flying around the living room but nobody got hurt! Here's some pictures to chronicle my day.
The day before my birthday Eric was in charge of making my cake. I don't know why he had to take his shirt off before he made it but here he is working away while Eric waits with the cake holder:





Daddy showing Eric the nice picture frame that my sister and her family got for me. It has a bunch of pictures of Eric and some of us together. It's really nice


Dylan having a jam session (Eric Charles was on the mic!)

Trying to play Dylan's computer with Pepe

Ryan trying not to get trampled but all the kids

Eli tickling Eric's feet

Eli's little sister is a day older than Ryan. They were even born in the same hospital. I feel a love connection!

After the party was over we had to do a major clean up. Especially of the kitchen. There was cake all over the floor. Eric Charles was in charge of the sweeping (or so he insisted!). There's also a video of him cleaning up. He actually did a pretty good job and managed to make a nice little pile! We're going to have to start giving him an allowance soon!

the weekend

We had a fairly quiet weekend. Today we just hung around the house mostly because of the yucky weather. Saturday we went to a BBQ at a friend's house. Eric had a blast. He practically dove into the sandbox at their house. He also loved playing with the other kids. It's so cute to watch him timidly go up to the other kids and just play near them in the hopes that they'll play with him :).
Here's some cute random pics and videos from the weekend:

Eric's become fascinated with Daddy's sunglasses lately. We had bought him his own pair with a strap on it because we thought it was the only way we could get him to wear sunglasses if we went to the beach or something. Well now he loves them so we'll have to buy him some real sunglasses. When he wears them he's constantly poking the glasses as if he's trying to poke himself in the eye. They are kind of tight to his face so his long eyelashes probably rub up against the glass but he likes it when he wears them and we call him a "cool dude." He loves them so much he fell asleep in the truck with them on.


As I mentioned in a previous entry, he loves reading books and mostly to himself lately. His favorite thing is to sit on our bed and read. It's even funnier when he pulls the covers over his lap too (he didn't when this picture was taken).

Last weekend we were watching a show and on it two guys shook hands. Right afterwards Eric came up and shook my hand and then Daddy's hand. I didn't realize at first that he was copying the guys on the show. He still does it sporadically and I was able to get it on video because it's so funny and random. The best is that after he shakes our hands he shakes his own hand! I had to do two different videos because in one of them he wouldn't shake his own hand but I caught him doing it a few minutes later.

Mmmm!

Tonight I whipped up a quick dinner when I got home from work. I made Eric a grilled cheese to keep him satisfied while I finished the rest of the meal for Eric and I. I made chicken, potatoes, and corn on the cob. In case anyone is interested I made Big Eric's chicken different then mine because he whines about how he doesn't like chicken so I try to make it a way he'll like it. I put mayo on both sides of the chicken breast and then sprinkle taco seasoning over each side. I bake it on a cookie sheet lined with foil for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. He says it's delicious!

I gave Eric Charles a bowl of mashed potatoes because he loves them. The last time we had corn on the cob he ended up eating some of the corn off my cob and I will do anything to get vegetables in him so I saved some of my corn for him... and of course we took a video because he's so grown up!

Rock-a-by baby

The other night Eric had a bad dream so I went in to his room to make sure he was ok. I took him in the rocking chair and rocked him and he fell right asleep. While I was watching him so relaxed and sleeping I thought about how little time in his life I rocked him as a baby when you look at it in comparison to his whole lifetime. I'm lucky if I can get him to stay on my lap for 5 minutes these days. So I enjoyed the moment and had Daddy take a picture to capture it! He's a little harder to rock these days given how long he is!

(Excuse my outfit/hair... And no the lights are not on in his room, it was dark but my camera makes it look like all the lights are on)

Reading

For a little while, although Eric still liked reading books, he had moved on to other things and it hadn't become an obsession anymore. Well he's back to it! In the morning when I'm trying to get us ready for work he's constantly chasing me with books to read! He is also into reading to himself and he'll sit there for the longest time observing the books and sometimes I'll hear him babble in a tone that I would normally read the book in. So I took a video because I had heard him reading his Monkeys Jumping on the Bed book in my tone. He stopped doing it in that tone but it is cute anyways. He is sitting on the base of our fan in our room. I have no idea why. He loves fans I guess. I also tried to get him to say other words while reading the book to show how much he's copying our words. The best is when I asked him to say "DaDa" which he can say but for some reason he calls him "MAAA!" Check it out:

Friends and birthdays

Two little boys at Eric's daycare celebrated birthdays over the weekend. We were invited to go to Kyle's birthday party.

On Friday they had a little party at daycare to celebrate the birthdays. I cannot believe Eric actually kept the party hat on!


Saturday was Kyle's birthday party. It was a little awkward for me because literally the only one I knew at the party was Kyle. I had never even met his mom before! When we got there Eric saw Kyle and recognized him right away. Even Kyle kept randomly asking throughout the day, "Where's Eric?" It was very cute.
Kyle is the one with his back turned on the right

Eric making room for himself in the tiny sandbox to play!

And then my camera died... Gotta remember to charge those batteries!

Bubblemania

Tonight they had a show called "Bubblemania" at the Grafton Municipal Gym. I really wanted to go but first I had to figure out where the heck the Grafton Municipal Gym was! It turns out it is right up the street, how convenient! It was a cute bubble show and Eric sat for the entire 45 minute show! He's such a good audience member :). He would clap when she would clap and wave when she would wave. And when he saw a bubble who would point and say, "Bubble!" He did so good. There was one woman there who had twins and she was so busy taking pictures that her kids were constantly running up on "stage" when they weren't supposed to and she was one of those moms who would just laugh and call her child to come to her instead of going to get them. So annoying! I felt so bad for the bubble lady but she was so patient with them!
Here's the show:

These two kids were having a contest to see who could keep their bubbles in the air the longest using a little fan.

Eric sitting and watching intently (the woman up front of the left in the white tanktop was "that mom"!)

Demonstating how she could hold a bubble on her hand.

randoms

Eric has his own pair of sunglasses that he refuses to wear. However, he finds daddy's quite exciting!


Where he spent most of the weekend! He took almost every toy out of there and then kept climbing in and out. Of course he could only get in by himself so I had to help him get out every time.

here's your update

I know I need to catch up on my blogging when I get multiple complaints that I have not updated in a while! Just wait till I go back to school folks, it's going to get worse! Last weekend we didn't do anything too exciting so I didn't have much to blog about. I'm not sure there's anything too exciting in store for this weekend either but the weekend is just beginning!

In the past week, Eric has really started using words a lot or at least trying to. Here's what we've heard:

All done (very clear and definitely what he is trying to convey)

I love you

Duck (He actually saw a decorative duck and called it a duck, where did he learn that??)

Hi (I even heard him saying this over and over when he woke up this morning)

Bye

I know there is a lot more and perhaps I should start writing them done but he really does try to mimick a lot of what we say. This is why I never went crazy teaching him sign language. He can sign "more" when motivated (normally by food) but I never went beyond that. I teach this to children who may never speak for work and since I knew Eric would talk I decided to let nature take it's course.

Today he started doing something which I LOVE! All day he has grabbed my hand and dragged me places to request things. It's so cute. I love holding his little hand. He also looks at me and pats the floor when he wants me to sit on the floor and play with him. It's great! I put his shoes on today to head out and he dragged me to the door. He was ready to go!

Another awesome thing that he has learned lately is to use a spoon. I think he learned it in daycare but I haven't asked. All of the sudden one day I gave him a spoon and he used it almost flawlessly. It was quite impressive! So I took a video: