Southwick's Zoo 2013

For Christmas my parents got Eric and I tickets to Southwick's Zoo that included all the rides. Eric loves the rides at Southwick's more than he loves actually seeing the animals. So my sister and her family were going to the zoo so we decided to meet up with them there. Eric was determined to go on rides the minute we got there so I convinced him to go on the Sky Ride first since it is a ride that goes above the zoo and you can see a lot of the animals so that at least we were seeing animals. After he got that out of his system, we met up with the Leeds family and had lunch then walked around to see the animals. We also went on a train ride and finished the day with going on some of the kiddie rides. Eric is tall enough to go on all the kiddie rides himself (thank goodness because I certainly was not going on them with him!). He was so excited. It was a great but exhausting day!



 

Watch out for that giraffe behind you!

On the Train ride

These bears are kind of like tea cups in that there is a wheel inside that spins them around. Eric was spinning like a crazy man and loving it!

I took videos of him on these next two rides because I thought he would have an extreme reaction to them and possibly be scared. But nope, not scared at all haha

These next pictures are ones that my sister took. One of the two times we went on the Sky Ride, my sister and Ryan were in front of us and Dylan and Mike were in front of them. So my sister took some pictures of Eric and I.

 



Thanks mom and dad for this great gift! The only time I spent money was at the very end when Eric was thirsty and wanted to buy a drink out of the machine. So I spent a whole $2 at the zoo :)

Mother's Day 2013

I'm not going to lie... having the first Mother's Day without big Eric was fantastic. I didn't have to deal with the let down that he did nothing for me or did something last minute. I just spent the day enjoying being my son's mom and it was great. The day before he asked me, "What do we do for Mother's Day? Do we decorate?" To which I told him, "No, you tell me how much you love me and you make me breakfast." He responded, "Oh I can make you pancakes do you need me to cut them up?" He's too cute. Lately he has woken up super early but thankfully on Mother's Day he slept until almost 7am. When he woke up he came bounding into my room and said, "I love you mama, happy Mother's Day!" Perfect start! Then we made breakfast where he did most of the work making the french toast mix. We also did a photo shoot because I never get pictures of myself with him so I set the camera up with the automatic timer. After that we went and played mini golf at West End Creamery because mom's play free. After that we went to my parent's house for a cookout. It was the perfect day. No let downs, just enjoyed being a mom. 

 

 

Here's the chef making breakfast

Our French toast

 

 Photo shoot time!

 

 We tried making hearts with our hands but I had rushed over from setting the timer and well... we tried!

Can you feel the love??? <3 p="">

Easter 2013

We did lots of Easter activities leading up to the big date. It is great that so many people do free activities for Easter. We went to Home Depot with my friend Melissa and her kids. They had a somewhat creepy looking Easter bunny but Eric loved him and he gave him a stuffed bunny that he loves. Here's some pictures for that:

 

 

We of course made Easter eggs and invited Daddy to join us.

We went to a farm in Sutton that had a free Eggstravaganza which included a petting zoo, pictures with the Easter bunny, face painting, and a giant Easter egg hunt. It was a lot of fun!

Here he is Easter morning. The Easter bunny really knows Eric well because the bunny got him some great stuff ;)

Swimming

I am determined to teach the little guy how to swim before the summer because it is not fun to be in a pool with him clinging to my neck. I don't want to pay for swimming lessons. I figure, how hard can it be to teach him myself? So about a month ago my friend Melissa and her son Thomas and Eric and I went to the Whitin Community Center for open rec swim. The boys had a blast and it wore all of us out. So that was the beginning of my adventure to teach Eric to swim. I wasn't all that productive but I figured we'd keep trying. Now open rec swim is $6 a person so it's not super expensive but not something I can afford to do all the time. However, Melissa and I took the boys today and found out that it is free on Saturdays! So I will hopefully be able to accomplish my goal of teaching Eric to swim the cheapest way possible. And then when he gets older he can tell everyone that he didn't take swimming lessons because his mom taught him how to swim! So before we went to day I watched some youtube videos to get some ideas on different techniques to teach him. He will go underwater no problem without swallowing half the pool. So today I worked on trying to get him to swim to the steps and to me which he wanted me to help quite a bit with. But I also got him to kick his legs and I wrapped a pool noodle under his arms so I could hold him up but he could learn how to coordinate his arms and legs at the same time. I have to say it was quite a successful swim. I feel like he will be swimming in no time. I put Thomas floaties on Eric's arms and he was able to let me let him go in the pool and just hang out for a few minutes but he's not used to not having me to hold on to him so he wasn't thrilled about it. I need to get him some swimmies for next time so he really work on coordinating his arms and legs together. The best thing about swimming is that if I take him out to dinner afterwards he clonks out for the night at like 6:30!

OMG he's 4

My little guy turned 4 this past week. I can't even believe it. It was kind of an emotional week for me. I tried hard not reflect too much on how different my life is today as opposed to 4 years ago and how much I have been through in the last 4 years but every once in a while those memories creep up and it's extremely painful and at times paralyzes me. I am doing a lot better in regards to the feelings of sadness and lonliness but this new stage I'm in is causing me to have a lot of unpleasant flashbacks especially during this week when my little man turned 4. All I know is that I would be so lost without his smile. He has kept me going for the last 4 years and motivated me to be strong. I love him with all my heart and soul. Some days I lose patience or I have no energy and I don't feel like I'm the best mom all the time but I think I've done a pretty good job considering. So that being said. Here are the professional pictures we had taken for his birthday. I just wish he'd smile a little bit more.

 

The many smiles of Eric Charles

With another birthday comes another cake challenge. This year he wanted the Cinderella castle, all the characters and Shamu. At the last minute he wanted a dolphin too but I drew the line! The castle is hand iced and then I bought sugar paper and drew the characters and Shamu with food coloring markers. Pretty inventive if I do say so myself. I can only imagine what his request next year will be! Some of these pictures are out of order or duplicates. Sometimes blogger gives me a hard time and I'm not patient enough to go through and try to fix it all.

Within the first hour of him being awake. I think even before he opened presents he exclaimed, "This is the best birthday ever!" It makes me happy that he enjoyed his day so much.

For his birthday I got him the Dr. Seuss book Happy Birthday to You

And some Peter Pan figurines because he's a little obsessed with Peter Pan right now and insists that he comes into the apartment at night and takes him to Neverland.

I also got him this really cool track that hangs on the wall. The apartment is small so any toy that doesn't take up space is a great toy to me. I mounted it on the wall and at first I thought it was pretty lame until I put the batteries in it. It turns out it is pretty awesome and he loves it!

Checking out his cake for this first time:

So I can't afford a big fancy party like people have these days nor do I think it's necessary to spend that kind of  money on a birthday for a 4 year old. Next year I will splurge because it's a big birthday. But this year my mom picked up my nephew Ryan and then picked Eric and I up and we went to Pump It Up. The boys had a lot of fun and were exhausted by the time we were done.