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.

 

 

The Grammas

The little guy LOVES to spend time with my grammas. They happen to live in the same condo complex so we typically visit both of them in one trip. He and I are so lucky to have them in our lives and he's old enough that when they are in heaven, he will remember who they are. I just wish he would have been able to meet my pepe but I know he's watching down on us and smiling all the time at how cute he is.

Here is a picture of Eric making cookies (aka eating batter) with my gramma:

 

 

 

Every time Eric goes to my Gramma McNeil's house he steals her crackers. So she went to the store and got him a whole supply. I mean really, who needs to eat a meal when he can have crackers and cookies at the grammas! It melts my heart to see my Gramma McNeil's face light up when he is there and how much he makes her smile and laugh. When I was pregnant with Eric she had broken her hip and had to have surgery. We weren't sure if she would make it through the surgery because her heart is not very strong. Turns out her spirit is because she pulled through and has been able to see Eric grow. He just loves both of my grammas but has a special fondness for Gramma McNeil. He helps her get her cane and helps her up and holds her hand when she walks around the house. It's the best.

Big Bed

I had a plan to get the little guy a full sized bed for his birthday. The toddler bed was just getting too small and he likes to roll around. I ended up getting it for him early because he totally gave up on his toddler bed and was sleeping on the floor for several weeks. I sold his bureau/changing table, re-arranged his room and set it up. I had dropped him off at big Eric's house so I could get it all set up. He had been asking for his big bed forever so the first thing he did when he saw it was starting jumping on it. This bed has been a life saver. He sleeps like a champ in it. 

 

 

Snow

We have had some serious snow over the last month or so. At the beginning of Febuary we had 20+ inches of snow. It was just ridiculous. So me and the little guy hunkered down for the storm. I thought for sure that we would lose power but miraculously we never did. Once the snow stopped we went out to play. He could play in the snow for hours. His socks would be completely soaked and he would not say one word about it. All he needs is a shovel and a snowbank and he's golden. Here are some pictures for the big snow storm and the one we had about a week ago that gave us about a foot of snow. That storm was weird because it was "warm" out meaning it was like 40 degrees so it was tolerable to play out in the snow. 

 

 

 

Marissa's wedding

In January, my friend Marissa got married. It was quite a process to get to PA. I took my car to town fair tire the day before I had to leave so I could get new tires and an all wheel alignment. When they went to do my rear alignment a bolt snapped off my car. I drove it over to Lundgren and they didn't have to bolt in stock so they had to order it. I went there the day I had to leave for the wedding to get the car fixed (on town fair tire's dime!). I had to be to Lancaster, PA by 6:30 for the wedding rehearsal.Around noontime it was clear that they weren't going to be able to get my car fixed in time. So Lundgren got me a rental car (again on town fair tire's dime), they packed up the rental for me and I was on my way. I'm not going to lie, it was nice to drive a car with only 20,000 miles on it as opposed to mine with has more than 10 times that amount of mileage. Especially when I was driving all that way by myself. So I drove straight through without stopping and got to PA at 7pm. Not too shabby!

The wedding was actually a lot of fun. The groomsmen were ridiculous and we had fun finding a way into Marissa and Matt's wedding room and decorating it. I wasn't sure if I was going to have a tough time at the wedding with my marriage no longer intact but I had a very fun time. Here's a few pictures from the day:

 

 

 

Christmas 2012

We did a lot of fun things over the Christmas season. One of our big projects was making Christmas cookies for all of Eric's friends at daycare. Last year this didn't go so well because he was licking all of the frosting off of them. This year went much better. We made cookies for what felt like hours. Then we made another batch when we had Eli over for a sleepover:

 

 

We went to the Oxford public library with my friend Melissa and her son and daughter and made ginger bread houses. That was a lot of fun.





On Christmas day he opened up all of his presents.

 

Big Eric got the little guy a power wheel for Christmas. He has wanted to get one for him since he's been able to walk. Unfortunately, he's not a big fan of driving it but he really likes to sit in it and turn on the radio and press all the buttons!