Independence Day

Eric is at such a fun age for holidays. He had a great time on the 4th. Last year he was still a little nervous about all the booming sounds associated with the fireworks (let's face it, those things could split your eardrums), but this year he loved them. I mentioned going to the fireworks this year, and he surprised me by remembering that he held a "mask" in front of his face to make them look like rainbows. (they hand out fan/viewers that make the fireworks prism) It is amazing what they can remember.

My sweet baby boy. I forget sometimes how little he is.

We arrived early, and Eric was able to play for a while with a boy from our church.

He was very happy to see the sun going down. Fireworks coming soon!

First glimpse of fireworks. (He is holding the "mask" in front of his face here)

Constantly inventing

Eric rarely plays with toys as they are intended to be played with right now. His current thing is to build inventions/machines. He will take any toy and anything else he can find (spoon, hanger, shoe, etc) to make his invention. Then I have to come check it out. Sometimes he has something that moves along the invention, othertimes not. But, he is usually pretty creative about it. Here is a video of one of the many inventions he made yesterday. In the background you can see some of the discarded parts that he had used in other inventions that day or chose not to use once he was building.



In this particular invention (they always have very strange names), he unscrewed the handle from a golf club to be his lever. Then he used some pipe insulation (we used this to help cover the strap when Robert broke his arm) to join the two vehicles together. He used a yo-yo to also join the two vehicles together. He has a slice of bread and a slice of watermelon in the bus. I have no clue what their purpose is, but I am sure he had a reason for their presence. He usually does. He removed the safety cover for the blinds in his room and put half of the cap on the back of the car. That is the cover that he removes to see if the toys were finished. He usually wears his Buzz Lightyear goggles when he goes "to work" on one of his inventions.
As I type this, he is actually downstairs explaining one of his latest inventions to his Daddy.

Bikerman saves the day!

As you know from a previous post, Eric loves his Bikerman costume (as he calls it). We took a bike ride to the park with Kyli and her mom and brother today. Eric became extremely confident and was going so fast, that I couldn't keep up with him at a jog. However, he took a big spill, and then Kyli was right next to him and ran over his arm. It was a little traumatic for a few minutes. Eric was sobbing, but poor Kyli was sobbing just as hard because "I ran over him". It was so pitiful. Eric's hand is a little sore where he was run over, but he only has a couple of scratches on his arm and side. His right knee pad is totally scuffed as is his right elbow pad. I can only imagine what he would have looked like without them. Yeah for Bikerman gear!

We spent the afternoon with Kyli also in her pool. She has an above ground 3.5 foot pool. That is the perfect size for the kiddos. They can just barely touch, but at least they can, and it helps them move around. They had a blast!

The Wedding

Well, we are back from Alabama, and the wedding went great. My child was a FABULOUS ring bearer! I was pretty nervous about his role, but he did great. And the weather was perfect. There were threats of rain, but none ever came. Eric LOVED wearing the tux. He thought he was really big stuff. Trenna was beautiful, and Aaron did a great job officiating.





My child was so excited about eating the cake. Since there were two cakes, I told him he could have 2 pieces. Well, he decided that what he really wanted was two pieces of the wedding cake. Then he stood next to the table and would ask anyone who came near if they would please get him two pieces. It was quite funny.

Memorial Day

What a shocker! Robert was off on a holiday. They were closed today, so he was actually home. It was pretty amazing. That hasn't happened in more years than I can count. We have had a fun day so far. This morning Eric went bike riding. He and his Daddy worked some on the bike (got tires inflated well and adjusted the training wheels), and then he was off. He has finally gotten the hang of the pedals and no longer brakes frequently. He had a blast, but he got worn out pretty quickly. It is a very hot day here.

Here is a brief video of him riding. As you can see, he doesn't brake anymore. That was a pretty constant problem when he was first learning to ride it. He would push his foot back a lot, which caused a continual stop/go/stop/go.

Go Travs!

Last thursday night Robert's family took us to the Arkansas Travelers baseball game. Eric was so excited to go! He spent half the game playing with everyone's hats, so we ended up getting him one of his own.


The child acts like he is a bottomless pit whenever he goes to any type of sporting event. I can hardly get him to eat, but take him to a game, and he eats the whole time. He ate popcorn, a few nachos, a popsicle, and a bag of cotton candy.



We took him to see Shelly the mascot (I think it is a horse). He wasn't sure he wanted to go see it.

Well, maybe I will just give it 5.

Oh, that wasn't so bad. Maybe I can give it a hug.

First program went great!

Eric did so good at last night's Christ's Kids program! I got called Saturday and asked if he would recite one of his verses. I told her honestly that I didn't know if he would do it. My child is so bashful and not a performer, but I sure wanted him to. She said 3 children would be saying verses, and she wanted to see if he would do it. As you can see in the video, he did great! Christ's Kids is a memory program that our church does, where each year you have certain facts to memorize. After you memorize those facts, you can move on to Bible verses. The facts for the 3 year old class consisted of naming first man and woman, Jesus' mother and father, and the 7 days of creation. Eric did all of those, and then he learned 8 memory verses. His teacher told me yesterday that he was the only one in his class who learned any verses, so I was pretty proud of him. I took a video of him saying the verse (I was pretty nervous, and my hand was shaky, so please forgive the jumpiness). And I made the mistake of taking the video vertically instead of horizontally. I don't know how to fix that, so you will just have to look at it sideways. But, I was so proud of him. He did great!