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!

Kaden's visit

Okay, I have tried to upload another video of the boys for 6 days, and it keeps failing to load. So, I am just going to do pictures. Eric had a blast when Kaden came to stay with us for the weekend. Shortly after he got here we left for our music class at Gymboree. We got there about 45 minutes early, and the boys got to free play for a while before class started. The kids who normally come to my class happened not to come that week, so it was just the 3 of us, but the boys had a blast. One song we were doing this time was "A Tisket, a tasket". The boys LOVED that song, and we had to act it out over and over and over and over. I think we did it 20 times. But they were having fun. One would carry the basket and then lose a "letter" out of it. The other would pick it up and put it in his pocket. It cracked me up how much they loved it.





We then planned to meet up with Tracie, Abbie, Aubrie, and Elaina (Kaden's sister) at the zoo. Well, that day was school day at the zoo, and the place was slammed. There was nowhere to park for blocks. We weren't about to fight thousands of people when we can go there anytime. So, we ended up at War Memorial Park. I thought it was cute that Eric wanted to wear one of his hats. Kaden wears a hat everywhere he goes, and Eric wanted to be like him, so he went and picked this one out to wear.


The kids had a great time. They are all so comfortable with each other. It is so sweet. We took some pictures of them together. In this one, we asked them to make a silly face, and this is what we got.

Then we took all the kids to Chic-fil-a. I have to tell you that having five little ones out to eat wasn't that fun. The kids had all finished eating before Tracie or I had taken a single bite of our salads, and I am a very slow salad eater. But, I pulled a bunch of toys out of my bag, and the kids played at the table. Then they went to the playland, where they had a blast. They kept making a train on the slide, all wanting to come down together or right behind one another.


Back at home the boys spent the afternoon playing air hockey. Kaden does not take a nap, and the boys just wanted to play. This was a major activity of the weekend. They played this for hours over the course of the three days.

Later we met Abbie and the girls for pizza. The kids had fun all being together again. Kaden's mom Becky had fixed us up a movie party pack, so we had a movie party that night. The boys loved it - popcorn, candy, movie. What's not to love?


Whew! It was a crazy busy day. And yes, this was only day 1 of our fabulous 3 fun-filled days. If I get time, I will tell you about some more later. For now, I am tired of typing and looking through pictures.

Attack of the birds!

Wow. Those birds grew up quickly. And I have to tell you that I am happy to see them go. The last few days, the birds were going a little crazy. Let me first update you with pictures of their progress.

Here is a picture of them from last Tuesday. They were so crammed in that nest, I really don't know how they could stand it. Quite a change from the little scrawny pink things from 9 days before.

I am hoping you can see this one if you click on the picture. The Mama was feeding them. I had to take it from the house, because there is no way she would have done this if we had been out there. This was on Wednesday.

Okay, now we are to Thursday. Seriously, they have gotten huge! This was the first day I was ready for them to go. While I was taking this picture, one of the parent birds swooped at me, and if I hadn't ducked, would have hit me. I was pretty irritated and concerned for Eric also.

On Sunday Robert and Eric went to look at them. Robert set Eric up on his platform so he could see them, and suddenly "attack of the birds" commenced. Mama and Papa bird both swooped in as did 2 other completely unrelated small birds. All 4 birds leapt from the nest and attempted to take flight (only one was able to fly at all). I had just opened the door to come outside, and one of the baby birds was madly hopping in my direction. I was calling for Mackenzie to come in so he would not eat the birds (thankfully he obeyed), but that baby bird was determined to come in. Here is a picture I took of him from the window inside. The Mama herded them out through a gap in the fence, and I was glad to see them go. I do not want to relive that attack.

My little teacher

Eric's buddy Kaden stayed with us for 3 fulls days this past weekend. They are even closer buddies now. I will post some pictures from the weekend, but I wanted to quickly put up this video. Both nights Eric would read books to Kaden. It was so cute, and he sounded just like me when he was doing it. I am posting a video I took of him "reading" a few pages of a Dora book. Later in the book (but not on this video), he would ask Kaden questions, and if Kaden got the wrong answer, he would explain why it was wrong. It was hilarious.

Baby birds

Yes, I am shamefully behind on my blogging. I will have a lot of catching up to do, so look for several posts from me over the next few days. Let me start by telling you about our bird nest. I noticed a bird was building a nest in our backyard. Over the next week, Robert and I debated whether to move it or leave it. The nest was on Eric's swingset, and we didn't want it to be in his way. Well, suddenly the nest had 4 beautiful blue eggs inside, and we decided to leave it. It has been a fascinating lesson for Eric (and for me too. I had no idea how fast baby birds grew!).

Here is a picture of our beautiful little eggs.

Eric thought it was so neat to look in the nest and see them.


Here is Mama (or maybe Papa, I have seen 2 birds tending the nest, so I really don't know who this is. Either way, this is the genetic pool from whence the birdies came)


Last Sunday night, Robert went out to check on the eggs, and the Mama was letting him get really close. She flew away right when he got there, and he realized it was because the eggs were actively hatching. He backed off and let Mama get back to her babies. It was cold out, and he knew she needed to keep them warm.


The next morning, we saw the 4 itty bitty birdies. Eric was completely fascinated by this. While I was typing this, I just wondered where the eggshells went. I guess maybe Mama carried them away.

By Wednesday, they looked like this. I couldn't believe how much bigger they had already gotten! They had no eyes, so everytime you or the camera would come over the nest, their little heads would pop up, and their mouths would open wide.

Eric thought it was so funny that the birds thought we were their Mommy and Daddy. He talked about that all day. He said they thought he was the Papa Bird, and I was the Mama bird.

I couldn't resist throwing in this one with its mouth open wide.

Now look at them! I cannot believe how much they have changed. These pictures were taken Saturday, and they are already huge! In 5 days look how much they have grown since the pictures from Monday. It is crazy! They now have slits for eyes (they were all sleeping at the time, so I don't know if those slits open yet or not). And they are getting their feathers.

This has been so fun for us to watch. The nest could not be in a better location for Eric to be able to enjoy it. I am so glad we decided not to move it.