Our Halloween

This year i went to North Carolina because i didn't want to be here by myself for Halloween or my birthday. Let's just say i haven't celebrated Halloween as much as i did this year. We went to a Halloween party at my parent's ward, a Halloween party at my sister's ward, a Halloween carnival at my dad's work and then went trick or treating on Halloween. I'm glad that i got my money's worth out of that costume. Little Eric had alot of fun - i just hope he doesn't think this is Halloween is every year. I'm post a few pictures from the different Halloween events we went to.


Eric and his cousins






"To infinity and beyond!"

Buzz Lightyear

This year my mom and I made some fun Halloween treats. I don't think the kids thought it was as fun as my mom and I did.

Alot on my mind!

The other day i found out that my friend's husband was killed in Iraq. Since i found out i have had so many thoughts running through my head. It has hit me really hard - one because I knew the guy - he had been to my house a couple of times to eat dinner, two he was my friend's husband, and three because Eric is about to deploy. What do you do when something like this happens? What do you say? In an instant your whole world changes upside down. My friend is widowed at 23 years old. How is that fair?? I guess it goes to show that you can't take the ones you love for granted. I know i can be there to love and support her and do anything she might need done. I feel so sad right now. I just don't know what to do.
Sorry to post such sad things - I just needed to get them off my chest. Please pray for the troops and their families, they need all the prayers they can get. I know it is the life we choose, my friend's husband, Eric, all the other troops. They all chose to do this and I'm sure they are all proud to serve and fight for our country. I am so proud of Eric! But it doesn't make it any easier! I still can't fathom the idea of not being able to see my husband for a year, it makes me sad that he will miss a year of little Eric's life. But i can't be more proud of my husband and 100% support him in what he does. They say the hardest job of the army is being an army wife; i have to agree with that sometimes. Just pray for the ones who are deployed and their families; especially those like my friend who have to go through an awful tragedy like this.

Little Eric is in heaven!

This year we are signing up Little Eric for ice hockey. He is so excited and it is one of the few things that he talks about alot. Well this evening they had skating with the Cottonmouths (the hockey team here in Columbus). He was so excited today and couldn't wait. He kept asking me if it was time to go. At one point he asked me if i had checked the schedule and was it starting. Eric has been skating once before so he knows how to, he is just nervous about it. When he first started, he used the sled to help him but since i knew he knew how to skate i kept taking it away from him. By the end he was skating all around all by him self. I'm so proud of him. Alot of the players had commented that he was a really good skater. I was such a proud mom! :) Little Eric had a blast - he had a smile on his face the WHOLE two hours. Sorry to post all the videos but big Eric really wanted to be there and really wants to see them. Enjoy!

It is going to be a LONG year and a half!!

Technically we have only been apart for about for 1 week but i feel like it has been an eternity!! I miss him like crazy! We survived all the visiting family, the vacations, and the long drive to Kansas. Going out there we split it up into 2 days. On the 2nd day we stopped in St. Louis and went to the arch. That was alot of fun. I had been there but big nor little Eric had. Little Eric thought it was pretty cool to look out over the city. The week in Kansas wasn't too bad. I started to go alittle crazy because you can only spend so much time in a hotel room with a 3 year old. Thankfully Eric was off about 3pm every day. It turned out that Eric had Columbus Day weekend off so he was able to drive back with me. We decided to drive straight through. It was 15 hours (well more because we stopped alot) and I thought we were never going to get home. We left at 5pm when Eric got off and got back home about noon the next day. It was really nice to have a few extra days with Eric.



Saying goodbye at the airport was hard! Eric told me I COULD NOT cry and of course what did i do - i cried. Only alittle bit though. Little Eric didn't want to leave the airport because "he wanted to be there when daddy got done at work". That broke my heart when he said that. We are still adjusting to Eric being gone. Little Eric asks almost every morning when he wakes up if daddy is done at work yet. We take one day at a time and somehow we will make it.



Eric is hating life right now. They had 2 weeks of in processing so this week they just started training. He sleeps in a bay with about 40 other guys so there is no privacy what so ever. They really haven't been busy so he has nothing to do because he doesn't have a car. Once they really start training they train 6 days a week and Eric is looking SO forward to it. He just wants to stay busy so he has less time to think about how much he misses home.



But i just wanted to update everyone on how things were going. Check back often - I'll put updates about Eric here. Have a great evening.

the family at the top of the arch


Little Eric was alittle bored on the trip

Big and Little Eric at the arch

Who knew

So while little Eric was taking a bath I decided to clean the bathroom. We have been out of town for 2 weeks and getting ready to leave again tommrow and i wanted to have my house clean. Anyways - the whole time I am cleaning little Eric is asking me if he can help do this and help do that. I kept telling him no because well he was in the bathtub. The last thing i had to do was clean the toilet. Now he just thought it was amazing that the cleaner had turned the water blue. As I'm about to be done, little Eric asks again if he can help. He wants to flush the toilet. I kept telling him no. He then said (which i just wanted to die laughing), "Mommy I'm a good flusher. Your not a good flusher and Daddy is not a good flusher. I am a good flusher." Who knew that their were good flushers and bad flushers? :)

Our whirlwind travels

Since Eric is getting ready to leave he decided to take 40 days of leave and just vacation and visit family. We are in full swing of the travel and i should just say that it is a good thing that i like our car. It all started with my sister catherine's wedding at the end of July in NC. We drove there for the weekend. Then mid August, Eric's brother Sean got married in Florida so we went there for the weekend. Eric wasn't on leave at the time so both were quick weekend trips. We got home from Florida on Monday, Eric finished up at work and Thursday we left for NC to go camping. We went camping for 2 days and then headed back to Fayetteville on Saturday. Tuesday (today) we drove to Maryland to visit Eric's family. We will be here until next week, drive back to NC for the night and then continue on home. We will then be home for a couple of days and then it is off to Florida again for our cruise. I really can't complain because we are going to spend 5 days in the carribean. We get home from that and will be home for a week and a half then it is off to Fort Riley. We are driving to Fort Riley with Big Eric and will be there with him for about a week and then little eric and I will drive home. Whew - makes me tired just thinking about it.

My Future Hockey Player

In Columbus there is a youth hockey league and the age that it starts at is 3. So this year little Eric is so excited because he gets to play. A couple of weeks ago we bought him skates and Big Eric has hockey stuff around the house that little Eric plays with. We went to visit in NC and there is an ice skating ring there so little Eric knew that we were going to go. Big Eric had gotten a hockey helment down that we could bring with us and he insisted on wearing or holding on to the helment the whole 7 1/2 hours to NC. HE is crazy! He had a blast on the ice. He really would't skate without the "sled" (a chair looking thing to help him skate) but since it was his 1st time and he is only 3 we let him. :) j/k He had so much fun and asked me he we were going to go skating again tommrow. We are now in Maryland and hopefully will be able to go skating while we are here.

What runs through a 3 year olds mind as he is doing some of the stuff he does

A few days after the whole snake incident i was thinking what else could happen this week. I was in the living room and little eric was in my room and he called out to me "Mommy come and look at the picture of my self in your carpet." I thought uh oh that doesn't sound good. I thought he doesn't have any food (sometimes with cheerios or other small kinds of food he will make pictures with it), and i don't think he would think to draw with his finger in the carpet; so i ran in there. There on my bedroom carpet was a picture of little Eric drawn with a dry erase marker - in my carpet! I sent him to his room immediatly (thought that was the best because i just wanted to spank his butt!) I called my mom, sister, and consulted the internet to get it off and unfortunally have not been able to get it off.
I then had a LONG and stern talk with eric as to what is and is not appropriate to draw on. I guess it did get through to him though. He saw on a commercial today a man drawing on walls, floors, furniture, and he turned to me and said, "Mommy we don't draw on doors or carpets; only paper."
I still can't believe what he did. I guess he felt that i always needed a reminder of what he "looks" like.

Eric's drawing on my bedroom carpet

I just want to pack my stuff up and move!

I had the most traumatic experience yesterday - it makes me want to pack up my stuff and move away. I had just gotten out of the shower and was looking for some clothes that Eric had taken out of the dryer and dumped on the living room chair. There were some clothes that had dropped onto the floor so i was picking them up/looking for something. I went and picked up shirt and noticed that there was a snake on my living room floor. Yes i said a SNAKE! For those of you who know me i am deathly afraid of snakes and to have one in my house gives me the heebie jeebies and makes me want to SCREAM! I almost did but then thought how am i going to get this out of my house. I called Eric immediately and told him that he needed to get home now. I then thought that i needed to keep the snake where it was so i found a bucket put it over the shirt and snake. Since it was the middle of the afternoon i didn't know what male i was going to get to come over and get it out of the house since Eric wouldn't be home for almost 30 minutes. Luckily there is a stay at home dad who was home. I had never officially met him but we do wave to each other when we see each other. I went over there, introduced myself, and asked if he was afraid of snakes. He said no and i asked him very nicely if he could come and get the snake out of the house. Thankfully he did. I told him he didn't need to kill it that Eric would do it when he got home. Eric got home; laughed at me because the snake was a baby - only about 8 inches long and then killed it. We think the snake came through our dryer vent. The vent on the side of the house has these flaps that open when the hot air blows out but if there is no air they stay close. After looking behind the flaps we realized that there is no screen behind it. So one day when the flaps were opened the snake crawled up and crawled through the vent and got in the dryer. So when Eric took the clothes out of the dryer the snake was already there and he just moved the snake from the dryer to the living room. I made Eric go out last night and we bought some screen to put behind the flaps and bought some stuff called snake away and put it all around the house.
Eric got on the Internet to see if we could figure out what kind of snake. Our neighbor thought that it was a water moccasin and after looking at pictures we think it was some kind of cottonmouth snake. Ugh - i just hate to even think about it.
I'm so afraid that there are more snakes in the house (which i seriously doubt there are). I told Eric that all i could do today was sit on the couch because i am afraid snakes might come out of the woodwork. It is now going to take me a while to get over my fears and get back to not being so scared of picking things up from the floor. Hopefully that is the last snake sighting we see - especially since Eric is leaving. I'm really starting to think that we live in a zoo and i'm not too crazy about it! :)

just a close up after he killed it

so you can see how little it is

My Budding Artist

I'm such a proud mother today! :) Little Eric drew his first real pictures today and i was so proud i just have to post them. I know i am a geek but they are too funny not to share. Under each picture i will explain some parts of the picture.

Just a quick funny story. I was cleaning up the other day and had thrown a brown banana away. I guess little Eric saw it in the trash can a few minutes later and turned and told me "Mommy you can make a muffin with that." I didn't realize that he had watched or heard me talking about banana muffins. I guess he felt that i was wasting a perfectly good banana. He sure does make me laugh. :)

This is me (it didn't scan real well). Little Eric says the big circle is a ballon so i guess i'm floating in a ballon. I do have fingers and toes but unfortunally my arms are two different lengths. I love it though!

This is Eric's picture of himself. I tried to label some of the stuff because it was so funny when he was telling me what everything was. Most of the round circles are ballons. He did draw his bed (the top round rectangle looking thing), his shelf behind his bed (the big circle) with a ballon in it, and his cup that is sitting on his shelf. I thought the funniest thing was when i asked him what the line was coming out of his head he looked at me and said "It's my crazy hair!"
This is daddy with his "big head" (coming out of little eric's mouth not mine)

Why do we bother going anywhere where there are going to be fireworks?

I guess i have a pretty typical 3 year old who is afraid of fireworks. I don't know if there is anybody who is as afraid - little Eric is DEATHLY afraid! To the point of choking me and burying his head so far into my chest that i am afraid that he might actually end up in my chest. Here at Fort Benning they celebrate the 4th of the Saturday before that actually 4th. This year it was June 30th. They usually have a few bands to play, food, jumpy things for the kids, and a bunch of booths. We decided to go up to see the Silver Wings (Fort Bennings jump team), the Old Guard from DC, Bo Bice, and the fireworks. WE had told little Eric that we were going to go and up and see this stuff and the fireworks. WE were getting ready to leave and little Eric stopped before he walked out of the house and said that he didn't want to go and that he wasn't. We finally got him out of the house. HE was having a great time until the Old Guard's Commander in Chief Guard shot off their guns. But after that was over he was fine - until it got dark. HE knew that the fireworks were going to start after it got dark. The actually didn't start until 10:30 so from the time it got dark until the fireworks started (about an hour later) he layed on the blanket with his face buried in it. Once they did start big Eric convinced him to lay on his chest but Eric still dug his head into Big Eric's chest and didn't even peak at them. Why we waste our time and even try i don't know. We did see some more fireworks on the 4th and Eric actually watched some of them because they were kind of far away so he didn't have to hear the noise (which i think is what scared him). Hopefully next year he will actually want to see him. If not I'm not sure if I'm up for the fight.



Little Eric enjoying the fireworks


what a happy family

Just because I live in Alabama doesn't mean I'm a country bumpkin!

It was about 9:15 at night; i was eating my dinner and happened to catch something outside that caught my eye. I looked out the backdoor and there was a raccoon; yes you read that correctly a raccoon standing at the door peaking in our window. I started freaking out (of course) and thought that it was quite strange that it was still light outside and there was a raccoon so close to my house. Since we have a 3 year old i got alittle concerned because it was like the raccoon was in a casual stroll walking around our house. We decided to call animal control and of course because it was 9:15 nobody answered. We called the cops, and they came out. The cop asked us how long we had lived here wondering maybe if the people who lived here before us had maybe fed it. He thought maybe this because he has a friend that feeds a raccoon so now it is his "pet". Well i wanted to say that we aren't country bumpkins and don't keep raccoons as pets! He continued to look at us like we were crazy and wasting his time. He told us that he would file a report with animal control and maybe they would contact us. Well they haven't but we haven't seen the raccoon anymore so i guess i can't complain. We tried to get a picture of it but weren't too successful.
Update on the zoo going on at our house - not anything big. We had a wasp nest that Eric had to take care of. I'll add pictures. And don't worry I'll keep you posted on any other animal sightings. :)






Eric getting rid of the wasp nest

He likes her

This past Christmas Eric's brother Sean had his girlfriend Lisa come for a visit. Unfortunately she was not able to come until Eric and I had already left on our cruise. Evidently Little Eric was scared to death of Lisa. We have no clue why but he wouldn't look, talk, or go near Lisa. We asked him when we got home if he liked Lisa and he said no and has continued to say no he doesn't like. We still have no clue.
Well Sean and Lisa came up this past weekend just to visit. We weren't quite sure how Little Eric was going to act towards her. They didn't get here until after little Eric went to bed Friday night so we had to wait until Saturday. We had been up a while before Sean got up. Little Eric was happy to see Sean and started playing with him. A few minutes later Lisa got up and came out. The minute Lisa came out into the living room Little Eric went and hid in his tent (we have this sports tent that he got for Christmas and the only place it will fit is in the living room corner). He would not come out of the tent for anything. If he wanted something he would pick up the tent and move it to wherever it was that he needed to get something. We thought oh no this is going to be trouble. He wouldn't even walk in the same room. He wanted me to carry him to his bedroom. Eric and I had to go to a funeral Saturday morning so we weren't sure how he was going to act. We left hoping that somehow he would warm up to her.
Anyways - when we got home from the funeral he was best friends with her. He had shared some of his fruit snacks with her and i guess that had sealed the deal. We went to a Braves baseball game that afternoon and he always wanted her beside him. The whole rest of the weekend he wouldn't leave her alone at all! We kept telling Lisa that we know she was wishing that he still didn't like her so she could enjoy her weekend without a 3 year old pestering her.
It was fun though and I'm glad that he likes her. Lisa is a great girl and I'm glad we were also able to meet her. I'm posting some pictures to prove that he did in fact like her.

Eric & Lisa


Eric, Sean, & Lisa

i hope i have it working now

I think i finally got the video thing working (I hope). Let's cross our fingers that yes it will. I'm posting some videos we took a couple of months ago. One is little eric golfing and the other is him right after he learned to ride his bike. Enjoy!

Eric golfing


Eric riding his bike

eric swimming

i'm going to try and post the video of eric swimming again. Hopefully it works

another video

here eric is playing baseball on the beach

don't know what is going on with the video

I know that for some reason my video wouldn't play - it was just a black screen. I have taken off the video and tommrow will try and figure out what the problem is and hopefully get them reposted along with some other videos i have of little eric. Sorry!

I didn't know our house had turned into a zoo....

I'm the kind of person who really doesn't like ANY kind of animal - at all! So the past couple of days i feel like our house it turning into a zoo. The other night we were getting ready to go to bed. Eric had grilled out for dinner that night and remembered that he had forgotten to cover up his grill. So he turned on the back patio light and opened up the door. Now i should stop here and explain that we have a column on one corner of our patio. We have one in the front of our house too. Just a week ago we were able to get rid of a birds nest that was sitting on top of the column out front. I think the next day we noticed that we had one out back but it is against the law to move a birds nest if it has eggs in it. So anyways - back to the other night. Since we have a birds nest out of the back patio there is always a bird out there. I guess Eric had startled it when he flipped on the light and opened the door. It started flying around crazy caught up under the porch covering and ended up flying in our house - yes that's right the bird flew in our house. Now how do you get a bird out of your house. Well i ran into our bedroom, closed and locked the door and then sat in front of the door and yelled to Eric to open up all the doors and get it out. I was not coming out of the room until the bird was out of the house. To make matters worse since there was a bird in the house and all the doors were open because we were trying (well i wasn't trying; i was locked in my room :)~ ) a frog jumped into our house. So now we have a bird and a frog. Don't know how big the frog was - i really didn't care. I told Eric i wasn't coming out until all the animals were out. He got the frog out immediately and got the bird out a few minutes later. He just swatted at it forcing it to fly towards one of the doors and it flew out.
Well than we were watching TV last night. It was about 9:15 when our doorbell rang. Eric got up to answer it (i might add since it was pitch black outside and i watch too many crime shows i told Eric to go and get it and curled myself up on the couch afraid of who it might be. I;m such a baby!) Anyways it was our neighbor who had just gotten home and as they were pulling up they saw a snake crossing our driveway (don't know if it had come from their yard heading towards ours or had come from their yard heading towards ours). They were killing it; they just wanted to let us know that they had seen one. I hate snakes more than any other animal so this was something i didn't want to see or hear about. I told our neighbors that if i see any kind of creature when Eric is deployed I'm jumping on my table and calling them to come kill whatever it is. :) Big Eric told Little Eric about the snake and how it was outside and little Eric asks him what kind of snake it was. Is he now a snake expert? Eric says I'm a big baby and i know i am and that i have come to terms with it. So i have kind of felt that our house was turning into a zoo. I'll keep you posted if we have any more animal problems.
Not really anything else is happening. Some cute "ericisms". I take Eric to storytime on Fort Benning once a week. This past Tuesday they kicked off their summer reading program. One of the things Eric got while he was there was a pencil and a little rubber treasure chest that you could put on the end of the pencil. We had left the library and were driving to the store when he said, "Mommy, they forgot to give me a key to my treasure chest!" He said it with big concern but then said a few seconds later "Maybe tomorrow they will give it to me" I didn't know a 3 year old knew that you needed a key to your treasure chest. Crazy kid!
We are looking for a new car. We want to get rid of Eric's when he leaves but the only way to do it because we are so upside down is to trade both of our cars in and get one new one. Anyways, we were going to look at a car yesterday and little Eric said that he wanted to go drive a red jeep because red was his favorite color; then he said that blue was also his favorite color so we needed to go and drive a blue jeep too. We didn't drive either one but I'm sure next time we go look at cars he will ask the same thing.
Little Eric got hit in the face last week with a baseball bat by accident by a little kid who was over here playing. Anyways - he had a scrape and a bruise. the bruising is almost gone and the scab has just come off. Little Eric told me just a few minutes ago that he boo boo was gone but tomorrow he would get another one. Have we gone to scheduling when we get hurt? Did i miss that memo?
Well I'm off to make breakfast! Have a great day!

I have to go potty!

As we were getting ready to leave the swimming pool (more on that in a minute) little eric says he has to go potty. He then tells me that he can just wait until we get home. I ask him if he is sure that he can wait or does he just want to go now (okay not the brightest move laura). He says no he just wants to wait until we get home. I say fine, we get loaded in the car and we are off. About 5 minutes (well not even 5 minutes) down the road he says he has to go and we just need to stop at the gas station and so he can go. For some unknown reason this kid has this thing with going potty at the gas station. Everytime we are in the car and he has to go to the bathroom he just says "Let's just stop at the gas station." (It doesn't matter where we are and when we might be home - even if we are on our way home). I think this infatuation goes back to when he was just potty trained we were on a trip and he had to go so we stopped at a gas station and after he got done and flushed the toilet evidently it made a loud noise and he said, "There is a fire cracker in the toilet". Maybe he thinks that there really is a fire cracker in the toilet and maybe one day if he keeps going potty at the gas station he will see it. Who knows with little Eric. (For those wondering about the end of the story - we didn't stop and about 5 minutes from home he wet his pants and became hysterical. Maybe this mom will learn not to give him options and take him right then.)
Back to swimming - we took Little Eric swimming today and had a blast. This is only the 3rd time (other than when we were at the beach) we took him this summer. The first time he didn't really want anything to do with the pool and just wanted to walk around the pool with his floaties on. The 2nd time he got in and i actually got him to "swim" around without really holding on to me. Today he didn't want me to touch him at all and would rather just swim around by himself. He loves being at the pool and swimming. I think i'm going to put him in swimming lessons this summer. I don't know if i will do the mom and tots class or try to put him in the next level. I think i'm going to start with the mom and tots and if the instructer thinks he is ready to go to the next level we will move him up. I will keep you all posted. Check back in the next day or so and i should have some pictures from swimming and hopefully i can figure out how to put a video on this and i'll add the video of him swimming.

Where does this kid learn this

Okay - so i have 2 cute "ericisms"
The other night big Eric was making dinner and got mad at little eric. He slamed a drawer shut in the kitchen. Little Eric proceeded to tell him, "Dad don't do that because you are going to break it." Yes sir, O wise one.
Thursday i had folded clothes but didn't have time to put them away before i went to work. I had matched the socks on the couch and just left them sitting there. Later that evening Big eric started throwing the socks on the ground and little eric said, (get ready for this) "Daddy, Mommy is going to get mad at you if you throw those." Okay you little smart one

Really where does this kid learn this - i know it isn't from his mother! :)

Welcome to my blog...

Hey guys - I got the idea of starting a blog from my sis (thanks Liz). Okay so i know that she didn't start the whole blogging craze but i thought it was a great idea to do because we have friends and family all over the US. Now i can keep you updated on our pretty boring family. :) I also thought it would be helpful when eric goes overseas to keep you updated on him. I'm jot very good at emailing so hopefully this will help everybody feel like they know what is going on in our lives. I'm still new to this so check back often and hopefully i will have more pictures and more stuff to say. Little Eric always says the craziest things so i will probley get on and put it on (it also helps me remember what he says so when i do decide to become one of those good moms and get his baby book filled out i'll have some stuff to put in it! :)~ )
ENJOY!