Happy Birthday Eric!

It's Eric's 1st Birthday! Yay!

I can't believe a whole year has passed already, and yet it also seems like Eric

has been a part of our family for forever! Here are some pictures of Eric's birthday celebrations..

Eric walking

Eric's development towards walking has been a completely different process than Owen's was. He started taking independent steps right at 10 months, and has been slowly progressing towards full walking since then.

Between 10 and 11 months, he could take 3-4 steps at a time before falling down, and mostly only tried to walk when crossing a short space between the couch and a person or something else close.

Between 11 and 12 months, he started to take a few more steps at a time, could re-adjust and keep from falling down (some of the time!), and started walking out into the middle of the room or standing up in the middle of the room to walk without a particular goal in mind other than walking.

Today, I would say he is definitely a walker, despite the fact that he falls down a lot, but it is hard to pinpoint when I would say it happened. :) Here is a video of him walking around his toys this morning.

Outdoor play

Eric's 1st birthday present from Mom and Dad was a playhouse for the backyard. Here are some pics of Owen and Eric playing in it as well as a pic of them in the sandbox with cousin Paddy.

Christmas 2009

A little late posting, but better late than never!

Here are some pictures of Christmas with Owen and Eric, backdated so it is in the right month. :) On Christmas eve, the boys opened their presents from Mom and Dad -- isn't it funny how they always like the wrapping paper, box or instructions? Eric climbed into boxes, frying pans, and anything else he could sit inside during this holiday. :)

On Christmas morning, they got to see what Santa had brought them while they were sleeping.

(Yes, we believe in Santa at our house -- I don't mind giving him credit for the presents, plus I think you only get to experience a little magic when you are young, so why not enjoy it all without having to face reality for as long as possible, right?)

Finally, we dressed the boys up for Christmas day, but it was a little tough to convince them to sit still for a good picture. Here's the best we could do!

family cruise

I'm sorry for the long delay in posting this -- I've backdated it to when we returned form the trip so that everything will be in order. :) Vacationing just before the holidays makes it awfully difficult to get anything done! We haven't even sent out our Christmas cards yet! Of course, that probably means we'll never get them out! ;-(

Here are some pictures from the cruise we took just before Christmas. It was really fun, but I think cruising is definitely more aimed at kids that are in the 6-12 range rather than 0-6 range. Owen was especially excited to sleep in his "bunkin' bed" as he called it. He LOVED climbing up and climbing down, over and over and over again, and now he is asking for a "bunkin' bed" for his room, too. :)

Christmas prelude

For the 3rd year in a row, we have visited the same Christmas tree farm in early to mid-December, chosen and chopped down our tree, and vacuumed up very stubborn pine needles from our carpet. :) This was the 2nd year that Owen has understood what we were doing, and so he remembered last year's tree and the place we go. It was really neat to see him get so excited, and he keeps asking both Shea and me, "Is Christmas the next day?" which is his way of saying tomorrow. :) As for ourselves, we keep saying, "I can't believe this is Eric's first Christmas and he is already so big!" Owen was less than 2 months old for his first Christmas, so this is quite a change for us!


















Owen has also really gotten into the idea of Santa delivering his presents, and has REALLY taken time to explain to Santa what he wants. In the several pictures preceding this one, Eric is crying almost continuously, while Owen ignores that completely and tells Santa, complete with gestures, all about the transformers he also wants for Christmas (that he forgot to tell Santa about on his first visit to another Santa a few days before this). :)