Recently, Janae found my old phone--actually, my very first phone, which was an iphone 4. She bought a charge cord, since it was so old none of ours fit it anymore, and got it working well enough to use as an ipod.
The first couple of days, she kept showing me pictures of Eric that were stored on the phone.
Like this one of him as a baby,
or this one of him holding his baby,
this one of him in his sunglasses (remember those?),
or this one of him holding one of his favorite guitars.
It was fun to see all these old pictures, especially with Eric's birthday coming up. It's so hard to believe that this little guy is SIX!
This year he didn't want a guitar cake, he wanted a Harry Potter party, just like he'd seen pictures of Ben or Alaina having. Since we've read the first book together at least five times (we're currently listening to it in the car again as an audio book), and we're more than halfway through The Chamber of Secrets, we're pretty into Harry Potter--and I was happy to focus on a wizard theme for Eric's special day.
Eric is still not crazy about going to school, so I'd volunteered to help out in his classroom on his birthday when the sign-up sheet came out for January. He wanted me to bring mini chocolate cupcakes, so I spent the morning working on those and decorating the house.
I set up some Hogwarts letters shooting out of our fireplace and some candles floating above the table, then enchanted the ceiling to look like a starry sky,
and made a cake that resembled the one Hagrid gave Harry on his eleventh birthday.
I also made some chocolate frogs, which Eric said were his favorite thing about his birthday.
When Eric came home after school, he was really surprised and excited. He put on his Hogwarts robes right away and pulled out his wand :)
Janae helped me make a few golden snitches to hide around the house,
and then Grandma and Grandpa arrived for pizza and cake.
It's nice to have a birthday to celebrate after all the excitement of Christmas and New Year's is over--it really brightens up our January every year. I mentioned this to my dad and he said, "Eric is the reason for the season!"
The next day was Friday, and I'd promised Eric he could stay home from school (since I wouldn't be working), so we got to crack open some of his more time-consuming presents:
this volcano science experiment,
this Harry Potter Lego adventure set,
and this puzzle from Grandma.
It had also snowed overnight, so Jason was home and we had fun playing at the park
and making this snowman--which was leaning over a little while later when the snow turned to pouring rain and completely lying on the ground by the end of the day.
Doesn't Eric look so grown up?
He's definitely lost his baby look, but as he often says, he'll always be my baby!
I'm so grateful I'll always be his mama, too.
