Busy Boy

Remember when I posted pictures of Natalie's and Eric's advent calendars? Well, notice something odd about the advent calendar in this picture? Several of the windows are open. I took this picture on Monday. There should only be six windows open. Today the windows are almost all open. What's a curious, antsy three-year-old to do but keep opening windows so he can play with the toys inside?

Yup, one of Eric's favorite pastimes right now is playing with his Playmobil advent calendar. Patrick and I have decided that as long as he leaves Natalie's advent calendar alone, he can do what he wants with his calendar. He's really enjoying it and we would hate to squelch his excitement. We've left both calendars on the formal dining room table for now because we don't have anywhere else to put them. Eric brings his stool in there just so he can turn on the lights, then he plays with his new advent calendar toys.

Tonight, Eric was also playing with his "Fridge DJ" that I think Grandma got him for Christmas last year. There's a powerful magnet on the back so it stays on the refrigerator even when we open and close the door. It plays music that I think is pretty catchy sometimes. Patrick must hear the music more than I do, because he wishes that the batteries would run down. I thought Eric was pretty cute sitting in front of the refrigerator tonight in his Thomas PJs grooving to the beat of his "Fridge DJ".

When he saw me with the camera, he started crawling to me on his belly. Then he got up and saw some leftover Smarties candies on the counter. The leftover Halloween candy is still on that kitchen counter and we often see Eric rummaging through, looking for candy he wants to eat. He likes to sneak sweets like his siblings before him. In another few days, I'll probably throw away any Halloween candy they have left or take it to work, so that we can make room for the Christmas candy.

I wanted to post this picture of Eric looking adorable in his Thomas PJs. He was supposed to sing in a Christmas program at his school tonight. It was only supposed to last about 10 minutes, but he said he wasn't going to sing and we still remember when Alex had a Christmas program there when he was about the same age. We still remember having a hard time finding a parking spot, then after we found one and went to the program, we stood there for only 10 minutes watching all of the other kids sing. Alex didn't sing at all. We decided that he sings for us at home all the time. We can skip the official program. It's not like we weren't doing anything tonight. Natalie still had her swimming practice and Alex had his soccer practice. I'm looking forward to the holidays partly because we won't have all of these practices to go to!