First Christmas present of 2011

Our very sweet neighbors, Skip and Barb, always remember Josiah at holiday times and usually give him a wonderful present from Hallmark.  The first gift made noise, the second and third made noise AND moved which in Josiah's book is a MAJOR plus!  Well, they outdid themselves this year...this one sings, moves AND light's up!!  Check it out...

Trees, trees and more trees

As I've more than likely mentioned a few (thousand) times before, I absolutely LOVE the Christmas holiday season and all that comes with it!  Christmas Carols make their debut in my car the day after Halloween and do not cease until at LEAST mid-January...just ask my "I-used-to-work-retail-and-cannot-stand-Christmas-music" husband:-)  I've started Josiah on this tradition as well and his current favorite song is "Go Tell it on the Mountain"...has nothing to do with his love of all things loud I'm sure:-)

A local organization (Hiawatha Homes) puts on the Festival of Trees every year that features MANY decorated, themed Christmas trees that are auctioned off with proceeds going to benefit the organization. (Jan, you NEED to get one of your themed trees up here next year!) Although they have been doing this for years, I have never been....until this year!  Late Saturday (after stuffing ourselves with yet another turkey dinner) a few of us decided to rouse ourselves from our triptofan (sp?) coma and go so Cindy, Ashley, Vanessa, Addison, Bennett, Josiah and I headed down to the Civic Center to check it all out.  Josiah is WAY into Christmas lights and Christmas trees right now so the majority of the words coming from his mouth were "Wow"  "Oooo" and "Wook at dat one mommy!"  It was a great experience and one that I think we will make a tradition in years to come.  Here are a few pictures:

Addison (3), Josiah (2) and Bennett (7 mo)

"Wook at dat one Mommy!"

Grandma and her "angels"

Ashley, Vanessa, Bennett, Cindy and Addie enjoying the view

Winter Wonderland!

Kind of hard to see but this tree was mounted on
top of a hand-carved, wooden, working carousel!!  So cool!

After seeing all the beautiful trees, I was inspired to go home and pull ours out immediately...didn't quite measure up, may need the Ingy touch Jan:-)  What do you think??

Play date with the Rogers girls

Our dear friends, Karl and Kristin Rogers, have adorable (almost) two year old twin girls and the other day they came over to play for a few hours with Josiah.  Having 3 toddlers running around the house could cause stress but not so this day!  The three of them had a blast and giggled and ran and played the whole time with only a few minor "bumps"  It was a great reminder of how uninhibited children are and how they find joy in everything...even cooking plastic lizards in a fake microwave or wearing bags on their heads as hats.  Jesus loves the little children and it's easy to see why....

Think Karl and Kristin will see this expression
again...I suspect we can pull this photo out
in about 10 years and the answer will be yes:-)

Cheeeeeeese!!

Sophia chillaxin with her juice

Jocelyn was the more serious of the three for the
evening...here she is catching up on her reading

"How do you like my hat?"

Two peas in a pod!!

Fall Fun 2011

We have had a BEAUTIFUL fall here in MN this year. Lots of crisp air but warm sun that make for amazing afternoons outside running in the crispy leaves!  As far as I'm concerned, we could have this weather year round!!  So, with the favorable weather has come many an outing.  Here are a few pictures chronicling our fun fall!

Playing in the leaves
Erik, Addison (3), Josiah (2) and Seth

Who doesn't love rolling down a hill??
The daddies were definitely more dizzy than the kids:-)

Papa Gary's awesome fire

Mmmmm.....s'mores!

Orchard time!  Ready for the bumpiest hayride known to mankind?!
Josiah (2), Miles (3), and Henry(1)

How big am I this year?

Try to get 3 toddler boys to pose for a picture....riiiiiigggghhhht!

The boys were ultra concerned about the fate of this
poor biker until we showed them that it was just pretend:-)

The goats were a BIG hit!  The boys picked up every
 kernel of corn they could find to feed to them
and the little goats gently took it from their hands...precious:-)

With fall comes....HALLOWEEN!!  As many of you know, we have an annual Becker Halloween bash at my parent's house and dressing up is HIGHLY recommended. It's so much fun to see every one's creativity every year and now that we have a crop of wee ones around, the fun has multiplied!  Since Halloween fell on a Monday this year, the party was on Saturday so we could party it up without fear of having to rise too early the next morning!

I know we got one with Seth but do you think I can find it?  No.

Peter Pan (Miles) and Tinker Bell (Robin) came with
Curious George (Henry) and The Man in the Yellow Hat (Kyle)

Yellow (Nick) and Black (Olivia)...it's a song by an artist that
I don't know...but my Grandma does!  Go figure?

Colonel Mustard (Steve) and Mrs. Peacock (Jeanie)
They won first prize for Best Costume this year!

Referee (Grandma Sissy), Gabriel the Angel
 (Grandma Greseth) and Prisoner (Rosie)

Beautiful Eskimo (Ellie) and her Igloo (Scott)

Zorro (Doug) and his lady in red (Terry)

Go Vikes!!  Coach (Brian), Player (Blair)
and cutest cheerleader EVER (Quinn)

Sonny (Mary) and Cher (Todd)
2nd prize in the Best Costume category

Cat In The Hat (Mike) with
Thing 1 (Nykkole) and Thing 2 (Nancy)

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!
Charlie (Marc), Pumpkin (Callan) and Peppermint Patty (Jen)

Honey Bunches of Oats:-)
Laura and Jake

The whole Becker Clan (minus Helen)

What's Halloween without a few carved pumpkins??  A few years ago (pre-kids) we used to get together and spend hours carving intricate pumpkins.  Now that the kids are coming in droves...we still got together to carve but the patterns have simplified:-)  Check it out:

His first reaction to seeing pumpkin guts:  "eeewwwwwww"

For the ACTUAL Halloween holiday, we did our first Trick-or-treating with Josiah.  Grandma Sissy's place offers trick-or-treating and we took them up on it!  Indoors, warm and safe?  Yes please!  After a few quick stops to show off his Builder costume to Grandma, Papa, Grandma Pat and Grandpa Dewey, we headed to Homestead for the Halloween Kiddie Parade and trick-or-treating.  Josiah was in a great mood (who wouldn't be with people handing you candy every 2 feet) and kept proclaiming "I'm a builder and I save the day!"  OK Buddy:-)

Waiting for the parade to begin

After all that fun, a fella needs a nice warm bed
FULL of friends (obviously) to come home to
and get a good night's sleep!!

Playtime!

We had a rare evening at home with just the three of us the other night so playtime ensued:-)  I hurried to edit this and get it on the Blog just for you Kaidance, Madilyn and Aubrey!!  Enjoy:-)

Women of Faith

This past weekend I was lucky enough to sneak away for a couple days to a conference in St. Paul called Women of Faith.  I went with one of my besties, Kristin, and we met up with her mom and a group of lovely ladies from the Litchfield area.  It was the quintessential girl's weekend...lots of good food, stories, laughter and of course a few tears shed over the emotional stories shared.  This was my first time at a Women of Faith event and I was HIGHLY impressed!  The speakers were phenomenal and the music was uplifting and the whole experience was a blessing.  If you have a chance to attend, you won't regret it!  Check out their website for more info.  A BIG thank you to my mom and dad for letting Josiah hang out at their house while I was gone and Daddy was working!!  Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

We rode in style on the Jesus bus

Lunch time at BWW
Tianna, Kristin, me, Heather

Some more of the lovely ladies:
Monica (Kristin's mom), Ellen, Judy and Diane

You can see Bob the driver in the front of the bus...this brave
soul drove 40 women around downtown St. Paul for 2 days
and didn't lose his mind...we don't think:-)

Matching shirts are a MUST for any successful girls weekend, aren't they?

Ding Dong

Every day before we go in the house, Josiah has to ring the door bell and say "Ding dong, who's here? Oh, it's me!"  Every day.  Without fail.  So, last night I finally got it on tape since I think it's pretty cute:-)  And it will be great footage to pull out at his graduation party or wedding some day:-)  Enjoy!

What has the little man been up to?

I haven't posted about Josiah in a few weeks so I thought I'd update you all on what he's been doing these days.  Mainly, he's perfecting the art of being two years old.  A friend from church taught him to say "I'm 2, and I'm good at it!" a few weeks ago and boy was she right!  He is mainly a happy go lucky kind of guy...unless he is short on sleep and then LOOK OUT!  Wailing, gnashing of teeth and crying abound!  I don't think he is unique in this development, in fact most parents probably can relate.  I can't complain too much because a good dose of sleep restores order and all is well again:-)  He talks NON-stop and by non-stop, I mean, from the time he opens his eyes to the time he closes them again, he is narrating life.  One positive to this is that I don't have to be in the same room with him to know what he's up to, he tells me:-)  Overall he is a sweet little guy and keeps us laughing all the time with his antics and commentary on life.  Here are a couple pictures and a video to illustrate further.

He discovered "chock-whet" cake and hasn't looked
 back...the boy has a sweet tooth just like his daddy!

Doing his best Forrest Gump impression