First grill out of the season

For some inexplicable reason, spring/summer decided to arrive in early March this year instead of early May.  Why?  Who knows but I'm not asking too many questions since we are all LOVING the warm sun and lack of snow and ice that so often accompanies the arrival of March.  Our first official grill out was fun and gave us a glimpse of what this summer will be like, so excited that it seems we will have a few extra weeks of this than usual!

Check out Henry's face...this is his "I'm about to poke or hit someone"

Looks like Josiah was the recipient of that one from Henry:-)
(L-R:  Miles 3 yrs, Josiah 2 yrs, Henry 2 yrs, Callan 14 mo, Quinn  5 mo)

Yay, we get to play outside!!

Dessert!!

After all that fun in the sun and sand box, it's time for a bath
Callan & Henry were the first wave in,
followed by Josiah and Miles....Quinn decided to
go home to her own bath, boys are yucky!

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!!

A day at the zoo

Last week I took a day off work and Josiah and I headed north with Jayme and her girls, Kaidance, Madilyn, and Aubrey and Robin and her boys, Miles and Henry.  That's right, 3 adults and 6 kids...crazy you say?  Nah, we're seasoned pros by now:-)  Well, seasoned when it comes to handling the kids...not so much with the directions when there are detours:

Thankfully the neighborhood watch was lax that day so
no police officers were called to report 2 suspicious vehicles in the area

"Ok, we're here...we need to get here..."

So, after a slight delay and a stop at McDonald's for lunch we made it to Como Park Zoo and Conservatory!  If you are in the St. Paul area, you should definitely check it out!  We decided to start the day with the zoo portion and saw several animals.

Giraffes!

Polar bear...poor guy looked a little warm, probably
wondering where his ice and snow had gone!

The girls getting a good look at the polar bear

Our monkeys watching the monkeys.  Highlight of that exhibit?
When the monkey peed on the rock, the  kids thought it was hilarious!

What comes next in the day?  Snack of course!  Most of us enjoyed popcorn and ice cream treats.  All but Miles who somehow doesn't like either one (I know, we've had him checked out and the doctor says it's normal but we're still not sure) so he enjoyed an apple.  Yes, we should all have followed suit but the popcorn and frozen lemonade were deelish!

After snack it was time to hit Como Town.  If you've never been there, Como Town is like a fair midway for little ones and it is great!  We bought the oldest four armbands so they could ride as much as they wanted and they took full advantage!  First up were the swings which I was convinced was MUCH too dangerous for my two year old but after he cried to go on and Jayme assured me that Madi had been riding since she was 2, I caved and put him on.  I fully expected to have him freak out but was pleasantly surprised when he beamed from ear to ear and yelled from the ride "Wook at us Mommy, we way up in the 'kye"  He did cry when the ride broke down during their second time on it but not because he was scared, he didn't want it to stop:-)

You can't see him very well here but trust me, he was LOVING it!

We had a small melt down around 3:00 when the fact that Josiah had only napped for 30 minutes in the car caught up with him.  I earned my Mother-of-the-year award with this next shot:

Yes, he cried.  On the ride.  The whole time.

After a short ride in the stroller with his bookia and a return to rides more his speed, all was well again!

All in all, it was a FANTASTIC day and fun was had by all!!  Thank you to the Davidson girls and the Kroening boys for a very fun day!!  Let's do it again soon...but this time we'll check ahead for detours:-)  Here are a few more shots from the day:

Group shot!
Kaidance (7), Miles (3), Henry (1), MadiBelle (4), Aubrey (1), Josiah (2)

Henry and Aubrey became good buddies:-)