13 months - Becca

This last month you have officially started the "toddler" stage of life. You no longer crawl anywhere but walk or run everywhere. You still aren't talking much but you have picked up the signs "more" and "please". The sign for "milk" is still your sign for "give me". If the signs don't get you what you want you happily use your voice or shall we say screams. Ben is still your favorite person and you follow him wherever he goes. I think your favorite place to terrorize him is while he's taking a bath. You can make it from the living room, up the two steps, across the dining room and down the hall before I can get up off the floor. You proceed to go into the bathroom and scream and your brother "URRGGHHHHH!!!!" only said in a girly high pitched voice is what your daddy and I hear, followed by a "mom, dad, Becca's bothering me". I can't wait to see what your brother and your relationship will be like when you are 14 and he is 17 and you are both in high school together. Will you still be yelling at him?

You are still our little garbage disposal, you eat anything we put in front of you, except white food. The other night we gave you a bit of baked potato and cauliflower. You wouldn't eat either. I hope you don't become as picky as your brother is.

My Becca Grace,
You are getting to be so fun, I can't believe that a year ago I would hold you and cuddle you. Now a days it is a rare event if you let us cuddle you. Yesterday you woke up early from your nap, all you wanted to do was cuddle. Moments like these I am learning to treasure because before I know it we won't have them.

Love, Momma

Her name is Becky and other cute things

*When we named Rebecca we wanted her known as Rebecca or Becca. Ben lately has taken to calling her Becky. It's cute to here him say it. I don't know if he calls her this because we call have called him Benny for so long or exactly why. Up until this time she's been known as Baby Becca or just Becca.

*Another cute thing Ben's started doing is praying for our meal. His prayers always start the same "Bless this food to our bodies and our bodies to Your service" It's the part after that where we learn exactly what he's thinking. Sometimes he will pray that we all will go to Walmart after dinner so he can get a notebook or sometimes it's praying for ice cream after his bath. He also will thank the Lord for things that stand out to him. Today he thanked God for a good nap. It's wonderful to see that it just isn't words that he's repeating but he's also bringing wants and desires and a thankful heart to his God.

*Since Walter and I fell in love (6 years ago this month) he has told me 3 reasons why he loves me every night before we go to sleep. It is something that we do to our kids. The other night Ben and I were having a 'pajama party' (watching a movie while daddy was at the church working Friday night). After the movie was over I turned out the lights and he wanted to cuddle. I started telling him reasons why I loved him and he started telling me reasons why he loved me. "Because you are the best cuddler" "Because you are my best buddy" "Because you love me" Does parenting get better than this? I don't know how it could.

Summer is almost over

And where did the time go? In just 4 short weeks we will be back to our regularly scheduled program. Ben will be going to Debbie's and doing preschool there in the morning and Becca and I will be dividing our time between the gym, MOPS and I'm sure plenty of other things.

It's actually been a great summer. We haven't done anything "big", heck we haven't even gone to the lake once! Ben's done Bible Camp and VBS that were each a week long. We celebrated birthdays and went to the fair, enjoyed days at the park and for the last week and a half we've enjoyed going and meeting Walter for lunch each day. He's had a class at the county ed office and since we never get to see him during work hours at the prison it's made for a nice diversion.

The last few weeks have been busy with MOPS stuff. We finally had our first meetings last week and I'm really excited about the women that I'm working with and the vision that the Lord has given each one of us. Just a few more weeks of planning and then the school year kicks of and we are on to new things.