Wow! Christmas this year has been so much different with Becca. She is so much more involved and fun this year with the presents and the activities! Its been a blast!

Christmas Eve day, she and I started a new tradition...pedicures for our piggies! Really, this was an attempt to get her to let me cut her toenails, and it worked. So we both had painted red toenails for Christmas!

That day we spent at my Mom and Dad's with Wendy and Xavier also, and exchanged gifts between the kids, enjoyed chili, sandwiches and a birthday cake for Jesus. We also attended the Christmas Even service at church, where they had a live nativity, Camel, cow, goat and lamb! It was soo neat! Becca enjoyed the animals as well! Coming home, she fell asleep in the car, but decided to play a bit and set out graham crackers and grape juice for Santa, and an apple for the reindeer. Right before going to bed, Tim brought out a special book that he had picked up, The Night Before Christmas, (suprise #1)and started their own little tradition. Becca sat on his lap and intently looked at the pictures as he read her the story. I...well, I sat in the chair watching them and cried. I'm such a softy! Had I known he was going to do this, I would have taken a picture. shoot!

Christmas morning was a blast. Tim and I were up and ready when Becca woke up and we came down stairs to find a Pretty Princess tent set up in the living room, and Elmo bag on her chair and a shiney new red trike with a big red bow! That trike even suprised me! (Tim's pretty sneaky this year!) Becca had all the rest of her presents unwrapped by 630am! It was still dark out! She had a good time playing with all the new blocks, and animals, and beads and books! Cody joined us later in the morning, and Mom, Dad and Wendy came over to see us for a short time before we headed out to Gumpa Seee's (grandpa Steve). More fun and food was had out there, and this time, Becca came home with a new Radio Flyer Fire Truck! Wow... she loves this! And she'll make her siren noises as soon as she sits down on it!


An on another front....Becca has slept thru the night without a paci for the last 2 nights, and last night, she even fell asleep without it! Yay Becca!!!!! We're so happy and proud of her!

Well, we hope everyone else had a great holiday! Stay safe and we'll post again soon!

Merry Christmas
Tim, Missy, Cody and Becca

Ready or not...

I forgot to mention (I think) that we came to a point where Becca had become waaaay to dependent on her paci of late. Soooo, last weekend, we decided to use my sisters trick, of cutting the tip off the paci, so the "suck" isn't productive and after awhile, they just stop wanting it. Right off the bat, it worked! We sympathize with her and say, " I'm sorry, its broken!" We went all week without her asking for her broken paci...however, we kept a good one for bedtime only. Baby steps!
Tonight, we cut the tip off the night time paci....(yes we have back-ups just in case), but so far (58 minutes into bedtime) all is good.

Today we played and cleaned, wrapped the last of the presents and enjoyed some time together before the craziest hits tomorrow with all the running around with our Christmas plans! Becca got to play in the snow for about 8 minutes today. Thats all Momma and Daddy could stand, it was so windy! I know she was plenty warm in her layers of clothes and socks and in a snowsuit, but all the good snow was light enough it blew away and the icy snow underneath was all there was to play on. She even got to wear the snow suit Gma Kathy bought last Christmas for her. It was too big then, and perfect today. (and it was a size 12mo! Crazy, I know, the little pixie butt! She's 21 months!)

We just got home after deciding to go on a short drive to look at Christmas lights! Becca likes to point out all the lights and say "si-si" her same word for Christmas tree. Some days its "sis-sis" too. On the drive, Tim decided we needed to stop for a treat, each of us getting our own choice. He choose popcorn shrimp, I got a hot fudge sundae, and Becca....well she just whined for a paci, so I gave in once again and she got her "treat" of a paci also! Ok, ok, so when she got home she had a granola bar! I'm not that rotten!

Happy Holidays!

Its going to be a busy next couple of days...so just wanted to drop a line and wish everyone a safe, fun and merry Christmas!

I'm sure I'll be back with pictures and stories after the holidays! We can't wait to see how Becca is with all the present opening! This year will be alot different than last I'm sure of it!

With all my love ....Missy

ps...and here's to little Ralphie, his RedRyder gun and his dad's Leg Lamp!

Becca speaks Hebrew!!!

Or at least what sounds like hebrew! Last week she yelled at us from the middle of the living room...." Yada Sha-bye"! When we didn't understand her, and asked her to repeat it, she got frustrated and yelled it over and over and over again! Looking at Tim and I as we laughed at how funny it was that she obviuosly knew exactly what she was saying, and how dumb she thought we were for not understanding!
Well, Sunday night, Yada Sha-Bye...became I-Sha-Bye! But only when she was flip floping around on the furniture and trying to be a gymnastic star! Still not sure what she is trying to say! But its hillarious!

Becca's excema is flaring up really bad. She's had it every day of her little (almost) 2 year life! But Sunday night, it was waking her up cause it itched so bad. Some Ibruporfen and another slathering of aquaphilic got her thru the night, but not before scratching so much she was drawing blood. Poor thing. The Dermatologist will see her next Thursday and can't get her in before. So we're told to use alot of vaseline for the poor thing.

Well, we're gearing up for Christmas. I think Tim's inner grinch is starting to creep out with all the family time! He always has a blast when we're all together, but its the thought of having 4 or 5 christmas gatherings that is exhausting! We are staring a new tradition this year (tim, becca, cody and I) at our house. Rather than going to mom and dads on xmas morning like we normally do, we'll be spending christmas at our own house, and then mom and dad will come to us, to share in playing with Becca's toys before we head out to Steve's. This will work best. That way Becca doesn't have to leave her treasure trove of brand new toys....to go to gma and gaga's house right away! And we've only had a couple of attempts by Becca to open a gift that is
under the tree....and its not even hers! Just a couple more days, and I'm sure that she'll be ripping into everything!

Lay-Low!

No, that isn't what we've been doing....rather, what Rebecca calls Playdough! Lay-Low! Hey, we are surprised at how close it sounds to the real thing! She's found her new favorite thing. Loves using my cookie-cutters with the playdough. I thought about giving her a plastic fork and knife to cut and play and make designs with, but she's also, very fond of the TASTE of playdough, so I decided giving her eating utensils would only promote eating it.

We seemed to have lost her BIG crayons at Gma Kathy's house, so I busted out MY box of 96 colors.... Wow, you should have seen her eyes light up. I've never seen them so big!

Today we did a little bit more shopping for Christmas. Only one small gift left to get. Oh and I still have to shop for Tim. He is the hardest to buy for. And his birthday is in January, so as if it isn't hard enough to buy for him for Christmas, I really only have about 2 weeks until I have to buy for him again. Its not like theres enough time in between, or a couple months of "hey..you know what I would like..." to get more ideas with.
I suppose that only supports his Birthday Boy Privleges that he believes he should get for the whole month of December and full month of January, because he has a birthday so close to Christmas. (whatever) You should hear some of the things he come up with that falls into his Birthday Boy Privleges. Oh, like, it should be ok for him to throw his dirty stinky socks at me, or that I should refill his glass when he needs it, or I should let him tickle my feet...all because his bday is coming up. (oops...as Tim reads over my shoulder)

Ok, becca wants to add something....

yyg n gccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccclllll; dssdsaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax2222245

Ok, time to watch Dora!

Hallmark Weekend

I swear...if someone is looking in, and flipped this last week over to see if there was a gold crown on the back...I guarantee you would find one there! We had Hallmark written all over us!

Last week, the Grandpa of one of my oldest and best friends passed away. Because Chris lives in VA, we don't get to see eachother often. I'm glad I did get to see him last week, but hate that it was under these circumstances. But he is back home safe and away from this horrible Iowa weather pattern we seem to be stuck.

Thursday night Tim, Becca and I went out to the OP with Cody. That was nice and fun to catch up. Becca thought it was fun when Tim and Cody joined her in coloring/scribbling after dinner. She wanted nothing to do with me!
Wendy had her bunion surgery on Thursday and stayed at Mom and Dad's until Sunday night. I'm sure she was itchin' to get back to her house. Xavier will be more than happy to help around the house I'm sure!

Friday night, Tim and I remembered quickly why we don't like Chuck-E-Cheese! Tim's nephew Kyle had is 4th Birthday party there. Its obvious that the kids have a blast, but you can see it on the faces of the parents as soon as they walk in! Instant headache and regret!.....Just kiddin. Becca didn't want anything to do with the toddler rides or games. Not one bit! But she ate pizza and grapes and a couple slices of an orange and was ready to go!

We spent the weekend in DeWitt...at Kathy and Joes for our early Christmas!!
Cody came along and it was great to have him there! It was adorable to hear the boys talkin' favorite bands, movies, games, etc. Tim sharing army stories and Cody sharing Reverb/playing in the band stories.
Tyler and Cody hit it off as soon as Tyler got off work. We didn't see them for the rest of the evening!
After a great lasagna meal, presents (i got a large family planner calander...after this last week...I deffinately need it! ) and cheesecake for dessert....we headed back home. We all had a blast, and we're looking forward to the next we can all get together. Tim was all smiles last night after we got home and settled back in. I think my smile hurts today too!

Star of the Week!!!

This week Becca has been chosen as her classroom's Snowflake of the Week! As little as it is, and she sooo doesn't understand it, we are making a big deal of it! Her teacher asked for pictures to post on their bulletin board in teh Daycare, and listed her favorites (toy, food, pet, etc). I showed it to her today when I dropped her off and she was sooo happy! I'm sure she's having fun showing it off to the other kids....showing them Nene (maggie) and Bubba (bunny) and pictures of Momma and Daddy.

I'm without a car, because we noticed a puddle in the garage that didn't look quite right. Tim saw it, because its still light out when he gets home. Its always dark when I leave and come home. So whatever yellow and oil mixture is...I suppose its not good. So I dropped off my car today and they will call me back with their findings. How inconvenient.

Tim and I had planned on going to the Hockey game last Saturday, but with the ice, snow, sleet and rain...we opted to stay home instead. Wise decision. But sounds like we have 1-5" on its way by Wednesday morning again. Not looking forward to that..without a car!

Friday night is Tim's nephew Kyle's birthday, so we will be celebrating at Chuck-E-Cheese with them. Tim and I laughed when we got the invitation....becasue we had agreed when we found out that we were pregnant, that we would tell our children that "chuck-e-cheese and Adventureland" don't exist. We're sooo over those too locations. We just figured we would tell our children that their friends just had active imaginations and that they were just making it up. Cause we don't want to go! Ha! How wrong are we? I mean com'on....do parents really like to go to those places....loud, hyper kids running crazy? No thank you!
So, long story short...we will be going, in hopes that Becca is too young to remember that she has been to Chuck-E-Cheese! *wink*