ok, ok!

So I've been told that I haven't posted pics recently. Ummmmmm...confession...I haven't taken many lately. Not since the pool was put away anyway! But to make everyone happy, I will post an older pic. And oh my goodness...can you believe this was just under 2 years ago? Ohhhhh...she's so cute in this outfit. And I just loved the red flannel. I think Gaga Bob loved the flannel too!



Ok, so I am so excited that Fall is almost here. This wonderfully cooler weather has been so nice. I couldn't believe that I came home from work the other night, and Tim was laying on the couch...under a blanket no less...with with the windows wide open. It was great! Can't believe its August still and we really haven't seen more than a day or two of really hot weather! I'm excited for the fall activities. The pumpkin patch, Halloween costumes (Becca's got her's already) playing in the leaves, apple pies! mmmmmmm By the way, I just made an apple crisp last night. I can't wait to go home and have some! ok, so now I'm just babbling.

This weekend will be busy. I want to start painting the living room and dinning room, and Tim's mom is coming to town on saturday for a bit. We'll see how much I can get done! Tim's not the best painter...so I think I will be doing most of it..just to keep it nice! He'll be in charge of keeping Becca out of the mess!

This weekend was a blast! Cody came back for a home visit this weekend. He arrived in town late Friday morning, and then spent the rest of the day with his Mom and Grandma. He and Steph showed up at our house at about 10pm! Becca was soooooo happy to see him! Within minutes, she was on the floor playing with Steph and Cody and having a blast! That girl is soo in love with Cody...or should I say "Kitty". Becca can't quiet say Cody correctly. she can say Co-Dee, if you go slow, but as soon as she tries to say it like normal, it comes out Kitty. Hillarious. That name is going to stick!

We stayed up late on Friday night getting caught up. We had a good time and lots of laughs. Saturday, Cody's friend Aaron stopped by and ate lunch with us as well. We got to know him a little bit before he left and Grandpa Steve came to visit. He stayed for about an hour before having to get back to his stores, and then Steph came over again. We grilled out, watched movies, played jokes and had a lot of fun.

Sunday morning was rushed, but Cody, steph and I met his grandma Connie at Prairie Lakes Church for service. That was great. It was an outside service and what perfect, beautiful weather it was to sit out in lawnchairs and worship! We did have to leave the service early to get to lunch and to the bus station to see Cody off.

Overall, it was a great weekend. Lots of laughs, good times, good stories...and knowing more is on the way is good for the heart! But I must say, that I was happy to just lounge on the couch reading the paper in my scrubby clothes after Cody left and Becca and Tim took a nap. It was sooo quiet! *wink*

Becca's first real phone conversation!

So yeah, becca has been "talking" on the phone for some time. Mostly just answering yes or no questions. Well, yesterday, she had her first REAL conversation with me. The funny thing is..she completely drove the conversation. She was in control the whole time. Here's how it went:
Becca: Hi Momma, where arrrrrrrrre you?
Me : Hi Punk! I'm at work today!
Becca: Daddy at hoooooooooome?
Me : Nooo, Daddy's at work too!
Becca: By choo choo town? (this is her way of asking By the trains downtown?)
Me : Yep
Becca: Daddy come oooooooover?
Me : Yep, when you wake up from your nap, Daddy will come over to Grandpa's house
and get you!
Becca : O'tay Momma, yayoo too! (thats "Okay, Momma, I love you too!")

ok, so such a plain conversation. Nothing spectacular that we talked about. But it was typical conversation with Becca. A 5 sentence conversation...all in her control! I was the one answering questions!
I got off that phone call and was just amazed. I think I picked my jaw up off the floor! Its little things like this, that make me want to remember EVERYTHING she does. Cherish everything she's doing..on good days and bad. Cause when I'm 82...will I remember this conversation we had on the phone? I hope so....someone remind me!

November 1st!

Thats the date we are aiming to have Cody home by! He had his 6 month review hearing on Tuesday. Everyone was happy to learn he's completed his GED, his EAGLE status, and his substance abuse program. The judge would like to see him maintain his status now and have a couple of test runs home for weekend visits. He'll be home with us the weekend of August 22nd. It'll be a short visit. We're still finding out the specifics and will let everyone know once its final. He looked good, his family and girlfriend Steph were all happy to see him. It was only a quick 40 minutes we got to see him before he was back on the road for the 4 hr roadtrip back to Clarinda.

Last night I went to dinner with his Girlfriend Steph (Feff as Becca now calls her)at Carlos o'kellys. We had good food (not mentioning how we just knew steph's food would come wrong...and it did) and good conversation getting to know eachother, and sharing what we hope the future will hold for everyone.

Today Tim is in Des Moines on business. Not sure what time he'll be home tonight, so Becca and I might just hang out with Wendy and Xavier before coming home for the evening.

This weekend will be full of getting things in order for Cody's home visit. Not much to do really...but I'm going to be picky...and I'm sure it will drive Tim mad! lol

" Help me Momma "...

...is the common phrase I hear from Becca when she and Tim are swimming! Most evenings, we can barely finish the last bite on our dinner plates before she is begging to go play in the water. Its taken all summer for her to be brave enough to really have fun and rough-house with Daddy in the water. Its so much fun to watch, so thought I would share my very first video post!

New month...new look!

If you haven't caught on yet...I change the looks of this blog every month.
Well, I found the most adorable backgrounds! Friends with blogs...go check them out...http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/

Tip: if you are having troubles getting the new background to look right and currently have a pyzam background...you'll need to remove the current background from pyzam, then add a Blogger background to kinda trick the settings. Then it will take the new background from the cutest blog on the block.

Love it! best thing..is it doesn't erase any of your current extras or widgets! yay! so it'll keep your counter Gretchen! *wink*

We didn't have a very eventful weekend. Regardless, it was nice and low key.

Friday night I enjoyed scrapbooking with my girls. Its been a couple of months since our last crop. It was long overdo. If for nothing else, for the talks and mood boosters we give each other. I did however get 6 pages done. And I've realized that I need pictures of Becca and Tim swimming and of the potty training that is going on.

Tim and Becca spent a lot of time in the pool Saturday and Sunday. Becca has become quite brave and is actually " swimming " now. With the floaty ring around her, she will jump forward and kick her legs. She looks like a little frog! We're so proud of her. I definitely see lessons in her future! Tim was a great swimmer ( so he says...so maybe she'll get that from him).

Tonight I went to Dinner with my sister for her Birthday. Ok, really...mom and dad had a gift certificate for Olive Garden, and don't care for it...so they gave it to us to use! It was great! Free dinner! Thanks mom and dad! It was nice to get away from the house with an adult. Even if it was just for a little over an hour.

Tim had a conference call meeting with Cody, his PO and the Clarinda staff on Friday. It sounds like Cody has lost his focus a bit, but is working his tail off in one of the welding or metal shops down there. They commended him for his attention at work, but may recommend to the Judge a little longer stay, to help him catch up from some negative weeks he's had. I hate this. I wish he could come home. We want him to be able to start classes at Hawkeye like he had wanted at the end of August. But we've been told it could be a couple more months. We're disapointed as we know Cody is, but we're trying to help him realize that the goals Clarinda had set for him to come home, were not met because of his focus. We're doing all we can to help him refocus and finish strong. In the end...its all just reccomendation that his PO and case worker give to the Judge..and the Judge makes up his own mind. Regardless of when he comes home, there will sure to be a party! invites to come as soon as we know more about a date. Court date is NEXT tuesday the 12th, we'll have more to share at that time. Please keep Cody and his focus in your prayers.

Thoughts of a two year old!

So last week I bought Becca some Elmo underware. When we are home, we're putting her in real undies, and when we go out or go to bed she is still wearing the pull ups. This is a big step for us!

So this morning Becca wakes up and asks me (excuse the Becca spelling/talking)....
"Momma...who Daddy doh?" I proceeded to tell her that Daddy went to work. So then she says, " Yeah..Daddy wort wit Emmo undies on? "

Ha...she thought Tim was going to work with elmo undies on! Cracked me up! Just the mental image of Tim with Elmo undies was enough to bring tears to my eyes. After seeing me with tears in my eyes and laughing so hard..she says..." Silly Daddy!"

Oh. This child makes my world spin!

No title today

Last week I started talking with Cody's girlfriend. I'm loving that! Its only been through text and email so far, but I'm anxious to get together with her. She'll be helping plan the party that we are having for Cody when he comes home. I know that she means the world to Cody, and that he is crazy for this girl. We have a feeling that she will be around for a long time. We all want whats best for Cody, and knowing whats important to him is part of that. He's told us over and over that Steph is good for him. We believe that may be true, and can't wait to get to know her more!

Becca spent the day with my Mom and Dad on Saturday so that Tim and I could complete the deck! It looks great. We're still needing to build the steps, but I think that can be completed another weekend! I'm quite proud of the job we did, and that we completed it in just 2 weekends. Yay us! But how pathetic is it to be sooo soar? I'm so out of shape!

Today, Becca was without nap, so we spent the afternoon running errands while Tim spent some time with his friends. I'm on the hunt for some large clearanced out...or inexpensive pots for the deck/patio. But I think my timing is off. Either they aren't clearanced out at the super stores (lowes, homedepot) or they've been put away already to make room for school supplies (Target and Walmart).

Tim and I are doing pretty well on our "better choices" eating. Neither of us feel deprived yet. Thats my goal, is to make better choices MOST of the times, so that when I have the craving for something not so good...I don't feel as bad about it. I can never deprive myself of the sweets. But I can limit them and balance it all out with healthier eating the rest of the time. And with this, we've found some new recipes! So far everything is a keeper!

Hereeeeee fishy fishy!

Daddy got out the Dora fishing pole he bought Becca this spring, and took her our on her very first fishing experience! She had a blast...and caught 2 little bluegill all by herself! Yay Becca! We are so proud of you!
It was a short trip. All of about 30 minutes fishing! But we quit before she got bored, so that she'll be anxious to go again!

Becca can count!

Tim and I did a happy dance tonight! We are sooo proud of our Becca!

For the longest time, her counting consisted of 2.4.9.13.
Then last week it progressed and she would say 1.2.3.8.9.10.
Today finally, for the first time, without help...it was 1-10 perfectly! And she did it 3 times tonight! So it wasn't just a fluke!

Yay Becca! You are becoming such a big girl! Where has the time gone?

yahoo!

Yay! I lost 5!

New habits. New deck.

I can't believe its been a week since I posted last! This week has not been too incredibly busy until this weekend anyway! The last week I think was mostly being lazy and trying to get into the groove of changing our eating habits.
Tim made his way to 6 months being SMOKE-FREE last weekend! We are soo proud of him. He will even tell you that it seems like such a distant memory, that he can't even imagine lighting up anymore! Can you believe it? I never though I would see the day. I hoped and prayed for it, but never thought I would see it!
So, making it over the hurdle...he's decided to join me (again....) in the effort to better our eating habits. I need to stop being lazy and falling off the wagon. Maybe with him working with me on this, we'll be able to do it together. But he's a stickler!

We started tearing apart and resurfacing the deck this weekend. UGH! Hot and humid...it was horrible! But we've got it 1/2 done. *Thank you Wendy for keeping Becca for us so we could accomplish this task without constant questions and breaks to find out where she was and what she was getting into!* Next weekend (hopefully) we will complete the 2nd half and move on to building the steps to the back door. Praying for less humid weather.

Saturday night we went to a department BBQ for my work. It was nice to get away and do something different. Too bad the weather switched up on us. I think everyone was scared away by the approaching storms and headed home. In fact...we got caught in it on the way home.

I've never been so scared! I honest to God...believed that we were about to be sucked up in a tornado and flipped in the car. We had to pull over on
HWY 63 across from the Dogtrack, because we couldn't see 2 ft infront of us because the rain was so hard. We pulled over, and sat on the side of the road for about 5 minutes. Those 5 mintues will forever be etched in my mind. The rain was absolutely, no question about it...going horizontal. The wind was so crazy, that the trees in the ditch on my right were bent over. We couldn't see anything infront of us because the rain and wind was so hard. The car shook and moved and felt like it was being lifted on the drivers side. I had the hold of my door bar and Tim's wrist. Becca was frozen in her car seat. All I could think of was " when the car flips and lands upside down in this ditch beside me...how am I going to be able to get to the back and unbuckle Becca when she is upside-down? ". I was terrified. Then hail started, and it was coming in horizontal also. I think Tim was afraid that it would break the windows on the drivers side and attempted to put the car in reverse to get under the HWY 20 overpass...but we just couldn't see behind us to know if there was another car pulled over behind our car. At that point, Tim just floored it and made it back onto the roadway and down the road. By the time we made it to the Ridgeway/63 intersection, the rain had subsided just a bit, but enough for us to see infront of the car.
I didn't let go of the door handle, until we got into the garage!
It was then, under the coaching of Tim, that Becca said.... " No-No Thunder " and shook her finger at the sky!

All I have to say to that is, Amen!

Fun and Family all weekend long!

This was a full weekend for us!
Friday night after an evening of swimming for Tim and Becca, I went to a going away party for my friend Chubby. He worked with me at Grainger, and we became pretty good friends. He and his little family are moving back "home" to Kentucky. He will be greatly missed. Because I decided against having a drink, and it was incredibly warm inside the bar, i decided to make it an early night and was home at 9.

Saturday, we spent time at home playing and tim made a great London Broil and grilled veggies on the new grill! It was awesome! I went to church and the we all met at Wendy's for a bonfire and s'mores! mmmmmmm. Xavier spent the weekend with Wendy this week, since he's with his Dad this July. It was great to see him, and Becca loved playing with him again. Those too are comical when they get together.

Sunday, we slept in a bit and went to a family dinner at my Aunt Lynda and Uncle Duane's house. My mom's cousin Scott and his wife Melissa were in town from Los Angeles. It was good to see them again. The last time I saw them, I was in Junior High. Always good times when the family gets together, but Scott had some great stories! It was a fun time to hear my mom and her siblings reminense about when they were kids, and the funny stories that went along with it. A lot of laughs were had.

I will never get sick of spending time with family!

Back to Reality

Well, after a wonderful week off with Becca, and Tim enjoying a fishing vacation last week, we're back to reality! *sigh*
Becca was sad to go back to school Tuesday morning. She cried(this is not the first time) when she asked if we were going to Gaga's house. She loves going to play there on Mondays and Fridays!

Well, I told you I would share her photos when we had them scanned in. Sorry its taken longer than expected. Our scanner is on the outs at home, but Tim managed to scan them at work! Here is our favorite! This is the one that the studio wants to use in house for advertising! Go Becca!



Tim is supposed to send me the close up shot this afternoon too. I'll edit the post and add it once I recieve it too!

Thursday already?

This week off has just flown by! We've been just busy enough without being too busy to enjoy our time at home this week!

Monday and Tuesday, Becca spent her days at Grandma's house and at Daycare, so that I could get closets cleaned out and errands run. I was glad I took that time! I think she needed the time away from me to play with the kids, and I needed time to get my work done so I didn't feel guilty having fun the rest of the week with her having a messy house to return to!

Wednesday we took a trip to the Coral Ridge Mall in Iowa City and met Grandma Kathy there for lunch, shopping and of course, ice cream before we came home! It was a great day! Grandma Kathy spoiled Becca with some new outfits and lots and lots of attention. in fact...I'm not sure who gave who more attention. They were both pretty smitten with each other. Becca and I stopped at a Scrapbooking store in Coralville (Memories on 5th) before we headed home. She was absolutely done with shopping by that point, but was patient enough to let me grab a couple of things I probably didn't need, but felt I couldn't leave without!

Today we got Becca's 2 yr old pictures taken! They are adorable. As soon as I get my scanner working, I'll try to post them. Otherwise, some of you will be receiving your own anyway! I'm very proud of her today. She never has taken the best professional pictures....but I've chalked that up to her age and the lack of enthusiasm in the past photographers that we went to. We went to Portrait Innovations today. They are new in waterloo...but I'm liking them already! Very inexpensive, but very good!

One of the pics is in her red/white/blue dress on a white background. They handed her a little flag, and she stood up on her own, and held it way above her head, then looked up at it. PERFECTION! When he showed it to me, I knew right away we had to have it! Harvey (the little dude that shot the pics) called over the other photographers later, then they asked me if they could use it for advertising, or to put it up in the store! They even had some of the customer's coming over and looking at it on the big screen because they heard the fuss the photographers were making over it! Can't wait to share them!

Sturgis Falls

I decided on two posts...just so that it didn't seem so long winded! Sturgis Falls was great as always. Short of us getting leaving early Saturday afternoon, and missing the Marine Band because of rain, the rest of the weekend was beautiful.

Mom was in the parade on her Class of 68 float for their reunion. So Grandpa Bob, Wendy, Xavier, Becca and I watched from the curb! Sunday was filled with a lot of fair food and music. Here are a couple of pictures from our weekend. (note the watermelon barrettes I made to match her new outfit!)


Aunt Wendy and Becca clapping for the Armed Forces in the parade


Momma and Becca


Everyone thinks that Becca is such a sweetheart. Which she is...but she's rough too! She is always wanting to wrestle...today it was Xavier's turn. Becca knows how to lay the smack down!


I don't know what kind of move she's making, but by this action shot, and the expression caught on Xavier's face...WWF might be knocking on my door soon, asking for Rowdy Rebecca!

Gone Fishing...and its our vacation too!

Tim left for his yearly week long fishing trip with Aaron on Saturday morning. Tim has been itchin' to get up north to go fishing. He had been spoiled up until family priorities got the best of us and decided that one trip is enough each year.

That also means, however, that I haven't been on a vacation since we were pregnant with Becca. I do miss getting away, but the thought of leaving Becca for a whole week just overwhelms me and makes me feel sick instantly. I would be miserable without her for 7 days! And at 2, she's just too young to go along for that long...at least to such a remote resort that is not so (young) family friendly. This is a man's man resort for sure. Tim went with homework instructions...to go looking for another resort on the first rainy day they have and aren't fishing! We'll see what kind of ideas he comes back with.

But, as I have done the last couple of years, decided to take this week off also and make this my vacation. Each year there is another project to do while he is away. This year, it is cleaning closets and getting ready to store things for Cody and move in what he needs this fall. I have plenty to keep me busy, at least for the next two days. Becca will still go to Grandma Deb's on Monday and daycare on Tuesday, so that I can get the work done. The rest of the week however, is fun time for the two of us! We're looking forward to a shopping date with Grandma Kathy in Coralville on Wednesday. Perhaps we'll find a new outfit, because Becca will be getting her pictures taken on Thursday! And of course with Friday being July 4th...I'm sure there will be a picnic and fireworks to attend! More later I'm sure!!

Splish Spalsh!

Ok, So maybe she's too nervous yet to let loose and have too much fun, but Becca got a new pool this weekend. Daddy thought it necessary to have a pool big enough for Becca to really be able to get used to the depth and do more than just sit in it. He wants to teach her to swim, or at least to not be afraid of a bigger body of water. (I'm sure he's thinking further in the future to fishing...) We bought a 10ft x 30" deep pool.

Yesterday, she was all game at first to get right in with Tim. She wanted to be put down right away and "walk", like he was. He did it slowly and she was fine with it. She could stand and the water was about chest height. That was fun for about 4 minutes when she slipped and went completely under. That scared her and it took an hour and much coaching to get her back in with Daddy. She held tight, and as long as he didn't let go, she was ok. Between being scared, and when she finally got back in, she found a stash of winter weather gear in the garage, and decided she wanted to wear her old stocking hat....it made a great picture!


So this morning, Tim had a (daddy needs to spoil Becca) idea, to help her forget the drama of yesterday's pool experience...and bought her a new Dora life jacket, Dora beach towel, pool balls and a Nemo kick board. This has been an unexpectedly expensive weekend.

Flood Fashion

Thought we all needed a little comic relief from the stress and worry of the floods! Here's a shout out to Michelle for providing the picture! I don't care what everyone else says about you! I love ya!