Christmas 2009

We traveled to Dothan to celebrate Christmas this year. It was the 2nd Christmas without Dad, so that was hard, but we made the best of it. We went to the children's Christmas Eve service at First Methodist and Sipsey loved it! There was a live baby Jesus and Sipsey had her first Communion. We sang Silent Night in "candlelight," which was actually glowsticks, a feature very popular with the children (and some husbands). I was surprised at how well-behaved Sipsey was. She was enthralled with all the lights and children singing. We gathered with my dad's family at my sister's house on Christmas night and ate a delicious meal together. Then on Saturday, my mom's family had dinner together at my mom's house. Throughout the weekend, Sipsey was showered with gifts from friends and family. She had a blast playing with cousins who she does not see very often. However, as much as I love Christmas, I'm certainly glad it's over!! I love coming home from work and being able to relax with no presents to wrap, bags to pack, or last minute gift ideas to think of! Whew! Here are some pictures of the weekend. I got a new lens from Santa Ben and went camera crazy trying it out!

Sipsey and her first and only first cousin Mark (Mary Ashley's {my sister's} baby)

Sipsey and Sweet P. Perhaps my favorite picture from Christmas!

Can y'all please stop asking me to do all my tricks?

Sipsey never took a paci but is fascinated by them now. This is a fake baby doll paci if it looks a little funny.

Putting her to work early! Sipsey got a broom for Christmas and loves it!

Still in love with babies. This baby moves her mouth when you feed her the bottle.

Sipsey and her sweet cousin Carly.

Somebody's JEALOUS!!

We have some Miss Manners classes to sign up for.

Our family at my sister's for Christmas

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. I can't wait to read this one. It is slowly becoming safe to leave Sipsey with a book with real pages.

Hey Mark!

Happy

Sad :(

Rock-a-bye baby!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Sipsey!

Today is Sipsey's 2nd birthday! She is such a sweet 2 year old, but definitely has her moments. She LOVES babies and baby dolls. I can't say that enough. I always ask her if she's a good mommy and she always nods her head. Sipsey will repeat anything we say and commits it to memory. She is learning her shapes, numbers and letters at school. It is hilarious to hear her say triangle. It's more like, "tri-a-guhlelululuuh." Once she gets stuck on a color, everything is that color. Lately it's been "Lellow." She's also very partial to "Booooo." I think she actually knows the color brown. One of my favorite phrases of hers is, "Hey! How you? I Sipsey!" She finally turned it into, "Hey! How you? I fine!" She can count to 10 (skipping eight), and it sounds like this, "One, two, pee, pour, pie, pix, seben, nie, ten!" She can say the alphabet (Skipping A LOT). It's usually some variation of "ABCDEF mumble LMNOP QRS mumble WXYZ Now I know my abcs, mumble mumble sing with me!" I love to hear her sing "twinkle twinkle little star" and her favorite for us to sing to her is "Baby treetop" (Rockabye baby). Sipsey also loves to help us (mainly Ben) cook. She always wants to stir and got a nice blister on her finger from the pot the other day! Maybe we'll stick to the play kitchen for awhile. We love you Sips!! Happy birthday! Here are some pictures I took of Sipsey this morning.

Adorable shirt courtesy of Layne James Embroidery and Designs

Attempting to hold up two fingers. We'll have to work on that.

Really trying hard to hold up those two fingers!

Christmas card and other funnies

Before I get to Sipsey's birthday and Ben's graduation, I must include some funny pictures of Sipsey I have taken lately. I took hundreds of her for our Christmas picture. Hundreds. She will. not. look. at. my. camera. Or if she does look, she is making some sort face like the one below.

Sipsey, whatcha eatin'? Ok, toasted pumpkin seeds...got it. Thanks for that.

Here, Sipsey is saying "toot." Please tell me your toddlers announce their bodily functions.

And here, Sipsey is demonstrating her bodily function. Again, thanks for the clarification.

Whew! We got a keeper! Not perfect, but it will do!

This child LOVES babies! She is always requesting to carry (at the same time) a baby, a diaper, a wipe, a baby blanket, and anything else the doll might need, except for clothes. All our babies are naked (this one's clothes are attached; I assure you they would be off if they could be - we have tried).



Putting pieces of tape all over her legs entertained her for a good half hour. Please take note of the one church shoe.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

The Becks come to town

I am very behind on my blogging, but I'm on time for Sipsey's birthday party and Christmas! I've already sent out our Christmas cards! A few weeks ago, Ben's parents came to visit. We had such a good time catching up. Sipsey showed off all her tricks and how well she can talk! She loved her Mimi and Papa. They are coming back for Sipsey's party next weekend and we can't wait to see them. Lots of other family members are coming too and I can't wait to see how Sipsey acts....hopefully good! Unfortunately, I wasn't a very good photog when Mimi and Papa came to visit, but you better believe the camera will be glued to my face at her bday party!

Sipsey playing in Papa's new truck. She's not as mad as she looks!

Landmark Park

The first weekend in November, we went to Dothan to spend the weekend with my mom. It would have been my dad's 53rd birthday on Saturday, so it was a special time for us to be there and spend time with the family. On Saturday morning, we took Sipsey to Landmark Park, a 100-acre living history/natural science museum (that's their official description). I would describe it as an old farmstead with a house, church, school, country store, (all original and moved from their original locations and staged with furniture/accessories from the time period) with all the farm animals, equipment, etc. There are also nature walks with streams and ponds and little exhibits throughout with "stuffed" animals teaching about the local flora and fauna. We packed a picnic lunch and let Sipsey run and play to her heart's content.

Happy Halloween!

I'm not too sure about this.

What's all the fuss about?

I guess I'll share with Superman!

Ok, this is fun!

Pumpkin Patch

On Saturday, we took Sipsey to The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, AL. She was too little for a lot of the activities, but we had fun on the hayride to the pumpkin patch and picking out our pumpkin! Sipsey calls pumpkins "apples." I'll correct her and she'll say "punkins," but the next day when she sees one, it's back to "apples." This child is lots of fun right now, but she won't look at the camera for anything! I have tried everything, but she won't do it. Notice in all the pictures how she is looking in every direction but mine.

She was quick to find the one she wanted.

Sipsey was obsessed with the broken pumpkins that had rotted away in the field. She knelt down to every one she could find saying, "mess...ewwww!"

I think she got in trouble for trying to touch all the pumpkin guts.

Sipsey and Sweet P, who came to visit at the last minute.

Trying to get a good picture of Ben and Sipsey. You see how that turned out!

Sipsey actually liked this part.

She still wouldn't look at the camera.

I really think it would have made her day if she could have smashed this squash. I'll let her get messy when we get around to actually carving our pumpkin!

Scraps

Have you ever wondered what to do with all your fabric scraps? I had a huge stack of scraps and had to find something to do with them all. I found some really cute and EASY solutions on Kathy Miller's blog (Kathy is co-owner of Michael Miller Fabrics)! She has lots of free tutorials and patterns listed in the right column. I tried the burpcloths first and they turned out so cute!

I got a little burned out on making outfits for Sipsey, so I had to turn my creative juices in another direction. Too bad Sipsey doesn't need burpcloths anymore or she'd be one stylin' baby! These are great for gifts and the first recipient of my burpcloths is Elle Barron.

Elle's burps all wrapped up with a BumpyName Orbit Label available at Inchbug.com

A closer look at the name bands. If you can get your act together ahead of time (which I rarely can do), these are great gift items. They fit on bottles, sippy cups, etc. and are great when going to daycare, mom's day out, playgroup, or the church nursery.

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I want to mention how much I appreciate how sweet y'all are to me about my sewing and I really do thank you for flattering me with your kind comments. I am very new at this and it may seem elementary to some, but I love being able to make something from nothing. And speaking of making something from nothing, I bought Sipsey an adorable dress from our church's consignment sale for $4. I used a seam ripper to remove the original monogram from the collar and got Sipsey's added for $10. She wore it to church this morning and it was probably the best $14 I've ever spent. When I was trying to take her picture when we got home, she kept running towards me and saying, "MINE!" referring to the camera. We hear a lot of that lately, and the pictures are a little blurry because of her craziness!