Christmas Eve 2010

I guess I should publish my Christmas posts before it's 2011! That may or may not happen, but I'll at least complete this one about our Christmas Eve. We went to the children's service at my home church for the second year in a row. Sipsey was much more into it this year. All the children choose a character to play while someone retells the Christmas story. Sipsey chose a cow, and there were also camels, donkeys, angels, wisemen, etc. When the child's specific character is mentioned in the story, all the children who chose that character go to the front of the church. I was afraid Sipsey wouldn't go through with it since it was a foreign place to her, but she ran right to the front all by herself!

Before the service. What a stinker!






She makes nice faces when sitting with her daddy.



I have always loved this Christmas tree (or I guess it's technically a Chrismon tree).



There she goes all by herself!



She wouldn't find a seat and just stood there watching "Andy" tell the Christmas story.



Finally after all the characters made their way to the front, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus made their appearance in the story!



We had Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's with my sister and her family. Sipsey's cousin Mark is all smiles all the time.



Sipsey, on the other hand, has her moments.



Mark and his Sweet P



He loves giving kisses.

Stay tuned to see if Santa came to visit the crying girl. She may or may not have had a spanking to finally convince her to go to bed on Christmas Eve.

Flat Stanley

Do you know Flat Stanley? Well, we had Flat Matthew visit us in Arkansas and boy did he have a good time!

He visited Riceland Foods.







He also spent some time at the Museum of the Arkansas Grand Prairie.



We really enjoyed his visit.



He made us get out of the house and explore our new town!

Sneaky

This girl loves to get into my purse!

First, it was my lipstick.







Then she moved to the gum. She loves gum and is usually good about eating just one piece and chewing it until she's done, and then she spits it out. She actually loves to "throw it to the birds" when she's finished chewing. I guess that's only when I'm supervising because I found this on the coffee table.




And for the grand finale, Sipsey's breath was smelling mighty minty fresh one morning when we went to brush her teeth. I thought she had just gotten into a peppermint from the Christmas parade the night before. Then, I opened the trashcan.

That is ten gum wrappers! She swallowed them all and the minty smell was emanating from her stomach! I smelled it coming from her all day long. Now maybe Ben and I will remember to keep gum out of her reach.

Happy Birthday to Sipsey

Today my little Booboo turns 3! She wasn't born until close to 5 PM but I'll let her celebrate all day anyway. This is the first year she realizes it's her birthday and all the fun that entails. All month she has been understanding that she is 2 right now and is about to be 3 on "December eighteenf!" She is also all of a sudden interested in the ages and birthdays of everyone else. Here are our conversations lately:

Who is one? *thinking* Is baby Elle one? *thinking more* Is baby Mark one?

Yes, they are both one.

Mommy, how old are you?

Mommy is twenty-eight.

Show me. *holding up her fingers for me to show her many that is*

This goes on and on until she has gone through everyone's name that she can think of. I'm just happy that she gets it and we can celebrate this special girl's 3 years today!

Showing me her three



Slightly excited about turning three



Acting crazy about turning three



Who knew that a box of packing peanuts was so much fun? Looks like I can take back all her Christmas and birthday gifts. This provided hours of entertainment.

Christmas card attempt

Right before the weather turned freezing, I attempted to take Sipsey's picture for our Christmas card. I finally got one that wasn't terrible. As with any toddler/pre-schooler, the crazy photos far outnumber the good ones. I contemplated using one of these to be funny, but decided on a normal one. I had the photo edited perfectly and sent it to Walmart for 1-hour developing. This has worked for me in the past, but this small-town Walmart, although excellent in every other department, apparently does not have the big, nice photo developer. So my cards have lines through them as if I had printed them on my home printer with almost-empty ink cartridges. I did not even feel like complaining, so everyone got streaky a Christmas card from the Becks this year!

This is me, not looking at your camera.



Whoever came up with "Say cheese" was not all that clever.






Daddy is so funny!



Merry Christmas from the Becks!

Christmas Parade

Last Monday night, the city of Stuttgart had a Christmas parade. Although it started after Sipsey's bedtime, we decided to take her to watch it. Some friends of ours asked us to go with them and hang out in a downtown office in the warmth with snacks and hot chocolate until the parade started. How could we turn that down?

Sipsey was very shy when we got there. Didn't take her long to warm up!



Can you tell it's after bedtime?



Looking towards downtown. A police escort started off the parade.



Nativity



Here comes the firetruck!







And "Ho Ho" completed the parade with his grand appearance. Maybe he will come to our house if Sipsey is a good girl!

Tangled

We took Sipsey to see her first movie at the Twin Cinemas on Saturday after Thankgiving. We saw Tangled, a sweet movie about Rapunzel. We are thankful for a movie theater in this small town, even if it only has two screens! Sipsey did really well sitting and paying attention. We had to explain to her a few times that she needed to whisper and that she had to sit in a seat. We ALL enjoyed the movie. I definitely recommend it. As a matter of fact, I made Ben take Sipsey to the restroom during the movie so that I wouldn't miss a single detail. I don't know what happened as we walked out, but I'm sure she and Ben were pushing each other's buttons as they do so well. SO, our photo opportunity of Sipsey's first movie turned out like this:

This was her version of a smile. There was nothing that exciting on the ground below us.

Turkey Day in AR

We spent our first Thanksgiving right here in Arkansas. One of Ben's coworkers graciously asked us over to eat lunch with his family that day. They have a beautiful old farmhouse on about 3 acres right in the middle of town. Sipsey loves playing with his daughters who are a little bit older and let her play with ALL of their toys without her having to share with them! :) We had a delicious spread and were thankful for good friends when we don't have family nearby. It was very warm that morning so the girls jumped on the trampoline and shot ping pong ball guns before lunch. Then the rain moved in and it was freezing after that! I think Sipsey needs a trampoline now!

Chickens and Cows and Rides, Oh My!

You can't travel to Dothan in the Fall without a trip to the Peanut Festival or "the Fair" as we have always called it. I have discovered that my child has an inner daredevil. She seems to be timid at home, but when she saw the rides, she was ready to go! Ben was not with us, so she got to do a whole lot more on her own...like ride every single ride by herself. First stop was the chicken exhibit.

Then we looked at some cows.

Sweet baby cow.





Then it was off to the fun stuff - the rides!

Sipsey checking out the carousel. She determined that was too mild of a ride.




Her first ride was the race cars and she hopped right on with no hesitation!



I think it's safe to say she loved it.



Cute clown.



Then the motorcycles, which were actually scary for me to watch. Sipsey obviously didn't feel the same way.




This ride went straight up and she loved it too!




We found this gem in a box of my old clothes. Sipsey thought it was beautiful!