A Sweet Mess

Last night Makenna asked if she could feed Beckham dinner.  We have let her give her give him a bite here or there, but she had never feed him a full meal.  I had some things to do so I thought to myself, "Why not?"  It was priceless to hear Makenna interact with Beckham as she was feeding him--it was a great moment of sibling bonding.  What wasn't as priceless was the mess I had to clean up as a result of letting my 3-year old feed my 8-month old.  But hey, the bonding time they got was totally worth it.

And here is a picture of Beckham after the meal.  The first one is the edited one in my new version of Photoshop.  The second one is the same picture, but shows a new technique I have learned with Photoshop using gradiant mapping.  I love the subtle coloring of it.  What do you think?

2/3 of a Year

Today Beckham is 8 months old--it simply doesn't seem possible.  Here are some 8 month stats:
-crawls all over the place
-loves to eat, especially fruits
-has two bottom teeth and two top teeth (that have just appeared this past week)
-loves to play with Makenna
-wears 9 and 12 month clothes
-sleeps through the night and takes 2-3 naps during the day
-has begun to wave bye-bye
-says dada and has said mama a few times
-loves to play peek-a-boo and patty cake

Like I mentioned above, Beckham loves to play with Makenna.  Sometimes, he also likes to annoy her and the following pictures confirm this.  Last night Makenna decided to get her blanket and pillow and watch a movie on her portable DVD player in the floor.  She knew full well the her brother would want to watch the movie, too, but she decided to do this anyway.  Well, she hadn't been there but a few seconds when Beckham was on the move towards her and her is the result.  It was quite comical to watch.  I is so neat to see these two interact.

Can't wait...

...to get this...

Image courtesy of http://www.jototes.com/

It may appear that this is a purse, which I am going to use it as one, but it is something more--something I have really been wanting.  It is a stylist camera bag/purse!  I ordered it online yesterday so I should have it in my hands by mid-late next week.  I will post pictures of the actual product when I have it.I can't count the amount of times I didn't have my camera with me to capture a special moment, so now my camera will be with me everywhere (or most everywhere I go.)    I am also in the process of beginning some letter art projects so with my new bag I will be able to carry my camera is snap the needed pictures for the letters.  For those of you who don't know what name art is here is an example.

Image courtesy of http://www.kansascitymamas.com/

I hope to complete our "COFFER" name art project this summer and then do some as gifts and then if I get good, possibly get into selling them for a fraction of what you can buy them for online.  We shall see.

A Great Father's Day Weekend

This weekend has been a blast.  This past week we had sports camp at church so we have all been worn out, but we did get to have fun celebrating Father's Day.  Yesterday morning we began our day by going downtown for breakfast at a restaurant called Gailey's.  We had been wanting to try it for quite a while and I believe it will become a place we frequent.  Their sweet browns (aka sweet potato hash browns) are delicious and Justin fell in love with their scrambled eggs with cilantro and asiago cheese.

Coutesy of http://www.ozarks.metromix.com/

After breakfast we headed for a day at Silver Dollar City.  We have seasons passes and sadly this was only our 2nd trip this year.  We are planning on going several more times this summer alone.  Makenna LOVES going and enjoys the rides that she can ride.  For the first time we also took her bathing suit and let her play in the water area.  She had so much fun and I think she would have played there for hours if we had let her.

We were all so tired when we got home that we ordered pizza for dinner and the kids went to bed early.  Justin and I watched a movie while I edited the pictures I took and then we called it a night, too, only to be woken up a while later by tornado sirens.  Luckily we didn't have anything bad.

This morning we headed to church and then had a relaxing afternoon at home before taking Justin out to dinner.  Justin has the entire week off so he gets to stay home with the kids while I go teach summer school.  Only 9 more days of that and then it will be time for my vacation.

Here are some pictures of Beckham that crack me up.  His personality is really beginning to show and I snapped these photos using the continuous shot mode on my camera just after he had eaten dinner the other night.  I LOVE that feature of my camera because I get multiple photos back to back that are so funny.



A Wonderful Dad

Dad

© Karen K. Boyer

He never looks for praises

He's never one to boast

He just goes on quietly working

For those he loves the most

His dreams are seldom spoken

His wants are very few

And most of the time his worries

Will go unspoken too

He's there.... A firm foundation

Through all our storms of life

A sturdy hand to hold to

In times of stress and strife

A true friend we can turn to

When times are good or bad

One of our greatest blessings,

The man that we call Dad.

Source: Silent Strong Dad, Dad Poems and Stories

I came across the above poem on the Internet and thought it describe the special man my kiddos call Daddy very well.  Justin, thank you for being our rock, our support, our cheerleader, and our comedian.  Thanks for all the diapers you have changed, all the baths you have given, all the books you have read, all the hours you have spent playing in the yard, all the miles you have driven to make family memories, and all the other "daddy duties" you have done to make our family great. You are the greatest and we love you so much.

 

The first time holding Makenna--I love this picture

January 10, 2008 (the day Justin became a daddy)

The first time holding Beckham--Love this one, too because it looks like Becks is smiling at his Daddy.  Also, I love to compare these two pictures to see how much more comfortable Justin is holding a baby.

October 25, 2010

 

This year for part of Justin's Father's Day gift I decided to do an interview with Makenna about her daddy.  I love her responses and this is something I have a feeling will become a tradition, maybe with just different questions.  I love her answers!

MY DADDY

According to Makenna Coffer, Age 3

Father’s Day 2011

1. What is Daddy’s favorite food?
Chicken

2. What is Daddy’s favorite drink?

Coffee

3. What is Daddy good at?

Making his coffee

4. What is Daddy not so good at?

Paying attention

5. What makes Daddy smile?

When I used to say “Nannena”

6. What do you and Daddy like to do together?

Play soccer

7. What do you like to call your Daddy?

Justin Beaver (for Justin Bieber)

8. What does your Daddy like to call you?

Makenna Beaver

9. What makes Daddy happy?

When I do puzzles

10. What makes Daddy upset?

When I hit him

11. Where is Daddy’s favorite place to go?

To the Mexican restaurant

12. How do you know your Daddy loves you?

He tells me “I love you”

Pictures...Finally

I have finally had a bit of time to edit some pictures I have taken recently.  I have started using some different settings on my camera and now I only shot RAW pictures the majority of the time.  For those of you not familiar with photography I know that sounds like Greek to you, but it is something I have been wanting to do for a while now to give me more processing/editing liberties with my pictures.  My next big step is to buy an external flash and who knows where I will go from there.  Anyways, here are some pictures taken of the past month or so. 

Beckham's Baby Dedication at church

Beautiful Baby Blues

Don't know what Makenna is doing in the picture.

Makenna showing Bechkam some sisterly love.

Our cute kiddos.

Playing with Play Foam I ordered from my favorite online store, Zulily.  It is so cool and so much better than Play-doh.

This weekend we went to Kansas City.  My mom had a conference there so she invited us up to the hotel so that Makenna could swim so we took advantage of the offer.  One of my favorite things about parenthood is watching my kids grow and develop and Makenna definitely did that this weekend.  She has been afraid of the water when we go swimming and would hold on to one of us with a death grip.  On our way up to KC we bought he a swim vest and she amazingly gained so much confidence with it that she swam clear across the pool by herself.  It was so neat to see a child who was once so afraid of the water have the time of her life this weekend while swimming and she keeps asking us when we can go back.  I am so happy she is finally comfortable in the water, which will make swimming lesssons here is a few weeks much more enjoyable.  Here are a few pictures of our trip.

 

4 days down and 15 more to go

I have almost wrapped up the first week of teaching summer school.  At times I wonder why I even teach it, but then I am reminded of how nice the extra $$$ is for things like vacations, putting into savings, etc.  I only have 4 kids for the first two weeks and the second two weeks I will only have 3 so I guess it could be a lot worse. 

Speaking of vacation, we have decided not to take a big vacation this year since Beckham is so small.  However, we are planning on doing a few weekend trips, one of which is this weekend.  We are just going up to Kansas City for a few days just to hang out.  Makenna is so excited to go swimming at the hotel, which is free for us since my mom has a conference there and we are staying in her room.  Can't beat that.  We have also talked about going to St. Louis one weekend, but we don't know if we will be able to work that in.  And of course, we will be taking our trips to Silver Dollar City to make good use of our season passes.  However, being the planner that I am we are already beginning to plan our vacation for next summer.  We plan on doing something fairly big probably on the beach.  Justin was going to take me on a mini-vacation my birthday (the big 3-0) this fall, but now I have decided I would rather wait until next summer when we can go for a longer period of time and I also want to take the kids and make it our first vacation with all of us.  A co-worker had mentioned Dauphin Island, AL to me, so that is what we are looking into.  Or if you have any other suggestions please let me know.