a trip to the orchard

These pictures go back in time a few months to a beautiful fall day where Beck and I went to an orchard in Indy with Kyra, Ashton and their kiddos, Poppy and Emerson.  Although they are late, I wanted to post them still since they are a fun memory of picking apples, sampling the apples, and having our first taste of apple cider for the fall season... in the form of apple cider slushies - yum!!  And as I am typing about this day, I'm getting hungry for apple cider.  :)

no longer 1...

... nope, he's 2.  Beck that is.  And it went fast, super fast.. of course.  Everyone says that time flies for a reason.  I would be surprised if a birthday ever goes by where we don't look back and say, "wow, that year went fast."  Sometimes I'm not sure how to feel about that.  Sad that time is going to fly by faster than we want and everything we do is quickly a distant memory?  Or thankful that our time on this earth doesn't drag on forever?  If anything it should give me the desire to make sure I'm intentional with my time, the time our family has together and the time we have watching our kiddos grow up...

Beck's second b-day was quite different than the first, when it comes to the presents.  At 1 year he still wasn't so excited about gifts and wasn't sure how to open a present.  At year 2, he was squealing with delight and waving his arms around in excitement after he opened a gift and saw a tractor or train.  He could hardly contain himself while he waited for someone to open the packaging so he could get his hands on his new present.  Very fun to watch. :)  And he has continued to love all his presents after he got home and they keep him entertained for a long time... quite nice.

So a few pics of Beck's birthday celebration.  A couple things you might notice:

1.  He rarely, very rarely looks up for a picture when he's engrossed in a new toy or something he likes, no matter how many times you say his name and how excited your voice sounds.

2.  He likes trucks, trains, tractors... all things that go vroooom.  Pretty much all his toys were very boy, which is great as that is what he likes... just funny to see what a little boy gets for his birthday.

I like this pic b/c it's all fuzzy due to Beck bouncing up and down with excitement while his present was taken out of the package.

playing with a new toy from aunt Sheli

watching in amazement as the loader bucket on his new remote CAT tractor goes up and down

a little unsure about his candles.  yes, he got excited and went a little overboard on putting candles in his cupcakes :)

yum.. frosting.  he pretty much just licked off the frosting and left the cupcake (the best part!)

all about beck

I was thinking that I haven't written much about what Beck is up to lately and wanted to give a little update... maybe more for my sake of recording it than for everyone else's sake.  :)

Most of the stuff he is doing lately revolves around things he's saying, as the talking has increased quite a bit.  One thing I'm always amazed at is the randomness of his memory.  He'll remember one little thing we said to him one time, yet probably forget something we say all the time!  And his thought process is so funny... jumping from one thing to the next - cars, to candy, to singing a song, to talking about something he did yesterday.  Kids are oh so interesting.

a few other things he's been doing as of late:

• playing his favorite activities - pushing around any type of tractor or motorized vehicle, golf (which is more of watching dad play golf), "mowing" (pushing anything across the yard or even inside), going fast (running around), and shooting guns (nerf of course!)
• talking about his favorite movie Cars... which is a treat he gets to watch at his aunt Sheli's
• starting to sing the ABC's, Jesus Loves Me, and Twinkle, Twinkle
• saying he wants something by saying "yeah, uh-huh", for example, today in the car he wanted my chapstick, so he kept saying "chapstick, yeah, uh-huh"
• getting woken up by mom a little earlier than preferred on work mornings, to which he responds "more sleep" and snuggles up on his pillow again.  quite adorable :)
• asking for c-a-n-d-y the minute he wakes up in the morning (not an everyday occurrence, but it happens often enough!)
• saying he wants a sister when asked about the baby
• using lots of 3 word phrases
• agreeing to go on the "big boy potty" but not really wanting to go
• sleeping in!  instead of his usual 7-7:30 rise, it's become more like 8-8:30... at least for now :)
• asking to have things, whether it be a toy in the store or a truck in his book, he's developed a preference for the toys he likes that communicates by simply saying "have" in a voice of desperation at the item of choice. sometimes he'll even make it a "have please", in which case I believe he thinks he has a pretty likely chance of receiving his item of desire.

and of course some recent pics:

at the zoo in AZ with the Beer family.  plenty of girl time for Beck... which he didn't seem to mind and only kissed one of them :)

playing football with dad before it was freezing outside

sleeping in the car just like his mamma - mouth wide open :)

tasting a Vitamix sample at Costco... it tasted much better than it looks!