27 May 2010

Today we made cookies for Uncle Martin's very last care package before he returns from his deployment. This is Maisie's favorite part. Whenever we are cooking something we hear this: "Can I hold the eggs?" Hee! I have no idea why she likes to do it, but she likes to pick them out of the carton and hold them until it's time to use them.

25 May 2010

Maisie and her fellow preschoolers-their end of the year program and graduation of the 4 year olds.

On to Kindergarten! Although we are waiting to see who her classroom teacher will be, her music teacher happened to be at this program to see her grandson, so Maisie has been able to meet her twice already. :) (she also taught me to golf last summer!)

25 May 2010




Maisie and Mommy just before preschool graduation.

Wow. An entire year of preschool (plus last year's 1/2) behind us! Where does the time go?! She has learned so much in preschool, but my favorite part is that she LOVES it. She adores her teacher, and every day she asks how many more days of school she has left for the week, and then how many days until she gets to go again. I sure hope this continues! It's going to be a lot of counting days this summer until she gets to go to "big girl school"!!

25 May 2010

Maisie and Daddy on the evening of her preschool graduation.

16 May 2010

This boy is trouble!!!




I guess he REALLY wanted into Maisie's room. The stool was pretty close to there, but he pushed it right up to her door and Greg caught him jiggling that doorknob like he meant business!

The picture with Lily was cuter when he was laying on her chest. She must not have been too impressed, she moved for the picture.



I do not know WHAT was back there. A ball? It was the second time today that he'd put his whole body into that particular cupboard. Strategically empty, of course. Used to hold all the breakfast cereal, now is just home to a few paper plates and napkins. For obvious reasons. Did I post the cocoa puffs picture? All. Over. The. Floor.
Open. Closed. Open. Closed. Maisie in. Open. Closed. Open. SLAM! OPEN! SLAM!!!






























And, yes. In the last picture, Maisie is closed into the cupboard.

16 May 2010

Calvin woke up from his nap and joined us outside. He needed a graham cracker and some water. The graham cracker, he ate. The water, he wore.

I put these cute little flip flops on him! He WORE them! And WALKED in them!!! The only other pair of shoes besides Robeez that he's allowed on his feet without a tantrum.

15 May 2010

They weren't spraying the apple orchards around us, but near enough, because this guy was coming up directly over us! Calvin was NOT impressed. The poor boy hugged the dirt!

I'm torn beween my fascination and love of all airplanes and my suspicions of orchard and field spray surrounding my family.

14 May 2010

Improvement! I'm getting better at floral arranging. I obviously didn't pay enough attention when my Gramma did it, but I've stuffed enough flowers into vases in the last year that I think I'm getting a little better. I also took careful note when I was in Seattle with the girls at Pike Place Market-the lady held the tulips upside down and used a rubber band to hold them where she wanted them. Now why didn't I think of that!??? Oh, and two days later? NOTE TO SELF: No more peonies in the house. The stems are all naked, and we've been picking petals up off the counters and floors for two days! OUTSIDE FLOWER ONLY.

11 May 2010

Calvin. Toothpaste spelunking. Bummer this is a blurry picture. Nice face, though. Sheesh. Can you tell what he's saying? I'm pretty sure it's mostly attitude, but some of it might be that he does have a taste of toothpaste there...likes it though. Went back for more today. Twice.

9 May 2010

Playing with the Tonka at Papa and Gogo's house.

9 May 2010

Calvy loves ice cream. And provides neck hugs for Papa, who provided him w/ said ice cream.

29 April 2010

We took the kids to the Animal Fair at QHS. I missed out on taking pictures of Maisie with the baby pygmy goat, bummer because he was SO cute and she was SO in love with him!! But I managed to get a photo of her in a huge tractor tire!!

9 May 2010

Family!! :)

29 April 2010

Maisie, holding up a pair of her panties: "I have two pairs of these, but the other ones have 'dog dots' on them."
Me: "Dog dots?"
Maisie: "Yes. Dog dots."
Me: "What are dog dots?"
Maisie: "You know, when dogs have dirty feet and they walk all over, they leave footprints-those are dog dots."

Hahahahahaha!!!

24 April 2010

Maisie with Kool Aid face, resting on Papa. I think they were taking a quick photo break from necklace making. Her friend Damon got her some awesome beads, and we are going to have to work really hard to keep them above Calvin. MILES above Calvin. The boy climbs chairs without a care. Have I mentioned plant re-potting? Toothpaste spelunking?

Well, that is another post...

24 April 2010

Maisie with the Grandmas, the Gogo and the Mama.

24 April 2010

The Beckers minus their 4, who was napping the afternoon away, blissfully unaware that his peeps were outside getting crazy in the jumpy castle. The three of us were able to squash into the tunnel together. The tunnel we weren't supposed to have....there was a mix up or something, and we wound up getting the upgraded bounce house for the same price as the regular model. Nice.

So...we were allowed this tunnel squishing moment.

24 April 2010

Maisie having her turn at being silly in the bounce house!

24 April 2010

Maisie's 5th Birthday Party. The adults being a little silly in the bounce house. It was fun!!






I love this picture of Mom. Her expression is priceless. Makes that flexibility look effortless. Maisie saw this picture and said, "Look! Gogo jumped over Papa!!" HA!!

22 April 2010

Calvin playing on the stairs at Papa and Gogo's. This shot was taken right before we had cake and ice cream. Calvin LOVES ice cream. His Papa loves feeding it to him!

Look at those little curls on the sides of his head! He's NOT going to be bald forever...

22 April 2010

My little Maisie girl has turned 5! I think she was staring intently at her cake...maybe the candles in this shot. She was exhausted...always gets worn out after a day of school and then running around like mad at Papa and Gogo's house!

Greg and I were discussing how quickly Maisie's 5 years have flown by--seems that we were just in the hospital having her. Her nicknames have evolved, I like to write them down every now and then to see where they've gotten to...

I started her off with:
Pumpkin Pie. (Mom thought she was too teeny to be a whole pie, thought maybe more like a pie slice, hee! That didn't stick, though.)
Punkin.
Punkin Pie.
Pie.
Pie Girl.
Maiserella.
Maisie Daisy.
Maisie Girl.
Maisinator.
Maisaruru.
McGirlacutti.
Maisie McGirlacutti.

We had a birthday party at our house today, it was fun! Had a few friends from school and the family. We found a bounce house to play in, the kids (and adults!) loved it, and I think everyone is sufficiently worn out! (pictures to follow)

I cannot believe Maisie starts kindergarten next fall. Talk about terrifying. I cannot believe it. We've registered, and this week we have orientation. Oh MY. Preschool has been wonderful and fun, but I'm having a hard time believing it's time to send my little girl to BIG GIRL SCHOOL! (and every week she asks if it's time to go to big girl school yet.)

22 April 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAISIE!!!

We're all up early today, Maisie is here in bed with me and we said Happy Birthday to her while Greg was here. We've been discussing that today five years ago is actually the day she was born, even though her party is on Saturday...just now she looks at me and says with an incredulous tone: "Well is anyone going to sing Happy Birthday to me??!!"

HA!

So I did. She stared. Not exactly what she meant, I guess.

13 April 2010

Today Papa and Gogo babysat for the afternoon, and Papa brought the kids home. We had coffee and ice cream. Calvin decided the ice cream looked like a GREAT idea! He walked right on over to the guy he KNEW would share with him.

"more"
"please"
"Papa's #1!"

So....
Dessert.
Bath.
Jammies.
Bed.
DONE.

12 April 2010

Here he is....our little escapee!

This is what happens now that we have the chain lock on the door. He can't get his noggin through the space the chain leaves. Thank goodness!

9 April 2010

Maiserella. Yes. She is posing. I just cropped the posey part. This was taken either before or after (or both) holding chicks!

9 April 2010

Pink grapefruit face looks very similar to peep face!

I took the kids out to Bonney Farm to see Dad and so that Maisie could hold chicks. Papa had a grapefruit that interested Calvin. Hey, it was food. The kid isn't picky. Dad peeled it and pulled it apart for him, and he gobbled up every piece!

4 April 2010

I doubt Calvin will be thrilled with this picture when he is older....but he very deliberately attempted to put his sister's hot pink cowboy boots on! He did wind up getting some help from Maisie.

Can anyone say "blackmail"?

4 April 2010

HAPPY EASTER!

3 April 2010

Pam entertained Calvin while the rest of us played dominoes. He was really telling her stories! They also played ball with Maggie, I think he learned how to throw a ball!!

3 April 2010

A Calvin Grandma Sandwich!!

3 April 2010

Some MAS girls.

We enjoyed Easter with our friends so much last year, we decided to do it again! The Hollimans were here last year, too, and planned on coming this time, but wound up with a conflict, so they had to skip it. Hopefully next year-the more the merrier, and Maisie missed Christopher being in on the egg hunt with her!

3 April 2010

Calvin wants a Peep!!!! He followed Maisie around, then followed Greg around just trying to get his first couple of tastes of Peep. He loved it!

3 April 2010

Becker Easter eggs!

We had help from Nicole and Elena-Elena did some dyeing and Nicole did some alligator wrestling. We found that what kept him quiet and not trying to pull the newspapers off the table was the strainer on his head!

31 March 2010

I brought in a bunch of daffodils...not really to PLAY with, but it presented a cute photo opportunity anyway!

31 March 2010

The practice Pinkalicious!

Found a giant cupcake pan for Maisie's b-day cake, and tried a practice round. Thank goodness, because this is going to take a couple of tries. One side gets well done and the other side is wobbly in the middle still!

Cute, though!

29 March 2010

Just another day of Spring Break....Mommy getting a Dominoes facial from Maisie.

28 March 2010

Nicole and Calvin playing....

28 March 2010

The Squackers. Missing Cheryl.

Kristi, Karyn, Katie, Jen, Nicole, Molly.

27 March 2010

Maise and I on a walk with some Squacks.

27 March 2010

We loaded up all the kids, took them to town to the children's museum, which is the coolest children's museum I've ever seen! It was closed. Gone. Out of business. What a bummer! So we went bowling instead. Maisie won on the kids side. In fact, since the guys were more into seeing how fast they could send the ball flying down the lane, Maisie might have won on the adult's side, too!

So, there you have it. Maisie can beat us in wii bowling AND real bowling. Nice.

27 March 2010

Whoops! We wore out the baby!

Calvin was NOT impressed by his "crib". Since our van was so full on the way down, we didn't bring the pack and play. I decided to make do. I put the couch and the chair in our room up against the wall to make a "cage" if you will, for Calvin to sleep in! He was fine with it for nighttime, but wouldn't have anything to do with it for naps. So he just collapsed when he was so tired he couldn't be awake one second longer. Greg and I were both standing in the kitchen, and he just crawled in and laid down behind Greg. Poor baby!

25 March 2010

I'd call Shaniko a ghost town, but the people who live there might be offended. Michael didn't ask to stop to take pictures really, but Nicole could tell he wanted to. So we stopped here and told him not to take too long. After 20 minutes, we drove around to look for him. How he disappeared in this teeny tiny little burg was beyond me! I jumped out to take these pictures, but just about got blown away in the wind! And it was COLD! Nic said Michael would have stayed there for HOURS, but we finally found him and buckled him into the van and were on our way to BEND!!!

23 March 2010

Darrick came over to play with Maisie and Calvin! They had so much fun-at least MY children did! I was able to get lots and lots of stuff done around the house while Darrick kept the kids entertained-makes getting ready for a trip SO much easier! I made the girls a picnic lunch so they could play outside. Maisie had been begging for a picnic for weeks-was about time!!