summer celebrations

can it even be possible that august has snuck up on us? I barely saw it coming. believe you me...I'm not ready to say goodbye to the summer yet. we have lots more to pack into our carefree summer days. july was a busy month and although it seemed like one thing after another, I loved it. it means that we have plenty of people to love and plenty of people who love us. we are blessed. this particular weekend we had much to celebrate. my sister-in-law threw my brother a surprise birthday and graduation bash. he turned 30 in may and is this close to finishing up his PhD work in pharmacology at the university of minnesota. we are definitely proud of him. hats off to jen for managing to pull off a fun and very deserving surprise for marc.

brotherly love

the adorable rogers family

pretty little emma

"nap time"

melissa and beth

party planner extraordinaire, jen, averting a marshmallow disaster

marc was under the impression that we were all getting together to celebrate nykkole's birthday. so we decided that we would need to make sure nykki got her much needed birthday bash the next day. the weather was nothing short of perfect the entire weekend. we were thrilled to be able to sit outside and bask in the cool sunshine amongst our family and friends. nykkole became a teenager on the 26th of july. although we know that she will not experience her teens in any "typical" manner, we are blessed to have her with us. she brings everyone so much joy and spreads an invaluable message her in quiet and innocent way. she certainly is an angel here on earth. miles and henry will be better human beings because of their auntie nykkole and for that, we are thankful. happy birthday little nykker-bocker.

here's a little "henry fix". I know it wasn't his birthday, but I couldn't resist sharing his happy-go-lucky personality.

we wrapped up our weekend of celebrations with an outdoor concert. in spite of the endless piles of goose poo surrounding our blanket, miles danced. he spun in circles and pumped his little arms while his baby brother grinned at him with his whole body. his sparkly blue eyes were dancing too. it felt strange to sit there in the park with our little family of four and not another familiar face. we are usually joined by friends and/or family. so after a busy weekend with all of the people we love, kyle and I ended it on a blanket in the park snuggling and dancing with our babies. it was a perfect "happily-ever-after" moment.

whew...

...what a busy family-filled weekend! we got things started on saturday with a walk to the toy store. as many of you know, we are almost able to see toys r us from our front yard. I foresee this becoming a problem. kyle walked over there with miles last week and he fell in love (miles that is). we went back on saturday to do a little exchanging at babies r us. we surprisingly made it out of there with only a couple of new snack cups (thank you easter bunny nana), new pacifiers for henry, and a mommy hook for me. kyle thinks it's a ridiculous purchase. I love it. we then trekked back home for the car and made our way over to nana and papa's for nap time. I did a few errands while the boys snoozed and then it was off to congratulate my uncle steve on his retirement from IBM. it came a little sooner than he had planned...but that's how IBM rolls. I haven't one picture of my uncle...but here are some of the boys enjoying steve and jeanie's lovely backyard.

obligatory matching outfits photo op #1
adorable.

miles and olivia trying out josh's washer game.
somehow I don't think this is how it was intended to be played.

josh was teaching miles a new handshake of sorts

precious

peace out!

beautiful nykkole

mr. j enjoying the sunshine with auntie blair

getting a little practice standing up

whenever all of us becker siblings are in town, we try to take advantage and hang out. after the party we went back to my parent's house and played some games. miles decided that playing in nykki's sling was fantastic! especially since he has control of the remote.

danger!!

obligatory matching outfits photo op #2
fer cuuute!

(thanks for the pjs, easter bunny)

miles adores his auntie nykki. it doesn't hurt that she has the best set up for movie watching ever!

enjoying a little cedarmont kids video
(if you ever want to hear kyle complain...ask him about these!)

insert mommy brag: I will say that miles is getting to be quite the little smarty pants. his latest obsession is with finding things that are the same. last week I gave him two crackers. one was broken in half. he took a close look at them, bit off part of the whole one, and declared, "SAME!" when he sits and watches movies he always asks to, "hold cover." then he studies it and when he notices the part of the movie that is shown in a small picture on the case he says, "I saw that one." yeah...you read that right...FOUR word sentences. I knew he'd be a talker [click here].

"I saw that one!"

and for some reason, miles can sit and watch endless dvds with nykki and somehow escape the whaps from her wild and crazy left arm. however, this time she did manage to snag him...

"no no nykki!"

we've learned to let nykki hold babies in that crazy left arm

our little henry is becoming quite the drooler. he has discovered both fists and tries desperately to chew them off. occasionally he shoves them in too far. gag. miles thinks it's fun to imitate him.

delish

monkey see. monkey do.

it was so fun to spend the day just hanging out at "home" - the boys had a wonderful time and we always enjoy playing games and catching up with everyone. here are just a couple more from our fun night.

papa chatting with henry
henry and auntie bethy

farkle

the busy weekend continued on sunday with henry's baptism. stay tuned.

prayers

EDIT: sweet taylor nicole received her angel wings today (saturday, january 24th, 2009) at 1:45pm. she will surely be missed.

With Hope by Steven Curtis Chapman

This is not at all how
We thought it was supposed to be
We had so many plans for you
We had so many dreams
And now you've gone away
And left us with the memories of your smile
And nothing we can say
And nothing we can do
Can take away the pain
The pain of losing you, but ...

We can cry with hope
We can say goodbye with hope
'Cause we know our goodbye is not the end, oh no
And we can grieve with hope
'Cause we believe with hope
(There's a place by God's grace)
There's a place where we'll see your face again
We'll see your face again

And never have I known
Anything so hard to understand
And never have I questioned more
The wisdom of God's plan
But through the cloud of tears
I see the Father's smile and say well done
And I imagine you
Where you wanted most to be
Seeing all your dreams come true
'Cause now you're home
And now you're free, and ...

We have this hope as an anchor
'Cause we believe that everything
God promised us is true, so ...

We wait with hope
And we ache with hope
We hold on with hope
We let go with hope

I'm asking you all to say a prayer today for some of our good friends - taylor & debbie and their family. taylor is a beautiful little girl whom we have had the pleasure of meeting at the North American Conference on Shaken Baby Syndrome. her story is here:
http://www.shakenbabycoalition.org/board.htm scroll down to "Debbie Dycus"
taylor's health is critical right now. she has had massive internal bleeding and had a cardiac arrest two days ago. she is currently on a ventilator and things are looking very grave. please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. this has been such a difficult journey for them and we hope that if it is time for taylor to take her wings and fly, that she does so peacefully. although she will be greatly missed, there are many SBS angels who will meet her in heaven.

santa baby

what I thought would be a semi-traumatic experience for our son actually went smoothly! you see, I was t-e-r-r-i-f-i-e-d of santa claus as a child. there is many a picture of me screaming at the top of my lungs and reaching desperately for my mom. miles, on the other hand, must take after his daddy on this one. see for yourself...

after visiting with santa, we made some cookies. this was helen's FIRST time baking cookies! geesh...where did we fail this girl?!? she enjoyed it and miles thought it was pretty fun too. I'm sure he'll be more of a fan next year when he can EAT cookies!!