Milestones

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated thirteen years of marriage. We've survived a lot- six kids, cancer, even hanging curtains together, as Matt can be seen doing here. We're not real big on celebrating events like this (anniversaries, not curtain-hanging), but I didn't want the day to pass completely unacknowledged. On our way home from group classes yesterday, the kids and I drove across the city to the bakery that made our wedding cake all those many years ago. We picked out a box full of Italian cookies (just like we had at our wedding) and some cannolis to surprise Matt with when he got home from work. Matt, also not wanting to let the occasion pass unacknowledged, surprised me by bringing me home a lobster sandwich from a new restaurant we have wanted to try but just don't have time to right now. We finished the evening by showing the kids our wedding album. They thought all the people "looked funny", as we went through and pointed out all the relatives they know. One child even pointed to a picture of me and Matt and asked, "Who's that?" A lot changes in thirteen years!

Yesterday also marked baby David's five-month "birthday". Five months seems to be about the time babies cross over from being a 'brand-new baby' to just 'the baby'. He still will not eat baby food, or drink from a bottle, or sleep much at night.

We bring the fun!

For your enjoyment, some nice pictures of the kids at the playground. We're just getting back to some of our old stomping grounds since baby David has been born. He's getting old enough to enjoy activities other than eating now, so we're gradually venturing out into the world again.

Black and furry, in a hurry

If you think you're looking at a dog in jail, you'd be right. Fly has been pretty well behaved since the baby's been born, which is in part why she has not been featured on the blog as much (well behaved dogs rarely make history, or something like that; besides that, the dog got outranked in the cuteness department by the baby.) Maybe she was bored, or needed to stretch her legs, or maybe she just knows a good opportunity when she sees it; either way, the facts remain the same: the darn dog done run off.

I was taking laundry down off the clothesline, when the dog went flying past me hellbent for leather. When our dog runs away, she runs away! My boys were alerted to the situation, and ran out to help me catch the dog. Or more accurately, to wait until the dog was good and ready to be caught. It should be noted that in any situation where there is yelling, shouting, mass chaos, and runaway animals, there always seems to be a large crowd of our neighbors outside to act as spectators to the event. Eventually, the dog got tired out a little, and Paul was able to distract her by throwing bacon strips at her. While Fly was trying to figure out whether she'd rather eat bacon or keep running, we grabbed her collar and leashed her up, and then dragged her back home.

And the beat goes on

After a week of various setbacks and crises, work has resumed on the addition. Today they took down the wall between the new room and the old room, making it officially one big room. I'm quite amazed at just how big it seems! The children, of course, take front row center seats for all the big action.
Baby David is kickin' right along. I started feeding him baby food last week; he still has not decided how willing he is to eat it. He has decided he will no longer drink anything out of a bottle, and has been demanding to be nursed every two hours all night long as well (in addition to his normal routine of demanding feedings every hour during the day.) And of course he still insists that Thou Shalt Not Ever Put Me Down. We're going to have to work a few of these things out, as David does not seem to realize that he is not, in fact, an only child.
The rest of the gang is plugging along just fine, too. They're a pretty resilient bunch.

The arms race escalates...

It seems like the disarmament treaty negotiations have broken down, and a full-scale Nerf war has erupted. I can't quite figure out exactly who is at war with who here, but I don't think it matters much, anyways.
The winner will still be the one with the most fire power, or at least the one who can find all their Nerf bullets. Those things have been turning up everywhere. I find a few every time I make someone's bed or shake out some clean laundry.
Just when you thought it was safe....is that a banana in Renee's pocket? No, it's a banana gun! I'll have to ask her what caliber of ammo that thing takes. The Second Amendment is alive and well at the Becker house.

Baby D's Big Day

Baby David was dedicated at church this morning. If you hadn't noticed, today is October 10th. Our church service starts at 10:00, and we brought David up for his dedication about ten minutes into the service. So, that made it 10/10/10 at 10:10. If only there was an easy way to remember that date....
It was very special for our family to celebrate our sixth baby, and dedicate his life back to the Lord. David enjoyed it so much that he screamed his little head off for the whole thing; babies will be babies, even when they are up on stage in front of the whole congregation.
To celebrate after the service, we had cake and cookies. As always, whenever there is cake served to commemorate some event, there is a rush of people who come up to take pictures of the cake as well as a self-appointed spokesperson who stands next to it declaring "Wait! Don't cut the cake, we need to take a picture of it!" I find this amusing, because as far as I'm concerned, if you've seen one grocery store sheet cake, you've seen them all. The only thing that changes is the color of the flowers and the name of the honoree. I waited until we got home to take this picture of the remains of the cake, but I'm sure you get the idea.

One of these things is not like the other

Look carefully at the picture of the baby on the wall. Now look at the actual baby. Big blue eyes, fuzzy blond hair, little tiny mouth.
They're not quite identical, but gosh it's close. They even have a cowlick on the same side of their foreheads. The photo on the wall is a picture of Paul, if you couldn't guess, almost exactly eleven years ago. And yes, David is wearing the very same outfit, saved for all these years (Joe wore it too, I just don't have a picture of him handy for comparison.)

Water-3; Ceilings-0

We're starting to feel like the Beverly Hillbillies here, in that every time it rains, we are scrambling to find buckets and pots to set underneath the drips coming from the ceiling. We're inching closer to having a solid roof back- all the materials are sitting out in the driveway. I'm trying to take it all in stride.

Happy Birthday To You (and you, and you)

We have come the the end of the great Month of Birthdays here at the Becker house. Over the course of twenty-two days in September and early October every year we celebrate the birthdays of three out of our six children, as well as a handful of other family members. Elena, as you can see on her cake up above, turned six this year; I posted some pics from Naomi's eighth birthday a few weeks ago.
Renee turned four on Saturday. The "birthday child" gets to choose a special dinner for their birthday meal, as well as whatever kind of cake (or other dessert) they want. Here were this years' picks:

Naomi: Buffalo wing dip, fruit salad, and chocolate cream pie

Elena: homemade pizza, two kinds of chicken wings, and M&M cookie cake

Renee: McDonalds' Happy Meal, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting
Renee got two new light sabers for her birthday. I'm thinking it's a little out of the ordinary for a four year old little girl to want Star Wars paraphernalia for her birthday, but hey, what do I know. She makes a very cute Jedi warrior.