September Fun

I know October is almost over, but I wanted to share with you some of the fun we had in September.

You already saw the new bag trick. She still loves bags, purses, anything she put things in and put on her arm. Many times she will fill a bag or purse, put it on her arm, and say "bye bye." I guess she sees me getting everything ready when we run out the door!

The first weekend in September we had an adventure with our friends, the Tamayos. We rode the train to the Nasher Sculpture Center for a free family day. We explored inside and outside and even did a craft! It was so much fun.


Rebekah and I took a trip with my parents to Arkansas to visit some family. She had not yet met her Great Uncle Rusty, Great Aunt Carla, several second cousins and other family on my mom's side.


(we were definitely missed while we were gone!)


Then some other relatives came for a weekend visit! Great Uncle Phil and Great Aunt Ellen were here (as well as Uncle Rusty and Carla.)


And finally, we made our first visit to the pumpkins at the Dallas Arboretum. We went with our friends Laura and Noah. We've made several trips to see the pumpkins, and will still go a few more times - gotta make use of that membership! Hope you don't get tired of seeing pumpkin pictures over the next couple of months. :)


Here are all the photos from our fun month of September!

2011.09 - September

Happy Baptism Birthday!

Wow, It's been over a month and a half since my last post. We've been busy with a couple of trips out of town in September, a class I was teaching, and other things with friends, family, and work. I owe you all some serious updates, but I thought I would post this quick one. Yesterday was the 1st anniversary of Rebekah's baptism! We want to make this a special tradition in our house. We had a busy day yesterday with brunch plans and a trip to the State Fair (went to mass on Saturday night...don't worry!), so our celebration extended to today.

We blessed yesterday Rebekah using a special baptism anniversary blessing in the Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers book. We celebrated today with a cupcake on our You Are Special Today plate.


She loved it!


Last year, I took a picture of her on the morning of her big day. This year I missed that chance...so I took one at night instead. (She's already awake and running around in circles in the crib when I go in there in the mornings!) Anyway, for comparison, here's last year:


and this year


such a sleeping cutie!

(We wanted to light her baptismal candle as a part of this special celebration, but it is buried somewhere in the closet...we'll make sure we find it for next year!)

Happy Baptism Birthday to our little girl!

Rebekah's Bag Trick

Rebekah's latest game is to put things in something. It started earlier in August with a little purse she received as a gift from her Great Aunt Joleen. She has now graduated to bigger bags. She fills 'em up and drags them around the house.

(I know, I know, where are her shorts?? We were about to get her ready for bed so the super cute purple plaid bermuda shorts were already done for the day.)

filling up the bag


heehee, check out the bag!


Wow, it is heavy!


Sneak peak of the bag contents


Ooh, wait, one more thing


Yep, I can still carry it


No more photos, mom!


My bag and I are outta here.


And....the finally tally of the bag contents. Every. single. item. placed in there by Rebekah.


Click here for a video of Rebekah and her bag in action.

The Big Birthday Party!

This weekend we celebrated Rebekah's 1st birthday - cupcake style! We invited some friends and family for a cute little cupcake party. We ordered printable decorations from PartySoPerfect on etsy (and my mom, Adam, and I all pitched in and put together different pieces). Adam's mom made Rebekah this cute dress based on a pattern I found on Pinterest and the cupcake fabric inspiration from the blog of a friend of mine. Adam and I baked cupcakes and my sister helped to decorate them! On Saturday Adam put the finishing touches on Rebekah's cake, grilled hamburgers, and we were ready to party!!

The cake!


My favorite decoration


Where's my cake?


There it is!


Nom nom nom


Now there's a good grab of cake


She was so delicate and dainty when eating her cake! I really expected her to go after it, but she was savoring every bit of the homemade cake and icing. Thanks so much to Becky for being our unofficial family photographer for this part of the party! :)

Check out this cute dress!


Of course there were presents. Lots and lots of presents.


Oh my goodness - I'm just grinning looking at all the pictures. There are way too many to post in the blog. Please click the photo below to see the album - we condensed it down from 136 photos to about 60!

We are just so blessed with family and friends to celebrate and love on this little girl. Thanks to all who attended and all who were celebrating with us from afar. We love all of you and we thank you for loving our little Rebekah Ann!

2011.08.27 - Rebekah 1st Bday Party

Happy First Birthday!

Wow, a year ago today at 4:47pm our lives changed so dramatically as we welcome little Rebekah Ann into our family. I still remember it all so vividly (and I've been thinking about it quite a bit as some friends of ours had a baby today - yay for 8/23 babies!)

One year apart...almost to the minute!


Our little baby girl has turned into a walking, gabbing toddler. She has more smiles and giggles in her than anyone I've ever met and she is so willing to share both with everyone we meet. I love seeing the smile on peoples' faces when her smile lights up! Rebekah truly brings love and joy to everyone we encounter. And you all have been following along with all the Monthly Updates.

Through the Month...
The last month has been a whirlwind with a trip to Minnesota (still need to sort through all 200+ of those photos), a quick schedule with the ENT to get tubes for Rebekah, then just trying to settle back into our life.

getting ready to get tubes


In the last month, Rebekah started walking, she caused some trouble here,

naptime fail

here,


and here.

And she finally got her first tooth!


And for the Birthday Today...
We had a great day today!
We had lunch with great-mammaw (my grandmother)


We went to Party City and the nice lady gave her a balloon to match her outfit (which she proceeded to carry all over the house - literally, I have photos of her in every room in our house with this balloon.)
click on image to see video


We had a fun little dinner at The Purple Cow.


Then we came home for a birthday cake ball


which she loved!

(from this adorable little shop called Creme de la Cookie)

Then we finally got around to opening presents!


Whew! This has been a long post. If you've made it this far and want to see more (not too many more, but some gifts and more cake ball shots), you can click the image below for the album. Also the final Bee Photos of the year are updated here!

2011.08 - Rebekah Month 12

4th of July (just a little late)

Ok, I know this post is ridiculously late, but there are way too many cute pictures for me not to share this album.

We had a great 4th of July weekend, despite the heat! Adam and I got engaged 4 years ago on the 4th of July at the Dallas Arboretum, so when I noticed they were doing a concert on the afternoon of the 3rd, I knew we would have to use our new membership and go. It was SUPER hot, but we found a nice little spot in the shade and enjoyed the military band.


look at this face!


Then, on Monday, we decided to attend the Highland Park 4th of July parade. We got there early and found a nice shaded spot and started practicing our flag waving.


Finally the parade started!


again, this face!


which was immediately followed by this face!


And on the way home we picked up yummy burgers from our new In-N-Out. All in all, a great way to celebrate the weekend!

You can enjoy all the photos from our 4th of July adventures by clicking on the album link below.

2011.07.04 - 4th of July

Go Go Gadget Arms

The latest in Rebekah's destructive behaviors (adding to pulling out all the bins in her room, removing her diaper, etc.):

We were checking out at Wal-mart today, and the checker was only filling my reusable bags half full. So, I was grabbing things and putting them on the tops of the bags. I placed the eggs on top of a bag and she offered to wrap them in plastic for me. "No, that's ok, they'll be fine on top of this bag"....unless of course the bag is placed within the reach of my little girl's go-go-gadget arms. All of a sudden I hear SPLAT! All 12 of the eggs were dumped through the basket straight onto the floor. Luckily, the bags were on the other side of the cart, so no eggs in the bags! (Good aim Rebekah!)

I'm adding that $1.62 to her tab.