Tis the Season

It's Christmas! This sure is an exciting time of the year. Mommy & Daddy pull out all kinds of interesting toys to put around the house, like snowglobes, that I just can't wait to get my hands on.

There are also many baby Jesus statues around the house. Mommy keeps scolding me to get down because I want to get close to baby Jesus and the animals she placed on the fireplace mantle.

We celebrated the beginning if the Christmas season tonight by watching Charlie Brown's Christmas and enjoying homemade caramel apples. What a treat.!

Holiday fun

We had a nice time visiting our Morgantown relatives over the long weekend. On Saturday, we visited with our second cousins, Kwanita and Kadence at Mamaw Chase's house. We enjoyed hanging with Grandpa and Grandma some more -- watching fun movies like Surf's Up and Shrek 3 -- all while enjoying popcorn.

Mommy gave me (Lilly) her old sunglasses so I could pretend I was a rock star. I think I have a future in entertainment as Grandma and Grandpa got a big kick out of my performance!

A parade, a pumpkin cake & lots of Thomas the Train

Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful, at least that's what Daddy explained to me today. So I thought I would share some of the things that I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for a grandparents who volunteer to babysit us for a weekend; watch us every day while Mommy & Daddy work and love us to the ends of the Earth. I'm thankful for parents who love me enough to show me right from wrong and teach me about Jesus and how he loves me. I'm thankful for a little sister who I can make laugh and makes me laugh (even if I don't always show it.)

We celebrated this day of thanksgiving with some family traditions. Mommy and me enjoyed watching the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. My favorite part was watching the Sesame Street characters sing and the large balloon of the princess from Sesame Street. After a long nap we drove over the river and through a subdivision to Granny's house for a delicious turkey dinner. After some initial shyness, I eventually visited with my extended family. I was especially grateful that Uncle Richie brought a whole Thomas the Train set and many, many, many engines for me to play with. I spent the next three hours playing trains by myself. I was sad when our day had to come to an end, but Mommy said I was getting too cranky and it was time for bed. So we returned home, ate a small snack and went off to bed. Tomorrow we'll drive over another river to get to Grandma's house for more Thanksgiving fun.

Happy Thanksgiving

High Places

We sure don't look forward to bedtime, but Mommy does! After chasing us around all evening (and days on the weekends), she said she's ready for us to hit the sack so she and Daddy can relax. Who can blame them, when I (Lilly) have learned how to climb everything, including the set of stairs in our house. Tonight, I climbed into the rocker in Belle's room and started jumping around.

Of course, all my growing up isn't so bad. I'm learning a lot from my sister. Some good. Some bad. A couple of good things: I've learned we have to pick up our toys when we're finished playing. I also know that we have to brush our teeth before bed. I like my new pink toothbrush and can brush my bottom teeth pretty well. Even with our bedtime routine, sometimes we're so wound up that it takes us awhile to calm down and go to sleep. Mommy tries to read me stories, but I'm not too interested in that. Belle has learned the art of asking for "one more" to delay the inevitable. She's should go to sleep before me since she's usually cranky from not taking a nap. Course, this weekend neither of us had much sleep. I was upset from the immunizations I received on Friday at Dr. Rubin's office. The end of daylight savings time threw us both for a loop Saturday night.

Mommy says I'll be talking before too long, since I'm mimicking everything Belle says. And that's a lot!

Development update for Lilly: She is 32 inches tall (95th percentile); weighs 21 lbs. 12 oz. (50th). So she's still very tall and skinny. And Dr. Rubin says no more bottle!! Boy has that been a rough transition.

Happy Halloween

Halloween was quite an event at the Beckner house this year! A weeklong event -- that began with trick-or-treating at Capitol Market on Oct. 25th with Grandpa and ended tonight with trick-or-treating with Pawpaw. After Belle's pumpkin was too heavy for her to carry, she decided she was ready to go home. I'm delighted to report that she did enjoy watching The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown with us tonight! Belle has accumulated enough candy that we can all have candy to eat until Christmas -- maybe longer. The slideshow shows some highlights from today, including Belle's Halloween parade and party at pre-school. Enjoy and Happy Halloween!

Carving Pumpkins

Fall is my favorite time of the year. Probably because I have so many childhood memories of fun family times -- like carving pumpkins. I get nostalgic in the fall. This leads me to want to recreate my memories with my children. Unforutnately, they're not too keen on creating lasting childhood memories (yet!) No, they definitely like picking out pumpkins and think they're cool. But carve them? Yuck. What's that inside, Mommy, Belle asks. Cook pumpkin seeds to eat later? No thank you, Mommy. Drink hot apple cider while we listen to fun Halloween songs and carve our pumpkin. No, thank you Mommy. Just give me some juice and crackers and I'll run around and play while you do all the work. The extent of Belle's help was to pick out the pattern that we would use to carve our pumpkins. You see the end result. As for the Beckner family memories... I guess we'll have to wait a few more years for the girls to get older.

It's football season.... Go 'Eers!

Fall fun

Walking montage

First Birthday party

Thank you to everyone who attended my first birthday party. I had such a good time. I appreciate all the gifts I received. You should have seen our house when we got home. It looked like Christmas! At least that's what Mommy said. Belle and I are already fighting over the new toys and have enjoyed a couple of our new DVDs. Thankfully, I received some nice new outfits for the fall since the weather is getting cooler. Most importantly though, I am just happy to have such loving friends and family. Thank you, Lilly.

Our attempt to get Lilly to walk

Goodness this girl is stubborn. She could walk. We just have to figure out what will entice her to take her first steps.

Lilly turns 1!

Can you believe it was a year ago that this little bundle of joy came into our lives? My how the last year has flown. While Lilly is growing leaps and bounds in many ways, she still holds onto those baby ways. We think she'll enjoy being the "baby" of the family for some time.

Dance fever

We like to shake our booties. Today, Granny and Pawpaw got down with us!

Lilly walking, with some assistance

Mommy & Daddy are determined that I'll walk before my first birthday, but I'm not giving in to them yet! I do walk with some assistance, whether it's from Pawpaw (who helped me get around while we were at the beach) or from my toy car.

Life under the sea

I understand that everyone has wondered what happened to me this. Be assured that I'm here and making my presence known. It's just hard to get any face time in front of the camera when my sister is more mobiel and getting herself into peculiar situations.

It began to rain last night and continued this morning so there was no trip to the beach today. The surf was wicked because of the storm coming through. Apparently there is a tropical storm all the way in Florida that is causing problems here. We're pretty bummed that the weather was bad today and is predicted to be just as terrible tomorrow. So rather than sit around the house (which is wonderful) for two days, Mommy and Daddy decided we would drive to Myrtle Beach after all and visit Ripley's Aquarium. Boy was I happy they decided to visit the aquarium. I've never seen anything like it. It was so exciting to watch all the colorful fish swim around in the tanks. Belle liked the fish, but she was preoccupied with the moving sidewalk that took us through a tunnel. It made you feel like you really were under the sea. We saw sharks and all kinds of fish -- including ones that look like Nemo and Dory! We also were allowed to touch a horseshoe crab. Belle declined -- and not so politely, I might add -- but I was happy to reach out from my stroller and touch the wonderful creature. It was a fun time and we received cool souvenirs from our trip.

I've had a wonderful time at the beach this week. I love the ocean and the sand. We've seen a lot of interesting animals. The only downside is I have some battle wounds to show for it. I have several mosquitoe bites on my legs, forehead and left eye from our visit to the nearby gardens. It's been such a great week. We've enjoyed playing with Granny & Pawpaw and we'll be sad to leave for home on Saturday. I'm definitely not looking forward to that long car ride home.

Shopping & friends

Today we visited a nearby shopping plaza, where they make Pawley's Island Hammocks. It's similar to Nags Head Hammocks, but Mommy says she still fonder of Nages Head Hammocks. We did a little bit of shopping (as much as I could tolerate) until we found a playground in the middle of the shopping area. I was finally happy that I was able to burn off some energy and meet some new friends. I made a boyfriend while we played in the magical castle together. He wasn't playing like I wanted so I had to "direct" him a bit. But he was so nice that I gave him a hug and told him I loved him.

I have a lot of new friends this week. I have a whole herd of horses now. We didn't bring a lot of toys to play with inside so Granny got me some new friends to hang out with this week, "pokies" (read: ponies). I like my ponies. We also have a friend at our beach house, a real lizard. Pawpaw is trying to catch him so I can take him home with me!

Brookgreen Gardens

It's so nice to wake up, walk downstairs and see the ocean out your living room window. I enjoyed eating my yogurt and grapenuts this morning in the high chair while I watched the waves crash on the shore. It was so invigorating, that I was deeply upset when Mommy and Daddy wouldn't immediately take me to the ocean. Instead, we visited this place called Brookgreen Gardens. It's pretty cool. They have a natural habitat zoo. We saw cows, horses, chickens, otters, alligators, foxes and lots and lots of birds (like the one in the picture above.) We had a nice lunch and then we walked through pretty gardens with lots of cool statues. I enjoyed talking to the lions. I also tried to jump into the many water fountains throughout the gardens, but Mommy and Granny wouldn't let me because they said it was full of goose poop! It was a pretty neat place. The cool thing is you pay once and then you can go back to the park all week.

After very, very short naps this afternoon, Daddy and Pawpaw took us to the beach while Granny and Mommy shopped. Once again, I didn't care for the sand. Lilly, however, became so hungry that she started to eat it! It's been a pretty fun day, and I only suffered three meltdowns today!

We've added a link (on the links section) to Brookgreen Gardens so you can see more of it for yourself. Enjoy!

-- Belle

Sleep deprived, but having fun

Well, as always when we travel, the second day is the worst. We're so excited when we arrive that we just can't take a minute to sleep. Therefore, the second day of our trip (whenver we go anywhere), we're usually a bit grouchy. I must say Belle has been extremely grouchy today. I, on the other hand, am pretty pleasant, regardless of how much sleep I get. I'm sure you can guess that when given the option between taking a nap or continuing an activity -- say going swimming in the ocean -- Belle never chooses a nap!

So needless to say, Belle was quite the grouch today. I slept for a couple of hours while Daddy played with Belle in the ocean. I heard that once again Belle did not like the sand and would not walk in it until she got near the water. I was fine not going to the beach this morning, Mommy said the water was nice and warm but the air was cool and so it wasn't very comfortable. And then when it came time for an afternoon nap, Belle wouldn't sleep again. so we went for a ride in the car, which is the only time we got some rest. There sure is a lot to do here at Pawley's Island. We toured the island a bit and picked up some bait to go fishing. There is a pier near our house, so Daddy and Mommy were going to take us fishing. However, we discovered -- much to our dismay -- that the pier is privately owned and only the people staying in nearby condos can use it!

I didn't make it down to the beach today, because Belle was ban from the beach as punishment for her bad behavior. So we hung around the house, which is fine with me. I was able to explore the stairs -- four actually -- until Mommy discovered me. Then every time I tried to escape to the stairs again, Mommy was right on my tail. She just wouldn't let me be.

Well, tomorrow we'll have new adventures and one of us will write to tell you all about it.

With love, Lilly

P.S. By the way, we've added a link to the blog for Pawley's Island. There is a webcam on a house just up the beach. You may catch us on it one day. At the very least, you can see the weather down here as you listen to the waves.

Wipe out on Pawley's Island

Hello from Pawley's Island, S.C.!

We're on our first vacation with Granny and Pawpaw. What a trip. It took a long time to get here. After our 8th hour and no naps, we were ready to get out of the car. I (Belle) was so excited to see Granny and Pawpaw and our home for the week. There are three floors for me to run wild. I have my own room with bunk beds. I'm a big girl so I'm sleeping on the bottom bunk. For weeks, all Daddy has talked about is the ocean and finally today I got to see the ocean. Even though I visited the ocean with Grandma and Grandpa Bott last year, I didn't really remember the sand. I didn't like the feel of it at first and told Mommy "eewww!" But I quickly got over that and ran into the ocean. Daddy took me out pretty far into the ocean. I loved it and even though I feel on my face, it wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying the water.

Lilly enjoyed the water too. As you can see from the video, she had her first spill too! Mommy thought she was back enough from the water that the little waves wouldn't hurt Lilly, but one was too much for her and sent her toppling. We sure had a good time at the beach. I didn't want to leave, but Daddy said we'd go out early again tomorrow.

Now that Mommy and Daddy have a new camera & Pawpaw brought his laptop to the beach with us, we'll try to update everyone each day on our vacation. We're going to visit a botanical garden this week and maybe even the aquarium. Mommy said we'd have to see because it's still an hour drive to the aquarium and she isn't too eager to get back into the car with us.

Tah-tah!

Belle