Laughing and Learning...

So, I'm going to start out this blog with my new table runner...I LOVE IT!!! I got it for $5 at a store and I love the colors and everything. I'm going back to the store on Saturday to see if there are any more fun finds for me!!! Whoo-hoo! Okay...now back to our regularly scheduled blog...

Mary has had her really funny moments this week. This particular day she was hyper, happy and funny for about an hour. She was climbing all over me and the couch just laughing and playing. It was really fun!!! This was the day after we got back from Bear Lake. I think she was glad to be home.

I love that smile! (And yes, she's wearing a diaper)

Once again she has found a new big person chair that she wants to take over. Jake has taught her how to climb into the dining room chairs...I'm not overly excited about that.

Mary and I got out the roll of paper and decided to color together. It was really fun. Mary did a pretty good job. She was really excited about the crayons. She kept putting them in the box and taking them out and doing it all over again.

Here is some of our artwork. She's a regular Picasso! 

Just playing in her room. Isn't that a gorgeous crib!!!! (and a gorgeous girl of course!)

She loves to see herself in the camera and smile!

Some of the things Mary is doing now:

- She says "uh-oh" when she drops something. It's really cute!

- She signs "please" when she wants something

- She signs "milk" usually when she's thirsty, but also when she wants something

- She signed "help" twice yesterday! Whoo-hoo!!!! I was so excited!

- She has gotten her first molar this week. She's been a little grumpy, but really not that bad!

- We have learned she loves Tuna. She keep eating it by the spoonful! 

- Today she fed herself almost all of her oatmeal all by herself, scooping it up and everything! It made a mess, but it's fun to watch her grow and learn!!! I love it!

- She will mimic anything she can. She is so much fun to be around! I love being her mom.

For Father's Day Jake didn't get anything very exciting (except the nice golf shirt from his parents, he was so excited about that). We had bought a bbq early this summer and that was his Father's Day gift. But I did get him bbq utensils, which he was happy about - no more singed hairs. And I got him a homemade popcorn bowl (it was really pathetic, but it works), a bbq book, and the book of "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories". He's only read part of one, but thinks it's funny. 

Well that is all from the Beckstead's! Hope you have a wonderful day!!!

Barton Family Reunion

We were lucky enough to go to Bear Lake for a family reunion this past week. Jake's Mom's family got together and had a great time!!! The picture above is Jake testing the temperature of the water...FREEZING!!! But I've heard that it always is. See the tree in the lake off to the side?? Yeah, the water was REALLY high. 

Mary wanted to explore, she did not want to be held.

Grandpa was trying to play with her and Mary was being a stinker, she wouldn't have anything to do with him.

She had so much fun playing and exploring the whole trip! She loved playing with her cousins and finding new toys.

Just chillin by the lake. She loves sitting in big people chairs now. She thinks she's so grown up!

We went shooting while we were there. It was really fun!!! Jake, Ryan, Grandpa, Uncle Bruce and Benji all brought guns to shoot. I had a lot of fun shooting! Grandpa's guns were really fun to shoot.

Jake and his cousin Ryan both have ARs (aka their babies) and were nice enough to let everyone who wanted to shoot them. They are really fun guns to shoot.

Even Grandpa shot it.     

Mary LOVES the park! She has learned to go down slides all by herself and she thinks it's the greatest thing in the world. She could stay there all day! It was really cold this day that we went out to the park, but she didn't care. She wanted to stay all night!!!

Grandma and Grandpa brought a keyboard to the Lodge. When Jared set it up Mary quickly took over and wouldn't let anyone play it unless she was on their lap.

Making faces on the way home.

Mary has learned to love sunglasses. She's such a goof!

On the way home we had to go through the High Park fire. They detoured us and everything. It was kind of crazy. 

Here we go into the smoke. 

See the red sun???

We had such a great time at the reunion. The Laketown Lodge where we stayed was AWESOME!!! It was huge and sooooo nice! It was the perfect place for a family reunion! Benji (Jake's cousin) and his friends did a great job redoing it. If you want to see pictures check it out at Laketownlodge.com it's really cool! We had so much to do at the reunion. We played yard games, went to the lake, played pool and pingpong, watched movies in the media room, played games, ate and ate and ate (the food was so yummy!), and just hung out. It was great for me to get to know more of Jake's family. They were all so nice! I could definitely hangout with them again! And Mary has 2 cousins just her age. I don't know why I didn't get pictures of all of them together, but I didn't...next time I will though! 

Thanks to all the family that made the reunion fun and memorable! We had a blast!!!

Camping!!!

We finally did it - we took Mary on her first CAMPING TRIP! She LOVED it!!! We had a lot of fun! We left Saturday morning and drove about 2 hours until we found a suitable spot in Pike National Forrest. We had just bought a new tent and wanted to try it out. It's twice the size of our old tent. It was awesome! It was two room dividers so that Mary couldn't see us when she was napping. We set-up camp and then it started to rain on us, so we hung-out in our tents until it stopped. It was actually really fun, Jake set-up a chair and Mary just ran around playing.

This was right before the rain hit. Mary was playing with everything that we were throwing in the tent and Jake was staking down the mat as the rain started.

We didn't have time to eat lunch before we set-up camp so here is Jake in his chair just eating and waiting for the rain to stop.

Mary, of course, tried to get into everything. She was having a blast!

"Mommy pick me up!!!"

What a cutie!

After the rain stopped Mary was having a great time exploring, getting dirty and falling all over the place. Do you like her 80's outfit??? Pretty much these were the clothes I didn't care if she got dirty. (Except the shoes, I need to clean those. And I need to get camping shoes!)

The Kirby's came with us. We're all just hanging out by the fire.

Mary learned how to get in and out of the camping chairs. It quickly became one of her favorite things to do on the camping trip. And she did not want any help. If the chair started to tip we had to catch it because she would push our hands away if we were touching it. We often had to reclaim our chairs.

Just hanging out. Mary often will take a wipe or napkin and wipe her face, but during the camping trip I learned that she knows how to blow her nose into a wipe. It was really funny. I had no idea she could do that. She so much fun to watch!

Playing with her wipe. See the big log on the fire?! We did end up burning it all. It was an awesome fire. So warm and perfect!

Trying Daddy's hat on over and over again. I love those big blue eyes!!!

This is the next morning. Mary kept going to Alli and begging food from her. She's such a little scavenger sometimes. She loves to make the rounds and eat what everyone else is eating. 

About a year ago we got a new camp stove and this was the first time we got to use it. It was awesome! We loved it!!!

Mary once again stole Jake's chair. She was just lounging, waiting for breakfast.

Just chillin with Hayden. They thought they were such big people. It was funny!!!

BREAKFAST!!! YUM! Apple Fritter, bacon and chocolate milk. Could anything be better than this, I don't think so!!!

Overall the camping trip was so fun and a great success!!! Mary napped in the pack-in-play and slept okay in it. She did wake-up a few times. We had to take the wall down in the tent so she could see us, that seemed to calm her down enough that she could sleep. It got pretty cold that night, but she stayed under the covers and I think she stayed warm. In the morning she came and snuggled with us in our sleeping bags. She thought that was the funnest thing ever. She kept smiling and giggling. It was really fun! She is such an outdoors girl. We are definitely doing more camping trips!!!

We went to the doctor today for her check-up. She is growing well and moved up to the 50% for her height! They said she was right on track. And to make it better she didn't have to get any shots today!!! There was a vaccine shortage and the Dr. said she'd be fine until her next check-up so that made me and Mary happy!!! 

Happy Monday!!!!!!!!!!

May...

So it's been over a month since I have posted anything. So, once again, I'm playing catch up. One of these days I'm going to do better with this!

Mary finds it really funny pull her shirt up and tickle her belly. She does this with anyone. It's awesome when she gets Jake's feet...ha ha ha!

We got Mary the "Book of Mormon Stories". She loves it. She'll sit on our laps while we talk to her about it. It's fun to watch her be interested in books.

Right now my cedar chest is in her room and she thinks it's her personal play chest. She'll sit there opening and closing the drawers putting stuff in and taking it out. She's such a goof!

I'm still not really sure what this was about, but I got Mary up one morning and she kept falling asleep on me. Usually she's excited and happy to be up, but that morning all she wanted to do was sleep. It was really fun cuddling with Mary. She's always on the go so cuddling doesn't usually happen.

Our great friends the Thurgoods came to CO in May. It was so fun to see them!!! We went to Heritage Park and played around. And just hung out all day. We are so glad they came down to play!!! FYI - Mary did NOT like the carousel AT ALL!!! Before it went around once I was holding her myself.

We took a train ride at Heritage Park. Mary liked that just fine!

Jake and I went on this ride. It was kind of a ghetto place for rides, but it was still fun!!!

Mary also thinks that Jake's suitcase is her personal play-case. She sits on it and puts toys in it. When Jake left for a trip a couple weeks ago she was playing with it and then got really upset when Jake took it away. When Jake got to Oklahoma he got a little surprise. Turns out Mary put a toy in there without either one of us noticing! 

She loves our phones, of course. She'll come up to me and stick her hand in mine so that I help her push buttons on the phone. She's so funny!

Mary has started to be interested in putting her clothes on. Here she is trying to put her socks on. She also tries to put her shirts and pants on. It's really cute! I can't believe how big she's getting and how much she understands!!!

She has discovered Jake's keyboard and LOVES it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Any chance she gets she wants to play with all the buttons and hear all the different sounds. 

One day she decided to get in the box with the toys instead of getting them out of the box. She was so happy and content in there. The funniest part is when she tried to get out she kept falling over with the box. Ha ha ha!

Cute picture of Mary and Daddy!

 We went on a bike ride to the park and Mary had a blast!!! She loved just exploring and playing. She's growing up too fast!!!

We also had a bbq with the Kirby's. So our burgers are the ones not burning to death. In case you can't tell there are three burgers in the fire. It was so funny! They turned the burners off on that side and the flames kept going. It was awesome!

My sister, Heather, is awesome at giving us her kid stuff. It's so great having a sister with kids a few years older than Mary so we get great hand-me-downs and this table and chairs in one of them. Mary had a great time sitting on the chairs.

These are the flowers Jake got me for Mother's Day, aren't they pretty?! And he also got my a bike!!! Whoo-hoo!!! And thanks to the Kirby's for letting us borrow their bike trailer we can and have been going on bike rides. It's so much fun!!!

So, I thought I would end with this picture. I don't have a lot of pictures of me and Mary, but I thought this one was cute. She kept laying on my stomach playing with that ball. It was a great day!!!

Just a little catch up with Mary...She can say Daddy, Mom (sometimes), ball - her l's are getting really clear, baby and tries to mimic any sound we say. She has been doing well with staying in the kitchen with she eats or drinks, running around like a crazy girl, and she loves to eat our food instead of hers. She loves the outdoors and is getting use to sitting in a trailer for bike rides. She is definitely a stubborn child with a mind of her own, but that's one of the reasons we love her soooooo much!

P.S. Check out my tab at the top that says "Things I'm Doing"!