Happy Birthday Melia!

Well folks we have a one-year old! While it is hard to believe my little girl is already one, it is getting harder every day to remember life before this sweet, smiley girl. This lucky girl got to have two birthday parties leading up to the big day and set sail for a week-long cruise on her actual birthday!

We are so thankful for her content nature. She is adored by her older siblings (although they are slowly forgetting how to be gentle with her). She likes to eat early in the morning (around 5am) and then goes back to sleep until around 8:30. I am asked many mornings a week by her doting siblings, "Mom, when is Melia going to wake up? Can we go in and get her?"

She is also quite the climber. She loves climbing up in her sisters pink arm chair. We've also found her in various places like the top of the kids picnic table, the shelves of book cases, and the most recent stuck on the bottom rung of the kids bunk bed not able to go up or down! Thankfully she has learned quickly the phrase "go backward" and can usually get herself down safely off of stairs or any thing she has made into a stair case to satisfy her climbing nature. Neither of the other two were really climbers, but I fully expect to keep finding her in other random, high, scary places as she gets older!

We were thrilled to get to see her take her first steps yesterday! Such a precious moment that we got to share together as a family. And in true Oliver fashion, he has continued to announce so proudly each time he has seen her take a step since. Kind of like he used to announce, "Melia's awake!" when she was an infant, and "she rolled over" when she learned to roll, and "she crawled" when she was learning to crawl. He is one proud brother.

Here is our big one year old!

Below are some pictures of the other kids at one year. I love comparing pictures and seeing the family resemblance.

Oliver

Gabriella

Amanda

Matt

Her first celebration was with Matt's parents, or Granna and Papa as they are better known around our house!

We got her a water table to play in outside which she loves. Her siblings are always eager to help her use it!

It was also Father's Day, so we attempted a picture with the kids and their daddy in their "I heart Dad" shirts.

The climber in action

Papa and Daddy entertained Melia with some baseball while Granna got to hold the birthday girl

We were so thrilled to be able to celebrate Melia again with my entire family! We had a swimming party at my parent's house and loved every minute!

Melia and her cousin McKinley

Pepe and McKinley

Aunt Emmy and Uncle Bossy

Aunt Beg Beg, cousin McKinley, and Uncle Travis

Aunt Natty

And of course there are no pictures of me or my mom during this party... since we were running around making it all happen. But we were there too :) Isn't that how it always is with moms... love you Mom!

Happy Birthday to our sweet baby girl. Your smile and happy nature light up our lives. We are so thankful for the blessing of you and can't wait to watch you grow up. We love you!

My Crazy House

Living most of my days alongside three preschoolers always makes for an interesting, exhausting, and fun day. You never know what you will see!

Here's Melia finding a way to occupy her time. She is such a content little girl. My bigger kids have easily learned the definition of content because we use it all of the time to describe this happy-doing-whatever-we-are-doing girl we have been blessed with.


Melia is now 11 months old and quickly approaching the one year mark! What a big girl. She has definitely mastered the art of crawling, recently got her 3rd tooth, and eats big girl food like a champ. She's also starting to stand on her own and is always quick to give a scrunched-face smile!

Her biggest fans are still her big brother and big sister. They listen intently to the baby monitor all morning until they finally hear the sounds of her stirring in her crib. Then it is a mad dash to get in there and say hello to her. It was all too quiet the other morning... and then I walked in to find this! Those big climbers. But they were all very sweet and happy!



Oliver likes things in order. He spends a lot of his play time grouping things and put them in their place. So the other day when he called me in, I wasn't shocked to see this... but it did bring a smile to my face to see his personality on display.

"Look mom, four Buzzes"

And of course little sister didn't want to be left out

We've been spending a lot of time in the water since summer has turned on the heat full blast here in Texas. Here are my two matching "bathing beauties." The bigger two have been taking swimming lessons since January and have really gotten it down. Oliver can swim on his own and is rapidly learning how to come up and take a breath. So very soon, there won't be a pool length too far for that little man. He has finally overcome his fear of the water and we are so proud of and amazed at his progress. Gabriella has no fear of the water which works to her advantage. She can also swim on her own for a few feet and as she gets older will start being able to do more as her gross motor skills develop. But she is well on her way!

We've had lots of fun play dates with our friends since our normal activities have wrapped up for the summer. Here are the kids with our some of our best friends who thankfully happen to also be our neighbors. We love our friends!

We're continuing swim lessons through the summer, doing a few weeks of preschool summer camp, looking forward to an awesome VBS at our church and I am planning a weekly Preschool Playdate with some friends at our house... where we can learn and have fun! We're looking forward to these and many more adventures this summer... namely taking a cruise with our family and an airplane trip to Seattle to visit friends! Yay for summer!

Preschool Graduation

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Oliver's preschool graduation. We were so thankful to have so many family members in attendance... we filled up two whole pews. It was such a blessing to be supported in that way! I knew the day would be bittersweet and it was just what I expected. So proud of my cute big boy, yet so touching reflecting on his life to this point. We are so thankful for our awesome preschool Graham Cracker Express. It is truly a blessing in our lives and does so much to build up our kids and teach them about so many things - most importantly our God! I am so glad we will still be able to be involved in this great preschool for many years to come.

He did so well performing all of the song actions - precious!

The graduate

One of his biggest fans!


His girls

My favorite moment (and the moment that started me crying), was seeing the picture we took together at the Mother's Day Tea coupled with the picture he drew about what he wanted to be when he grew up.

His picture is of a "computer worker" - just like his Daddy. So. So. Sweet.

My sister Megan and I had a great time snapping pictures of our two babies! We love all of these babies. Enjoy the display below :)

Happy Spring from the Beck Family Grandkids!

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, our family took a little trip out to a ranch near Glen Rose, TX wanting a relaxing time connecting as a family. And thankfully, we got just that. The kids were excited to see the horses as we pulled up to the ranch and were even more excited to see the cabin we rented. The thing they were most excited about was the loft portion of the cabin which was at the top of a ship's ladder. The big kids got to sleep up there which they thought was quite awesome! They spent a lot of time climbing up and down that ladder which gave them tons of joy and mommy mini-heart attacks pretty much every time. But I am happy to report they are good climbers and there were no ladder accidents. It was a warm weekend so we had fun taking a hike using our map, exploring the backyard area of our cabin, and having family movie night at the cabin. It was the perfect size for our family and was decorated in a Texas theme which was very cute and fun!

The bird feeder on the front porch

Gabriella trying out the porch swing

Melia found the bathroom for us!


Going exploring!

Oliver at the top of the ladder!

Mother's Day!!

The next morning, we did a "Who Done It" scavenger hunt around the ranch searching for clues as to who robbed the bank in the little western town near the ranch office. After following the map and gathering all of the clues, it was determined that the two ranch pigs did it - Butch and Sundance! We made sure to visit them in their pen on the way out and feed them our leftover food.

On our way home we drove into downtown Glen Rose and ate lunch at a yummy restaurant there called the Green Pickle. We played at their awesome outside garden for a bit before heading to Big Rocks City Park. Our neighbor Brit recommended this place and it was truly cool. The whole family enjoyed exploring and playing in the cool river on a hot day. And thankfully, the water was slow moving and mostly shallow so the kids could play without too much worry!






It was a great weekend and such a blessing to spend time enjoying conversation, laughs, and making memories with the people we love most!