1st day of school

Brooklynn started school this year at Christ Lutheran.  Her teacher came for a home visit and made the mistake of asking Brooklynn to be her helper.  She said that there would be kids that would not be as good at making friends as her.  What Brooklynn heard was that she was going to be TEACHING Kindergarten.  She was very excited to go to Kindergarten and finally be in charge.  Luckily, Mrs. Sunderman is a great teacher and Christ Lutheran seems to be a great fit.  It's a huge relief to have her learning so much this year, and Mrs. Sunderman even has her help some of the slower working kids from time to time.  I do think that they need to work of their religion curriculum though - One of the first things that they covered was the ten commandments.  The drew pictures on ten different pages of paper to define the ten commandments.  There was one picture I couldn't figure out.  I asked Brook which commandment it was.  She told me it was Thou shall not commit adultery.  When I asked her what adultery was, she said it was when your daddy doesn't love you and the only thing you get to eat is oatmeal and the only way to stay warm is by burning your furniture.  I'm pretty sure I would have no way to explain adultery to a Kindergartner, but that seems a bit out there to me!  Of course, I also had a parent come up to me and ask me if it was true that Brooklynn's real name was Ericka, and we called her Brooklynn for short, and her teacher congratulated me on the baby that we had the week before parent teacher conferences in October, so maybe I shouldn't be going to the school board quite yet.  She is becoming such a great reader though and her writing has gotten really great too.  We feel very lucky to have such a smart, imaginative little girl!

Our Summer

This summer we got a toy hauler.  I never saw myself as a camper person, but I vowed to give it a try.  We took the toy hauler to "the pond" , which is a place that we ride up by grove lake, two or three times.  We took the toy hauler to Yankton the weekend that the Lutz clan goes on thier annual lake vacation.  We took the toy hauler to the black hills and stayed at Nemo.  We took the toy hauler to Missouri to go riding.   Turns out there was a reason that I never saw myself as a camper person.  The reason is that campers break.  A Lot!  We blew tires, replaced batteries, fixed water heaters, broke jacks, braved storms, and held our breath through too small paths and washed out roads.  Brooklynn had a great time and AJ slept through every night without incident.  I don't think that adults are quite as resiliant as children though, because on the was home from Missouri, Aaron broke the bad news to Brook..."turns out we're hotel people".

AJ's 1st Birthday

AJ turned 1 in June.  He started walking the week before, and he got his first haircut too.  He looked very handsome.  We thought about not having a party because people are not really AJ's thing, but I was sooo excited about the whole birthday cake eating part, that we had it anyway.  I always think I have everything all figured out, and I'm always wrong.  AJ did really great with the people and the whole cake thing wasn't nearly as exciting as what I built it up to be in my head.  The cake was completely adorable though.  Grandma Susie made a little turtle for him.  Grandpa Beckman got AJ a rocking bull that he got in South Dakota.  He had been working in South Dakota for a while and was really excited when he found it.  He got Brooklynn a rocking horse when she was little that she still plays with almost everyday.  So - I was sure that the rocking bull would be a huge hit.  Once again - totally wrong!  He is terrified of it and cries whenever we try to get him to play with it.  I'm sure he'll grow into it...if Brooklynn doesn't have it worn out by then.

Brooklynn's 6th Birthday

Brooklynn looks forward to her birthday all year long, so it's a huge relief when it finally arrives.  We gave her the option of having a friends birthday party or a family party this year, and she chose a friends birthday party.  We made our annual reservation of the giant jumpy house and invited her entire Kindergarten class on the last day of school.  I have to say that attendance was a little higher than we had anticipated(or hoped for)...She had a blast though and only four children cried and only three needed bandaids.  All in all a great birthday.

Easter 2011

I've done a horrible job keeping a blog.  Huge surprise.  It's November and I'm caught up through January.  So - here is my atttempt to catch up to still be able to have a record of our year - starting with Easter.  Easter was a lot of fun.  AJ was at the age where he was just starting to eat solid foods, and since he LOVES food, this was great timing.  Brooklynn as always was looking forward to spending time with family.  Everything for her is an opportunity for a social event and she LOVES to be around people.  We went to Creighton and spent time with Aaron's Grandparents and spent some time at Grandma Susie's and Grandpa Bob's playing with our cousins.  AJ dislikes people as much as Brooklynn loves them, and even cried when Grammy tried to talk to him.  It might have been the first time that a baby ever cried at Grammy! She won him over though!  He does feel at home and Grandma Shirley and Grandpa Tuff's.  I guess there is no denying who his father is.  Brooklynn also enjoyed spending time with Aunt Karen.  She was in Nebraska for a while because uncle Bob passed away.  Brook had a great time getting to know her and playing Mexican train with her.

1/2

Today is AJ's 6 month birthday.  It's hard to believe it's been half a year!  Time flies...  For the last 6 months, everytime anyone asked how old AJ was - Brook would always correct my answer to the question.  She would say no mom, he's zero.  Now she can say no mom, he's 1/2.

Ice Skating

Aaron & AJ taking in the skating action.

Brooklynn has been wanting to go ice skating all winter.  I think that she assumed that she could go out and do triple toe loops.  So we decided that we would go this weekend.  My brother's family came too which made it even more exciting.  Brooklynn is more graceful  than I have ever been and while we didn't quite master gold metal jumps, we didn't fall and we had a blast!

Anaheim 1

The first supercross race of the season is always at Anaheim and they always televise it live.  It's kind of a big deal at our house.  It's usually 1 in the morning before they finally get finished with the main.  This year we went to some friends house to watch the race.  Our kids are pretty flexible, but bedtime is not to be messed with!  But - they both took really long late naps and we woke them up, put them in their motorcycle jammies, and at 8:15 and headed over to Bill and Marie's.  Miraculously, this was not a disaster.  They were both very good and Brooklynn had a great time playing dress up and makeover with Marie.

Christmas 2010

Brook with one of her new Kitties

We had a very very merry Christmas.  It's crazy how excessively lucky and loved we are!  AJ was too young to know what was going on but not too young to realize that he loves wrapping paper.  Brooklynn was the best!  She was so excited!  I think that 75% of Kindergarten must be preparing for holidays because we have endless homemade decorations and she was very well educated on every detail of the holiday.  If only Christmas was a topic on the SAT exam.  She would get a full ride to college for sure!  Santa even came to school, which we carefully prepared her for, because Santa wears a costume and therefore is terrifying!  Imagine our surprise when she came home excited about seeing Santa!

Halloween 2010

Halloween has always been the worst holiday because Brooklynn is terrified of anything in a costume.  It has been so bad in the past that we could not go to the mall  - because there is giant inflatable Big Red there.  We could not eat Pancakes at the Lions Club Pancake feed - because Brooklynn was terrified of the Lion. And one time we were even ushered out the fire exit at a restaurant because there was a fake vampire at the front door.  This year Brook was finally old enough to be functional.  She had 3 Halloween party's for different kids in her class.  Who knew that Kindergartners had such a busy social schedule.  So, she was an Indian princess, a bride, and spider girl.  All in all a fabulous holiday!  AJ was a dragon.  Although he didn't look very aerodynamic (or happy about it).

AJ's Baptism

AJ was baptised on 10-10-10 which should be a date that is easy to remember.  Typical me, I ordered invitations but never got them out.  Lucky for me, everybody kind of knows this about me and called to ask when baptism was.  His Godfathers are his uncle Nate and his uncle Andy.  It was a great day.  We were pretty afraid that he would scream his head off because he HATED water.  But luckily, he made it through gracefully!

Aaron

Aaron has had a Welding business now since October of 2006 - so 4 years now - and has been very busy and successful.  He has the qualities it takes to make a great business owner.  He's self motivated and an incredibly hard worker.  This winter we moved into a bigger shop.  It even has running water and heat! Oh - and a driveway that you can actually drive on.  It's been a great winter.  He's still collecting motorcycles and having a great time riding them when he can get away from work.

AJ

AJ (Aaron Edmund Beckman, Jr.) was born on July 26th.  He is a beautiful baby.  Pregnancy stunk and labor and delivery was worse, but he so makes up for it!  His favorite thing to do is eat.  He's a big baby.  He also likes to jump.  He jumps in a Johnny jump up and he jumps when you're holding him.  He sleeps well except for that he wakes up once or sometimes twice a night to do his favorite thing.  Fortunately for me, he is already about as independent as a 5 month old can be.  He holds his own bottle and prefers to sleep in his own bed. So waking up to get him a bottle takes a max of about ten minutes.  He loves his big sister, she provides endless entertainment for him (and is happy to do so), but his favorite person is definitely Aaron.  He lights up when he sees his daddy.  This makes me incredibly jealous - but what do you do?  He rolls and scoots wherever he needs to go, although he doesn't really care too much about getting anywhere.  He's happy just to be getting around.  He also loves to be tickled.  He loves to be tickled so much that even Brooklynn can get him bursting with laughter.  He's laugh is this husky boy laugh that's so different from his sister's infectious giggle and it's so sincere that it warms you up completely.

Brooklynn

Brooklynn is 5 1/2. She started Kindergarten this year and loves it.  I don't think that she quite understands that the purpose of school is to learn yet though.  Kinda hard to imagine such a thing when you are absolutely sure that you know everything!  She is happy to go and help the teachers to understand all of the things that she already knows though and she is very patient with them when they don't get it right away.  She loves music and people and attention.  She is very creative and is always making up stories and songs and plays.  Very rarely does anyone pass her in a store or on the street without being drawn into a conversation.  She loves her family and is a blast to have around.

My New Years Resolution

This is to be a blog about our happy busy house.  A record of our life so that we don't forget how great everything was.  Plus, I have a terrible memory and am realizing that I have no clue when Brook got her first tooth or first started to crawl.  I want to remember all of that with AJ.  My sister in law has a spectacular blog and it's so fun to check and really helps know what's going on in their world.  I hope that I can do half as good a job as she does.