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.