Pool Time (and a little update)

For those of you who don't know yet, Andrew has switched from one full time and one part time job and has made his part time job his new full time job. Did that make sense? Anyway. This has been a tremendous blessing because it has given him the opportunity to do some job shadowing with a Physician Assistant for a few days a week for the past month. Andrew hopes to get 100+ hours of job shadowing which we think will really boost his chances of getting in to Physician Assistant school this year (their only problem with him last year was that he had no experience with a PA). He's had a fantastic time of it and has had the opportunity to observe all sorts of fun things. It has been really reassuring to see him enjoying the world of PA's so much and it makes us want to get accepted to PA school even more! He's taking his GRE on Monday as part of the requirements for applying to the UW grad school, so when he's not working or shadowing these days he's studying diligently to do well on the exam.

On the days when he shadows, he usually starts out in the mornings here at a clinic in Moscow and then heads out to Troy for the afternoons. Bella and I have really been enjoying this because it gives us the opportunity to see Papa at lunch time and it is also a good excuse to go out to Troy and do laundry and see the fam. Whenever we drop Andrew off, Bella asks where he's going and what he's doing. I tell her that he's working in the place where they give shots. I do this for two reasons. The first being that that gives her a decent idea of where he is and what he's doing. The second reason is that it associates shots with her Papa, making them a not-quite-so-bad thing, so I'm hoping that next time she goes to the doctor it won't be as traumatic for her.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon in Troy and it was warm enough to haul out the little wading pool. Here's our little chica with her rock star glasses on. I encourage you to look back at the posts of her in the pool from last year just to see how much she's grown and changed.







Thank you to all of you who are praying for us as we try to get in to PA school, and if you're not we'd like to ask that you do. It seems very clear that this is a wonderful job for Andrew (maybe even perfect?) and we're really hoping that God blesses us with this opportunity.

Roasting Marshmallows

The other night we took advantage of the lovely evening weather and had a little fire and roasted marshmallows (at Grandma and Grandpa's - our property managers would not be happy if we did it in the parking lot here). Anyway, Bella had a great time playing "Chubby Bunny" and managed to get sticky s'more stuff all over her fingers and face by the end. I also had fun with my camera and really enjoyed yelling at Scotty to fan the fire more so that there would be more sparks to photograph.

Here's the fam before the darkness descended. Note Scotty practicing his arias to Mom.


And here are the fire and the sparks.

More Fun Bella Sayings

Here are a few more Bella-isms that came to mind after the last post.

Bella loves Honeycomb cereal, except that she calls it "Honey Pine Cone Cereal".

When Bella is in trouble and needs to come to Papa right away he tells her "Bella, front and center." The other day, Bella and I were taking 'naps' in our respective rooms when all of a sudden I heard my sweet little daughter yelling at me, "Mama! Front! Center!" After laughing to myself I went in and explained to her that that was not a command that worked on mom.

We love our drinks here in the Becker house. They can be alcoholic, caffeinated, or just fizzy and fruity, but we love them. Bella is frequently miffed when we don't give her sips of our coffee or wine and never fails to notice when she's not being given the latest yummy sip. She's taken up toasting which she does by holding up her sippy cup and saying "Cheers?" and then we have to 'clink' our glass with hers. This is done many times throughout any given meal. Anyhow, Bella seems to share our love for caffeinated beverages despite the fact that she's only tasted them a handful of times. The other day we were sitting in Jack in the Box eating dinner (their sirloin burgers are HUGE) and Bella saw a big poster for their new blended coffee drink thingies and pointed to it and said, "Love that. Drink that." with much enthusiasm and surety. She also says that whenever we pass Starbucks now.

I already mentioned the "Front! Center!" antics, but she also likes to tell us to go away. It's usually when she's sitting in the rocking chair in her room with her babies that she turns to me and says "Mom! Go away!" and waves me away with her arm.

You may remember from the fish post that she said that they cost one hundred dollars. Now everything costs one hundred dollars. Her shoes, her sunglasses, her dresses, and her new jogging pants all cost one hundred dollars. Hey, at least she thinks we're rich.

This doesn't translate so well in writing, but Bella has a very cute way of saying "I'm stuck" that sounds a lot more like "I duck". We enjoy holding on to her tightly until she says it, and then we let her go. Kind of a weird game, we know, but she seems to enjoy it too.

When we're serving snacks to Bella or giving her a new toy or new clothes, she tends to get very excited. And it doesn't just look like she's excited, she tells us she's so excited. It actually comes out more like "I so 'cited!" and then she does her crazy Chucky laugh and jumps up and down. Actually kind of creepy.

I'm not sure if this is a common toddler problem, but Bella frequently jumbles up the structure of her sentences. The most common one is "See Mama what doing?" when she wants to get up on her stool to see what I'm doing in the kitchen or watch me putting on my make-up.

Apparently, anything girly is "Miss Princess". If Bella is wearing a necklace, she's "Miss Princess". The same goes for pretty skirts, painted nails, sparkly rings, and flower crowns. What a goose.

I mentioned in the last post that Bella is very good at mimicking our exclamations like "gracious" and "oh my gosh". Well, now she says "Holy Smokes!" whenever we change her diaper. Apparently, Andrew says that when she has a particularly dirty diaper, and she's decided to say it every time for dramatic effect.

And just now, as I was writing this, she came up with something new. She's becoming very clever at asking to be read to. She's wrapping up her books in a small blanket and then bringing them to us while singing "Happy Birthday" and saying "This is present for you!". What a generous little girl.

Husking Corn

Ducks in a Row

Nummy Pie

Grandma was making peanut butter pie when we were out there last night and she let Bella and Papa enjoy the scrapings from the bowl.

Sickie

Here's a pathetic picture from when Bella had her second (third? I don't even remember now) bout with the flu bug.

What She's Doing Now

This is just a little update of all the things that Bella is saying and doing these days.

The yard maintenance guys were outside today mowing and weed whacking. Bella took one look at them and informed me that they were "cleaning the ground". Intuitive.

She hasn't gotten to the "Why?" question yet, but she really enjoys asking "What's that sound?". That is, for example, how she noticed the lawn mowers outside today. She heard them and asked what the sound was, and I told her and then took her to the window. She's very interested in sounds.

Her communication skills are growing exponentially by the day. She frequently has moments though where she can't seem to quite get the words out, so she sputters for a minute, sighs, and says "I....can't.....tell!" That is to say, she can't say it.

She's very big on being in the kitchen with me when I'm baking or making dinner. She is always asking to see the pie or stir the pancakes.

Speaking of stirring, she has a very endearing little problem with her "s"s. Any word that starts with an "S" for us starts with a "Suh" for her. So, for example, "stir" is pronounced "suh-tir". Spin is "suh-pin", smell is "suh-mell", etc. We always have to take this into consideration when she is saying something new and we can't figure out what it is.

She's picking up on a lot of the little phrases that we use frequently like "gracious!" and "oh boy" and "cracks me up" and "that's so funny" and "crying out loud" and "sheesh". It's all very amusing.

We think she's also learning to lie. There have been two times recently when she's been fussing about not being able to have something that she wants. This is something that she generally gets into trouble for. However, these past few times when we've asked her why she's fussing (more for her benefit so that she knows what she's in trouble for), she's given the excuse that her Shrek doll was scary (pronounced "suh-cary", of course), and that her toe hurt. All very interesting.

I think that's it for now - I'll keep y'all updated if I think of any more of the fun little two year old things that she's doing now.