Pregnant!

Yes, it's true! We're expecting again. May 22nd is the due date. There is only one in there this time, we had an ultrasound and made them look around really good. With the first trimester ending, I am feeling much better. I find it ironic that I was more sick with one baby than I ever was carrying two. Jillian is telling everyone she is having a baby brother, so we'll see. There is special joy with this pregnancy because I get to share the experience with my sister-in-law, Leanne. She is due March 26th and is carrying Mr. Ezra Vander Becksfort.

Jilli's story

Today Jilli decided she was going to read her little new testament to me.
"I read you the Bible mommie". Sounds good to me so I sit and she settles in my lap for story time.
"Once upon a time there was Jesus." At this point my mommie heart swells with love and pride, my girl is so smart. The story continues... "Once upon a time there was upon a time" and "Once upon a time there was ......(made up words, made up words)...." Eventually we get to some plot again "Once upon a time there was baby Jesus and he was in... (my mind races to "manger" and I'm feeling good about our progress with the meaning of Christmas for this year until she continues) ..... the store". :) She goes on for a little bit and so then I stop her and say it's time for quiet time so how does it end. "If you're good, you get a green sucker. The End"

Who's coming over

Today I turned to my children and I said "Ok girls, it's time to clean up. Can you help me clean up?" and Jillian promptly says "Who's coming over?". I guess it's pretty obvious how often we do a clean up:)

One other story worth noting is how ingeniously sneaky my children have become. With my current state of exhaustion, the girls have been wonderful about getting up and asking me if they can play in the living room while I rest a little more in bed. It's been a great system, they usually just color or read books and I get another 30 minutes or so of rest before facing the day.
Monday however was an entirely different morning. I awoke to some small scuffling sounds and then a little "uh-oh", promptly followed by "Moooommmmiiiiiieeeee, I need help". So i jump out of bed and head down the hall. When I got to the doorway to the dining room I had to stop. Both of my children were up on my kitchen countertop and there was the sound of splashing as they tromped about.
"Nobody move!" came out of my mouth as if I were the arresting officer.
I head into the kitchen to find my countertops covered in the water that was once the lifeline of my starter plants in the window. Their little carcasses strewn all over the countertops. I turn my attention north to see my children both holding suckers, their faces covered in chocolate. (The homecoming parade that we attended the Friday previous had proven to be an excellent candy score.) While we had been handing out pieces for dessert and occasional treats, the girls decided one big gorge fest while mama slept was a much better plan. I promptly lifted both soggy little delinquents and sent them to their rooms while I stood in amazement at the mess.
It's their biggest to date and one can't help but wonder how we got so lucky. At least it was water:)

Frittata

My girls continually amaze me. I was a picky eater as a child, but praise the Lord that my children follow Mike's tastebuds more than mine. This evening I experimented with an asparagus, wild rice and goat cheese frittata. I thought it was ok, Mike loved it. The amazing thing to me was that Ali ate it. I totally expected to be dishing out the leftover mac-n-cheese with peas for the girls. I offered them a choice after a few minutes of hemming and hawing over dinner and Ali, after careful consideration, said "I'll eat the ta-ta" and she did. The meal was further blessed by Jilli's conversation contributions from the bathroom. "I'm going to poop!", "Just a toot!", "Now I'm pooping!", "Hurry! I pooped! I did it!" -anything to get out of eating a ta-ta:) I couldn't help but smile to myself during our dinner. To top our meal off nicely, Ali congratulated Jilli heartily on her accomplishment "I so proud of you Jilli" and gave her a huge hug and kiss. What did you all talk about during dinner?

Nivina

Today the girls got their first real haircuts. Ang did it and we saved their precious locks. The girls were really very good for being 2 1/2 and trying to hold still. Their hair blows more in the wind now, especially when swinging in the backyard. It's fabulous. They look so grown up.
They are still their ornery selves, currently staying up late into the night plotting their trip to Nivina. After watching some Jonah video yesterday, they have fixated on going to Nivina (their own version of Ninivah). They correct our pronunciation when we try to suggest Ninivah is the correct name. So far the only specific part of the plan that we can discern is that they are going to say "Israelites" when they get there.
They are good little girls though, as they have discovered how to plot and plan and have fun together without leaving their beds. I guess it's like being at camp every day when you have a twin sister to share your room. Perhaps they will sleep in tomorrow:) ha ha.

Smell it!

In the midst of a bout of illness on Ali's part, Jillian has found a new game. It's called "smell it." She will bring you an object and proceed to say "smell it" until you sniff at said object. To date this is the first game that Cleo can correctly play.

Ravi Zacharius

Wow. That's mostly what I can say about getting to see Ravi Zacharius yesterday. There were 3 speakers: Ravi, Amy Orr-Ewing, and Stuart McAllister. They are all 3 brilliant, brilliant people and anyone who says you have to be stupid to be a Christian has never listened to any of them.
They all three spoke on the topic of truth and it was refreshing. I suggest going to RZIM.org and just looking around. it's pretty heavy philosophical stuff, but it's really useful to figure out the bigger issues behind the symptoms. Amy Orr-Ewing's talk is covered in an article on the website called "You don't honestly believe that". It's about trusting the Bible.

oh, just an FYI real quick. There is a great article on citizenlink.org about the truth behind the Stem Cell bills HR 810 and HR 596 that are coming up. Definitely worth being educated about.
Have a great day everyone!!!

Taylor the Latte Boy

Well, as I sit here ready to relay the doings of the Becksfort family on this beautiful sunday morning, my ornery husband strikes again....
The all too familiar sounds of "Taylor the Latte Boy" float into the dining room. This is a song that I played for days after attending the Women of Faith Conference in Columbus with my mom and aunt and some friends. I played it to the point of driving Mike and myself crazy. At one point I figured out that after playing the song once, it took approximately 3 days to get it out of my head. I had the bad judgement to share this information with Mike. Now whenever he gets an ornery itch, the song flows through the house and you will find my husband smiling like the cheshire cat.

"bring me java, bring me joy"....

Anyhoo, this morning's story of the ladies. We tried a new church today. College Hill Presbyterian has a wonderful celebration service. The message was great and the music was wonderful, of course we learned that they are about to change their services and schedule (is there any on-fire bible teaching contemporary churchwith a good kids program that is not in a state of flux anywhere?). The girls liked their sunday school and we liked their program. They have a time of group worship for all the kids up to age 5. The girls loved the singing! It was a good time for everyone, and we left the church all being uplifted and ready to head home for lunch. But it was only 10:15. It was a 9 am service and we are not used to that:). So there was some confusion and we decided a snack was in order. So we'll share a bowl of goldfish.
No wait...
Let's dump some of the fish onto a plate for Jilli and Ali can have the bowl so there are no arguments. Ahhhh, peace.
Wait, what's this....
Ali has noticed that a baby doll is "stuck" in the Barbie car and heads to the rescue. With her sister's back turned, Jilli deftly dumps the rest of the fish onto her plate and declares Ali "all done".
Ali turns back around. "I need more".
What a team.

WebCam and Dancing

For those of you who have not yet experienced it, our children love to show off for the webcam. There must be some sort of freedom in relieving yourself of your clothes and dancing around the center of a room while having close family spy on you (thanks to your parents).

The webcam has really allowed us to share our joyous eveninings with others, the only downside is that others don't all have webcams. There is a certain discripancy in that others can see us, but we cannot see them. That is an unfairness that we strongly urge our friends and families to remedy as soon as possible [hint-hint].

This evening, our children danced. Despite the lack of a live webcam, they danced like mad-women. They danced with reckless abandon. They danced. What I mean when I say they danced is that they ran around the room in circles. For a small change, they grabbed Ang's and my hands and made us dance in a circle with them ring-around-the-rosy style. It was delightful.

Coming soon: our new website. The name will be different, and so will the look, but it will be back. Solace will be one of its links.

See you soon?

Singing and Swinging

Ok, so today is absolutely Gorgeous! and the Becksfort Ladies are taking full advantage. We got up this morning and were at the park by 10 am. It was fabulous, Teresa and Darian went with us and we spent 2 hours sliding and swinging.

Cute report of the day... Jilli had apparently forgotten that she is brave enough to climb the big playset all by herself, so Ali held her hand the first time through and walked her all the way to the slide. It was adorable. Ali was so encouraging "good job Jilli", "come on Jilli". Ahhh, a mother's dream. After that Jilli was fine.

The swings were also a grand old time. We sat and swung very gently in the big girl swings for the first time, but we still spent most of the time flying high on the toddler swings. We had been swinging for a few minutes and I was talking to Teresa when I realized the chatter coming from my ladies was not really chatter. Ali was singing. Singing her own little tune that she was making up as she went. It was a sweet song, with not too many real words. But anyone who grew up within ear shot of Jason West knew the smile that came to my face. The joy that makes a child sing....