Dressing up

Kali is at school right now.

I miss her.

Here is her cubby.

and here is her sweet little bag pack

Luckily I have a night in shining armor to keep me busy.

sometimes he is Darth Vader

this kid loves his costumes & he sure misses his sister during the day.

Our gardener

He's cute, he's shirtless & we pay him in ice cream cones.

Perfect!

Making stuff

Remember how I said I was going to make Clam Chowder yesterday?

It was so yummy!

Go to my Yummie Tummies cooking blog for the recipe.

With the leftover potatoes I cut them into stamps with the letters in the kid's names

they had fun using the potato stamps & painting while the soup was cooking
I also made these Halloween silhouettes
my Mom gave me these frames so I just went to Marthastewart.com and found these silhouettes, printed them and cut them out, glued them to white paper and
Ta -da!

I am SO excited that Oct is almost here!

Sick pumpkins

See this crazy girl....she is home sick today.

Boo :(

And, it's school picture day.

Luckily my cousins already took awesome pics of her so we are not really missing out.

and see these sweet feet?

Kai took this pic himself.

So cute!

He is sick too.

So I got up early and got raspberries, doughnuts, and OJ for breakfast and lo and behold what do I see at Fry's!?

White pumpkins.

Swoon.

I LOVE white pumpkins.

I decided that today fall officially starts at the Becker house! (it's a high of 91* today)
Look at the mantle.....lime green leaves and white pumpkins--LOVE IT!

and the dining room table centerpiece. Kali told me the pumpkin is ugly.....must be her pain meds talking.
So today I have pumpkins out, a nice cool morning (it was only 80* when I got up) both of my kids home(even though they are sick). And, I'm making homemade clam chowder (click here for recipe)tonight when Mr. Becker gets home.......sigh......this is pretty close to perfect.

Confession & a tea party ***Edited

Here is my confession,

I hate that Kali goes to school.

She said she does not want to be home schooled...I've asked her at least 5 times.

I hate the smell of stale milk and pretend chicken in the cafeteria.

Quite frankly some of the parents there give me the heebie jeebies.

I've seen one too many kids pick their nose.

She already got sick from a girl who came to school sick (thank you responsible mom)

I miss her SO much during the day.

The recess situation is 5 kinds of crazy! There are 3 adults watching 100 kids....but that is why I go to lunch everyday (to help/make sure my kid is safe)

I really thought this would have been better by now.

BUT I LOVE her teacher....she is the perfect mix of sweet and strict and

there are some really sweet girls that Kali has made friends with at school. They are the silver lining in this whole school thing....I miss my Kali during the day. Kali has been asking to have these girls over so I told her we would have a tea party and invite all her friends & their mom's so I can get to know them.

It was lovely!

Kali had 7 girls come and 5 of the mothers were able to stay and we had a great time getting to know each other. It made me feel better about my Kali being gone at school all day since she has picked such sweet friends from good homes.

The girls beaded necklaces and had tea, beignets and fruit "wands" skewers.

I used this beignet recipe and they were delicious!

And for the moms we had Asian Chicken Salad but I left out the Thai Basil & Red Pepper and I doubled the sugar in the dressing.

After her last friend went home Kali said, "oh mom, I LOVED that".

** oh and if you are feeling bad that Kai was left out on all this, don't, because he got to have a boys day and go to Peter Piper Pizza with Daddy :)

A little bit of this

While Kali was at school on Friday

Kai did a little bit of this

and this


and this

and this

when Julianne came over on Friday morning Kai was still in bed so I peeked into his room and saw him just laying there all warm and cozy. I said "Kai, Julianne is here" and he hopped out of bed and was ready to play! These two are so fun :)

Us.............

by: http://heirloomphoto.blogspot.com/

Having our photos taken by my two awesome cousins........perfect!

Kai's art class

Kai starts his art class and sports class this week.

He is so excited to go to school "like Kali".

He even had me make him a lunch just like Kali's.

I was worried at first when he got mad about me not staying in the room with him but then he was fine and had a great time. When I was telling my mom later that day about his class he heard me and said, "oh I just changed my mind".

And, two of my friends have kids in the class--it was such a nice surprise to see them!

Here is a pic of Claire, Mimi :)

Labor Day 2010

We spent Labor Day at Grandma Kathi's house swimming and eating

and filling up water balloons

Kai liked spraying everyone with the hose
Kali dove down the touch the bottom of the pool about 20 times (which is a big deal because it's a deep diving pool & heck I would not do it)

the kids really learned a lot this summer at swim lessons and both of them can swim really well which is so nice because we don't need to hold them

It was such a nice day and Kai even fell asleep on the car ride home.

But woke up the second we tried to lay him in his bed.

The kid loves to swim but hates naps.

How you know you have the best Yaya EVER:

You check out the book "Fanny" from the library and read the story of a little girl that just wants a doll like her friends (a la Bratz hoochie mama doll) and her mommy says no so the little girl makes her own doll. You then realize that you need to make a doll of your own & take the book to your Yaya and she helps you sew a sweet little doll of your own.

Or you LOVE Peter Pan SO much that your Yaya takes you to the Disney Store and buys you a Pan Sword/Knife and then sews you a hat!
Kali and Kai are SO lucky to have the BEST Yaya EVER! And, me & Mr. Becker are lucky to have the best babysitter next door :)

First Friday

This past Friday Mr. Becker and I went on a date.

Alone.

We usually plan on going out alone but then we feel bad and end up taking the kids.

But not this time.

We went to First Friday in downtown Phoenix.

I LOVE downtown. (Mr. Becker....is not such a fan since he works down there all week)

Here we are in the car excited to just be alone without screaming/fighting kids, no juice cups, no snacks, and no Disney soundtrack in the car.

We rode the shuttle from the Phx Art Museum to other galleries/coffee shops/restaurants alone the route.

We even took some of the route on foot.

We were glad we did because downtown is really changing and there was a lot to see.

We also had a few laughs at what is considered "art".....look at this weird face:
and along the way we stopped at a place called, Steve's Greenhouse on Adams & 2nd St. and had the BEST onion rings EVER!

It was so much fun that we are already excited for next month!

And now Mr. Becker LOVES downtown too.

It's a rainy day, it's a rainy day

Remember that song from Sesame Street??

"it's a rainy day, it's a rainy day

I can't go outside and I really wanna play,

why does it have to rain anyway?"

I always thought that was the STUPIDEST song!

The rain is wonderful!

It rained the other day and we all darted out the door after the seeing the first sign of rain.

The kids puddle jumped and ran around.

It was perfect.

Oh and more happy news, thank goodness it is Sept. and we are closer to Oct when we literally spend entire days outside :)