For the Love of Flowers...

We've just completed a two-day landscaping adventure!

Gram-B, Momma, and Savannah went flower shopping, and then Gram-B tilled the dirt and Momma planted while Savannah supervised! :) Here are some pictures of our dirt-digging, flower-planting, mulch-spreading adventure. :)

Savannah had to check out the flowers. She'd never seen real flowers up close before!





She is going to like gardening.



She especially liked Auntie Em's pocketbook plant. Bright red and yellow are the colors to stare at!



She supervised the placement of the flowers and mulch.



What are you doing over there, Momma?!



And the finished products...













Momma immensely enjoys gardening and is so glad Savannah enjoyed being outside and checking out the flowers. There might be many years of mother-daughter landscaping in our future!

Teeth Make for Good Eatin'

Yum yum! Excuse the funny face, just check out those pearly whites! :)

So now that Savannah has two little teeth, we have gotten more interesting with our food choices. Yesterday Gram-B made chocolate covered strawberries and Savannah was really eyeing them. Gram-B suggested that I peel the chocolate off of one and put it in the mesh feeder and I said hmm what kind of good person would remove the chocolate?! So I gave it to her chocolate and all. Would you want someone peeling the chocolate off of your strawberries?!

And, we also tried Gerber Graduates cereal. It is a lot like cheerios, but softer (and tastes like sweet potatoes!) The cereal pieces dissolve about 90% in the mouth so they really don't have to chew them. I got Darren to try them first and he just bit right into them and I said "Hey! You're supposed to pretend like you have no teeth! I want to see if they dissolve!" haha. So he tried again and sure enough, they dissolved in about 30 seconds, so I deemed them safe for Savannah.

She is hilarious eating them! I think she thinks she has to really chomp them good. She is still working on the hand-eye coordination necessary to get them into her mouth (plus they get sticky when they start to dissolve) but she is slowly getting the hang of it. She loves these things, and they are definitely good entertainment for her at mealtimes when Momma and Daddy are trying to eat. :) Enjoy this video of her eating them. :) It just cracks me up!

Tooth Times Two!

Savannah got her second tooth yesterday! :)

Now she officially has teeth instead of just a tooth! :)

Back to the Noke with the Queen of our Hearts

Well, after a long and tiring but very fun weekend, we are back in our hometown! :) I am happy to report that while Savannah is not the Baby Queen of Virginia, she did very well and still brought home seven trophies after competing in six events. You can do your own math, but we thought that added up to a pretty good score. :) Here are the highlights from our trip (there are no pictures of the actual pageant due to child safety/exploitation prevention...we only have our own snapshots of before and after, sorry!)

There were 14 babies in Savannah's age group, the largest of any age group in the whole pageant! :)

The first event was "supermodel search." They wore a t-shirt supplied by the pageant with some type of denim bottoms. No hair clips or anything was allowed...they were looking for natural beauty. :) Savannah was so excited to be out and competing after her long car ride to Richmond!!! :)

Savannah placed as the fourth runner up in this event (out of 14).

The next event was swimwear, and let me tell you there were some interesting swimsuits! (Who knew swimsuits could have sequins and feathers on them?! Not us!) But I think our normal swimsuit look paid off, because Savannah won first runner up in this event! We thought she was just adorable :)

Then, Savannah got a real treat! She got to take a bath in a huge hotel bathtub. Hey, if you bathed in an inflatable rubber ducky every day, you'd think the hotel bathtub was pretty cool too. She was especially facinated by the shiny drain!

First thing in the morning on Saturday, Savannah had her interview. Now they didn't actually interview her, just looked at her up close and personal. This was also a closed event, so it was the only event with no audience. Savannah showed a bit of her personality when she did her excited breathing thing with her nose wrinkled up (I really need to get that on video so some of you can witness it!) Once again, she got to wear the provided t-shirt, but this time she could wear her pretty headband for a touch of something special :)

The next event was daycare wear. It was the only event that our pretty girl didn't place in! (Momma must say though that most kids would NOT have worn their "daycare wear" outfit to daycare...not in a million years!) We thought Savannah looked appropriate she looked very pretty anyhow! :)

The final event was formal beauty. Here are a few shots of our little miss roanoke in action. In this event, Miss Blaire carried Savannah across the stage so Momma could stand in the audience and make Savannah smile. And she just beamed at the judges with Momma standing there! :)

Then we thought we needed a Beckner girl picture :) Here we are! (I don't know how Mimi managed to dodge all of the pictures this weekend, but she was there!!!!)

Then, like true girls on a trip, we found a cool mall, and went shopping! :) The Short Pump mall in Richmond is amazing, and highly recommended by us, although it might be banned by our husbands after they check our bank accounts. :) While we were shopping, we found it necessary to stop for ice cream, and the queen of course wanted some. She'd never had it before, but she loved it. Just look at the last picture and it shows you her face when we took it away!

Then, Daddy called to see how things were going, and Momma filled him in, and then he had to say hi to his little queen. :) She loves to talk on the phone already!

She played some with her sunglasses. She is such a ham!

Then, everybody went to eat at the restaurant Chipotle. Momma got a burrito and it turned out to be sized more for Daddy. :)

Then, on Sunday, the awards were presented at the crowning ceremony. Savannah won the above awards, as well as first runner up in composite, first runner up in portfolio, and third runner up in photogenic competitions.

She finished up with fourth runner up overall for the state of Virginia. Not too bad to be the fourth cutest baby in the state! :)

Here she is with all SEVEN of HER trophies. She just too ridiculously adorable!

All in all, we had a fabulous trip filled with laughter, fun, shopping, food, friends, and family. :) Savannah isn't the baby queen of Virginia, but in closing, its not even that important! We think she is absolutely adorable on the outside, but the most important thing is that she is beautiful on the inside as well. We are striving to raise this girl in a way that she will know that she is always beautiful on the outside, but that God looks at her heart.

"...beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised!" (Proverbs 31:30)

"...for the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks as the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (I Samuel 16:7)

We were a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people at the pageant that only cared about winning and outside beauty. While it would've been fun to win, we know that the outside is only the shell that covers the real captivating beauty of the soul.

Pray for us as we instill these values in this beautiful child that God has entrusted us with! :) And thank you all for cheering on our little queen of roanoke! :)

A Road Trip with a Queen and her Entourage

Well, we're hitting the road for the Deleware-Maryland-Virginia tri-state pageant finals in the morning! Savannah gets to compete for the state baby queen title in the categories of portfolio, composite, photogenic, swimsuit, daycare wear, supermodel potential, interview (the judges just play with her), and formal wear. :) How cute and fun does all of that sound?! :)

And of course every Queen needs an entourage, so Momma, Mimi, Gram-B, Auntie Em, Aunt Lizzy, and Miss Blaire are all coming to watch, supervise, and cheer her on, and of course to hit up the Richmond area malls!!! :)

Its got all the makings of a fabulous girly weekend! Cheer Savannah on from your seat at home!

And while you're at it, say a prayer for Daddy and Grandad...they are headed to a men's retreat this afternoon in Rockbridge, Virginia, and we think God is going to do big things there!!! :)

We hope your weekend will be just as enjoyable as ours will be, and of course when we return we will post plenty of pictures. :)

I love my "Momma"

So I had Liz take this video because I knew nobody would believe me, but my child started to say "Momma" today. :) (And much to Darren's dismay, she hasn't yet said Da-Da. Just hi, uh-oh, and Momma.) Bear with my prompting... she got camera shy at first, but you'll hear it once toward the middle, then the little ham gets distracted when she sees the camera and cheeses it up for everyone (thats where we got the giggles), and then she says it quite clearly at the end. Sorry its so dark! And please excuse her dirty shirt... Daddy fed her dinner! ;)

April Blessings

The month of April has arrived! Which means Savannah is now a big seven months old! It seems like yesterday she was turning six months old...

Savannah is so curious now! Any noise she hears, or any interesting thing she sees, or any movement whatsoever instantly captures her attention. She is always turning around or wiggling or craning her neck to check out something new and interesting. She even tries to sit up while she's taking her bottle so that she doesn't miss a thing! :) She also picks up and grabs at everything within reach! :)

She is also quite vocal. She is hardly ever quiet if she is awake. She attempts a lot of words, but the only ones she has mastered are "hi" and "uh-oh." She jabbers by saying "ba-ba-ba" and "da-da-da" and "oooooo" and "mmmm", etc. So she uses a lot of sounds, just not so much words. She also has hilarious facial expressions that she uses and she is always making us laugh.

Momma's favorite time of the day is when she gets Savannah out of bed in the mornings. Savannah always greets us with a huge grin and it is such a delight every day. Daddy's favorite things are taking naps with Savannah in the recliner and playtime. He loves to get silly and make his girl squeal and giggle at him. :)

Savannah now waves, sits up well, rolls everywhere like a champ, and attempts to crawl. She will be on the move very soon. She loves to bang on things and make noise.

Her favorite toys are her plastic keys, her rattles, and her Elmo book. Her favorite tv show is Sesame Street. She just can't get enough of Elmo. Anything Elmo is her favorite. :) I think its the little voice that is so captivating. Her favorite foods are pears in the mesh feeder, teething biscuits, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, corn, and bananas.

And...she got her first tooth this month. I'm sure more will soon follow! :)

Overall, its been a wonderful month with our little blessing! :)

Here are some pictures of our girl on her 7-month-day! :) April prayer requests will soon follow, possibly tomorrow. :) Stay tuned! :)