Bekah's Christmas Video

I love this video!! She got so excited about getting to open things with paper on them! I love her little smile! Great!

Christmas Fun!

We had Christmas with my family on Christmas Eve morning, and such a fun time we had! Bekah loved her first Christmas! One of my favorite memories was Josh getting Leah up in the morning saying "Leah, it's time to open presents!" I will always remember how she got so excited and tore out of the room, downstairs to the tree. :) Fun memories. Here are a few pics from our holiday.

Jammies from Grandpa and Grandma


Isaac and Bekah hang

Josh opens his new PJ Pants I made for him


Leah's present from us, a Princess Tea Set!

Bekah really gets into opening presents

And tries to eat the paper

Tub Toys from Alex & Kyle!

Auntie Anna reads the girls' special books

5 " My first Little House" books from GreatGrandparents


Smile!

Bekah opens her last gift on Cmas day.. a rocknstack toy!

Josh with our family gift, 10 Odyssey albums!


Leah with her favorite "Peter Rabbit" movies from us

Happy Christmas!

We are off to have our family Christmas with Josh's family.. and are very excited! Josh's brother in the Marines is on leave for Christmas, and as he will soon be deployed, it will be our last complete Christmas for a while! We are looking forward to having a great holiday with our new "in-law" Savannah, too! Should be fun!

I wanted to post out Christmas letter in case some of you didn't get to read it, and will be back to blogging after Christmas break!

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Happy Holidays from the Helwegs! What a busy year this has been for us!

On March 11, our beautiful daughter, Rebekah Grace was born 7 ½ weeks premature, weighing in at 5 lbs 7 oz! To say her birth was a surprise is a big understatement! She was airlifted to Fargo and Laura stayed with her there for 3 weeks during her NICU stay. It was hard for them to be away for so long, but Rebekah needed the time to get ready to come home! She is a very strong and healthy baby! We are so thankful!

She is now 8 months old and is currently 18lbs 3oz and 28” long! She has caught up very fast! The doctors are all impressed with her growth and cannot believe she was ever a premie! She loves to eat LOTS of baby cereal, play with toys and adores her big sister Leah and all her antics! They are adorable to watch together! Plus she has kept some of her red hair! (so fun!) She is a very happy baby full of smiles and laughter!

Leah, at 2 ½, is our rambunctious toddler! Laura started “homeschool preschool” with her this fall, and together they learn Bible stories, shapes, colors, numbers, letters, etc. Leah loves this special time and has really learned a lot! One of her favorite things is her Bible story re-telling to family members. The story of David and Goliath for instance, goes like this.. “ David… rock.. go ‘round and round and round… bonk Goliath on head.. right here! (points to head) Fall down.. boom!” She is a pistol! She loves playing outdoors, on the new swingset Josh built for her this summer. She is also a very good helper, and setting the table and picking up toys are a few of her “chores”. She is a very busy girl, full of energy, and always loves making us smile.

This fall, we purchased my parent’s old house and are now living in rural ***. It is so beautiful out here, and the space in this new house is amazing! Great for a growing family like us! Plus it has lots of garden space for Laura, yard/play area for the girls, and hunting land next door for Josh! We are very thankful for our new home!

Laura keeps busy with stay-at-home-mom duties and homemaking. We had a huge garden this year and she did an amazing amount of canning! It is very fun to see it all lined up in the basement shelves! She has also been catching up on scrapbooking, and keeping our family blog updated. One of her highlights for the year was being a bridesmaid in her friend Audrey’s wedding in June.

Josh keeps busy with his work at Ken Berge Construction, and is coming up on his 4th year there. He also has been busy finishing the trim and general upkeep of our new house, mowing our HUGE lawn with his new lawnmower, garden work with Laura, hunting deer in the fall, fishing, the list goes on and on! He loves his girls, and coming home is always a treat! He has also been very successful this year hunting deer, which we are very thankful for!

We hope you all have a very blessed Holiday Season!

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Congrats!!!

Many Congrats to my brother-in-law James, on his engagement to his beautiful now-fiance, Savannah! We love them both so much and are very excited for them! What great news! We look forward to the wedding next year! :) Welcome to the Helweg Family, Savannah!

Week 2 - House Pics

They finished part of the roof last week, just before it snowed! They have to wait to shingle until it is at least 15 above zero! Might be soon, who knows! (lol)

View from Walkout basement

The main living area upstairs

It sure has been fun to watch the house progress. Having a roof on really changed the appearance! It is amazing to look over there now and see a house! Very fun.. looking forward to Week 2 on the house.

Making Cookies!

One of our favorite things to do together is to bake! ('specially at Cmas!) Leah is my excellent helper! We had fun helping Grandma with her Peg's Forgotten Cookies! (or should I say eating them!)

Yummy!

Even Bekah loves it!

Us girls.. so cute!

My Parent's House-Set!

Set day finally came! :)

On Wednesday from 8-5 my parent's house became a reality! It was so great to watch an entire house set (all from the comfort of my own living room!) I loved getting to see what my husband actually does at work! (lol) It was really neat to watch a house set up so fast! But that is the wonder of Waseau Homes! Here is a photo tour (courtesy of my dad's wonderful photo shots)

At 8:30 am the trucks and crane came rolling in with all the house pieces

The guys (Craig, Jon,Josh, Matt & Ken) finish the floor, getting ready for the walls.(This view here is the walk-out basement)

The crane lifting the huge sections into place

Then installing the interior frame walls

Ken, pointing at the "good to go" sign!

A great view of the main level with interior walls

Josh, helping get the tresses up with Matt

Leah visits Grandpa & Grandma's new house!

And me too!


A wide-shot view

More pictures to come as the progress is ever-changing!

I've been tagged!

I've officially been tagged! (Thanks Guntzel girls!) This is my sixth picture from my sixth folder (or as close as I can come being I am still using my parents computer as ours is in storage)

This is Leah's first taste of real food.. green beans! Don't let this pic fool you, she really loved them! (and still does)

I cant think of anyone else to tag who hasn't done it yet, so I will gracefully bow out!

"Dancing Queen" Warning! Addicitve!

This is my new-favorite song I-can't-get-out-of-my-head! It is so upbeat and infectious! Enjoy! It is from my new-favorite movie "Mamma Mia" :)

I'll be Home for Christmas.. wherever that may be!

I love the song, "I'll be home for Christmas" It is definately one of my favorites. There's something about the Christmas time of year that makes you want to go home to friends and family. I sure love this time of year!!

We just got our first HUGE snow of the year and I am enjoying it immensely. I feel for people who just don't have snow on Christmas.. (NO White Christmas?!) But there is something amazing in the thought of having a picnic on the beach with presents and all on Christmas day in the 90 degree heat!! God sure is amazing to give us a beautiful varied world!!

My thoughts for the day. :)

Maybe someday I'll get a Christmas like this.. :)

Hard week..

WOW! Just the fact that I have survived the last few days says a lot about the strength of moms! We have been down and out from the flu for a few days now.. and are finally better as of today! My week went something like this:

Monday: Normal day (yay!)

Late Monday night: Josh is throwing up, can't keep anything down. Meanwhile, Bekah is uncontrollable fussy all night for no apparent reason

Tuesday morning: Josh is still sick and stays home from work. I take Bekah to Urgent Care thinking it is an ear infection, and am right. Get antibiotics for her.

Tuesday afternoon: I start to feel sick to my stomach and so I stop eating to avoid more irritation. Bekah is happy, as is Leah ( one nice thing!)

Tuesday night: Girls are happy and asleep, but I am sick.. I have the achy flu with such bad chills I cant control my shaking. I try to sleep.. it takes 6 blankets to keep me warm! I never remember being this sick...

Wednesday Morning: Josh is still sick, although looking a bit better and I am feeling a bit better.

Then by Wednesday night we were almost ourselves again, and sure enough today we are 100%! What a week!!! Thankfully things can't get much worse after that! :) I spent today doing laundry and disinfecting everything in our entire house we might have touched or breathed on!!!

Yay for being better!

School Report from a Proud Mommy!

I am so proud of my Leah! Over the past few weeks of school she has been learning sooooo much! Just this morning we did a review of all we have learned, and so far she has grasped:

Knowing & Recognizing Letters A-G (and the sounds they make!)
Knowing & Recognizing Numbers 1-9 and able to count objects that many as well! (We are still working on double digit numbers.. its a hard concept)
Knowing & Recognizing Basic Shapes (Triangle, Circle, Square etc)
Knowing & Recognizing all her "rainbow colors" (Red, Orange, Yellow, etc..)

Plus her Bible story knowledge continues to expand! In the last week alone, we have grasped the story of Jesus's birth, the shepherds & wisemen's visit, Anna & Simeon and boy Jesus at the temple.

She is amazing!!! I had no idea a 2 1/2 year old could grasp so much at this age! What a great opportunity I have to be teaching her all these things so early on! A lot of kids won't learn these things until Kindergarten! What a blessing to teach her at home!

Update

My the weeks are flying by! I still can't believe November is over! Wow!

Rebekah is 9 months old now, weighs in at 18 lbs 13 oz and is 27' long! She is a big girl!! :) Plus she is now crawling!!!! It is amazing to see her zoom around on the floor now.. she is very fast! She really likes being mobile! I can't get over the concept of seeing her actually crawl! It is amazing!

She also has been having difficulty sleeping and is terribly fussy all day! I wonder if she could be getting more teeth.. It has started to tax me a lot.. especially last night as she took forever to fall alseep!! So we just watched about the whole series of "Wives and Daughters".. it was good, but I was sooo tired! Hopefully these restless nights will be no more!

Life continues to go on for us otherwise.. :) Will look forward to posting pictures next week. Enjoy two of our family pics we took.. what a funny saga that was!

Clearly we had fun!

One of our favorites.. :)

Our Godson's Baptism!

We had such a special day yesterday as our godson, Leon was baptized! It was great to get to see our goddaughter and her family again as well! Very fun!

The Baptism; his parents and Josh and I (I was so excited to get to hold him!)

Leon Conrad.. so adorable!

Josh and Leo

Us and our godchildren, Leon and Bekka