Puddle Jumping Pics

Puddle Jumping

I discovered yesterday the key to entertaining a 3 year old is letting him run. It was cold outside but being in the house all day with nothing to do and nowhere to run around he was driving me bananas! It seemed every time I'd get an opportunity to sit and relax he'd be into something new or poking at the baby or just plain poking at me. I decided enough was enough! We're going outside! Get your boots and bundle up we had the best rain all day yesterday for making awesome puddles its time to go puddle jumping! I put Rowan in the snuggly and bundled him up and we were out there. The wind was so cold and I was freezing but Gavin seems to be cold resistant or at least really good at ignoring it. He found a really good one in the parking lot by a speed bump and preceded to wade ankle deep back and forth til he was absolutely soaked! I finally got cold enough where I said its time to go in and the only way to get him to come was to say "Ok I'm going inside goodbye! Have fun alone!" He slowly followed me in and when I got to the door had to strip him down to is diaper on the doorstep so he wouldn't get anything inside wet. We bundled him up with a big fleece blanket and I made him some hot cocoa. I told a couple friends what we had done and so far the consensus is I'm a fun mom, Yay me! Here's some pictures of the fun while it lasted.

Rowan Pics (also known as Mommy + Camera = Stalkerazzi)

I had the same issue when I had Gavin. We have a digital camera but do we develop any pictures to put in a photo album? Uhhh no...

My sister in law pointed out in her last blog how its interesting how when we were teenagers there was no internet, or personal home computers (I know when dinosaurs romed the earth). I remember when we first got the computer and internet and that it had a timer on it because you paid for time not just the connection. We would get a warning that you have 15 mins before the internet would turn itself off. That has totally changed and pictures are all digital but the biggest problem we have is we don't develop any just keep adding and keeping them on the computer and sending them to people over the internet to keep people updated. I need to join a scrapbooking group that meets from my ward and get that taken care of as a goal we'll see if it happens. I've already started adding so many pics of Rowan and Gavin to our collection.

Rowan is already 10 lbs plus, almost a month old and getting chunky. My family was up in Canada for about a week and when they got back my mom asked to hold him and realized holy cow he's already getting so heavy! Here's some new pics of Rowan to show you his face is getting chubby and rolly even since a couple weeks ago. I guess mommy's milk is nice and fatty and is helping with that. Enjoy our little guy, he's still a really good baby and we're enjoying every moment of him still.

The Last pic was taken today so you can see the how chunky he is now.

Merry Christmas!!

Ok so I know this is a little late but better late then never right? I am typing this with one hand as we speak and feeding Rowan with the other so this might take a while lol. The year Gavin was born we had decided not to put up our tree because I didn't want to have to worry about taking it down. He was born after christmas so that was fine. This year with Rowan being born before christmas we didn't have any excuse not to put it up except for I really didn't have the energy and Spencer was working so it never happened. This is instead what we did for Christmas morning. My mom equated it to the charlie brown pathetic tree on Charlie Brown's Christmas. Basically it was a centerpeice someone brought us from the Relief Society dinner and it worked for what we needed.

Gavin still doesn't quite understand all of christmas this year but next year we aren't going to be able to get away with it.

Spencer and I had decided this year not to buy anything for each other except for one gift each and the rest was going to be for the boys because we were low on cash from him switching jobs this year. We were very blessed to have everything we needed this year and then some. This year was a Thomas Christmas and here's Gavin opening presents.

And here's after Daddy set up one of the sets for him and he was playing with it. We've since then set up the biggest set and it has an electric Thomas with a controller to it and it entertains him for hours.

We did Christmas eve dinner at Spencer's parents house and then did Christmas morning at home and then went to my parents for the day because my little sister was there for christmas this year and we had a lot of fun and good turkey/ham dinner that evening. We got tons of snow as you saw in the last post so we went and played outside. My dad being from Newfoundland originally apparently had lots of experience building snow forts and so he went out without being asked and made one for the boys (I think for himself) lol. It was so cool!

All in all we had a wonderful christmas with lots of family and friends close by, Amanda and Donovan (her boyfriend) came up from Utah and were here until Saturday so we had fun with them and my little sister Chelsea was also here from Utah so it was great. We hope you had a wonderful christmas and a fruitful new year.

It doesn't show signs of stopping...

Last night we were snowed in at my mom's house. I had decided I wanted to hang out at their house because my little sister Chelsea was flying in and they were going to get her from the airport yesterday afternoon. They headed up there in the snow and ice and made it with a little difficulty to pick her up all the while I stayed at their house with the boys (Austen, Tanner, Gavin and Rowan) just to save them from having to take the van which has not so good brakes and Shannon's car has 4 wheel drive. It took them a while to get home but they made it safe and sound but the snow hasn't stopped since it started a couple days ago. Spencer worked until 8pm last night and when he finally arrived at their house we thought about it and decided to bunker down here for the night last night because the roads were scary and our parking lot in our apartments would've been insanely full of snow. At this point though it doesn't show signs of stopping and I hate to take over the bedroom upstairs again from Chelsea but I dunno if we are going home again tonight. We shall see what its like. We haven't seen snow like this in years, its beautiful but dangerous. As our favorite radio station calls it, its Winterocalypse 2008! Hope everyone else is safe and warm with this crazy weather, can't wait to go play in it tomorrow. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Two boys, no time or energy ugh!

Ok Ok I know i just had a baby like 2 weeks ago or so but I feel like the biggest slob in the world. First let me say I have no excuse because we got snow yesterday and I've been stuck in the house with the kids while Spencer works 12 hour days so I could've cleaned already and made the house look nice mostly so I feel better but I just have no energy or drive to do it. I wish I did! It seems it took me a week or so before the adrenaline from giving birth to wear off (don't know how this is possible) but now I'm exhausted! Part of my issue is I wish we still had our washer/dryer that the apartments make us rent. We really really can not afford to pay for one and can't really afford to buy one atm so laundry piles up and we can take it to parent's houses but it only lasts a couple days before its piling up again seeing as I have two sets of diapers to change and accident inevitably happen ie. Rowan is a quick draw and seems to pee on a couple sleepers, Gavin on the occasion will pee through (I need to potty train but also don't have the energy). So I look around at my messy living room, my disheveled bedroom and my downright ridiculous bathroom and am now determined something must be done! I am going to buck up and do some cleaning even if its only one room at a time as I have some energy it will be done! I mean that's one of my job descriptions as a stay at home mom right? I know I can hear you SAHMs laughing at me because I know your houses aren't perfect but sheesh you'd scream and run if you saw this place. So I resolve to have this place clean, I will post pics later if it actually happens because who doesn't want to show off a nice clean house? If it does happen then I will try and put up the christmas tree I'm a slacker there too, the key word is TRY. Ok off we go!

Welcome Rowan! (Labor story and pics)

I am sorry I haven't updated my blog in a while. Things have been busy since last December 4th when we finally welcomed Rowan Spencer Beard to our family. I have been busy trying to breastfeed and get used to having two boys instead of one, its been fairly busy and new but enjoyable so far. Rowan is very mild mannered and so far a happy and healthy boy. Gavin is adjusting to having his little brother here, he is as in love with him as Spencer and I which makes me happy. So about 4 days before the event happened my older sister who is a professional photographer was in town and snuck in some beautiful maternity shots of my max size before he was born that I would share a few of. She already posted a few on her blog but I am so happy with them and figured I'd show how big I got before I shared my labor story. These were taken on November 29th.

So that was my max size, I felt huge but I'm so glad that I took these because pregnancy is so beautiful and I can show him later how I looked when I was pregnant with him. I wish now that I had some done with Gavin but I have some regular belly pics with him. Now on to my labor story. I woke up at 3:45am on Thursday December 4th and needed to go to the bathroom. I made it to the bathroom and almost to the toilet when SPLOOSH my water broke on the floor! I have been told and read that this only happens to about 15% of women so I couldn't believe it had happened! I called to Spencer that my water had broken and it was time. He woke out of a stupor and was all groggy and didn't believe me at first. We packed up what we needed of toiletries and the bag for Gavin and took him to my parent's house and headed to the hospital. All the while my contractions started to get worse and worse. When we arrived at the hospital I was checked and I was at 3 cms. They got me all set up in a room and I walked for about an hour in the halls. We came back to the room and I listened to music and danced some. I decided they were getting pretty painful so I wanted to get into the tub and see if it helped. It was lovely! Finally probably 3 or 4 hours later at about 9:00am the nurse came and checked me and I was at a 5 1/2 cm and decided I wanted to stay in bed and rest and watch tv. As the hours passed I asked Spencer when he thought the baby would be born and he predicted noonish. I progressed really fast, about a cm an hour and was in a good about of pain by 11:15am when the doctor arrived with his resident Dr. Nauft. Now I forgot to mention I had the best Nurse EVER! She told me when she first arrived that she would only listen to what I wanted and no matter what she would do what I wanted. At this point I was about 9 cms and almost dilated and in a lot of pain, the doctors wanted to check me with the next contraction and Tyrra my nurse said I wasn't ready and she'd let them know when I was ready to be checked. A couple more contractions and I guess my voice changed and she said I was ready. It hurt so much but luckily for me I had 5 minute breaks til the very end of everything so it was bareable. I can't say I didn't ask for the drugs in my IV but it was too late and they couldn't give me any. At that point I was ready to push and it didn't take long to get him out. 4 pushes and my beautiful boy was here! 7 lbs 12 ozs at 11:58am so Spencer was almost dead on for time. He is quite fair, blonde hair and we're unsure of his eye color but they are lighter then Gavin's ever were. Here's some pics from the hospital and since he was born. Welcome Baby Rowan!