Christmas: Beard Style

For Christmas this year we actually worked really hard at not being grinches. I'm not really a Grinch persay but it's hard to put up a christmas tree when both your kids are born in the winter and right before and after Christmas. In turn 2006 we had no tree because I was due after and didn't want to have to take it down, 2008 we had the charlie brown christmas tree pictured here because Rowan was just born and I was still healing and well we were too lazy to put one up and have to take it down after Christmas so call me Grinch.

This year though we had a change of heart, I feel like Gavin is old enough to remember these fun memories so I went all out and decorated this year. It was so much fun and he was so cute about wanting to put the decorations on himself on the tree.

Placing his first christmas ornament on the tree. It's a little baby puppy in a jolly jumper and says "My first Christmas 2006"

Rowan even got in on the decorating action, he was so cute. This year he learned to say "Santa" and he points him out whenever he sees anything remotely that looks like Santa. He was surprisingly not too bad with the tree, I had it put up on the coffee table so that it was high enough to not be a temptation. Our tree has become traditionally a cartoon kid tree. One year we even put a stuffed Spongebob on the top for an "Angel" to complete the ensemble. If you look closely at the end result you'll see: The Incredible Hulk, Wolverine, Spiderman, Fairly Oddparents, Spongebob, Princess Leia and Quaigon Jin, and various other cartoon and comic characters. Having boys so far we have kind of kept it kiddie and I really love it.

We had a very full Christmas this year and were blessed to have a lot of family here. Gavin and Rowan's Auntie Amanda and now Uncle Donovan got sealed on December 22nd 3 days before Christmas. It had been a long dating but it was worth it and they had a beautiful sealing and reception afterwards that evening. In turn everyone in the Beard family was here this year for Christmas which made for a very full but happy house. We had so much fun playing with cousins and Aunts and Uncles. Here is a picture of them outside the temple after they were sealed.

This is becoming a very long post so I am going to end it for the moment and I'll do part two when I have the time in a bit. I have to get the boys going and ready for Gavin to get on the bus. Look forward to the rest, To Be Continued . . . .

It's been a while

I need to get back into blogging but it's been so busy that I don't know where to start. Has it really been that long since I blogged?! Jeez well here goes. Lets see, last time I check I still don't have my license but I'm really REALLY close so don't say I'm slacking because I really am trying. I just have to get my parking and small maneuvering down and I'm good to go. I am thinking I might make the appointment and just do it so that I have a goal day to be done with it. Spencer had originally planned to do an internship with Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Western Washington to finish his degree but they were wishy washy and it fell through BUT we were blessed and shortly after it fell through his school advisor sent us a new one and he is currently working at that Wednesday through Friday and really enjoying it. It is with the Center for World Indigenous Studies and he is helping the IT guy there revamp and update 6 or more websites. He uses a Macintosh which is really different for him, but he said if he could afford one he would totally get a Mac because they are really user friendly and super nice. The last step to getting this degree done and hopefully a career in the future when he is done. That prospect has definately been a huge motivater for him to get this done.

Rowan and Gavin had their birthdays these past few months. Rowan turned one and we had a blast with family. I made him a Super Rowan cake. I don't know why but it seems to have become a tradition to make a small cake for their first birthdays with tons of bright colored frosting and let them go to town but by the end of it the colors muddle together and end up red or brown and my one year old sweet baby looks like a mini cannibal just finished his human meal! Yipes! I love the blackmail pics though so it works. They will come in handy when they have their first girlfriends along with all the other cute blackmail pics I have. I feel evil doing this but I can just see the fun potential for me and Spencer when our boys are teenagers.

I will catch you up on the events that have happened since Rowan's birthday in seperate posts just so that it isn't a ginormous post. I want to act like I actually thought to blog at these events lol even though I'm a slacker!

Here's a few pics of the birthday boy and all the events, hope you love them as much as I do!

Driver's License AKA the bane of my existance.

So I made the decision a week or so ago to go and get my learner's permit to drive before my test voucher expired and I passed. I've made the decision that it's not scary anymore. In fact I think I felt more nervous for the written test then the actual driving. Since getting it, Spencer has become the passenger when we drive around town which is nerve wracking but good at the same time. It means I can get in as much practice as possible but at the same time my husband isn't the most patient person at times so I get nervous. I have a hard time changing lanes, there's a lot to remember when doing this maneuver and I'm working on it. My biggest problem is making sure I keep the wheel straight while I shoulder check, then when I see no one is there I try to change lanes too quickly and end up turning the wheel too far and too fast to get into the next lane. Hopefully with a little more practice I will get the hang of it. I'm hoping to have my license sometime before the end of the year so that if we are able to we can make a road trip to see my nephew be baptized in the beginning of January. This entails driving for 10 hours or so to Montana and Spenc is usually the only driver which can get tiring, I want to be able to take a shift if you would and help by driving half of the way. Here's hoping, wish me luck! I will have it this time!

Could you please leave me alone?!

Not you readers but my stinkin crazy hormones. I find myself on a daily basis lately telling my hormones to chill out! I'm up, I'm down, I'm left and Right and can't seem to keep a stable mood lately. It's sad because the person I care about the most, my husband takes the brunt of it and still sticks around and loves me. I guess we've been married for this long that he's used to it but I wish he didn't have to deal with me sometimes. I swear the past week I've been the moodiest craziest person, yet I can't help myself sometimes. I try to stay home away from the world when these moods hit but that just makes things worse. I find myself being irrational, crying over the dumbest things or laughing at stuff that isn't that funny. I feel like I'm going insane. I wish I knew what to do.

I've been looking into herbs to try and help balance things lately but I know I shouldn't take anything unless I consult my doctor first. Only problem with that is I don't have health insurance. So what to do? I try to exercise every day to help my mood but since the weather has changed and gotten colder the motivation to keep it up is waning. I'm tired, and I hate being cold. I think part of the mood swings has been because of the season too. I think I have a touch of that seasonal mood disorder but who knows. All I know is I can't keep this up and feeling this way or I will probably go insane. I hope I can find something to help with this. I know I don't want to subject my husband to my craziness anymore. Sorry this is mostly a vent on how I'm feeling right now. I figured if i write it down maybe I can get a grip and change my mood. Thanks for reading.

Milestone, the Big 50!

Before

After

So I'm layed up in bed on the laptop and have totally slacked off yet again on my blog. The main reason I am layed up is well, how do I say this without getting responses of TMI. I am one who gives too much information, what can I say? Not much embarrasses me in that light. Either way I am in pain and on my monthly cycle. One of the things I wanted to share so please don't TMI because it's actually a HUGE victory for me. Since January of this year I started my weight loss journey in hopes of losing at least 70 lbs mostly to see if I could reverse my infertility issues and feel better, look better, be healthy etc. I started this blog when I was pregnant after going through infertility treatments for the second time and successfully concieving our second son. It's a long hard trip to go through as many women I know go through it. If you are curious what causes my issues just go back to the very first post that I made, it's all explained there. Anway, the whole point of saying this is I have hit a very real, very exciting milestone. I have officially, Drumroll Please! Lost 50 POUNDS! *Angels sing Halleleuah!* I finally did it. I can not believe it! And on top of this, I have had 3 consecutive months of regular periods. I never thought I would ever have a regular cycle ever and yet there it is. It showed up last night and with one fell swoop I am showing progress with possibly reversing some of the effects of my Polycystic ovarian syndrome. What's funny to me is I look back and when I first talked to my infertility specialist, the first thing he said was "The best way to improve and sometimes reverse the problems with infertility in PCOS is to lose weight" Of course at the time I was overweight, infertile as far as I was concerned and who wants to hear, "lose 50 lbs" as their treatment? Give me medication so I can have a baby was all I wanted to hear. Now that I see the proof is in the pudding, WOW is all I can say. So I'm not to my goal weight but close enough that I can see the end at the tunnel of the losing weight journey I've been on. 17 more pounds is all that's left for me to reach my goal, or at least my current goal. I dunno what I'm going to feel like at that point or if it's where I want to be. I may stop sooner, I may go further who knows. I prefer to keep some curves though and be a healthy weight for me so probably not much less if I do. I remember thinking at the beginning of this, I wasn't going to be one of those people that loses the weight and then has to tell every person they see eating something they want to that it's so bad for them and they should eat this way or exercise this way and they'd feel better but I can see why someone would. I feel so amazing that I want everyone I know to feel the way I do. When I do it though I mostly try to be encouraging and give suggestions when asked for them because I know how annoying it is to get comments from former overweight super skinny people without asking and think "That's easy for you to say look at you!" So for now if anyone wants advice I can tell you what worked for me and if not, good luck with what works for you. As long as we're both happy it's all that matters. 17 more pounds to go!

I'm a slacker and IT'S BEEN HOT!

Ok so I've been a bit of a slacker with posting blogs, wish I could stay on the ball with this. Life gets in the way though and I forget. I'm so tired with a baby that's teething but those two front teeth of his finally broke through. I'll try to get a picture when they are more noticeable. It's been so freakin hot here lately! It's crazy! Luckily for us we had our landlord install our Air Conditioner at the beginning of the summer when we got our first hot day and I was not dealing with it without it. We've had our air conditioner for 6 years and never had it properly installed which is really weird I know but it's a unit that sticks out the window and we never knew how to install it properly. So when we used it in the past we'd either stick it part way out the window and rest the inside on the back of the couch or on a makeshift table to keep it from toppling over. What's funny about this is 1. it looked goofy and 2. it's a dehumidifier built in so having it be on the back of the couch it wasn't level and water would spill out of the bottom onto our couch. At the time we didn't care because it kept us cool and the couch was a hand me down crappy couch.

So we survived the last few days holed up in our apartment when the temperature reached a wopping 104 degrees! I called these days underwear days. Rowan was in his diaper all day, Gavin in his undies and me in my underwear too. Even with the air conditioner it was still pretty roasty once the sun hit the main windows in our place. Spencer was working long days at his client's house and was roasting with no air conditioning so they invented a way to stay cool by wetting washclothes and freezing them and then placing them on their heads. He brought me home ingredients for the best low fat/calorie fruit smoothies and that helped too. Now the temperature is gone down again and I'm really happy. I would rather be cold any day then HOT because when you're cold you just put on another layer. When you're hot there's not a whole you can do except maybe jump in a cold shower for a temporary fix. Hope everyone else is dealing with the heat well. Enjoy the sun!

6 months old!

Rowan is 6 months old as of the 4th of June. Man time flies! I finally got my pictures my sister took of him when he was blessed at a month old and I can't believe how tiny he was. He has become such a sweet boy and will continue to bless our family. His list of acheivements so far are rolling over both ways, scooting backwards (he can't really go forwards and has yet to really figure out how to get anywhere going backwards mostly gets frustrated), he has two teeth on the bottom, weighs about 16 lbs, says mama and bwa bwa for da da or that's what we think it is. He continues to grow so fast but as he grows he is getting to be so fun. I love being his mama so much, I always thought being a mom would be amazing and its become more then that to me now. I wish I could slow down time for but a moment to enjoy them more. Keep on growing buddy.

Here's a couple pics to compare how big he's gotten.

And I had to share a picture of Rowan with sweet potatoes for the first time

Auntie Chelsea was feeding him (hence the mess lol)