Christmas

On Christmas Eve this year, we made graham cracker ginger bread houses.  Clara had a blast and wants to make that a tradition for our family.  Joe was just overwhelmed by the amount of candy he saw at the table and was frustrated I was making him put it on a house!

In the end, we all had fun and will probably start doing this every Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was a hit.  I was a little worried that Clara would be dissapointed she didn't get very many toys.  But she kept saying that this was the best Christmas ever!
At one point we had TONS of gifts under our tree....

Here's what our Tree looked like Christmas morning.

And here are the kids with their gifts:

I love how Joe refused to shoot a basket from the ground.  He had to dunk the ball.  When Mom and Dad stopped lifting him up to do that, he solved the problem by dragging the stool over.
Jeremy's apron says Beckman.... He thought that was pretty cool.

Christmas Week at School

Clara had a Christmas Sing at her school on Thursday this week.  She was super excited to see me and kept waving at me the entire performance.  Afterwards, I found out why.  (Just a tiny bit of background, our school has a ton of kids, so they always have two performances and ask parents to come to a specific performance so that it doesn't get too crowded at either one.  I was asked to come to the second performance of the day.)  Clara didn't know there would be two performances and when she didn't see me at the first one, she was devastated that I didn't come see her.  Needless to say, she was overjoyed at seeing me later on in the day.

They sang Rudolf and Feliz Navidad and had actions to go with.

On Friday, since it was her class party, I got to go help out. She got to make an ornament that is supposed to bring you good luck, a Santa Clause graham cracker, play musical chairs, and play minute to win it.

Lights at Temple Square

We took the kids to go see the lights this week.  It was a bit colder than it has been, so we didn't stay too long.  But the kids loved getting to stay warm and bundled in the stroller while Dad pushed them around.  I was there too, but for some reason, I'm not in any photos....

Christmas is Coming

We got to decorate our house for Christmas and the kids have loved taking turns wearing the Santa hat.

We also got the privilege of having Santa come and wave at us from a firetruck.  He came Saturday morning and Joe has been wanting to see him again ALL weekend.  It seems like that is all he can talk about.  Hopefully we'll get to see Santa again before Christmas is over.

Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving week by getting to celebrate Grandparent's Day at Clara's school.  None of Clara's grandparent's were able to make it last year, so Clara was super excited that ALL of her grandparents were there this year.  Clara loved getting to ask them questions about what it was like when they were little.  Thanks for coming!

Thanksgiving Day we spent at my brother, Matt's house.  We had very yummy food followed by getting to watch movies and play some WiiU.  We watched the episode of Mr. Bean where he gets the turkey stuck on his head.  I loved that both little boys were watching it with us, enjoying some time on their Dad's laps.

The days after Thanksgiving, we spent at Jeremy's parent's  house.  They had their house remodeled while they were on their mission, so we got to help move the last of their stuff back into their "new" house.  The littlest kids had fun playing in the warm weather in the back yard.  Joe thought he was so big doing the things the older kids were doing.  Too bad they had no idea he was.  :)

We were also able to watch BYU beat Cal, what a game that was!  Since Jeremy and I decided to get rid of cable/satellite, this was the first game I got to watch BYU play this season.  Thanks for letting us crash at your house John and Sharon!

Elder and Sister Beck Return Home

Jeremy's parents returned home from their 18 month mission this week.  Tuesday night we headed to their stake center for their release.  Almost all the kids and grand kids were able to be there.  We were just missing Michael and his family along with Camille.

 Here they are with their stake president.

John and Sharon spoke in Sacrament meeting on Sunday.  We were able to attend their Sacrament meeting and then attend a family luncheon afterwards.  It's been so great to see and interact with them again.  Clara was excited to tell them everything they missed out on that was important to her, and Joe was surprisingly willing to give them both hugs several times.
 
Welcome home John and Sharon, it's great to have you back!

It's a Boy

Now that we had our 20 week ultrasound, we are finally telling people that we are expecting.  So I want to document a few things about this pregnancy on my blog.  I was expecting to start my cycle during my family reunion this year, which was over the 4th of July weekend.  I didn't, but didn't think too much of it because sometimes I'm a few days late. 
The following weekend, we were camping in Island Park, UT and visiting Yellowstone at a family reunion for Jeremy's side of the family.  I really didn't want to have to deal with girly things while camping, so I said a few prayers that I would wait until we were home.  Well, we had been home over a week from that and I still hadn't started.  I still wasn't thinking too much of it because it had been a stressful two weeks for me - vacationing does that to me.  Packing/unpacking, trying to be on time to everything just makes this poor woman extremely stressed.  So I just figured my body would need a few more days to adjust to being home and relaxed.
I finally took a pregnancy test around July 18. It read positive, but the line that indicates pregnancy was extremely light compared to the test working indicator.  So I wasn't too sure about how accurate the results were.  On July 24, I decided to take another pregnancy test, and the results were the same: a very light pregnancy line with a very dark line indicating the test worked properly. I attributed the light line to low hormone levels, so I assumed that I would miscarry this pregnancy.
My first Dr appointment was Aug 19.  I was measuring about 2 weeks behind what I should have been, but I wasn't too worried because my cycle is longer than average.  My blood pressure was super high already for that appointment, and they informed me that due to my age, the risk of a still birth increased dramatically.  The doctors were worried about quite a few things, so they had me come back in 2 weeks to check a few more things and then possibly take several blood tests.  Needless to say, I left that first appointment feeling very hopeless.
At the two week appointment, my blood pressure was way down, so I didn't have to do any extra blood tests, just the normal prenatal ones.  So that appointment was much  more hopeful.  My blood pressure gets lower and lower with each appointment, so that is no longer a worry.  I was also not very sick with this pregnancy.  I've been nauseous, but have only thrown up once!  The only problem so far with this pregnancy is that I have gestational diabetes again.  So instead of gaining weight, I've already lost 13 lbs.
 This entire pregnancy, I've felt like I was going to have a girl.  We even had a girl name picked out that felt so right! So when we had the ultrasound and the technician told me it was a boy, I was shocked. I said a prayer in my head to see the boy parts again because I really wasn't convinced.  I didn't want to ask the technician to check again because I didn't want her to think I didn't believe her the first time.  So sure enough, towards the end of the ultra sound, we got to see that it was obviously a boy.  The ultra sound went great except that they couldn't find a stomach and he was measuring small. They weren't too worried about the stomach because his bladder was full, so he had to be swallowing somehow.  They sent me in the next day for another ultra sound just to recheck the stomach and size.  The stomach was easily seen the next day and looked great.  I was still measuring small, so I'll get to have another ultrasound in 4 weeks to check to make sure he's growing like he should. 
Here's the picture we posted on facebook to announce our news:

And here's a picture of me from this morning at 21 weeks. 

I swear I wasn't this big yesterday!  Jeremy and I like to wait to tell people we are expecting, so I've always been grateful that I take a very long time to show.  I feel like I haven't been showing at all.  But  yesterday I started hurting every time I bent over, and I woke up this morning feeling very noticeably larger.

Happy Halloween!

We started celebrating Halloween the day before, which was the day of Jeremy's work party.  At first, Joe refused to dress up, but we were able to coax him into putting on a costume by telling him he could get candy if he did.  He chose to be an elephant that day, but refused to wear the trunk.

He was super happy once we headed inside and he got to put candy in his bucket, as well as play with all the balloons!

Here's the family picture, Clara the panda, Joe the elephant, and Jeremy the gamer.

The next day was super busy.  We got to be at Clara's school by 8 am for her Halloween Parade.

I then got to head back to the school to help out with her class Halloween Party.

Then came trick or treating with our neighbors.  Joe decided to be Elmo this time around.  He also got the hang of going to doors and getting candy. He loved it!

We went trick or treating with our neighbors, here is Jade and Clara - the best of friends:

And lastly, we ended the night by having a pizza party with some friends from our Orem ward.  It was great to see the Swifts!

Halloween Fun

For Family Home Evening this week, we decided to decorate our pumpkin.  We each got a side of the pumpkin and colored it with permanent markers.  (We love that way so much better than carving!)
When we first told Joe that we were going to color a pumpkin, he ran to his crayons, picked an orange one, and then tried to color on the pumpkin with it.  He was so disappointed.  But when he saw that he actually got to use markers (a very rare occasion for him,) he quickly changed his attitude and was happy to get to join in the festivities.

Here are all the people with the faces they drew.

We also got to have my sister and her family stay with us this weekend.  Joe idolizes her 8 year old son.  They spend a lot of time together, and luckily the cousin LOVED having Joe to play with.

Girls Weekend in Park City

My sister, Rachael, asked all of us if we wanted to run with her in the Pink Series 5k.  We all jumped on board and all of my sisters as well as sisters-in-law and Mom participated.  We stayed the night in a town home the night before the race.  It was so fun to be able to spend this time with family, but also support breast cancer! We talked, played games, and even all put a pink hair extension in all of our hair!

 Here we all are before the race began.

At the award's ceremony, they gave all the breast cancer survivors a pink crown and a glittery pink medal that said, "One Tough Girl."  As they were all up on stage, they had each person state who they were and how long they had been cancer free.  I was amazed at how emotional I was.  So proud of my sister for all she's been through this past year, and so glad she's a true survivor!

And here's my cute Clara this morning wanting to wear all pink to school!

Clara's Birthday

Clara was lucky enough to celebrate her birthday all week.  It all started last Sunday when we had Jeremy's family over.  Clara got a new outfit that she wears as often as she can.  She also got some art supplies.

We also let her pick out her own cake from Costco.  She loved the rainbow!

My mom came over on Thursday to bring a gift.  Clara got more art supplies.  Can you tell my girl loves to draw?

Friday night, Jeremy and I took Clara out for a special birthday dinner.  Clara loved being the only kid for a night.Saturday brought General Conference, but we were sure to get up early enough to have Clara open her presents well before Conference started.

She was excited to get a new big girl bike, but isn't so happy it's taking her so long to learn to ride it without training wheels....  I was so busy helping her learn how to ride that I forgot to take any pictures of her bike outside.

While Jeremy headed to the Priesthood Session, I took Clara to go use her gift card that she got from Grandma and Grandpa beck.  She picked out a purse she could color and a stuffed Panda Bear.

Clara loved getting so many birthday days this year.
We love you Clara and are so glad you are in our family!