He's Here!

Garrett Tyler Beard

arrived at 4:23 pm on March 28, 2011
9 lbs
19.5 in
We're all doing great! Pictures coming soon!

Today is My Due Date!

My friend Jovita and I have due dates only 2 days apart!  Her baby girl, Mercy, is due on March 30!

I got on the blog this morning and was greeted with this message on my countdown clock ... "Today is My Due Date!"  WooHoo!  I've been waiting for this day for a long time!  Now that it's here I can't sleep.  It's 4 am and I am wide awake.  I go to the hospital in 4 hours to induce labor.  I'm nervous because I know what's coming.  But I'm also excited and ready to meet this sweet baby!  All week I've been hoping that maybe I would go into labor on my own, but Garrett was uninterested in making an early appearance.  Jeff and I are hoping that maybe this will translate into a laid back personality ... that he'll be a no-rush kind of guy! :)  Now I'm 40 weeks and it's time.   I know I have some hard hours, days and weeks ahead of me but I am so thankful for the incredible blessing of being able to carry and deliver this baby.  And I'm beyond excited to finally hold Garrett in my arms!  If you think of us this morning, please pray for a smooth delivery! :)

Gearing Up for Garrett

For the past several weeks I've been in major nesting mode.  I made a list of all the things I wanted to get done around the house and as of yesterday they are all marked off!  My bag has been packed for weeks (just in case!), the boys have a bag, I finished Cooper's scrapbook (2.5 years later), I got Garrett's scrapbook ready, nursery schedules at church are in order, the slide shows I do every year for the youth group are finished, random projects around the house are completed, all the baby items that have been stored away for 2 years are washed and ready and I even took the time to create some artwork for Garrett's room!  It's a good feeling to feel ready, but now I have to be patient.  I've been hoping for a week or two now that he might make an early surprise appearance.  No such luck!  He's apparently quite cozy in his current home.  I'm 39 weeks today and if nothing happens this week I'm going in next Monday morning (March 28th - his due date) at 8 am to get induced.  I'm so relieved to have an end in sight - although I'm still rooting for an early arrival!  This pregnancy has been good and really I don't have much to complain about - except for the fact that I'm just plain HUGE!  I can't wait for the day when I can bend over to pick something up without groaning, and walk without this incredibly unattractive waddle!  7 days (or less!) before I'm holding my sweet boy!! Woohoo!!

Oh Cooper

Our sweet little Cooper seems to be growing up so fast all of a sudden!  He's (mostly) potty-trained, he's learning how to do things by himself and he's talking so much more clearly!  For a while there we couldn't understand most of what he said.  Hudson was our translator and would inform us of what Cooper was saying.  It was quite incredible really.  Cooper would say something almost unintelligible, Hudson would repeat it in plain English, and Cooper would nod "yep, that's what I said."  

Now he's talking up a storm and we can understand him!  He still has a cute way of saying most things.  He calls Jeff, "Da" even though he's perfectly capable of saying "Daddy."  He also begins most words with a "T".  His name is "Tooper", he eats with a "tork", he likes to do things "all by my-'telf", and at night he likes to give "tilly" hugs (silly hugs - meaning he stands on the bed to hug the back of our necks)  He's also taken up a few new phrases that always get a laugh out of us.  "Oh Dear" and "Aw, Great" are my favorites for when things go badly.  

He's still the toy destroyer at our house.   He plays rough and tends to break a lot of things.  Hudson really has a good attitude about it all even though he usually takes really good care of his things.  Whenever Cooper causes a problem, Hudson just says, "Oh Cooper" :)

Thirty!

Jeff turned the big 3 - 0 on February 28th!  Crazy!  I'm still a young 27 - a fact I like to point out often to him! :)  But I suppose we're both for real adults now considering our age and the fact that we're expecting our third child!  ;)

The boys and I made breakfast and lunch for Daddy and got him some tools!  We also went out to eat with our small group for dinner and came home to enjoy some strawberry pie!  We're so thankful for this amazing guy!  He's an incredible husband and awesome Daddy!  The boys and I love every minute we get to spend with him!  He works so hard for our family and makes life so much fun!  We love you!

Four!

So I'm a little late posting about Hudson's birthday, but here it is!  Hudson turned 4 on February 12th!  I can't believe how big he's getting.  When I took him to his well check he had grown 4 inches in the past year!! (and only gained 4 pounds haha!)  He's one tall, thin dude!  It seems like everyday he's finding something new that he can do all by himself.  He loves to help Mommy and Daddy with whatever we're doing and is so sweet to his little brother.  He also loves finding out how big Garrett is each week and continually talks about how life will be when he's born.  He's a great big brother!

The rule at our house is that you have to be 4 to chew gum.  Hudson has been looking forward to turning 4 for a long time!  I bought a bunch of bubble gum for his party and the day before his birthday Hudson was with me in the kitchen and asked if he could just smell a piece ... he was way excited!!  He had his first piece as soon as breakfast was over on his birthday morning!

We had a bunch of family over for burgers and cake for his party.  Hudson had a blast hanging out with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles!  He loved all the presents he received and was too busy playing to take the time to eat a piece of cake.  

In honor of his Bubble Gum Party, I made him a bubble gum machine cake!

We've been letting the boys watch cartoon Spider Man episodes.  Hudson loves it and asked for a Spider Man suit for his birthday.  I love this video of him opening it ... I couldn't have asked for a better reaction!

He wore the suit for the rest of the party!

... and received some other Spider Man gear which he was equally excited about!

Hudson with LiLi and GT

Cooper took a turn with the Spider Man suit later in the day while Hudson tried out his new fireman gear!

Our Master Closet

About a month ago Jeff and I decided we had one last project in us before the baby came.  Ya know, 8 weeks til D-Day, no big deal, we'll just tackle the closet real fast. ;)  Apparently we're a bit crazy, but we did it!  We renovated our master closet and finished with weeks to spare! I'm so happy we decided to do it!  I LOVE it!

Our bedroom originally came with 2 master closets, but in our grand scheme we want to take out Jeff's closet and make it a part of the master bath.  So that meant that my closet needed to get bigger to accommodate both of us.  We took out the wall on the far left in the picture below ...

... to connect it to this hall closet ...

(the amount of closet space that we have in this house is unheard of for its era!)

I wish I would have thought of taking a picture of both of the closets before I emptied them.  That was a project in itself.  They were both packed to the brim!  This one was especially bad as it was a catch-all for anything I didn't know what to do with.  I now have a huge garage sale pile stuffed away in another closet ... bleh!

Here's the closet with everything removed.  No doors, no cabinets, no rods, no carpet and no wall!  A full fledge project zone in our bedroom ... thankfully it didn't last long!

Looking into the closet from our bedroom.  The wall is gone and the sliding doors in the hallway have already been sealed up.

TaDa! Like there was never anything there!

Next came the fun part!  I saw a commercial on TV for EasyClosets.com.  I went online to check it out and was very impressed!  I was able to plug my dimensions into their design tool and create a closet perfect for our space.  I called and got free help and advice from one of their designers and everything shipped to us for free!  It came via UPS in 26 boxes ... yes, TWENTY-SIX!  All together they weighed a total of 896 pounds!  The UPS man wasn't too thrilled with us, especially considering this is what our front walkway looks like!

Thankfully, Evan was around that afternoon and was so sweet to stack them nicely for us in our front living room!

Assembling it all actually ended up being pretty fun.  Jeff and I stayed up late a couple of nights getting it all put together.  It was fun to work together and build our awesome closet!  Now it's fully functional and nicely organized!

It's a little hard to take pictures of a closet and be able to tell what you're looking at, but here's my best attempt.  Standing in the bedroom looking in ...

Walking in and looking toward the left where the hall closet used to be ...

Standing at the back and looking toward the entrance ...

And quite possibly my favorite part of the whole thing ...  a ceiling fan! :)

Sonogram

A few weeks ago I had my last sonogram.  Jeff and I were in awe of how far technology has come in the short time between Hudson and Garrett.  This picture of Garrett just amazes me!  It's like a black and white photo of our little guy!  It almost feels like cheating to get to see him so clearly before he's born!  We took one look at this ultrasound and immediately thought that he looks like Cooper.  Oh - and that's his foot obscuring his face.  I feel very fortunate that we even got this picture as the whole time Garrett had both of his hands and one foot up by his face!

Everything looked good and Garrett was measuring about average.  I'm not sure what to expect from this baby.  His stats aren't quite as big as the other boys.  My doctor's guess is that he won't be my biggest baby.  That's perfectly ok with me!  However, he feels big and if those chubby cheeks are any indication, he might be a big boy! 

Just for grins, Jeff and I made wagers on when we think this guy will make his debut.  My due date is March 28th.  I guessed that he'll be born on March 22 and weigh 9 lbs 14 oz.  Jeff guessed March 24 and 10 lbs 2 oz.  If you want to place your own bet, leave a comment below!  Sorry, there's nothing to win except bragging rights. :)

I found this picture of Cooper that I took in the fall.  I think they look so similar!