Tis the Season.

This has been a very busy week for us and we have had lots going on. Here is a quick recap of all that we have done.


Payton was helping Jennie make pretzel jello today and some of the jello fell on the floor. Not wanting to waste anything Payton quickly hopped down and started picking the jello up, with her mouth.


This is the better view as you can see her sucking it all up. She didn't even think twice about it.


Uncle Steve also came up, from Indiana, and paid us a visit. It was great to see him and be able to spend the day with him. The kids keep him busy with games the whole time he was here. You will notice that they are all standing in order from tallest to smallest (also oldest to youngest). It won't be long before some of them start to switch places and Steve starts his downward decent.


Every year the city puts up lights and we always try to get out and get some pictures with the kids. We didn't get too many as it was very cold and the kids were freezing. Here they are sitting in the gazebo in the middle of the lights.


The kids standing in front of the candy cane tunnel.


The children also put on a little remake of the birth of Jesus for all the parents. Connie got the costume set last year and it is perfect for the kids. The kids had a lot of fun and it was great to see them tell the story in their actions.


Here is Maddux as the Shepherd.


Nolan as one of the Three Wise Men.


Finally, we have a couple of pictures from the kids latest games. They have a two week lay off due to the holidays. Here is Brooklyn getting into it with one of the other girls and tying her up for a jump ball. One of her bright moments of going after the ball. Most of the times she is content with letting someone else go after and get it.


Here she is playing some lock-down defense. It isn't a foul if they don't blow the whistle. Brooklyn and this girl keep getting into it the whole game. When on Brooklyn was on offense this girl kept grabbing and holding her so she couldn't move. The refs weren't paying attention or calling anything so Jennie told Brooklyn to get physical right back with her. The next couple of quarters was a lot of pushing and shoving between the two girls. The refs still didn't call anything and let it go on. It was nice to see Brooklyn get physical and push back even though it was frustrating her because she couldn't move anywhere without being grabbed.


Maddux ran into a pretty good team that could really dribble the ball. They had two kids that could dribble and move around with the ball. Even though they kept it close they ended up losing by 8. Here is Maddux playing defense against one of his baseball teammates, Conner. They are both first graders playing in a 2nd grade league and are holding their own quite nicely.

Well we hope that you are all having a great holiday season and we wish you all the best for 2011.

Brooklyn and Maddux Hoops.

Now that the kids are three weeks into the basketball season I have finally decided to post about their games. Both Jennie and I are coaching the kids as both teams didn't have coaches and we just can't say no. It is a lot of fun and we like being a part of their progress. Maddux is 3 - 1 through 4 games while Brooklyn is 1 - 3. While I would like to say that is must be the coaching, Maddux's team seems to have some better athletes than Brooklyn's. Brooklyn's team did get their first win last week and they were very excited. I will also say that two of Brooklyn's losses were by a 10 - 11 score and could have gone either way. There aren't a lot of pictures of the kids but here is the best of the best. It is kind of hard for one of us to take pictures, with the kids, while the other one coaches.


Brooklyn sprinting down the court on a fast break.


This time she is just content with running down the court with the rest of the girls.


Maddux and his team getting ready to start the game.


Brooklyn playing some lock-down defense. She is quite the defender and now just needs to go after the ball once it is shot.


Maddux playing the same type of lock-down defense as his sister. Maddux plays very good defense and just needs to work on his offensive game. He likes to jump up and down and clap his hands instead of moving to try and get open. I don't know where he learned to do that but we must break him of this habit.

I hope to have some more pictures in the next coming weeks and will keep you all updated on their progress this season.

A Beard Home Makeover.

This process started in August and is finally just about finished. We have wanted to paint the outside of the house for quite some time and finally have everything painted, minus a couple of trim boards. It does make quite a difference and glad to have it finally done. Below are some of the before and after pictures of what it looked and looks like. I don't notice much of a difference to the front, as it is mostly brick, but the back is significantly different.


This is before. The boards on the roof use to be blue and this is when we were deciding on what color to paint the house. There are actually two different tones on the siding. You will notice the tape on the big window to edge around the board. I put that on the last week of July when things were still sunny and leaves were on the trees.


This is the end product. This is sometime in October and you will notice that there are no more leaves on the trees. Everyone said the tape would be very difficult to get off but it actually came off pretty easy, just ask Jennie.


Here is the back of the house. You will again see the two tones of paint as well as some primed spots throughout. Those were from repair work we did 3 or 4 years ago when removing some vents and an A/C. It looked like that for that long before we did anything. It probably would have been a lot sooner if those spots were on the front of the house.


Here it is after painting. Much, much cleaner and better looking.


The back corner by the patio before.


The after picture. We still are undecided on what to do with this area as we would like to clean it up a little more. If we stay in this house for any period of time we must do something to clean this up. This is an eyesore in the backyard.


Last month we also had someone come in and patch the walls and repaint the whole back of our house. While we were repainting Jennie decided to put up new curtains and decorate the walls a little bit. We ended up blowing up pictures of all the kids to hang up. It really turned out nice and is a huge improvement.


Jennie's new curtains.


We also had the kitchen, laundry room and back bath painted as well.


We then framed some of the kids art work and hung them up in the playroom for all to see. The kids were really excited to see their work up on the wall.


We also had a shed put up in July to help clear out the garage and give us some more room. We found a guy who use to build them for Lowe's and we got a real good deal. It makes such a difference having the shed and being able to keep the garage clean.


We painted the shed to match the house.


Here is what the garage looked like before the shed.


And here is what it looks like now. It is nice to be able to park the van in the garage and makes a huge difference for Jennie and the kids with the snow.

Well it did take quite awhile and we are glad that it is done. There always seems to be something to do when you own a home and now we must decide on what to do next. We love being able to personalize our home the way we want to and grateful for all of those who help.

Tower City Annual Tradition

The has sort of become a tradition for our family every year around Christmas time. We head down to the Tower City Mall, in downtown Cleveland, and watch the Toy Solider and other Christmas activities they put on every year. The kids enjoy heading downtown and love to spend time with their cousins. We were fortunate enough to have Uncle Spencer in town this year and he joined us for the evening. The kids really love it when Spencer comes into town even if it is because he brings his IPad and IPhone for them to play on. We always have a good time and are glad that we can share it with our family. It just wouldn't be the same without everyone there. The above picture is really good of the whole group. It was kind of funny because neither Cambrie nor Payton would take their eyes off of the Toy Solider. They wanted to make sure that they knew exactly where he was at all times.


The Beard family with the Toy Solider and the Fairy Godmother.


Some of the kids in front of Bruce the Talking Spruce tree.


The kids with Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer.


Brooklyn, Maddux, Payton and Nolan sitting in front of the fountain.


Kenzie and Brooklyn with the Princess.


The kids looking out and watching the show. Thanks to Tacie for the idea to go down below and get this picture.


The setting for the show along with all the other characters that were involved.

If you are even in Cleveland around the holiday season we will have to take you to the show. Our family has a lot of fun and the more the merrier.

The Big Dawg gets Hitched

Well it only took 32 years but the "Big Dawg" has finally been tamed and Jennie and I had the opportunity to be there as witnesses. On November 19th, 2010 Brian "Big Dawg" Bogdin and Shelby Richardson were married in the Salt Lake City Temple for time and all eternity. We are so happy for the both of them and wish them the best in their new journey. Due to some Delta issues we almost didn't make the wedding. We boarded the plane in Cleveland and then preceded to sit on the runway for 30 minutes as we were told the Detroit airport was so busy and they wanted to wait for things to clear out. So we get to Detroit and of course of connecting gate is on the other side of the Detroit airport so Jennie and I are running across the airport to make our flight in time. We show up at the gate about 5 minutes before the plane is suppose to leave and they won't let us on. There were actually 8 of us from the Cleveland airport who were connecting on that flight and they wouldn't let any of us on. The plane was still sitting there and hooked up to the tunnel but because they locked the door a couple of minutes early they would not let us on. There was almost a fist fight between two customers as they were upset and had to be split apart by the police. What makes matters worse is the ticketing representatives at the gate were not really interested in helping anyone out. They booked us on a flight the next morning that would get to Salt Lake at 11:00 which would have been an hour after the wedding. They were not willing to look into other options and instead gave me a number to call on my own. I called and complained from the gate and spoke to a supervisor who was able to get us on a flight to Las Vegas that night. We had to sleep in the Las Vegas airport, which is not comfortable at all, and then caught the 6:30 flight out of Las Vegas into Salt Lake City. We got into Salt Lake at 9:00, tracked down our luggage, which happened to make the original flight, and then picked up our rental car right away. We got changed in the airport bathroom and drove straight to the wedding. We arrived about 5 minutes before it started and were able to see the whole thing. It is funny how these things work out. If we would have had one person in front of us waiting for a rental car we would not have made the wedding. It turned out to be a long 48 hours for us as we had a luncheon after the wedding then pictures and a reception after that. We didn't get to sleep that night until about 9:00 (11:00 our time) which made for two very long days. Even though the trip was short and filled with challenges we were able to get there safely, be there for our friends and returned home to our children.


Big Dawg and I at the reception hall before pictures. You will notice the glazed look in our eyes as neither of us slept the night before and still had a long night ahead of us.



Jennie with Big Dawg at the reception hall. It was a very nice house that was well decorated and the perfect place for a wedding reception.


Here is the Bogdin family outside of the Salt Lake City Temple. We love them and appreciate their treating us like family during the entire weekend.


Big Dawg with his proud papa. He looks like one mean dude but is one of the kindest and nicest people you would ever meet.

On Saturday we had the chance to meet up with some old friends and catch up on each others lives. First we went and had lunch with Mark and Jill, who are friends of mine from Price, UT. They took us to a place called Rodizio Grill which I am addicted to. If you are ever in the Salt Lake area you need to make a special trip to this place. They have people who walk around with skewers of different meats and seasonings and shave out pieces right at your table. It is all you can eat and you don't even have to leave your seat to get food. The food was awesome and well worth the trip. Then we got to meet up with Jennie's college softball catcher and her family. Finally Jennie was able to meet up with an old family friend from Ohio who had moved to Salt Lake. It was a very quick and busy trip but Jennie and I had a lot of fun. It was Jennie's first time away from the kids for more than a couple of hours and she did quite well.


We were able to drive around and go to a couple of places that Jennie wanted to stop and while out we decided to drive by a couple of the smaller Temples in the area. This is the Oquirrh Mountain Temple in South Jordan. It is one of the newer Temples and is located on a ridge that overlooks the Salt Lake Valley.


Here is the Jordan River Temple which is where Jennie's brother, Aaron was married. The night before we were to leave the Salt Lake area was hit with about 10 inches of snow. It had just started to come down when I got this picture.



This is one thing that I miss being in Ohio, the mountains. This was before the big snow storm. The entire mountains and surrounding area were covered after that.


Jennie and I at the Salt Lake Temple after a morning session.


I know it looks like the sun but this is actually the moon from 35,000 feet. We were on our way from Minneapolis to Cleveland when Jennie noticed the moon out of her window. The picture almost looks like the sun setting over the ocean but is actually the moon over a pillow of clouds.

Anyways we had a very good trip and despite some obstacles we made it there in time for all the activities and were glad to be a part of this special moment in Big Dawg and Shelby's lives. We are so happy for them and look forward to being a part of their new family. We are grateful to Jennie's parents for taking the kids while we were gone and enjoyed the time to ourselves. This was our trial run for Jennie and I's trip this June without the kids.

Fight Night

Here is a our version of Friday Night Fights. This is the boys the other night going at each other. Maddux was being a good sport and not going all out but Nolan had no problem giving it all he had, that is until Maddux got him with the knock out kick. It won't be much longer until Nolan is able to take out Maddux.

Justin Bieber Concert

I decided to get the kids an early Christmas present and take them to see Justin Bieber in concert. Both Brooklyn and Maddux love him so I thought it would be a fun surprise to take when he came to Cleveland. So this Thursday we headed downtown for a fun filled night of some Justin. I didn't tell the kids where we were going and even once there they weren't sure what they were there for. They didn't actually realize that it was going to be Justin Bieber until he got on stage and started singing. The concert actually wasn't all that bad but I wouldn't be sad if I don't have to do that again any time soon. There is just something about 25,000 screaming girls that I am not all that fond of. My ears were still ringing the morning after. The kids had a very good time and despite getting home at 11:30 they did a very good job at getting up and ready the next morning for school.


There were a couple of opening acts and then Sean Kingston came on before Justin Bieber. Justin was ok but I thought that Sean Kingston put on a better show than Justin did. The kids also liked Sean as they know a lot of his songs from listening to the radio.


This was Justin coming out for the start of his show.


It is amazing that a skinny little 16 year old boy can drive millions of girls wild. I have never been inside a building that was as loud as this concert was.


Justin floating above the crowd singing his songs. I was surprise at how many of his songs I actually knew. I can thank the kids for that one as they play his song over and over and over.


This was everyone holding up their cell phones during one particular song.


Justin along with his band and other members.


Justin performing his last and most known song "Baby". He wasn't moving so well by the end of his concert as he twisted his knee during the middle of the concert. Maddux just couldn't make it through the whole concert as he fell asleep for the very last song. Jennie asked him the next morning how the concert was and Maddux replied it was good but he didn't sing "Baby". I don't know how he did it but I can't believe that Maddux fell asleep being as loud as it was. The place was going nuts and he didn't even move.

The worst part of the whole night was getting out of the parking garage and getting home. We parked on the first floor of the garage and it still took us over an hour to get out of the garage. It was absolutely ridiculous. The concert got out at 10 and we didn't get home until 11:30. Overall it was a very fun night but one that I won't be doing again any time soon. I think next time I will let Jennie take them.