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.