Laugh it off

This laughing workout may be just the diet plan you've been hoping for.

...or it might be the most horrifying thing you've ever seen!

Lost Comb

On the agenda for today: Buy Ruby a new comb to replace the one I've searched high and low for!

My face might still be frozen...

Ryan gave me an awesome gift for my 30th birthday. A weekend away, just the two of us! My birthday was in September and we FINALLY figured out a time to make a break for it so we dropped Ruby off at Nana and Papa's and drove up to Traverse City on Friday night. My face might still be frozen. It truly was one of the coldest weekends I've ever lived through. We stayed in the Park Place Hotel so we could walk downtown whenever we wanted. We had such a great time eating out, sleeping in and doing whatever we wanted. Such a great break for me as I gear up for baby #2 in 3.5 months and such a fun time together.

Saturday we braved the -4 degree elements by walking out on the ice at Mission Point Lighthouse. The snow was up to our knees on top of the ice, which made it an interesting hike away from shore. The wind was whipping and we seemed to be the only humans who chose this activity on this day. The pictures look like we're Eskimos on the Alaskan tundra... but actually it's just Pure Michigan.

Since we were already frozen solid, we decided to do some cross country skiing. Unfortunately for me, my snow pants no longer fit over my belly, so I wore long underwear with sweatpants on top and Ryan's running pants on top of that. I looked so awesome while skiing the Vasa Pathway at 24.5 weeks pregnant. haha.

Then it started snowing, a lot. Before we knew it we were completely covered in white. Ryan had snowflakes stuck in his eyebrows and eyelashes. It was so cold out the flakes didn't even melt when they were on our bodies! That's really really cold.

One of the best parts of our day was that we both were trying to speak each other's love language. Basically, I spent quality time doing activities that Ryan loves to do together and he spent time using words of affirmation to tell me I was a trooper and how pretty I looked with snowflakes covering my face.

Ryan took me to dinner at Poppycock's on Saturday night. It was such a great meal, great atmosphere, and especially great company. We even ordered dessert! So fun! After dinner we caught the 8:30 movie at the State Theater downtown. I loved "The King's Speech" but Ryan wasn't very into it. Mostly I was just really excited to be out past 8pm doing anything! haha.

Sunday morning we woke up to 3 more inches of fresh fallen snow. It was a beautiful sunny day, but still more frigid temps than anyone could handle, so after a delicious breakfast at Amical, we got in the car, drove up the coast of the Lelenau Peninsula and enjoyed the sights. Very elderly of us, but we are both 30 now, so I guess it's okay.

I'm so thankful for Ryan, for his love for me, for how funny he is and for the fun times we have together. I love that he planned this weekend away for us to be together, spending time as a couple. Happy Birthday to me!

Soundtrack of the weekend: Ray LaMontagne, "God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise"

Honeymoon

YAY!! I found our honeymoon pictures!! Look how young we were back in 2004! haha.

It only took me a week digging through our external hard drive to find them after transferring info from three different computers we have owned since getting married back in 2004. Now I can complete our 2004 and 2005 albums and I'm all caught up from our entire married life!! It feels good.

We drove to Charleston, SC, it was glorious. I love Ryan so much.

The Closet in Ruby's Room

Today I tackled the closet in Ruby's room. I hesitate to call it "Ruby's Closet" because to be honest, it's mostly full of my stuff. I started at 9am, but couldn't work on it during Ruby's nap this morning from 10-12. It was hard for me to wait for her to wake up... I almost went in there to purposely disturb her from her slumber.

Here's the before pic - quite a disaster and I haven't seen the floor in years.

I started with the top shelf, moved to the floor, then dealt with everything in the middle. I saved the white plastic drawer thing for last since I knew it was another one of those items we moved from Chicago and haven't really touched. We're in the habit of taping the drawers in place, loading the whole thing on the moving truck and taking it with us whenever we move. UNTIL NOW! mwaa haa haa haaaa! This time when we move, that white drawer thing will only have stuff in it that we want and need! Hooray!

Here are a few of the items that I found in there:

• a million headbands (I wore headbands a lot in college)
• jewelry jewelry jewelry
• $.56 (BONUS!!)
• 5 packs of spare toothbrushes (Yay, oral hygiene!)
• contact lenses that are my old prescription (-1.00)
• dried up fingernail polish and makeup
• earrings without a mate
• Sunscreen that expired in May of 2002

Here's the "after" pic

... which doesn't really look incredibly different from the "before" since Ruby's snowsuit is still hanging on the door, but I know it's better because I have another bag of clothes to donate to the Women's Resource Center, as well as a bag of jewelry and hair supplies to give to friends and/or sell.

If you want to come over and dig through my jewelry and headband give-away pile, come on over!

Flashback Friday

I was reading through some of my blog archives last night and happened across a post I wrote back in 2007 when we had just moved to Grand Rapids for Ryan to begin residency. Our apartment wouldn't be ready for 2 weeks, so during the transition we stayed with our friend Heidi's sweet grandparents Cliff and Huddy.

In my attempts to be a wonderful house guest, I made one of the most embarrassing mistakes of my life so far... so here's the story about what I learned from putting Palmolive in the dishwasher.

Enjoy.

A picture is worth a thousand... wait, what if I have a thousand pictures?

Since I'm on a bit of an organizing streak, I figured I'd check another thing off my list. Following up after yesterday's post about de-cluttering the clothes in my attic, today I accomplished another organizing task. Sorting through a gazillion pictures from this year.

1. I take a lot of pictures...my dad takes a lot more than me, and my brother-in-lawChristopher is a bit of a professional photographer. Needless to say, we have so many pictures in our life that it can be overwhelming at times.
2. I'm NOT a scrap booker - not even a little bit, so getting our pictures organized and displayed is quite a challenge.

So here's what I do. Each year for the last 5 years I have printed 200 pictures for our albums. Hobby Lobby has simple black albums that I love, so I picked up 10 of them a few years ago when they were on sale and each year I fill one more with pictures from one year.

I save the 200 best digital pictures on my ipod touch and my computer, then I pull all the other pictures off of my computer and onto our external hard drive where they are stored for the rest of eternity but probably never looked at again.

But we can pull our albums off the shelf and remember, "Oh hey, remember when we were young and we took that vacation to the Smokey Mountains?"

I just finished picking the 200 pictures from 2010 that I want to print and put in our 2010 book. Let's just say, it was not an easy task sticking to 200, but I love that our albums only fit 2oo because it forces me to pick the best of the best pictures that will remind us of trips we took, people we love, and milestones in our life.

I've used MPIX.com for the last couple of years and really love the quality of the prints. They don't cost much more than walgreens prints but always look great and stay true to color! I can usually find a coupon at retailmenot.com.

How do you keep your pictures in order? Any non-scrapbooky tips?

Clothes... "who needs 'em!"

Seriously people, I have a bin full of "Amber's Work Clothes" in my attic that we have moved with us from Chicago to Downtown Grand Rapids to Alger Heights Grand Rapids that I haven't worn since we lived in Chicago! For years I've been saying things like, "I'll wear these someday when I do something fancy" or "This was expensive when I bought it... I should keep it." or "someday my kids might want to wear this to '90's' day at their school!"

Today was not that day. Today was "I'm pregnant and will never fit in any of these clothes again - and even if I get skinny again someday they won't be in style anyway" day. So just now, I put my hair in a ponytail, threw on my warmest sweatshirt and some gloves (since it's freezing cold in our attic) and began the clothing purging process.

I started with the "Amber's Work Clothes" bin, then moved on to 3 more "Amber's bla bla clothes" bins. After that I went through a couple of the "Ryan" bins... it was a beautiful thing. Check out my attic now!!

I have exactly 3 bins dedicated to my clothing. "Amber Summer," "Amber Winter" and "Pregnant Amber" Nice eh?!?

I now have 2 huge garbage bags full of clothes to give to Goodwill, 3 more huge bags of clothes to consign/give to friends and one bag full of clothes so bad they went straight into the trash. YAY!

On simplifying, de-cluttering and organizing my life

One of the goals I have for this year is to simplify, de-clutter and organize my house and life. Call it a case of the pregnancy nesties, but I have a frantic desire to take less "stuff" with us when we move in June.

So where to begin? By blogging about it of course! haha. I also browsed the "container store" website for awhile. So far I am really on my way to having a more organized life.

Any advice? What blogs have you read that have helped you simplify your life? Where should I start?

...ready set GO!

Christmas Pictures

A few more pics from the Beeson Family Christmas... starting with this picture of Aaron and Ginger.

Mom and Dad got the boys slingshots.

Dad made sweet growth charts for the grandbabies. I love that dad's stick figure people are drawn all over them. So special.

I got to spend a quick lunch with Sandy, my roommate from college and one of my all-time favorite people on the planet. We are going to have babies within 1 week of each other in May.

Celebrated my love Ryan's 30th birthday by shooting guns all morning.

Lydia's first birthday cake experience. She nailed it.

Christmas Dresses

There's nothing like a little girl in her fancy Christmas dress... so of course, we got out the little red rocking chair and dad tried to get a few pictures of Ruby and Lydia. I think a few of them turned out pretty good!

It's crazy to think that one year ago Lydia was born... she is a miracle and many times this Christmas as I watched her laugh, play and crawl around I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for her tiny life, and for my sister Angela who went through a frightening early delivery and emergency c-section which saved both of their lives. I never want to be ungrateful for the time I have with the ones I love.