Work Days

Through out the month of March we were still living with my parents, but had a contract on our house. We had a bunch of legal issues that came up last minute with the house so closing kept getting delayed (not problems with us, but with the owner of the house). Luckily our real estate agent is closely linked with the top real estate attorney in Springfield. So we had our issues taken care of with absolutely no stress or work between Brandon and I. It was great. So as the financial side pressed on, we were able to take early possession of the house and start the changes that we had planned on.

(Here's a shot of the kitchen before. It looks like the floors and cabinets match- but they didn't!)

The kitchen and dining room originally had dark cabinets with super light cheap laminate flooring. In the living room, upstairs bedrooms and hallway was UGLY burbur carpet. So we had it all ripped up and replaced with top of the line laminate flooring in the kitchen, dining room, living room, hallway and new carpet in the three upstairs bedrooms. To save on the labor costs, and because I have the best daddy in the whole world, we spent a couple of evenings as a family ripping up flooring, staples and carpet padding. The boys even got in on the action with plyers and ripping up staples.

After a couple of days of hard work, we were finally done! Brandon and I LOVE LOVE LOVE our new flooring. We were just looking forward to the day when we could official move into our long awaited new home!

Later in the week we were able to put the twins new bunkbeds in their room and our new couch for our upstairs bedroom. Slowly but surely we were getting closer to the official move in day!

Sittin 'Round Waitin on Two Pink Lines...........

Last summer, Brandon and I decided that we were ready to start thinking about having another (LAST) baby. We prayed about it, and thought that it was the right time to start. But apparently God didn't agree. So we put off the idea, and put on the idea of working out and eating healthy, to lose weight and get in shape for Brandon's high school reunion.......... but as soon as we got the gym membership, got some workout clothes, and got pumped up with motivation this happened!

After realizing that I had let a little more time pass than I had realized, and the strong encouragement from my girlfriend Carrie, I went to Walmart and bought two test. Since I am one of the most impatient people in the world, I immediately took test #1 and had one solid pink and one faint pink line. Knowing what it meant, but not truly believing I sent a picture to Carrie for her opinion. The next morning (3/8) I took test #2. Same result. Same feeling in my stomach, so I headed to Target to get the pregnancy test for morons. You know the one I am talking about. You pee and it flat out says PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT. Well, I had to potty really bad, so I purchased the test and headed to the restroom. Classy right?! I immediately took the test to see that 8 letter word. PREGNANT! Now that it had finally set in, Greyson and I headed to Babies R Us, to find a Big Brother shirt for him to give to Brandon to tell that we were expecting. We wrapped it in a cute bad along with the three tests (in a plastic bag of course), and headed to Brandon's office.

When he met us in the lobby, Greyson gave him the bag, he looked inside and turned white! He was more shocked than I was! We headed to his office, were we hugged and could celebrate without worrying about people coming out into the lobby. Our celebration was cut short, since I had to go pick the twins up from preschool.
After picking up the twins, I headed over to Nixa, to tell my mom. At this point G is wearing his big brother shirt, and I wanted to see how long it took my to notice. It took her a few minutes and then a few more minutes for it to click what was going on. She too was shocked but excited for us! After a few minutes of hugs and kisses, they boys and I left to head back to Springfield to eat a celebration dinner and to tell Brandon's parents via telephone.

When we found out that we were pregnant with the twins four years ago, we took Brandon's parents to Olive- Garden, and showed them the ultrasound to see if they could tell what made those ultrasound pictures special. 11 months later, when we found out we were pregnant with Greyson we did the same thing. So we thought it was only appropriate to follow in tradition and tell them at Olive Garden. Little did we know that they had planned on going to Olive Garden in St Louis that night! So while we were at OG in Springfield we called them in STL and told them the news! Perfect timing right?!

We are very excited about the sixth and FINAL Howard family member to join us in the fall!

The Forgotten Holiday

I just realized I completely forgot to blog about Lincoln and Daniel's Valentines Day Party. They were so pumped about this party, and thankfully even though the actual party day fell on a snow day, their teacher made the party up on the next preschool day.

The week before we searched high and low at Target to get the perfect Valentines. Lincoln picked out Star Wars with a magnet and Daniel picked out Toy Story. For some crazy reason this non crafty momma volunteered to lead eight 3 & 4 year olds in a craft. So after Target we headed to Hobby Lobby to pick out a pre prepared craft. The easier the better. I ended up picking out(with all three boys picking out something totally different) a little smiley face heart to color and then tape on the scrunched up legs and arms! It sounds kinda creepy, but was pretty cute.

While at Hob Lob (as Greyson calls it), we also picked out "valentine's day school busses''. You see, this mom keeps all of her shoes in the shoe boxes, so there was no way that I was going to tape and cut up my precious shoe boxes. Seriously, I know. But the boys picked out really cute school busses to decorate for passing out valentines.

I let the boys fill out their own valentines (the boys did AWESOME!). It took us a little while, considering I had to help write out double the amount of invitations that a normal family had to write! So we took a snack and play break and then headed back to work on our busses. It ended up that this perfectionist momma was WAY TOO picky about the placement of the stickers. I had to follow the instructions, because of course the other kids would care what the busses looked like! Ha! After spending nearly a hour attempting to perfectly decorate, we gave up and the boys went to go and play.

On the day the party was set for we recieved about six more inches of snow, so we had a snow day and postponed the party. But were able to have it the on the next day of class! Here's some pics:

Seriously We're In America

Have you ever dealt with customer service people in different countries? Does is frustrate you as much as it does me?!
I recently found out that the bank that owned our car note, was bought out by a new bank. Let's call this bank," Bank A". While I was with the previous bank, I NEVER had a problem with customer service, online payments, or mailed in payments. All was smooth sailing for five years(two different cars, I have not been paying on one car for five years!). Anyway, since my former bank was bought out, I have had to create a whole new online account with Bank A. Should be easy right? NO. It took me over half a hour to create a simple online profile account. Seriously to set up my email, password, and car info took over a half hour. How insane is that? Anyway, when I went to pay my car note, the website wouldn't accept my payment. I tried three times, and it kept sending me the same "call customer service" note. After contemplating through my mom's laptop on the ground, I opted to pick up the phone and call customer service. When I let the phone ring about 20 times before the automated menu finally picked up, I started to get worried that maybe I was being scammed.
After I went through the prompted menu, and finally got to someone in customer service( my cell phone, said I had been on the phone for almost 7 minutes) I was a little shocked to hear someone with an Indian accent, but spoke perfect English, pick up. While this lady was friendly and attempted to help me to the best of her ability.... she ended up getting one of her coworkers yelled at. After explaining my situation to her, ( my car note was due the next day and the website wouldn't let me pay), she told me that I could pay over the phone with out having to pay the $15 service fee. Great, I was more than happy with that. But of course, she had to forward me to the billing dept. Well, she ended up transferring me back to customer service. After reexplaining what was going on, the second lady, which barely spoke English, she got a little bit of an attitude and told me that I had to pay the fee. I told her I would not pay $15 to make up for their mistake. It wasn't my fault the the website wouldn't let me pay online. The first lady had even told me that they had been having major problems with their website. I asked to speak with her supervisor, and she refused! At this point my temper was about to get out of control. After telling her for the second time that I wanted to speak to her supervisor, and she refused again, I lost it. I in a not so polite way told her to let me speak to her supervisor, or I would be reporting her and taking my business somewhere else. Where would I report her? I don't know! But at this point this little Indian lady didn't want to mess with me any more. She finally transferred me to her supervisor and after another ten minutes of waiting, I was finally able to speak to someone who could help me.
After explaining me whole ordeal for a third time, the supervisor politely explained what would have to happen. I would have to pay for the service charge on the phone call, but I would be issued a check in the exact amount and would have said check in my hands in five business days. I was okay with that. Had the second lady explained it was me, I would have been okay. But she didn't.
All in all, I was on the phone for over 30 minutes. And I still can't log into my online account with Bank A. Thankfully my car will be paid off by the end of the year!

More Changes

While we were in Oklahoma, we ran into some problems with the house that we'd put an offer in on. As we pulled into our drive, we found out that we didn't get that house. While we are disappointed, we had way to much to focus on, so we finished packing, cleaning and moving into my parents house.
Knowing our disappointment and crazy scheduled life, Brandon's mom decided to start looking for house to help us out. Somehow Carol found a website that I had never heard of, and sent us about 8 or 9 houses to check out via the web. With a huge snow/blizzard coming to the area, we shopped online and waited for the weather to pass before actually looking at any of these houses in person. We really liked one house, but after driving past it, decided that the neighbor's were a little unkept. On to the next one. With yet another snow storm coming into our area, and 8 inches of snow already on the ground we headed to check out another house. I'll admit I was a little skeptical of this house online. I knew the area that it was in, and when I was growing up, it wasn't the nicest place. Plus all the pictures online made the house look super narrow, and we have ginormous furniture. And it wasn't really on the side of town that Brandon insisted we be on. We thought we'd just go ahead and take a look at it, and ended up really liking it. So we made an offer the next day! Within a day and a half we had heard back from the owner, that she would agree to our offer and heard from the bank that we would be closing by the end of February! Talk about a whirlwind!
Once again, we were kinda lucky because the bank had almost all of our information. We just had to get them extra detailed information about Brandon's lovely law school student loans. As of now we are still set to close on Feb 28. After closing we'll head back to the house and start ripping up flooring to replace with a dark brown wood flooring and get new carpet in the bedrooms upstairs. We'll also paint and clean up a bit and hope to start moving in on the weekend following closing!
I'll get some pictures up as soon as I can!

A Baby On the Way!

No! I am not pregnant! Both of my sister in laws are pregnant, but I am not!

I was so excited to find out this past fall that my brother and his wife, Sarah will be expecting their first child in April. I was doubly excited to get to cohost her baby shower.
We decided to have her shower at the church that my parents and I attend. It worked out perfectly. I was a little torn on how to decorate for the shower but love the colors that I ended up going with. There was a great turn out, and Sarah got tons of great stuff!
I along with the rest of my family, especially my boys cannot wait for Mr Jaxson Edward Bearden to arrive in early April!

I Bet God's Laughing

We just returned from a trip to Norman, Oklahoma. Normally, these are happy, fun, and laughter filled trips. This one was a little different. On Monday night, January 24, Brandon's Maga (grandma), left her Earthly home and went to her forever Heavenly home. While we will greatly miss Maga, I know that as soon as she entered the gates of Heaven she had God in stitches!

I first met Elaine only five months after Brandon and I started dating. I was terrified the entire trip to Norman, and as soon as I walked in the door, her first question to me was, " I know you grew up in church, but what do you believe?" I was a little shocked, but left that trip in love with Brandon's maga. Shortly after asking me that questions she asked if Brandon and I wanted to go to the local Indian Casino! Over the years, Brandon's grandma, became my grandma. I love her and could talk to her like I had known her my entire life. She is by far one of the funniest women I have ever known. You never knew what was going to come out of her mouth! Brandon and I often say that Daniel is just like his Maga, he beats to his own drum, just like her!

It was awesome to think Monday night after we recieved the phone call, that at that very moment, Maga was seeing God face to face. It was an awesome thought, that turned that very sad moment into a joyous moment. I think that thought changed Brandon's and I's perspective for the entire trip. While we will miss Maga, we know that she is absolutely the happiest and healthiest that she has ever been. She's walking hand in hand with her Savior and she with her husband again. Throughout the funeral we were able to shed a tear of sadness, but still have a smile on our face and in our hearts.

I will always tresure the love for her family, her love for life, her love for her country, and her love for God. I will never forget the moments or conversations we shared, and she will be remembered every year espeically on May 9th. She shared the same birthday day as her first born great grandkids- the twins!