the beckham family

I only share this update with you so that you can understand the level of builder that we are dealing with. X talked to the builder today and sadly enough, he was planning on leaving the hangnail. We were sure that he would file it back...but no, that was how he liked it. So we had to inform him that we weren't too fond of hangnails, especially on our tubs. So I'm glad that we are all on the same page now!

So I have refrained from posting any pictures of our house being built for a number of different reasons (what if we don't end up getting it? what if I post too many pictures and people get sick of it? etc, etc.) But I couldn't resist posting this picture and adding a bit of humor to our situation.

The building of this house is one of the most frustrating things I've had to go through (besides the immigration process with X - nothing will ever beat that!). I've had to get mad and threaten not to buy the house for us to get any attention, and anything that could have been installed wrong, was installed wrong.

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to our tub, and yes, it has a hangnail. Apparently the size they ordered didn't fit into the hole intended for it. Instead of cutting around the entire tub to make the whole thing smaller (or ordering the right size...that would have been too easy), somebody out there thought it would be cool to leave a little hangnail wrapped around the corner.

What were they thinking?!? Needless to say, it will be fixed, along with the nasty condition of the floor. I have to keep reminding myself that it will get better...it will get better...it will get better.

Last weekend X and I went to a Tornadoes hockey game with Chris and Kristy. The Tornadoes are the junior training team for the Stars. Along with all of the interesting people that show up for hockey games, we also witnessed "Chuck-a-Puck" for the first time. You can buy a puck for a dollar and at an assigned time, all the fans start chucking all these pucks onto the ice. The guy in the middle then chooses three to win a prize. The funny part about this whole process was that a lot of the pucks didn't quite make it onto the ice. We witnessed so many little kids getting pelted with pucks, and they actually seemed to enjoy it. Fortunately we were in the top row and didn't have to endure any flying pucks, but it was hilarious/sad to see all of these flying pucks pelting people in the stand!

It reminded me of a rugby game we went to in New Zealand. We think we're sports fanatics here in the States...we don't know the meaning of it. At one point during the game everybody threw their beer bottles (not cans...but bottles) up into the air. I really was worried as I watched hundreds of bottles aiming down at me. As they came raining down on our heads, we were thankful to discover that they were made of plastic, but made to look just like glass beer bottles (they still hurt though!). A crazy adventure to say the least.

We were glad to see the Tornadoes win that night and had a great time hanging out with Chris and Kristy. You can barely see Kristy's tiny pregnant belly in the picture. I love that their mascot had stitches in his chin! Classic hockey player!

So I feel like everyone around me either just had a baby or is pregnant. As evidence of that, here are pictures from a baby shower I threw for my sister-in-law Kristy and my friend Connie Phillips (Scott Phillips' wife). They are both having boys and are due a couple weeks apart, so we decided to have a joint baby shower at my friend's, Stephanie Nguyen.

Here are pictures of the two (out of a lot of) pregnant ladies. I loved all the matching outfits they got! They'll have to dress them up like twins.

I love that Scott and Chris are taking a peek at all the goodies their wives are getting. The boys were hanging out upstairs playing video games (typical boy, right?).

What I think is even cooler is that Chris and Scott were such good friends in high school and now their wives are having baby boys within a couple weeks of each other. So to that and all my other pregnant friends, I say "Let it rain and bring on the babies!!"

Since I think Janette is pretty much the most frequent visitor to my blog, it's pretty funny that I'm posting this picture...because she was there...and this picture is already on her blog. But just on the off-chance that anyone else visits, here's a picture of some great friends from high school. I decided that I love the holidays here in Texas because so many friends come home for visits! I love it.As for the title of this post...notice that I am the only one without a baby? That's because I AM the only one without a baby. But that just means that I get to equally dote on all of my friends' cute kids. Someday it'll be my turn for my own.
Janette did a great job explaining who everyone is, so you can check out her blog for that. And for her own description, I say ditto to everything she said about me (noble stead indeed)! I loved seeing Emily's little Katie for the first time (and good to see her too of course, all the way from an island!!). Katie is such a pretty baby! And X loved playing "fighting" with Natalie's boys. I can't wait to see her 4th boy in May! I say "yeah" for us for keeping in touch with each other through the years! I love you girls.

Since looking at other blogs and reading of people's Christmases, I figured that I should share some of our Christmas pictures. I sadly noticed that I only took a couple of pictures, and none on Christmas Day, so there's not much to share. But we still had a great time. It was very low-key and we just spent the few days off with our family. Brian and Kendra were up in Utah so we didn't have that fun little-kid excitement you get when you're with little ones at Christmastime. But it was still great; very relaxing.

We did start a new tradition for the Beckham Family that X has brought with him from New Zealand. You will be surprised to know that it was making doughnuts! For those of you who know X, you know that he doesn't eat ANYTHING bad, let alone a grease-dredged doughnut!! But growing up they always made them as a family, completely from scratch. So we pulled out the old recipe and had a great time making them. To my great surprise, X actually ate one!! Our pictures turned out really blurry and they are so not cute, but I wanted to document the fact that he ate one (actually, two!). We were going to deliver them to some of our friends, but our family liked them so much that we kept them all for ourselves! I think we'll be doing this every Christmas Eve now. The only downside is the nasty cooked oil smell and the way it burns your eyes!!

We got to see some of our good friends, the Wilkinsons, over the break and had a great time visiting with them. I love the way little Halle is already totally posing for the camera and she's only 18 months old!

For New Year's, we spent it the same way we did Christmas, with family. We did run outside with pots and pans and shouted like hooligans for all of 30 seconds. We seriously spent hours just sitting around and talking during the holidays. Oh yeah, we ate, and ate, and ate some more! It was great!

Now things are quiet like the normally are. Back to work and back to school. Tara has left to go back up to BYU-Idaho and we are going to miss her! Good luck at school Tara!