our sixth year in this glamorous life

yesterday was our sixth anniversary. can you believe it? me neither.

since we have been married, our lives have been nothing short than thrilling.
to commemorate our six years of wedded bliss, i am going to list 6 things that are really important to BIG T and little h(that's us)!
in no particular order:

1. the bountiful temple
this is the beautiful and special place we were married and sealed together for time and all eternity. this temple was chosen because of my own personal vanity. i wanted to be the only bride at that temple on my wedding day, and i was!!!

2. our saturday and sunday morning breakfast tradition.

we always try and have a big breakfast together on the weekends. we all look forward to it. we all have preparation assignments. thomas is the king-grits makers. i sneak the chocolate chips into the waffles. reagan barks orders. scarlett feeds meatball her food.
we have morning prayer. we chit chat. we skim the newspaper. we plan the day's activities. it brings us closer together. the family that eats and prays together, stays together.

3. reagan. being parents together has helped us learn more about ourselves and how to better serve one another and how to love and forgive more fully.
kids can be tough bizness. but few things can bring you closer together.

but pretty adorable bizness too.

4. and scarlett. we really like her too.

being a mother to a girl has made me want to be a better woman.

5. wholoesome recreational activities and hard work. this number is a combo. we can't have one without the other.
thomas often gets exasperated with my tendency towards the ridiculous. it's true. i am a bit wacky. (did you know that?) but we have a good time together. and i appreciate that he indulges me on my whims. and i think he has started to show some of his personal wackiness...


happy bird-day parties
an incredible affinity for everybody loves raymond.
robert e. leestein. cracks me up everytime i think of it!!!
watching civil war/revolutionary war documentaries and laughing at inappropriate times. watching anything and laughing at inappropriate times.
the soup. friday nights at 9pm.
posing with firearms, assault rifles even.

and not many husbands will dress up in costume for their wives. i consider myself very lucky indeed.
and the all important yin to wholesome recreations activities yang: WORK

thomas at work in his office
thomas receiving some award for his work. me WORKING by holding a squirmy child.
thomas graduating from law school because of hard work. i am wearing a cute dress that i WORKED really hard to find. (does blogging count as work?)

6. finally, on a serious note. the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ. it is what truly binds us together. we know it is true.
without it we would be lost. with it, we have everything.

don't be jealous of our glamorous life.

(thomas was sleeping in this picture. dreaming about georgia football, i am sure.)

since this is a wedding post, let me shout from the rooftops this exciting news!!! i can't believe that i have neglected to post this amazing morsel of beck family information!!! david (also known as boo boo 'round these parts) is engaged!!! the fantastic bride is the lovely christine. they will be married on august 2nd in the salt lake temple! i have only heard good things about christine. you read that right, i've only HEARD good things. i haven't met her yet. everyone else in the family has but me and mine. i think it is a vast conspiracy. like i am the one in the family that would scare her off...please.

everyone in the fam is completely delighted. especially my mom. once the lovebirds seal the deal, we are going to have to pick another topic to dominate all our familial conversations.


hereforth they shall be called daventine. this one name business is so much easier to type than two names.

wow, this was dreadfully long. good job to those of you that made it through.

all hail the birthday girl

our baby is one!!! what a whirlwind this past year has been! we have lived in three states and i have probably sat down three times since she was born. she started out as our quiet, serene little lamb and now she is our loud, mischevious, incredibly speedy, cackling little monkey. our ward doesn't know what has hit them. i feel bad for the folks that sit around us at church. thomas volunteers to clean the church at every opportunity to make up for all the goldfish crackers smashed into the carpet. every sunday is a chase. scarlett usually wins. thomas has affectionately dubbed her lucy. but you have to say it like this: "LOOOO-CEEE!!!"

scarlett admiring her balloons in her redneck sleepwear.

of course, we had to have a party. scarlett was very insistent on this. everyone 1 year old needs a bunch of adult fawning over her and telling her how precious she is. how is she supposed to be a proper child-beauty queen without loyal subjects?

this is how our guests were greeted:

that sign and the stink coming from the garage full of poopy diapers screamed hello. nothing says hello like that!(garbage day isn't till monday)

i love this picture of scarlett and my dad. we are so grateful to have him around. scarlett and reagan love grandpa.

reagan was about to die from excitement when we lit the candles on the birthday cake.

the cake: i had a REALLY REALLY clever slogan to go on the cake, but thomas vetoed it because of some damning languge.

scarlett's little cake with the one-eyed smiley face. is this an omen for the year??? pirates will be attacking us?

scarlett in heaven.

scarlett has developed some mean basketball skills. she can't stand to sit idly by while reagan shoots all the hoops.

i don't know if this sign will ever come down.

a snapshot into my thoughts

sometimes i feel like blogging, but i don't know what to say. let's call it entertainment anxiety. what if this blog isn't entertaining? will you hate me? so i thought i would just write my thoughts on some pictures that i have taken recently. i'll try and keep the stories to a minimum. consider this stream of conciousness blogging...

this photo is of the fantastic thomas in front of the saint louis temple. we were able to go on saturday. thomas drove, i slept. i sometimes i amaze myself at my sleeping abilities. i drive myself all the time and i am fine. put me in the passenger's seat and i am dead. i brought several magazines and scarlett's baby book with me to entertain myself on the 4 hour trip, but to no avail. i was dead to the world after only an hour of traveling. during my dreams in the car, i thought i was awake. i was dreaming, "oh, i'll show that thomas. i'll stay awake the whole time. he always jokes about my narcolepsy. well, haha! looks who's got the last laugh now!" and then i would wake up to tell him and realize that i had been asleep for an hour.

the lovely me in front of the temple. my faithful readers will notice that i wear that green shirt ALL. THE. TIME. it's in nearly every picture. i promise i have other clothes. it is just my go-to shirt. everyone has a go-to shirt. this is mine. funny thing is, last summer's go-to shirt i NEVER wear anymore. favorite shirt overkill. after this summer you will never seen ol' green scoopy puff sleeves on my again. also, i always think that when i pull my lusterous locks in a pony tail that i look sophisticated and then i see pictures and i know better. the look is a little more 12 year old gym-chic.

what can't i take a normal picture? seriously. SER.IOUS.LY. bring out a camera and i make stoopid faces. then i am surprised at myself later. it's like i am one of pavlov's dogs. camera=dumb face

my sister is pretty hottt though.

while my son is the spitting image of his father, he got his sleep habits from me. this was after a quick jaunt to the pool with jamey. reagan had a meltdown to end all meltdowns. it was quite unusual since he has always been such a compliant child. mostly. sometimes. anywhooo. there was kicking and screaming and hairpulling. the hair pulling was a newly developed skill that i would like to blame on the bad influences at the YMCA. i should have been embarassed by this outburst, but i kept laughing. it was comical. i felt like a cartoon character. reagan's body was like rubber. contorting and squishing into different positions that seem impossible. perhaps someday he will be a yoga instructor. better yet, a contortionist. i would love to visit him at the circus.

please note meatball patiently waiting for reagan to be completely asleep so that he can steal his crackers.

the end.

or is it?

no really, the end.

bless this mess

this is what i am currently up against:

the front entry:

the playroom:
the living room:
the monster who created this great mess:
(not me of course, the smaller person in this picture)

and that monster too.

how it makes me feel:

not mad, not sad, mostly just that emotion when your face scrunches up and you breathe heavily out of your nose all at once. exasperation? perhaps i should BOL? i am neither diligent enough to keep messes like this from happening nor fastidious enough to want to fix it any time soon. i am like a hamster on a wheel. why clean it up when that is just creating another opportunity for the monsters to mess it up again?

the end.

but not really.

perhaps in 20 years when my children are seeking their own fortunes far far far away and thomas and i have retired to the battery in charleston, i will not have to worry about messes anymore. each morning i will go out to my garden and pick flowers while singing, sooong! song of the south! sweet potato pie and uh, shut my mouth!



i can't see any messes here in charleston...

i conquered the hill

on saturday my sister and i completed the 35th annual hospital hill run, the grandfather of all kansas city road races. it was a race that almost didn't happen. i didn't sign up until last minute and somehow my fantastic sister, heather, convinced me to run the 10k even though i have never even dreamed of running that far in my entire life. seriously, there should be a million dollar pot of gold at the end of any race over 5 miles. a 10k would guarantee like a million bucks and some change and a birthday cake and ice cream and a full body massage.

plus, everyone in the universe kept saying how completely awful the hills are in this race. and then the evening before i ate at my favorite mexican restaurant and had tons of chips and salsa and a gigantic bean burrito. not exactly the ideal pre-race meal. that night before i woke up every 20 minutes to check my clock so that i wouldn't oversleep. the race started at 7am, so heather and i were on the road at 5:30am in order to park and stretch and pretend to be really good at running with the other racers. then the worst thing ever happened. occasionally, certain circumstances will trigger morning sickness. i am not pregnant-REPEAT- i am not pregnant, but sometimes by body remembers what it is like to be pregnant and wants to perform an encore. my deadly-barf-inducing-combination is honeycomb cereal and sneezing. the two of those together is what i call a perfect storm. and this perfect storm happened as i was driving down the interstate. heather nearly had to grab the wheel as my eyes rolled back in my head and waves of nausea overtook me. there were many fed exed prayers as i made my way downtown. by time we got there, my pre-race jitters overtook my nausea and i was ready to strut around with all the other 4,000 runners and pretend to stretch and discuss my "strategy" and be knowledgable about racing. and i am sure that i fooled nobody. my strategy was this: don't ever stop running. EVER. no matter how much it hurts. i am sure the others were impressed.
pre- race, still smiling.

the final stretch to the finish line.
closer now so that you can see it is really us and not two other extremely sweaty yet cute sisters running nsync. at this point i was fighting back tears i was so proud of myself. i also cried during the national anthem. i am tearing up as i type this.

and by the finish line, drenched in sweat and pride. that sounds like an gospel or classic rock album title. heidi and heather, drenched in sweat and pride, the greatest hits.

the best part of the race was the swag that gave you for participating.

my bragging rights t-shirt.

i nearly wore this ensemble to church today:
the visor, the sweat-wicking running shirt, the tote bag, the flip flops that said "finisher" across the toes. and drumroll.....and a huge freaking medal!!! i didn't know that everyone got one and i nearly kissed the girl that put it around my neck. i still haven't taken it off. i hope my mom doesn't mind me wearing it in the next family picture. do you think i can get on a plane with that around my neck?

twenty seven thirty eight

thomas and i ran in the inaugural raytown family 5k on saturday. let me tell you what, i was awesome. AWESOME! what's the point of a blog if you can't tell everyone how great you are? well, here it is again in case you missed it. I AM GREAT. i have never run so fast in my entire life. i am not athletically inclined whatsoever and i don't really like running in the first place. and people that say that do are liars. i ran my first mile in nine minutes and my finish time was 27:38. i was in tears when i saw my time. i don't know how i made it over the finish line without tripping. i am a big baby. and i beat thomas(not by much though) so it was doubley sweet. tripley sweet if you count the cookies i ate when i got home. quadupley sweet if you look at how white my legs are in my booty shorts:

***yes marci, that is your blue springs high school cross country t-shirt from 15 years ago. i still have it. and i am probably never ever going to give it back, so thanks for the inspirational shirt. it's most likely the reason i did so well.

luckily for me and everyone else at the race, georgia man showed up. some of you know him by his alter-ego of thomas, but thomas hates running. so georgia man showed up in his place. please note the georgia socks. georgia man went about his duties at the race of spreading good legal advice, witty repartee and the news of georgia football dominance to everyone that will listen. this is our year baby!

our re-enactment in the front yard. i often wonder how i get thomas to go along with my re-enactment pictures. his face is not pleased. but look at me, ecstatic! blame it on the runner's high.

in order to properly inform everyone of my excellent time, i decided to permanently tatoo my time on my forehead.
GO ME!

the toothless wonder has learned to crawl

scarlett turned 10 months on the 28th. that same week scarlett went from scooting lump to speed demon. after months of non-crawling scooting(which seemed to please her just fine) she took the plunge and actually used her arms and legs for movement instead of rolling, squirming, squishing and blobbing around the house. thank goodness she left blobbing around the house for me to do. i love an evening of blobbing. especially after a big dinner of mexican food and ice cream.


when she was bored with an afternoon of crawling, she decided cruising furniture was next on her list.

still, with these hugely important accomplishments, NO TEETH! not a tooth in her head! reagan had teeth at 4 months. i am beginning to worry that no teeth are ever going to come. it's my punishment for pouring water in my brother's bed and trying to convince everyone david had a bed-wetting problem. it was really funny at the time, but was it worth this? she will be the only kid in kindergarten with dentures. i will have to buy polident for my child before i need to buy it for me. until now my greatest tooth phobia was me losing my teeth while biting into a whether's original hard candy or as the result of a freak roller coaster accident(it could happen). but no, having a child with no teeth is worse. definitely worse. how can i be a stage mother and shamelessly promote my child/model/cash cow to support my wicked shoe habit if all she has to show the casting director is a mouth full of gums. gummy o'hara doesn't work for me. they are beautiful gums, but gums don't pay the light bill.

everything is up to date in kansas city

but not neccesarily in jamesport, mo.

we took a day trip to adam-ondi-ahman and jamesport. pretty drive, but we would never want to have our car break down out there. we would be stranded for days in little towns that time forgot. sort of like swiss family robinson, but swiss family simpson. we certainly would have our pick of the finest amish furniture around, but i don't think the amish would have appreciated me turning my nose up at their outhouses. seriously, there wasn't a mcdonald's for miles...like 20. and they have mcdonald's pretty much everywhere. third world countries have mcdonald's, jamesport, mo does not. we were able to eat at a fantastic amish restaurant. home cooked vittles just like granny never made. plus, check out the classy shopping options.

anywhooo, the weather was so fantastic this weekend, i had to take a picture of our house with the trees in full bloom. the pink tree next to the porch is a flowering dogwood, state tree of missouri. who says you never learn anything from me? we also have some flowers growing that the neighbor claims are called "naked ladies". i will definitely be replanting those next year. naked ladies every spring!
love it!