Making a change

Happy Halloween!!!!

Matt, Emma, and I had a great Halloween. We bought tons of candy (and ate tons ) and went to our ward trunk or treat. As pictured above, Matt went as death, I with no creative sense went as a pirate, and Emma was Tigger. Matt had a ton of fun scaring the kids and hopes to be like Chuck Bean some day and totally deck out the front yard and scare kids while I give them candy. Emma needless to say was terrified of Matt's mask, but as long as Matt held her and kept her face away from the mask, she was as calm as could be.
Well, putting Halloween aside, this blog post is all about the Bean family's recent attitude change toward the media. Matt and I found ourselves engulfed in tv shows. We both talked about the need to eliminate them from our lives mainly because out of all of the tv shows I watch I could only think of one that didn't have any sexual innuendos not to mention crude language or behavior....that meant that out of the 12+ shows I follow, I should only be watching one of them. Trust me this is no easy feat. I have like zero friends here so far and so when Im not watching Emma, Im bored out of my mind! Plus with Matt always gone or always studying, tv was just an easy mind numbing activity. But that is exactly why it's so destructive! It's mind numbing and I could be doing so many other better things plus, with those bad tv shows out of the way I can better feel the spirit, which I need so desperately in my life.

Well so far so good, although it's pretty much only been half a day, but I feel invigorated already, and look Im remembering to write in the blog!

Well as usual, I included lots and lots of cute Emma pics:



Matt reading to Emma

Oh, did I mention that Matt and I are trying to do the South Beach diet...that means that we pretty much get to eat veggies and meat for the first two weeks and then slowly add fruits and some starches back in. It will be tough, but it's very heart healthy!

The Matthew of Death

Me and Emma

Our cat Lilah. We are hoping to get another younger cat for Matt soon. Lilah is five. She is the sweetest cat in the world!

Emma is getting better and better at standing against things, actually today she even climbed over me.

She is getting ready to move. She can't quite crawl but she can still get around, she moves her feet forward then lays back onto her stomach and puts her hands forward and then gets back up and moves her feet forward. It's pretty funny to watch.


She can also sit up by herself now, and sometimes she even sits herself up.



Yes I know it's not Christmas yet, but her Christmas pjs just happen to fit her now. haha

Anyone that knows Pokemon knows that pikachu always wins his battles...at least until the day he went up against Emma Bean....


Emma, Matt, and I were sick one weekend and as our house was freezing cold, I put her in her Tigger sweats and jacket to keep her warm, seriously though how can you resist dressing up a baby?


It's called a boppy-mommy flower


I cut Matt's hair a little while ago, but before he let me cut it all of, he fashioned himself a mullet....

It's hard to feed Emma because once I get one spoonful in her mouth, she puts her hand in there and wipes the food all over her face, and then keeps her hand in front of her mouth to block the spoon from getting any more food in....

Clean up time!

What's New in LA

As you can see from above, Natasha and I have had some fun times dressing Emma up and taking pictures of her. The one above is Natasha's favorite. lol We put an apron on her, gave her a spatula and put her in the pan...so people would figure that she was "cooking" Emma. She turned the spatula sideways though and gave a whole new twist to the intended picture and now it looks like she is playing dead with her mouth because she ended it with the spatula.

Before I go on to describe all the craziness which was Natasha and my photo project, I wanted to update everyone on the Bean situation. This independence week Matt and I went on a family reunion to Seal Beach with Matt's family. We had a beach day where two people got stung by sting rays, a Disney day which of course meant long lines and lots of fun, and now we are having our chillaxin' day. One specific highlight of the week was Emma rolling over! (so far three times, but she has to start on her back.), Matt tried surfing, and I tried playing the game of Bohnanza.
This was actually one of the last pictures we took, Emma was getting pretty tired so we only ended up getting this pic with her binky in.
Beach day!
Good little Emma reading her scriptures
This picture looks like she is praying, so cute!
Angry Strawberry and yes we put her in a padded basket.

Workout baby taking a spit up break


Work it baby!

Emma in her pjs and her little bunny rattle.

We had to take a food break in the middle of shooting
This was right before the food break, you can tell she is getting tired of us torturing her

Emma loves Dr. Suess
And she especially likes flying, just like her Grandpa Bean





Grandma Elzinga made or got this quilt for Emma, so cute and she loves it!


That's a wrap!

Finally Updating the Blog

(Emma's modest bath pic, I guess Matt and I have never been a nude baby picture fan, so I have thus invented the modest bath baby pic)

So it has been almost 2 months since I last updated the blog and I apologize to all of you who were looking forward to me constantly posting. That was the hope, but of course plans are always changing.
So soon after getting to Arizona and starting my blog, Brian (Ecofirst regional manager) told me that he was in need of a personal assistant, and that if my sister was still in need of a job that he would hire her. Well since Natasha was in Oregon and still in school until the beginning of June, I jumped on the job knowing that if I took over the job for a month that Natasha would take over from there. I mean how hard could it be to be a personal assistant, right?
Wrong! Wow, talk about it being hard to work with a newborn baby. I ended up not only becoming Brian's personal assistant but 2 other boy's assistant's as well. Honestly it felt more like I was being their mother than a personal assistant what with me making their meals every day. Can I just say that those three boys can eat as much as my family of 8 did!
Luckily even though I did work a lot, I also managed to still get pictures of Emma to share with everyone. Boy is she cute!

(I'm not sure if you can see it, but there is a lightning bolt shape on her head!)
(Being a mom with a job that required me to make dinner for 3-4 hours each day I needed something to put Emma in that would help her sleep. She tend to wake up every few minutes, so thanks to this swing with music that plugs into the wall, she usually sleeps through the dinner process which certainly makes me and her both a lot happier.)
(Lately Emma has come to find that she has hands, and not only just hands but tasty hands. She loves to suck on them, but one day Natasha and I noticed that she was sucking so hard on her hands that they were getting swollen and one finger even had a sore on it! So lately we have thus began to use these little mittens to keep her hands safe and out of her mouth.)
(A bit lower in the many pictures is a longer version of this chain. At the beginning of the summer we made a chain to count down the days of selling and can you believe that we only have 5 weeks left and the green days are vacation days!!!!)

(This picture is one of my favorites because not only am I so happy to have my sister down here, but how can you not smile when you see Natasha and Emma cuddling together! So precious!)
(Natasha and I found these bows at Walmart. Too many people thought she was a boy...so I had to take matters into my own hands. As for the outfit, Natasha and I found a lot of cute clothes at the DI here in Mesa, AZ.)
(Here is our first little family photo! Matt looks beat up and I look well... pretty pale, but just focus on how cute Emma is =])


(I swear she could be a baby model, her sweet smile melts my heart!)

(Needless to say Matt had a fight with the bottom of the pool, as Dave Bean would say, if you think Matt got it bad, you should look at the pool. Matt ended up getting 6 stitches.
(I guess after looking at what I dress Emma in, it might make sense that people think she is a boy, but I swear those stripes are pink!)
(This picture is another one of my favorites! This is Emma's luke skywalker pose...if you will notice, she is missing one hand.



(The many faces of Emma)
(The start of her hand sucking days)
(This picture is my absolute favorite, there is nothing more heart warming then seeing your husband and baby all cuddled up together! It may look like Emma is uncomfortable, but she laid there for a while not making a sound, and trust me she lets you know when she doesn't like something.)
(This is what my house became once I started making food for 4 boys everyday...yeah I had to go shopping 2 times a week just to keep up.)
(Here is the infamous chain as mentioned above with many weeks left of selling)




(The picture of me above and Emma with the towels displays one of our first days here in Arizona. The temp was about 80 but already we were both burning up as we walked 2 miles in the hot sun...wow now the temp is about 115, and boy am I starting to miss the 80 degree weather!)
(Matt and I visited the Mesa, AZ temple. It is absolutely stunning inside and out!
(The end for now! =])