Awesome like Iron Man

What the heck! Today is the 28th of February! Today is our designated anniversary. TJ and I were married on Leap Day, the 29th of February 2012, but we don't have another one of those until 2016. Why did we do that again?

So it's been a year! I know you're all stoked, and love reading gushy details about peoples' lives and how in love they are and they're all like, "It was exactly 365 days ago today when my heart sprouted wings and flew off into the sunset with my one true love..." and blah, blah, blah. As tempting as it is to drown you all in sap, I will refrain. Because trust me, we've got sap! But we also have awesome. And awesome is usually more entertaining when you aren't the direct recipient. It's like, I could show you a Nicholas Sparks movie, or I could show you Iron Man.

All I'm sayin' is, if you think you've fallen in love with your best friend, marry the heck outta that guy (or gal). It's the best.

So here's some awesome from the past 365 days:

We got married (obviously)

TJ was a leprechaun

Jagger had a plumbers crack

We sang Pocahontas songs in kayaks! 

We saw movies in 3D!

TJ made these muffins and then said, "I like my bottoms crusty"

We saw Fun. It was epic.

We threw colored chalk at each other (and strangers)

I took this photo on a walk to 7-11 for slurpees when my sister called because she was in labor

And so we concluded our slurpee walk and met this little charmer, Paxton

We drove all the way to Houston, TX and worked for a company for like...6 days. Needless to say it didn't work out, but we DID meander through Kroger's with Avengers masks on, and ate lots of Blue Bell.

En route from Houston to home, the workers at this Taco Bell told us to take the street "Juh-Jelly" (that's literally how they were pronouncing it) to get to the freeway. After about 20 minutes of being totally confused, lost and not being able to find the street, we found the street, Judge Eli, which took us to the freeway. Oh, you midwesterners.

We went to California!

We rode bicycles!

TJ went on a safari!

We played messy twister (not to be confused with dirty twister)

We went swimming!

We [mostly] paid attention in church

We purchased the first 100 episodes of Spongebob Squarepants!

We  hid Easter eggs!

We took Sandi Pants to Jamba Juice

TJ sat on me and he wasn't even sorry for it.

We ate at the new fancy Wendy's in Orem

TJ connected with his musical side

He also tried his hand at improv

We learned that this sign defines every eating experience we ever have.

Paxton wore a fedora

We both agreed this is the funniest meme we've EVER seen

And then the awesomest thing of them all happened...

This dude.

"We're all a little weird, and life's a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."

-Dr. Suess

Roman!

Roman Michael Beach!

Weighing in at an impressive 6 lbs. 9 oz., and at a staggering 19 1/2 inches, Mr. Roman means business. 

And now, the official

Bullet List of Events and Details of the Night of Roman's Arrival 

will be presented!

• Water broke at midnight Sunday, February 10, 2013
• I was dilated to a 5 by 2 am without any discomfort or pain. All the nurses were very weirded out by this.
• Got an epidural at 3:30, had a reaction that only happens to 25% of women, heart rate plummeted, but leveled out after 5 minutes or so. Kinda freaky, but I'd take 5 minutes of that over hours of contractions any day. 
• I went from a 6 to complete in an hour.
• Pushed for six minutes
• Roman Michael Beach entered this world with grace and charm at 7:38 am, Sunday February 10. 
• I cut the umbilical chord (TJ isn't really down with anything blood and guts) and blood sprayed right across my doctor's face. It. Was. So. Funny.  He looked at me and said with a smile, "Nice cut."
• I was told by several nurses that that was the easiest they've ever seen labor for anyone. For this I am grateful.
• Roman is so, so handsome. Like his dad.

Thus concludes the official

Bullet List of Events and Details of the Night of Roman's Arrival!

So that's what! We have a son! None of his clothes fit him because he's such a little guy, but like the great John Mayer once said, Roman is definitely bigger than his body gives him credit for. 

It was like 3 in the morning the other night when Roman was just in the middle of one of his all-nighter parties that he likes to throw (which he never even clears with me, such a rebel already), I was just holding him, staring at him (which really is all I can do when he wants to just hang out with me and not sleep). I was overwhelmed, you guys. I started crying. Not overwhelmed like, 

Holy crap what have I done I can't take care of a baby!

type of overwhelmed. Rather,

Oh my lanta this baby is beautiful and he's mine and I love him and I never want him to get bigger and I never want to miss even the smallest moment of his most excellent, beautiful life.

I cried and held him closer. 

Then I thought about God. If I love this baby with every ounce of my soul, and am imperfect...then wow, God must really, really, really love me. And Roman. And TJ. And You.  My life is so full of happiness, peace and love. I owe every last bit of it to my faith, you guys. Because I know it, I live it and I love it. And God watches out for me because of it. TJ was accepted into the BYU advertising program the same week Roman was born. 

I'm telling you, God is extremely generous to those who follow Him. 

So I cried and cried, overwhelmed with love and gratitude. 

Then on Sunday I cried and cried because I was so freakin' tired and my hormones are all over the place. haha. 

So Baby Boy Roman Beach is here, and we couldn't be more in love with him. 

I love you all. Make good choices. 

Transistions

In t-minus 19 days (give or take a few--hopefully take), TJ will be a dad, and I will be a mom.

This is strange.

It's a strange thing, shifting roles in life. It's weird, going from being the daughter and sister of a family, to very soon the wife and mother. A leader, a caretaker. Doing the majority of the caring, less being taken care of. Lending out money instead of being the one asking for it. The car will be mine, and I'll be the one handing over keys instead of the other way around. Words of wisdom, patience and kindness are expected to fall from my lips to little ones, when my whole life I have been on the receiving end. Of course I'll still be the daughter of a saintly mother, and undoubtedly she will continue to be a source of strength to me. But in 19 days, I will become the mother...and I'm still trying to wrap my head around that.

I love being married. I love living with my best friend. I love that hanging out with him on a Friday night playing Mario Kart is way better than whatever party or shenanigans my friends might be going to. Anyone who thinks the single life is better, simply doesn't understand. What I really love though, is how at the end of the day, we can lock the door of our apartment, sit in our bed and just be. Any drama or stress or whatever other negative the world can try to bring you down with, seems to not exist. TJ can lay there and read his book, and I can sit there and destroy my friends and family at Words with Friends ('cept Caiti Stauffer, she bested me...once), and I'm perfectly content.

I can feel my heart and mind shifting into mom mode. First of all, I know where everything is. And it's weird. HOW do moms ALWAYS know where the heck everything is?? Well, this magical ability is becoming a part of me. Whenever I tell TJ where something is, I tell him that my mom senses are tingling. haha. As different trials and influences come around me or my little family, I become fiercely intent on keeping it as far away from us as possible. People always talk about being a 'momma bear' or whatever, and I know the mom mode transition is nearly complete when I start feeling that fire in my chest. This is also a strange thing.

TJ, Baby Boy Beach and I are going to live in Southern California this summer, and I'm so, so stoked for it. I love my life. I love my little family of almost three. I love that things aren't always perfect, and how perfectly okay that is, because of our love and our faith and our undying commitment to both those things. This all may sound very cheesy or cliche, but boy howdy is it ever true. It's never been more perfect being alive.

TJ and I watched this video together and loved it. I won't mention which one of us got emotional while watching it ;)

37 weeks!

Life and Death

Aaaaand we're back!

Life is a weird thing, man. My saintly grandmother, Renee Simmons, passed away and last weekend we attended her funeral. It was awesome. Her death was not awesome. No, far from it. But her funeral was awesome. And why shouldn't it have been? She was an awesome lady. We shared a mutual love for the song, "Have I Done Any Good?" My grandma was definitely more experienced and refined in the application of the song to her life. Now she's with her true love, Mister Curly, once again. And what a beautiful thing that is. 

Ah, what a fantastic lady. And to prove it, one of my most favorite quotes from her, 

"...and ya know, life, well...life just sucks sometimes!"

Right on, Grandma.

I also on occasion would ask her if she had been born in a different time, with different resources, opportunities and could go to school and have a career, what would she do/study/be? Hypothetically. Each time I presented her with that question, she got the same frustrated look on her face, like that was the dumbest question she'd ever heard, and had the same answer each time. That there was nothing else in this whole world she would have done than raise her 7 children and support her husband. Even if she could have, she knew she had fulfilled the most important calling there is. Which she fulfilled with grace and beauty.

Yep, she was the coolest, and she will be sorely missed.

But where there is death, there is also life! 

We went to the doctor on Monday and got to skype with the little babe inside me. He says hey.

We found out that we have a little BOY baking in the oven, as clearly indicated by our wonderfully tactful doctor with the word, "PEEPEE." Maybe not the phrasing I personally would have chosen, but hey. As long as we all understand, right? Right. It's a boy! Woohoo! Little Tommy Jr. pluggin' along in there. I have this app on my phone that tells me details about the growth of the baby each week. This week it informs, " a waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on the skin to prevent it from  pickling in your amniotic fluid."  Um...babies would pickle without this stuff. Like...a cucumber...changes to a pickle. Pickled herring! Pickled pigs feet! Man, God is one smart cookie. He thinks of everything. 

Which is why even among the tragedy of death and the apprehension of life, everything is alright. God has already thought of everything, so it's all good. I sure do love that little boy. Soon I will meet him and it will be so sweet. What a precious time to be found living the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad, or made someone feel glad? If not, I have failed indeed.

What have we done?!?

So Teejay and I have given in and taken the plunge into the unknown realm of blogging. What the heck. Welcome to the bandwagon. We have no clue what's going on, so bear with us. We visited "adjectivesthatstart.com", searched under the Bs, and then finally decided on the Beach Brigade after having to decide between the balding/ballistic/buttery beaches. What a handy website. Fulfilling all your adjective needs since 2005!

I feel obligated to do an introduction or something, so I'll just copy and paste this little thing I wrote about us when we got engaged. Word. 

"Once upon a time, there was a boy and there was a girl. Both were small in stature and nothing too impressive to behold. The turning of the world brought them together at the awkward, painful age of 15 in an equally awkward and painful tenth grade biology class, 2005. Their love began innocently, as nearly all love does, with the boy taking notes for the both of them as the girl would fall asleep on her arm in the middle of lecture. This was the first of many signs of affection the boy would display, and eventually the girl woke up and loved the boy in return.

High school passed by them like something of a dream; prom, homecoming, sadie hawkins, homecoming again, prom again. Fist date, first hand hold, first kiss, first love. A carefree, sunshiney kind of love that kept them a few inches off the ground. But, like any epic love story, a conflict must arise, and so it was for these two young daydreamers. Graduation brought tribulation, growing up and life decisions. A whirlwind spanning three years began to spiral around these two, bringing them in and out of love as they had relationships with other people, foolishly believing they could somehow forget each other and be with another...all the while an epic saga of letters and emails were sent over oceans, years and hearts as they both served LDS missions. Though at times both believed they had moved on, fate had other greater plans in mind. 

After 3 long years, the high school lovers were brought back together in a fusion of love, time and all things awesome August 2011. And now this boy and this girl, with their love 7 years in the making, will seal the deal, never to be apart for another day of their lives. 

TJ and Samantha 

Leap Day 2012"

So basically, we love each other. Now we've got a little bouncing baby Beach bum baking in the oven, due to make its debut February 24, 2013! Buy your tickets now, this event WILL sellout.
So, we blog. We're bloggers. We be bloggin'. Ahoy!

2005

We may be better looking now than we were back in the days of our juventud, but we're still pretty weird and awkward. Bienvenidos.