Our New Look ;)

As you know, this is a blog about our family and our little Beanie. While I have written all of the posts, Dustin has helped me outline many of them. He reminds me of events or will show me how to change a setting on the blog. We both play different roles in keeping a blog for our Bean.

Last week, Dustin decided to spruce the site up a bit. You may (or may not) have noticed the new headings at the top and the different labels to the right. This was all Dustin. He decided  that I was getting enough views each day that we needed to make it more user friendly. The changes that we have made make it easier to navigate the site. Now, you can look at posts by topic, not just timing.

At the top of the blog, you will notice a few phrases: Home, Growth Timeline, Xavier's Milestones, and Daddy's Favorites.

Home- When you click this button, you are taken to the original blog. This will have every post that I've written in chronological order, just as it has been since day one.

Growth Timeline- Dustin is in charge of this. Each week he chooses two pictures that truly represent Beanie at that specific time. This makes it much easier to compare pictures and watch him grow!

Xavier's Milestone- Here we will do our best to keep track of his milestones. We are excited about this because it will make it much easier to look back a single page opposed to combing through countless posts. We may have silly milestones listed, but that is the beauty of having your own blog- you can write about anything you want :)

Daddy's Favorites- This is also Dustin's job (obviously). Here, he will post his absolute favorite pics. He originally had set it up so that I also had a favorites page but when we started it, I added a million pictures which defeated the purpose. I choose the pics and post topics for each entry anyway so the whole blog is Mommy's Favorites :)



If you look to the right side of the blog, there are also more options based on topic. Underneath the Guide Heading, you will see Growing Bean, Family Time, and Going to the Doctor. There is also a heading for Archives. All of the posts that you look at from these links can also be found in chronological order from the home page :)

Growing Bean- Each week, I add a plethora of pictures that were taken that week. If you click on this, it will take you to the weekly pic posts. Also, you will see that only three pictures are shown. When I first started the blog, I vowed to keep it between 10-15 pics a week. I find this impossible as I LOVE every pic that I take of him. It takes FOREVER to scroll through each picture so Dustin introduced me to the "after the jump" feature. This allows readers to skip over the extra pictures if they choose as well as see more posts on a singlee page. If you like looking at all of the pictures, however, all you have to do is click the little "Read more" link at the bottom of the post :)
Family Time- This is another way we have organized pictures so that we can go straight to photos of Beanie with his family! Check it out and see if you are featured ;)

Going to the Doctor- This, like the others, is pretty self-explanatory. Every post about Doctor's visits and check-ups are organized here. This is just so we know how much he weighed at certain ages, how much he ate, how much he grew and any other health related info.

Archives- Lastly, the archives (which has always been here) are a list of the posts that we have published. If you have a favorite post, you can click the archives and read the title of all of the posts to determine which ones look interesting. These are organized my year and month.


We hope you enjoy the new and improved site :) Thanks for stopping in!
-Dustin, Whitney and Xavier :)