before and afters

maybe it was cool to let your kids grow cute little mullets when i was a kid, but dust and i have taken a stance in our house, and it's not so much on the cool side here!


i mean really - this isn't cute on little boys! becks has had some issues growing hair in general, so i understand if you don't agree with our decision to chop these little curls off, but he looked a little too much like an old man for us! haha not a whole lot on top but full around the back! here's the befores!

we took the sucker route, and it's amazing how a little sugar on a stick helped to cure any loud noise electric razor fears becks may have had! i was a little scared of it though, so dad took over barber responsibilities and did a marvelous job :) here's a little video and some pics of the process......

there was some head holding because that sucker was just pretty darned exciting and slippery, but beckam did awesome! he didn't fuss at all and got all stickied up for bath time mullet-free!

here are the curly locks he lost and no.....we didn't put them in an envelope for future reference!

soooo handsome! good-bye old man and hello cute little becks again :) love it!

a little early this year!

we LOVE christmas around these parts, and we are always looking for excuses to decorate early. we haven't really ever had a good one til this year though, and we have taken advantage! we come home on dec 11th for the holidays, and we gotta have a little christmas around these parts with becks before we go home to celebrate there right?!? we have been singing christmas songs and watching christmas movies and living up this wonderful season for a week now :) love it!

sadly, we have decided to take the fake christmas tree route for our 1st time ever, and it was really hard to begin with. i have always had a real tree and most of the time gone out and cut it down with the fam, so this was a hard change for me. we went to the marvelous craig's list and found what seemed like a good one. we set it up though and holy dinkiness! it was so little and triangular and not full, and we just couldn't do it. the good thing is that craig's list works to sell things too, so that one went up for sale, and we found another one! here the beaut that we ended up with....

i thought i remembered the add saying easy assembly but clearly not! we had to put each branch in, and there was over 1,700 tips on this baby! it was lots of fun though, and it was a wayyyy better tree! beckam loved the decorating too! the lights were his favorite for sure, and he was sporting the christmas pj's to go along with the christmas spirit!

christmas is pretty awesome, but it's even better when you have kids, and i can't wait to keep christmas'ing it up around here with becks and dust :) thankfully, beckam is steering clear from the tree so far, but the fake snow is just way too fun! tis the season to be jolly around here, and we loving it!

merry christmas even if it is too early!

clean up duty

you know.....we were absolutely sure that life would be better for beckam when he started crawling or walking cuz he seemed to want to get moving so bad, but i can now admit that we were way wrong! he's all over the place now getting stuck in awkward positions and faceplanting and cracking his head on tables and walls, and he's always wanted to be with us all the time, but now he can be cuz he can find us no matter where we hide in this little apartment! anyway, it's been frustrating at times and hard some days, but i decided to make the best of our attached relationship the other day and make some sugar cookies together :)

becks was back to the bumbo and got counter side seats to the cookie action, and he loved the bosch and watching the beaters go round and round!

he also loved the measuring spoons and helped with the baking powder as you can see! playing with them was way more fun though :)

to keep him happy while i rolled and cut out our cookies, i gave becks one of the beaters, and he took on the clean up duty roll quite well! he wasn't too sure at first, but as soon as he got his first taste, he was all over it and was not happy when it was time to do the dishes!

i got some new cookie cutters the other day, and aj helped me cut out the letters for his name and beck's. sadly, we didn't get any pictures of my little age helper, but here's beckam enjoying the fruits of his labor!

mmmmm.....cookies!

overall, our cookie making experience was a little more stressful than usual with helpers galore and with some fussing along the way, but it was super duper fun and something i can't wait to keep doing with my kids, especially when they make clean up duty look that cute!

dragon lovers

i am not a big fan of halloween at all! in fact, dust and i both dread dressing up and don't usually do too much besides carve a pumpkin and hand out candy to celebrate this marvelous holiday, and that's perfect for us :) we still loved carving our pumpkin this year and had a little helper too!

dust drew this m&m man design on the pumpkin, and i'll admit - i was skeptical of it working out at all. there were too many slin slivers to cut out, and we had a thick old 36 pounder! he was determined though, so i left him to it, and he came up with this result - awesome eh?!?! he's a pumpkin carving machine!

i'll also admit that this was the 1st halloween that i've been excited about in a long time. i loved it as a matter of fact cuz as many of you know, it changes when you have kids to dress up! we were so excited to find a cute costume for becks! i thought about sewing one up but that didn't last, and old navy came through for us slackers thankfully, and here is our little dragon :)

isn't he cute?!?! we think so, and we are dragon lovers in this house! we are also giraffe and cow lovers. check out our cute nephews!

here are a few more pics from our halloween fun! trick or treating wasn't really beckam's thing, but we needed SOME halloween candy in this house! hehe and who can turn down this cute dragon!

check out this dragon's teeth! arrrgghhh!

hehe we had to give our dragon a sucker to help him stay calm through a few pictures, and lace captured that thing slipping right out of those sharp teeth!

here's the gang that we went trick or treating with :) we had so much fun...especially when we started hitting the houses where people were home and handing out candy!

here's becks getting some candy from our landlords! bev and ron are the best and loved seeing all the little kids :)

becks spend most our trick or treating adventures in one of our arms watching the fun. he loved walking around and seeing all of the cute kids though!

mmmmm.....candy! he got a little piece of my charleston chew but that's about it for this year! maybe we'll think about sharing his loot with him when he gets a little older!

our halloween loving dragon loving trick or treating family :) can't wait til next year!

nash, jazz, and sosa join the fam!

my dad called a few weeks ago and told me that there would be something coming in the mail - an early birthday present of sorts. the only hint he gave me is that it had to do with his favorite hunting dogs, and i can't say i was overly excited about that. we also knew that it was coming from cabela's - one of my dad's favorite hunting stores. hmmmm........

this is really the 1st time that beckam has been excited about opening something, and he was pretty cute about it!

puppies!!!! 3 new little labs joined our family today - nash, jazz, and sosa, and beckam was in heaven! they came in this cute little dog house and seemed very excited to meet their new owner :)

beckam had lots of kisses for them and was especially drawn to nash of course! he loved his 1st birthday present dad and can't wait to go out with grandpa hill and his very own hunting dogs!

thanks dad - you're the best! these are my kind of puppies, and beckam loves his 3 new little friends!

softball, anniversary, football, fries, and the move!

i'm playing a little catch up with this blog. life has been sooooo busy as of late, and i gotta get a few pics in for the grandparents before i do my halloween post! firstly, here are a few pictures from dust's softball game. me and becks went to cheer on dad at his last game of the season :) sadly, they got their butts kicked, but dust sure looked good in his teratogen shirt after a nice base hit!

 

 

 

next - dust and i celebrated our 3 year anniversary a few weeks ago. i did a post about my wonderful hubby, but our date night was post worthy for sure! we went to the temple which was awesome. the portland temple is so beautiful and what better place to celebrate an anniversary! after our session, we headed downtown for dinner. dust had done some research and picked out a "great" restaurant so we headed to the original for a delicious dinner. i was skeptical as soon as we walked in, and then i looked at the menu and saw things like green tomato jelly - sick! needless to say, we paid for dust's coke and ran! haha we felt bad but at least we paid for it right?!?! we decided to walk the streets to see what else we could find, and our next stop was red star (or something like that). we went it and had a mint while waiting to be seated, but as we looked over the menu at the front, we realized that there was only 1 or 2 things that we would even order - see ya! we got a mint out of the deal though! our next stop was buffalo wild wings, and that was the place! it was greasy and fried and comfortable and delicious! there were flat screens all over every wall with every possible sporting event on, and we loved it! we watched some baseball and had some wings and nachos and were in love!


our downtown dinner adventure with our beautiful temple fun made for a fun 3 year anniversary! we topped off our night with some voodoo donuts and headed home :) thank you thank you thank you to lacey and nicole for taking care of our becks so that we could have a night out - you girls are the best!

 

last saturday, we decided to hit up a portland state universary football game, and it was way fun. dust got free tickets from his school, and beckam loved the cheerleaders and band more than the game, but it was good times for all :) he wore his DEFENSE shirt from grandma and grandpa peterson and is a football fan for sure!

 

 

our little becks loves fries!!! he is just like his dad and loved sharing his wendy's lunch with him on moving day. our table was already moved, so we all sat on the floor to eat, and becks just dove right in! he was so upset when they were all gone, but he clearly got his fill!

 

finally, here are some pics from moving day! we live in an amazing apartment complex here in portland, and we loved our little apartment. we didn't love our neighbor's smoking like a chimney though, so when an another apartment opened up right under the poytress family, we weighed out the pros and cons and decided to make the move down the street! we started at 11:30am and finished the last load at 9:30 that night. we had lots of help from awesome friends (thank you sooo much everyone!), and after a very long chaotic day, we were official tenants of #113 instead of #125! it only took me a day or so to get everything put away and hung up, and we love our new place! we miss the ceiling fan and the easy access garbage bin, but we love being closer to family and having smoke-free neighbors! yay for 113!!!

 

 

 

stay tuned for pics of our cute little dragon and halloween portland style :)

the magic is in the hole

http://www.voodoodoughnut.com/

voodoo donuts is a must see when you come to portland. it's this crazy unique little donut shop that sells every kind of donut under the sun! they sell big ones and little ones and ones with bacon on them and cocoa puff ones and ones as big as my head as seen here...

well, it seems fairly normal sized here but continue on down to get the full idea. it's huge, and this is one of their more normal donuts!

we've only been there a few times, and my favorite donut has chocolate glaze with rice krispies on top with some peanut butter goodness drizzled over that, and it is to die for! we did a voodoo donut run the other night, and they were out of my fav so this larger than life donut had to do. i had 4 bites and was full, but it made a great breakfast for becks in the morning!

he LOVED it! he wasn't quite sure what to do with his 1st donut at first, but it didn't take him long to dive right in, and he chomped away on that thing!

i don't think he got any pieces off of it, but he loved the glaze and all of the sugary goodness, and we just sat back and took in his excitement and curious facial expressions - so cute!

anyway, the magic really is in the hole, and voodoo donuts is just one more perk of living in portland, so come on down for a visit if you're cravng a good donut! soooo yummy!!!!