v-day in p-city

i just love valentine's day! i don't think i loved it so much when i was single and all of my couple friends talked about their romantic boyfriends/husbands, but i love it now that i have my own :) i love that there is a day set aside specifically to celebrate L-O-V-E, and even though dust and i don't really do anything overly romantic or special, i just love that whatever we do that day is because we love each other.



we did some of our v-day celebrating last night and went to a new restaurant. applebee's is a pretty popular restaurant down here, but neither of us had ever eaten there before last night, and we were quite impressed! it was affordable, and we loved our food, and we were kid-free, so it was lots of fun. kristen is here visiting, so we got a babysitter for free too! (thanks kris!)

then, i woke up this morning to dust making breakfast for me, and then he pulled this out of the fridge. we had a limit on gifts this year, so this was his creative gift for me - not bad eh? he made cupid's hearts for me out of canteloupe, apples, and oranges! i have a pretty great husband, and i love him a whole lot! we have quite enjoyed our valentine's day portland style to say the least, and we are excited to watch the NBA dunk competition while we watch aj tonight so that lacey and aaron can have some v-day time together - nothing like a good dunk to set the mood! haha :) happy valentine's day everyone!

burn baby burn!

one of my favorite dinners is homemade corn chowder and baking powder biscuits - weird i know, but i love it! so, i was quite excited yesterday when it was a rainy dreary day in portland and when i went to the grocery store with that dinner on my mind. i got everything i needed and then cooked the bacon and fried up the onion and cut up the potatoes. then, i added the corn and milk and smelled the goodness of all those yummy ingredients combined and was totally salivating! after everything is added together in the pot, you are supposed to bring it to a boil and then quickly remmove it from the burner. well, i swear that's what i did, but no....clearly the smell of burning goodness let me know that i didn't remove it quick enough :( ugh!!! i was soooo sad to taste it and find that it tasted just how it smelled and that all of my hard work and anticipation for one of my favorite dinners was for naught. it was literally heartbreaking to dump it down the sink BUT thankfully i still had my baking powder biscuits in the oven, and they were looking delicious when i checked them before starting the dishes.

so, i'm sure you can guess what happened next. i think i'm a pretty good multi-tasker, but when i get in cleaning mode, i am focused and just like to get it done so that i can relax. dust went to the store to buy a pizza to replace our soup, and i was cleaning the kitchen, and it wasn't until i heard lacey mention my burned soup that i remembered the biscuits in the oven. ugh again!!! i totally burned them too! i think i almost started crying as i pulled out our crispy cakes - so sad! i threw my towel on the ground, gave myself a minute to gather my composure, and then was able to find some humor in the whole burned night and laughed with kristen and lacey about my disgusting soup and hard brown biscuits.

to top off my night, we had the poytress family over for dinner, so they had to wait like an extra hour to eat and had to eat boughten pizza instead of scrumptious homemade soup! oh well.....such is life right?!?! it's something to laugh about, and now i'm just sad i didn't take any pictures to remember my burnful night :) i went out today and bought stuff to make corn chowder and biscuits again tonight, so wish me luck. hopefully, i can keep at least one part of the meal from burning!

new pics

so, lacey and i were so bored the other day and sad that our husbands had to be so busy with school, and we were talking about how we had nothing to do, but then we realized that we had been meanning to take some pictures of the boys for a while and just never got around to it. so, lace got a sheet tacked up to the wall, and i got beckam all fed and happy, and we did a little photo shoot of our boys (aj and beckam) and of our family cuz we really have no family pictures with becks yet. i know that you're probably getting sick of seeing so many pictures of beckam on here, but he's my life these days, so here are some more of my cute little guy and his bestest cousin and our fam :)

 

 

 

ps - i figured out how to do the collage thing with the pictures, but does anyone know how i get the collages to be bigger than just the usual large size?

video try

well....i have no idea if this will work or not, but i thought it'd be fun for y'all back home to see our little becks in person :) we've taken some little random videos of a day in the life of beckam for you, and here is one of our favorites! he does this high cry thing when he's sad but not totally into sob mode, and it's sooo cute! i hope that finding a cry cute doesn't make me a bad mom, but you can see for yourself when you watch our little buddy in action. such a sad face :(

super bowl boys

well, believe it or not, we still get the super bowl in portland, and it was no different down here! it was a party with lots of food and friends and fun :) we went over to dustin and kinsey smith's house with 2 other couples, and i have to say that we were all a little disappointed with the outcome - poor arizona, they were so close! it was a great game though and beck's 1st ever super bowl sunday. he slept through the 1st half but woke up for the end, and he was just lovin life! he ate and then sat with his dad and just took in the whole experience. he was cheering for the cards like the rest of us of course and just loved the big screen tv and chillin with his sports fanatic father - sooo cute!

 

here's aj and eden being friends on the stairs. they're so cute together :)

 

and we just couldn't get enough of becks and his cute little sweater so we had kins take a few of just him watching the game. i just could eat him up!

 

 

for the grandparents

i quite enjoyed blogging before i moved down to portland, but i had to really work to find things to blog about, and i had to consciously make sure to take pictures so that my blog didn't bore people to death. now that we're down here though, and now that beckam is more than 12 hours away from most of his extended family, there are way more pictures and way more things to write about on here, and i love it :)

anyway, this post just goes out to the grandparents and friends back home who don't get to see our little becks every day as he changes and keeps getting cuter and cuter! here are some random recent pics for you guys. we sure love and miss you!!!


i swear the soother isn't that much bigger than his face! haha


becks always watches some tv in his vibrating chair after his morning feeding these days, and he just loves it! he looks at pictures on the walls when it gets boring but loves his chill time with mom in the morning :)


just snoozin - and please take note of the soother digging into the right side of his face - what a mean mom i am!


just a cute beckam pose for the camera


just chillin with dad - his 1st shoulder ride :)


cousin aj loves to help with beckam in any and every way he can! he loves to feed him and pat his back and put his soother back in his mouth when it falls out and he is such a good big cuz!



aj and becks cuddling before bed time. they are soo cute together!

not impressed

yes....THIS is what i'm not impressed about. do you see these cookies? do you see how unyummy they look? well, i am very sad to say that they were just as unyummy as they look. i usually pride myself in my cookie making. i love making them, and i've found my few recipes that always turn out great. one of them is just a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe of course, and i decided to surprise dust with a treat when he got home from school the other day with that very recipe.


so...i checked to make sure i had all of the ingredients, and i got out my trusty old bosch, and i started my tried, tested, and true chocolate chip cookie making. i knew something was wrong when i tasted the dough. it was more sticky than usual and didn't taste quite right, but i forged ahead anyway determined to have a treat ready for my husband after his long day at school. well, this is what came out of the oven :( these cookies were too done on the bottom but not cooked all the way through, and there was just something missing or not right or something! i ended up caling my mom and complaining after i threw away 1/2 the dough cuz i was so discouraged, and i blame this chocolate chip mess on the baking ingredients down here in the US of A. i'm not saying they are of a lesser quality or anything, but they are different, and i miss my successful canadian cookie making! weirdly enough, dust ate the whole mess of a bag of cookies. he's obviously not that picky when it comes to sweets i guess :) anyway, i just needed to vent, and i'll keep my fingers crossed when i dare to bake again. wish me luck!