holiday hangin

me and the boys headed home early to start the holiday festivities, and there was no shortage of hang out time at the hill house. there was tons of hide n seek, playdoh fun, puppy love, treat making, and cuddle time, and we loved every minute! one of beckam's favorite things to do is make cookies, and he's gotten pretty good with the rolling pin and flipper. check out that concentration!

our good friends, the prince's, had a litter of 10 lab puppies not too long before we got home, so papa was beckam's most favorite person in the whole world when he walked in with 3 little friends for beckam!

mads even got in on some puppy love. kisses all around :)

i love this little guy!!!

my 2 little boys holding hands watching some barney - awww!

playdoh time with aunt kris!

i cannot get over how scared of the snow beckam is! i knew that if anyone were to help him get over his fear, it would be me, so we headed out when the snow was softly falling to check it out. there wasn't one smile, and he didn't give one inch on trying to like the fun fluffy white stuff!

i tried to let him see it melt on my finger and MADE him try to do the same. he didn't freak with a flake or two on his finger, but he didn't like it. he kicked it on the sidewalk with me, but there was not crunching it with his feet, and overall.....

we're just hopeful that this smile turns upside for next year's snowy christmas holiday!

nana loves her boys and they love her!

maddox conquered rolling over while we were at home, and he was all over the place! such a happy little cutie pie :)

even more than the puppy love, beckam loved his kitty love. he loves punx, and the jury is still out on how much punx loves beckam!

we had soooo much fun hanging out with the family. there really isn't anything better than being home for the holidays. the music, the decorations, the treats, the movies, the snow, the games, the basketball, and everything about it makes me get butterflies in my tummy thinking about next year! the fun and games were obviously a little much for this rosy cheeked little man - i love sleeping pictures!

anyway, there will of course be a christmas post coming, but the hang out time at home with loved ones is what christmas is all about, so it deserved its own post :)

18 hours later....

we love going home, but we hate the GOING part of going home. that 12 hour drive or this last time, 18 hour train ride seems to take forever!!!!

 

lace and i took our 4 boys and headed up to the great white north leaving our husbands to brave finals week alone, here is miles, and let it be known that this is around 10pm in our dark little room with everyone else sleeping around him. miles had a hard time with our sleeping arrangements, and it took some amazing patience from his mom and with the help of her ipod touch to keep him quiet and get him to sleep after a few hours of fighting it. oh miles......how we love you!

 

aj was a champ and slept through the night on his top bunk. here are my boys sharing a little bench, and they did way better than i thought they would and each only woke up once or twice and went right back to sleep. in the end, our boys got some sleep even if we didn't!

 

it was fun to wake up all together in the morning, and our free breakfast was pretty good even if it took us 10 minutes to walk through the 5 cars it took us to get to the eating area! we both agreed that the extra money and extra time was worth our boys getting some sleep and having some space to move around in and being there for each other through one more long trip home :)

 

18 hours later....my mom picked us up in shelby, and caillou entertained everyone all the way home, and then the crazy energetic kids let loose on their homes for the next few weeks and their grandparents while their moms crashed for a little nap.

 

as much as the process of getting home sometimes sucks, the end result makes up for it! home sweet home!

growing pains

did you ever get what your parents called "growing pains" when you were growing up? i remember waking up in the middle of the night with the worst foot and leg aches, and i always knew them as growing pains. who knows if that's what they really were, but i blame my son's inability to walk for 1 1/2 days on those darned growing pains!

 

he walked by lacey and kinda stumbled and thenn all of a sudden couldn't walk. he cried every time he put pressure on his right leg, and he refused to walk for nearly 1 1/2 days! he limped or wanted up and eventually regressed to crawling until the pain stopped and everything was back to normal! i was a little worried, but a little heating pad and caillou made him happy, and all of a sudden, he could walk again. hallelujah! growing pains.....intriguing.....

birthday boy!

beckam boo is 2!!! we had a great birthday day with our little beckam boy, and he thought it'd be fun to start it off at 5:32am - FUN!!!

 

we started out with a birthday breakfast with the poytress clan - none other than pancakes of course. i bought blueberries especially for him cuz he once upon a time loved them, but i guess 2 year olds aren't so into blueberries cuz all he wanted was syrup, so that's what he got!


he got a special bday package in the mail from the tolman clan in edmonton, and it was a great way to wake up from a nap. he drove that firetruck all around the house! thanks grandma and grandpa tolman and aunt alaina :)

 

 

we also decided to do a birthday party this year too. december 11th fell on a saturday, so we had to take advantage. we invited some friends over, and dust was in charge of games, and i was in charge of cupcakes and pizza, and it was a success! first, pin the basketball on the hoop. it was super cute, and even steve took a turn!

 

they played some basketball in beckam's room after that, and then it was present/pizza/cupcake time! the kids gobbled up their food while watching toy story. beckam LOVED all of his presents and even managed to eat the cupcake with dirty hands. it was super fun and laid back, and beckam even managed to conquer the fact that he's now 2, not 1 :)

 

 

my happy 2 year old is my whole world along with my other 2 boys. he's so much fun to be around and is constantly amazing me with how fast he learns and how much he's growing up. he's working on potty training himself right now and is finally bottle and soother free. he loves his big boy bed and loves singing songs and dancing and reading. his smile lights up my day and erases frustration more easily than anything else. he is my beckam boo, and it's so hard to believe that he's 2! i'm so proud to be his mama and can't wait for another year with my mr. magoo! happy birthday to you bubba :)

we love.....

we love.....friends and popcorn and forts and toy story!

 

we love....candy canes! mmmmm!


we love....the new cute faces of our little mads :) he's such a little stud and already has 2 teeth and is slowly learning the sleep thing and has the cutest little laugh and is just a happy cute cuddly little baby!

 

 

oh and we also love....the play mat even though it looks pretty boring here!

 

we love....our cute blue table and our mischievous little rascal climber man who thought he was in trouble when i found him on top of it and then posed for the camera as i laughed along with him!

 

 

we love.....brothers! we are so excited to have 2 boys so close together, and i couldn't ask for more in a big brother. beckam is so incredibly good with maddox, and the kisses, hugs, and snuggles are endless! beckam won't bath without maddox. he won't let me feed him without sitting right next to me and helping, and he's just starting to want to pick him up and take him along wherever he's going. it's the best!

 

 

we love.....blankets and juice! maddox loves cuddling with his blanket, and we found him like this the other night - too cute! with beckam, the soother and bottle are gone now, so it's all about his water bottle and blanket now. we don't go far without them!

 

we love....books! reading has become a bedtime routine, and i love it! i loved books when i was young - no, i was obsessed with them actually, and i've always hoped that my kids would love reading as much as i did. beckam is well on his way, and i love reading before bed with my little stud :)

 

we also love that there's only 4 more sleeps til we come home for the holidays! i can't wait to create more christmas memories and to be at home with the whole family again. i love this time of year and can't wait for snow and christmas music and mom's chocolates and christmas baking and everything home for the holidays has to offer! see you soon!

black is back!

i always wondered about black friday when i lived up in canada. i always wanted to come down and experience the craziness i heard about, and i always wanted to get the deals and stay up all night and have fun with the girls. last year was soooo much fun, but when it was time for another black friday, lace and i reviewed what we learned last year and made a differnt sorta plan....

 

 

with cards in wallets and hot chocolate in hand, we headed to toys r us around 8:30pm for its opening at 10pm. we felt pretty good about our place in line and made friends with the girls around us, but lace dropped her hat on our way, and she somehow made friends up a ways in the line with some girls on her way to find it. they knew we were canadian, and they offered to let us budge in with them!!! woohoo!!!! we were within the 1st 200 people to get in, and we got our stuff, got in line, and got out of there with our loot by 10:35pm. pretty stinkin awesome :) especially compared to our 3 hour toys r us stint last year!

 

 

sadly, that's where the pictures ended, but we went to the mall next and were 1st in line for the midnight opening at children's place. we got some great deals there and then went to the disney store and wandered around a bit and just had fun the 2 of us :) we tried to find friends in line at target after our adventures, but we never found them, so we came home and were in bed by 3am. it was way better than being up all night and being so incredibly tired for the rest of the weekend, and we had soooo much fun! i'm not into being tackled for a tv or dvd player yet, but i love the deals and the crazy people and the fun you have with girls. black is back baby, and we can't wait for next year!