free 10x13

so, we were bored the other day and decided to go to the mall to wander around for something to do. lace and i were walking past a photography store, and a girl was handing out free 10x13 coupons. i would usually just keep walking and ignore the coupon, but a free picture with a new little baby just can't be turned down. so, our wandering turned to an hour or 2 in this photography store taking pictures of the boys and choosing the print and such. lucky for us, they email you the proofs, and even though beckam was hungry and not in the best of spirits, some of them turned out pretty ok :)






i think crying pictures are sooo cute, and becks didn't let me down in that department! as hard as it was to watch him sit on these uncomfortable pillows while the lady tried to get him to smile and he was crying his little eyes out, it was fun to get some cute pics out of it :)

my red headed smiley boy :)

so when beckam was born, everyone was curious about his hair color. some people were sure he would take after his dad and be a red head, but i thought that dust's red hair gene would save itself for future tolman little ones. well...i was wrong! both dust and i agree that beck's hair gets more and more red each day. i mean it's not red red, but it's got some serious potential :) he was sleeping with me the other day and got all hot and sweaty, and here is a picture of the "red" hair that everyone was sure would be his!


it's really quite cute, and his dad is so proud to have becks take after him! our little beckam has also just started to smile, and it's soooo fun :) he is finally registering our faces and can track sounds and objects, and i finally caught some of those smiles on the camera today. he's got such a cute little smile, and i'm sure that me and dust look like such idiots doing our baby talk and trying anything and everything to get him to just curve those lips up. it's funny how gratifying it is just to see a baby smile!



and here is his new double little double chin along with his - what in the world are you guys making all of those silly faces and sounds for?!?! haha

bath time!

we tried to give beckam a bath a few days after we came home from the hospital, and he did not love it so much at all! now, he gets one every night, and he loves it :) bath time is now part of his new little bedtime routine, and he loves that warm water, and i quite enjoy myself too! i love washing the little hair that he has (PS - it's definitely red!), and i love lotioning him up after, and he's just so cute in his little basin. there hasn't been a bath yet where he hasn't peed, but we're usually pretty good about catching it with a cloth or making sure it's not aimed in our direction! oh...the joys of little boys! love it~


the 1st bath and one of his more calm faces throughout the process :)


and...here he is at 1 month old just livin it up in that warm water :)



love the hooded towel look after too :) he needs some cuddle time in the towel and a soother to help with the shock of the cold air after!

today....

so....i feel like these are the only faces i have seen on my son today....



he is so sad today, and it's breaking my heart! he's pretty much either been eating, crying, or sleeping all day today, and i want my happy boy back but don't know how to find him! beckam is a formula baby now, and he's been doing really good on this new liquid concentrate similac brand, and since it's free for me down here, i've been lovin life :) yesterday though, he decided to pretty much spit up his whole bottle after he ate, and he wasn't happy about it. i mean, i wouldn't be either really - kinda gross. he ate good through the night but then spit up a ton again this morning and his last feeding. i can deal with babies spitting up - i've become fairly pro at catching it actually and keeping their outfits spit up free - but i feel so helpless when beck's little tummy is upset, and his face is just so sad, and it's just not fun :(

i'm not sure what's gotten into him or if he's just sick or if he's suddenly developed an allergy to milk or what, but i want to help him and don't know how today! i'm sure he'll be better tomorrow or even later on tonight, but i just had to vent about being a helpless mom with a super cute but very sad baby today.

(i still love being a mom though - there are no words to describe how much i love my little guy, spit up or not!)

photo shoot time!

i've been dying to get some cute kinda professional pictures of beckam taken ever since he was born, but we just never got around to it at home, and i don't really know anyone in portland to help me out, so i turned to my sis in law lacey :) she has a great camera, and we had nothing to do the other day, so we decided to see how beckam would hold up in his 1st photo shoot!

he wasn't having the best of days, and i had no make-up on, and he was just in a sleeper cuz he puked all over his outfit, and we were just in her living room, but some of them turned out pretty darned cute!












isn't he just the cutest thing ever!!! we had lots of fun taking them, and i know they're not studio worthy, but lace did an awesome job of getting some super cute shots, and we think we might just start up our own business. we'll take pictures of unhappy naked babies with her couch as a background and crank the heat up to help them fall asleep (unsuccessfully), and it should be lots of fun :) haha
well, maybe we'll practice some more 1st, but there are some recent shots of my 1 month old little angel!

nightmare train ride

wow - 3 blogs in one day - that is pretty good considering that i missed a whole month! well, i'm to the point of our trip down to portland, and it wasn't a fun one. our train was scheduled to leave from shelby on monday at 5:22pm, so our plan was to head out right after beck's ultrasound, and the scheduled arrival in portland was 10:10am the next morning. sounded easy enough but no...not so much.

first, our train got delayed from 5:22 to 7:30. we were ok with that, and we started getting packed up and ready to go. when we called back an hour or so later though, we found that the train was delayed to 10:30 and then later on 11:30pm. so, our plan of driving in the daylight with the bad roads was shot, and we left raymond about 8:30 or so. oh and we is me, my mom, and becks. the border was easy, and beckam did great on the drive down, we got there an hour early like we were supposed to. now to make another long story short, we didn't end up leaving shelby until 1:30am or so, and it was a looonnngg train ride to spokane. i guess the weather was holding everything up, and we didn't get to spokane until 11:30am or so - past the time we were supposed to be in portland! needless to say, we weren't impressed! AND we were even less impressed when they informed us that we would be getting off the train and boarding a bus that would take us the rest of the way. are you kidding me??? the whole point of going on the train was to make things easy for beckam and to travel through the night and to get to portland asap to see dust again! not much we could do though, so we got out in the pouring rain/snow in spokane and headed to a greyhound where we say and waited for them to load our luggage, and we left spokane at about 1:30pm.

me and becks waiting at the shelby train station - a little ghetto that's for sure!


grandma and becks asleep on the train - not the easiest place to sleep with all of the stops and starts, but we tried!


it was quite an adventure to feed beckam on the bus with all of the bumps and turns! we made do though :)


grandma trying to keep beckam quiet so that the people around us could sleep - good luck!

thankfully, the rest of the trip was ok. my mom and i rushed and got 3 seats at the back of the bus where we could sprawl out a little and where we had room for beckam and his carseat and all of our stuff. becks did pretty good in the bus, and the roads were pretty good, and we made it to portland around 8:30pm. it felt sooo good to get off that bus and to see dust and lacey again :) we were super duper tired, but all was well cuz we made it! it was sooo nice to have my mom with me, and i'm so thankful for a good baby who was a real trooper through our nightmare trip. we have some good memories now, and we are now officially living in portland - woohoo!!! oh and i guess we were too tired to think of taking pictures of our arrival in portland even though that was the best part!

murmer me outta here!

k so....i'm trying to remember some of the bigger events that happened since i blogged last, and one that wasn't so fun was when we went for beckam's 1st check up and found out that he has a heart murmer. the doctor listened to his heart like they usually do, but that just always seemed so routine to me that i never dreamt that it was used to find problems with the heart, and i certainly never dreamt that becks would have issues that way.

surprisingly enough, i didn't freak out or shed any tears, and i trusted dr.koelger when he said that it usually turns out to be nothing. it would have been all well and good to go and get the routine ultrasound for beckam that usually follows except we were planning to leave to move down to portland the day after his check up, so that kinda put a kink in things. turns out that dust moved down to our new little place and went down with darren and lace and aj with all of our stuff, and me and becks had to stay behind for the ultrasound. i was nervous when we went in for it, and it was nice to have my mom there with me, and to make a long story short, we are here in portland and left later that night after we got the ok from dr.koegler. beckam has 2 little holes in his heart, but he said that they are the kind that usually close up on their own and don't cause any issues - phew! i was so thankful for that good news, and becks is gaining weight and thriving, and life is good :) it was hard to be away from dust for almost a whole week, but we're together again, and we are thankful for a great doctor and a pretty cute healthy little boy!