Little MVP #3

Last night we celebrated Brett's third birthday with great friends. Looking forward to seeing everyone's pictures, and will definitely post an extensive blog once I get my hands on 'em...but I could not resist posting a little sneak peek.



Brett chose to have a duck football themed party...gee, what a shock! :) We had SO much fun with pals Toby, Jack, Grace, Claire, Elsie and Emma. Oh! And one more...


Who is THAT? Can you guess?...

It's Brett's BEST friend, Big Ducky!! Best. Birthday. EVER. :)

Texas 2010

In September we took a little family trip to visit the Texas clan. Brett had so much fun with his Grandma, Grandpa and big cousins. He was Alex's little shadow...Oh! And Happy Birthday to Alex, who turns ELEVEN today! Oh my goodness...how the years fly.

Grandpa helped Brett catch a grasshopper. He was pretty excited about it.

Playing a game of modified frisbee-croquet with Grandma. Maybe a little swordfighting in there too...

Alex shows Brett how to swing a bat...It's outta here!

Cute cousins. I cannot BELIEVE I got one of all of them smiling.

Brett got to test out the pilot's seat on our flight! He was not excited about this at all, as you can see...:)

Look at all the Ws

Whoa, I am SEVEN games behind. There are ten, yes, TEN Ws scribbled on my Duck football schedule fridge magnet. We were so blessed to get to attend a game this season...it's been two years since Brad got to go and three for me (last time I was in Autzen I was preggo with Brett!). The little man had never seen his beloved duckies play football, and it was high time to give him the experience.

We attended the Portland State game (well, if you can call it that...poor PSU!), in a downpour, of course, but had such a blast! Brett donned his Big Ducky costume yet again and got oodles of compliments. He danced with Big Ducky in the Moshovsky center, posed for lots of photos, cheered for his ducks, was enjoyed the cheerleaders and the band, loved the blasting horn every time we scored...and yes, even made it onto DUCK VISION! Wooo! Took a lot of effort on Daddy's part to get the little man within view of a camera, but it all paid off in this priceless moment. I'm sensing another framed photo for the duck-cave (i.e. Brad's office)...

And just a footnote - one week later we took a trip to visit family in Texas (yes, I do promise to get that post up soon!), and guess who was on our flight home? The one, the ONLY...Kenny Wheaton. Responsible for The Pick, and the most "incredjinable finish to a football game," as screeched by Jerry Allen sixteen years ago. Kenny signed Brett's little Oregon hat, which is now retired as a keepsake in the duck-cave.

It's been quite a fun year to be a duck, that's for sure! Here's to just three more Ws on my little magnet...:)

So behind on blogging!

Oh my, we have so many posts to catch up with! My apologies...it's been an extraordinarily busy month. Took Brett to his first ever Duck football game, visited family in Texas, came home to a major car problem (yes, there are pictures of that...and no, I'm not going to post 'em), and still of course working on endless projects in our *new* house. Baby's room is all done being painted, woohoo! Of course we'll be posting pics of that soon, too.
Let's start with today, and we'll see how quickly we can work backwards.
This afternoon we headed outside for our third annual Fall Photo shoot, this time on location in our own front yard. It was so fun to get to snap pictures right in front of our house! The last two years we walked all the way to the other end of our old neighborhood, where there were some gorgeous red-leaved maple trees. We are now blessed to have beautiful fall foliage in our own yard. Well...we stole some from the neighbors, too..haha! I'm pretty sure they won't mind that we raked a few leaves up for them. :)
Check out these sweet photos, and just for fun, let's take a walk down memory lane from the past two years of autumn pictures. Oh how we LOVE fall!!

Throwing leaves at the photographer...

Helping out around the neighborhood

Little Monkey. Can I just say how dreamy it is to have a climb-able tree in your own front yard?? Just another reason we love our new house!!

Punkin'-love

This year's money shot. :)

Now...Fall 2009
and Fall 2008

It's a...........................

...technical difficulty!

Please visit our Youtube page, since the embed code is not cooperating with Blogger!

Surprised?!?!?

Bubble Wrap: Reloaded

Tonight we had the sweetest friends over for dinner, and decided to finish off the night by holding a bubble wrap dance-off. Pretty sweet moves, don'tcha think? :)

Sidenote - it was our very first meal enjoyed in the new dining room! Really the first meal ever in that room, since before we remodeled, it was a living room. A cool (if a bit overdue) milestone!

Favorite moment of the night - Brett was quite the smitten kitten around all the cute girls. Throughout dinner he repeatedly asked, "Hey Rachel? Want more 'dillas?" She was very sweet to tolerate all his toddler-attention. :)

Happy Birthday Grandma!

x2 the Birthday fun for Grandma Verla...Brett wanted to wish you a Happy Birthday in a musical way!

Morning Fun Run

Brett decided to get a little exercise in the hall this morning. :)

B is for...

Brett has been learning more about his alphabet this month, working on writing letters, making an ABC scrapbook, etc. Here's what he learned this week about the letter B:





:) !!!!!!!!!!!!

my newly beautiful domain

In the Boehme household, we share a lot of things. However, each of us has a bit of our own 'turf,' so to speak. For Daddy, it's the office. For Brett, it's a whopping chunk of the bonus room, the outdoor play area, and of course his own room (all of which he'll have to learn to share someday soon). For Mommy, it has always been the kitchen. Well, folks, Mommy's domain has just gotten a makeover! It came in perfect time for my birthday, too. We knew that redoing the kitchen would make a big difference in the overall 'look' of our downstairs, but we had no idea it would be this spectacular! Three cheers for Mister Joe, as Brett affectionately calls him, for restaining, adding new hardware, and putting in snazzy new electrical outlets!

Before: This is almost painful. The Mountain Dew yellow was just killing me!



Progress: new paint and hardwood (back in May) - hoping for new nook furniture and someday to go darker with the cabinets.


After: Oh, my, delicious! Snagged a cute black nook table on Craigslist, painted our chairs to match, gel-stained the kitchen cabinets and added hardware + black outlets. It's not even the same kitchen! We both gasped when it was done, and love how the countertops and backsplash pop out from the dark stain. They just kinda blended in before. The red accents also look so much better, which just makes me jump for joy. Someday (and it really will be someday, I promise) we'll upgrade to stainless steel appliances.

I love how the cabinets ended up being the darkest color you can find in our walnut floors. Love the contrast, but it still matches. Yummy.

Just had to put these side by side...whoa!

Puppy Love, Ducky Love

Last night we headed to downtown Tualatin to enjoy a dog trick show by Border Collies International. We made a night of it and had some yummy Mexican food (including a blended drink in a boot for Brett), then fed and talked to the ducks in the pond, all before plopping down to enjoy the show. What a super fun evening!

Brett feeds the ducks (and talks to them using his Ducky Whistle)

Brett was chosen as a volunteer to throw the football to one of the puppies!

Coming soon...renovated kitchen pics!

a fantastic fourth

Warning - picture overload!
Brett experienced his very first *real* fireworks show this year. What a blast! The little trooper was up past 11:30, and reveled in every single moment. We headed to the Tigard High School fireworks show and enjoyed a picnic dinner on the football field with Papa Jack Brown. Before the sun set and the fireworks began, we got to see a real live helicopter land and take off. Brett was in absolute heaven. He also got to test-drive some emergency vehicles and hop in a sack race. A grand ol' time was had by all!

A belated handmade B'day gift for Papa

"License and registration, please"

A tad bit excited to check out the cool Life Flight helicopter

Lounging, and enjoying a giant homemade patriotic ice pop

Whoa! Mommy actually made it into a picture?! ;)

the Boehme men

flyin' like a 'copter

A few sparklers at home before hittin' the hay

for Millenne

Happy B'day biggest sis! Missin' you dearly...and can't wait for you to come enjoy your new house with us! Have a wonderful birthday...and another wonderful one on Saturday ;)

Cute x2

I've mentioned a couple times about the budding friendship between Brett and our new next-door neighbor, Elsie. Well here are some pics and videos to prove it. We are so, so, SO blessed to be here, right next door to such a sweet little playmate, not to mention the whole crowd of little kiddos on the other cul-de-sac! I just can't say enough how much we LOVE it here.

And just a couple cute ones from Father's day...:)

for the record

Little handyman helping mama hang pictures

Since it will be a long, long time before I get organized enough to find and work on Brett's scrapbook, I just had to post some of his recent quips.
A little background - our furry family members, Westley and Buttercup, have been stuck in a kennel throughout our move and remodel. Poor babies! Since they pretty much just sat around all day and ate, both have chunked up substantially...especially Buttercup, who was formerly skinny as a rail. The other night we were discussing colors with Brett, and here is what he said. "Westley is black, black and white! Bubba is........FAT!"
Today Brett was playing downstairs and suddenly got an urge to rearrange furniture. He slid both his kid-sized chairs and all three kitchen stools across the great room, out of my sight. Then I heard him going "Beep beep!" "What are you doing Brett?," I asked. As he sat on the front chair in a whole line of chairs, he proudly declared "I'm driving a bus!"
We recently had an Instant Hot dispenser installed in the kitchen sink - joy! The other day when grandma was here, Brett wanted to make sure she saw it, so he pointed it out and said "Look grandma! Water Feature!" Also, just a fair warning, apparently our "water feature" faucet looks deceptively like a soap dispenser. Grandpa got quite an unpleasant 180-degree surprise the other night. So be warned!
Well that's it for now. I promise to upload more house progress pictures soon...still awaiting living room furniture, but we now have pictures on the walls, so it's feeling a lot more like home. Tonight we scored an Ethan Allen entryway bench off Craigslist. It matches our decor perfectly, and provides a nice little spot for shoe/coat removal. Yay!

And now the fun begins...

Woohoo, we're finally in our house! Yep, that 5-day remodel took, er, THIRTY-TWO days. And not officially done yet, but at least done enough so the house could be cleaned and lived in. Yeah, living in here was sort of what we planned to do...right?!



I snapped some almost-done photos today for everyone's viewing pleasure. This Memorial Day weekend we're hoping to score some great deals on new furniture, and hopefully by the end of next month we'll be living box-and-mess-free.

The grand entrance - new hardwood, paint, carpet and refinished banister.

Entry looking into the living room - new fireplace mantle, painted cabinets (they were white), hardwood, and area rug. Coming soon - furniture.
New dining room (used to be a living room) - better pics to come when we lower the chandeleir and arrange the furniture.
New office (old dining room) not pictured...it's a box disaster area!
Another view of the living room

New kitchen/nook - new paint and hardwood. Coming soon - new furniture and refinished kitchen cabinets.

New privacy wall/arch in the master bath. Love this!

The bedrooms and bonus room are not pictured yet...too many boxes! I'll reveal those as we finish up the unpacking. :)