Photo Shoot Boots

A Christine Entry:

I played around on the computer trying to get Nolan's 1st birthday invitation to look right. I was very patient with myself as usual.

"This looks TERRIBLE. This photo is old and the colors are dumb!"

Jon agreed, "Well, do you want to go take some new photos of Nolan right now?"

We dressed Nolan and took him to the park. The leaves were beautiful on this fall day. We found a bench, set Nolan on it and snapped away.  We didn't have any shoes that fit him at the moment, so he wore is older cousin's boots...which were hilariously large for him. At several points during the shoot, Nolan became frustrated with the giant boots which were a little restricting for him. You'll notice he was annoyed in a couple of the photos. We are really good parents.

We were pleasantly surprised our photos for Nolan's invitation worked out. 

One Small Step for Man

It happened exactly when I'd hoped it would. On a calm weekend morning when Jon and I were both around. Our working schedules don't often allow for us to be up and around together with Nolan except for on weekends. So when Nolan walked for us on a Saturday morning, November 17th, it was a wonderful surprise. 

I love the way he throws his hands in the air and laughs as he walks. He gets so excited and makes the most adorable sounds. 

We finally captured it on video on Thanksgiving at my mom's house.

The image for the video will not display. Just click on the play button below and you will see Nolan walk. :)

Our Little Boy Turned One

A Christine Entry:

I still can't believe he is one already. 

His party was awesome. 

Our one and only regret is that we didn't take nearly enough photos. 

My parents hosted (because their house is FAR bigger than ours) and Jon's mom cooked lots of yummy food along with helping me craft many, many monsters. :)

I'll give a shout out to my sister Stacy also...she donated tons of time out of her busy schedule to help us too. :)

It was a full house. Not only do I have a giant extended family, but it is a strong value in our family to show up to important events. On top of that, my out-of-town family was in town for my grandparents' 60th anniversary party (the following day). So even the out-of-towners made it to Nolan's birthday.

Since we opened up this occasion to both family AND friends, we had a decent turn out. We are so lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives.

Nolan was Sir Cranky Pants because he wasn't feeling well, but it made for a pretty funny birthday song. He cried during the song...poor thing.

Watching him eat the cupcake was adorable. However, as I stated before, we didn't take enough photos that night and that includes the signature cupcake eating photos. 

Soooo what do any good parents do in this situation? Give their one-year-old another cupcake the following day just to take photos of him, of course!

The Makings Of

A Christine Entry:

A lot of people say, "One-year-olds don't even remember their birthdays. There is no point in putting that much effort into it." To this I responded, "How dare you? This party is not for him, it's for ME. I survived a year!"

Of course I am only partially serious. But I do maintain that this party is for the parents as well as for the child. We have been looking forward to our child's first birthday for a long time. You only get one first birthday and it's our BOY. It meant a lot to us to celebrate with our family and friends. Naturally, it was going to be special.

I fully realize this makes me sound crazy...but planning for Nolan's birthday was equally as fun as celebrating his birthday.

I almost cried every time I told someone Nolan was going to be one. You hear it from everyone, "Time goes by so fast!" There is a reason cliches exist...they are true. Our baby grew into a toddler faster than we could imagine.

What I would like to do right now is describe, at length, what it was like to hold my little newborn Nolan. What it was like to watch Jon interact with him each and everyday in the most adorable way possible. How Nolan made me feel an indescribable feeling of true mother-son love everyday since he made his appearance. I will spare you. :)

We decided on monsters for the theme of his birthday. My (awesome) mother-in-law bestowed a gift upon me that could make these monsters happen...wait for it....the Cricut machine. Cue orchestra music.

I (extremely happily) spent hours cutting out cute little monsters for Nolan's birthday party. I was a monster making wild animal and I had a creepy smile on my face the whole time. A large portion of my monster making hours were lovingly accompanied by my mother-in-law and my neighbor. She knows it, but I'll say it again. I heart my neighbor. We chatted and laughed over our glasses of red (or Jubelale in my neighbor's case) and several paper monster parts. They were super sweet to help me so much and we had a great time! Or at least I did. :)

In the end, we had a "Happy Birthday" banner, a monster banner and lots of little monster favor bags. (I am pretending like all of the families that took home these bags did not recycle them after they took their treats out.)

Spontaneous Zoo Trip

A Christine Entry:

Zoo Day.

There was a long list of things to do (involving Nolan's upcoming 1st birthday party) on this particular day.

In between naps, the only thing I can get done with Nolan around is play with him. I am not complaining. I would play with him over doing chores ANYTIME. On this day, instead of chasing Nolan around the house, I said, "Let's do it," to a friend's text message inviting us to the zoo with them.

Jon was working his normal evening hours, so it was just Nolan, our friends and me.

It was veeeery cold outside so it took me much longer than normal to get the the little guy ready to go. I bundled Nolan up with lots of layers and when he was finished, he very closely resembled Ralphie's little brother from A Christmas Story. What was that boy's name? All of the sudden I want to watch that movie.

There weren't many people at the zoo and lots of animals were out. Perfect. Except for the fact that the food stands weren't open. Hot chocolate sounded nice. :)

We trooped around and I had Nolan in his stroller. As usual, he stared at everything with is wide, beautiful, grey/blue eyes.

We saw an elephant that was so pregnant, her stomach moved in waves. Later a cougar swaggered up to the glass window and growled at us. Soooo awesome.

I quite enjoyed this time with my little boy. :)

Jon's 30th!

A Christine Entry:

30 is a big one!

It melts my heart to see how happy Jon looks at 30. Happy family man and happy with his friends. :)

I decided to offer two events, one in the morning and one in the evening so that his good friends could make it to at least one. :)

We started out with a family friendly brunch at our house. Egg strata and cinnamon rolls thanks to my mom and Jon's mom. We ate, we sang, we drank coffee, we relaxed. Good times with good people.

Next event was a Brewcycle ride in Portland. We went from pub to pub peddling to good music. Veeeery fun :)

Thanks to all who came out and celebrated :)

Happy birthday, Jon!

Mom Date!

A Christine Entry:

Michelle and I have been friends since grad school. We've been through a lot together. We were student teachers, then teachers, campers, South Korean quarantine buddies and now we are mamas together.

Since having our little ones, we've noticed our worlds (naturally) revolve around our precious little ones. Our already busy schedules were made even busier by our new additions. It became even harder to schedule friendship time.

Aaaaand soooo the Mom Date was proposed! Genius. Just Michelle and Christine and some good quality time.

We decided dinner and a movie at Cinetopia would be most appropriate. After buying tickets we spent our time before the movie shopping at Posh Baby. That store is impressive. And full of things FAR too expensive for me. Michelle had a gift card and bought a few cute little boy things for baby #2 (Due 3.10.13).

We saw Cloud Altlas. Looong, but good. We followed that with ooooh-so-delicious sushi (mmmmmmm) and splendid conversation.

I think Michelle liked me. She messaged me the next day and told me she had a good time. Think we'll have another date soon.

Vegas Baby (Literally...get it? I'm hilarious.)

A Christine Entry:


So Jon's good friend from childhood put a ring on it. This meant we were taking the baby to Vegas! Vegas Baby (literally...get it? I'm hilarious).


Jon and Scott have been friends since 2nd grade. Scott has been living in Las Vegas for about the last five years. He met Renee (his now wife) at his work, so it was no surprise they'd decided to have their wedding in Vegas.


Jon and I had a little anxiety over bringing Nolan on the airplane. We all know no one is crazy about an unpredictable baby on a plane. We jammed a ridiculous amount of baby distractions in the diaper bag to endure the flight. When we boarded the plane, passengers avoided eye contact with us. It was understandable people were nervous about sitting near the baby. :) Though Nolan was a little tired and had a hard time falling asleep at first, he did AWESOME.  He had no apparent ear problems and the (second) bottle is what helped him fall asleep. Once he fell asleep Jon and I were both thinking (as we later admitted), "Just twenty minutes, Nolan. Just stay asleep for twenty minutes. That's all you need to get us through the flight."


Our wishes came true. :) As soon as he woke up, he gave us lots of smiles and a couple of happy screams (but thankfully only two of those).


After the plane landed, three passengers told us, "What a good baby! He did great!" Of course NOW they want to talk to us. :)


Hecho (Andrew) and Allisen picked us up from the airport. Allisen (or Lis, as I like to call her) and I hugged for about 10 minutes before we were on our way. "Be ready for this weather," she warned us on our way out of the airport, "the heat is about to slap you in the face as soon as we walk out!" She was right. It was hhhhhhhot. Our Nolan handled that heat like a champ!


We stayed at Hecho and Allisen's house. We are pretty sure the Hardys can out-host anyone in all areas of hosting. They provided anything and everything we could possibly have needed to live comfortably...including delicious food, beverages and their (ahem) Mercedes for transportation.  Seriously, it was hard to come home. :) Not only did they take good care of us, but they are super fun and babysat Nolan for us while we went to Scott and Renee's rehearsal dinner. I mean really, eat your hearts out, Five Star Hotels! If you think I am bragging about our awesome friends and their far, far superior hosting abilities, you are correct. But I digress. 


Jon had a lot of fun with Scott and the other groomsmen. They had their special "Guy Time" at Red Rock (which is, I think, Scott's favorite  place) before the wedding while I hung out with Allisen and Nolan. 


Jon and I both had a great time at the rehearsal. It was the first time we got to meet Renee's family (who we really liked) and share a more intimate celebration. Scott and Renee did the impressive task of introducing every single guest at the party in front of the group...and it was quite a large group! They said something nice about each person and made everyone feel special.My favorite part of the evening was watching Scott and his mom share a moment together. I won't go into too much detail, but it was pretty much the sweetest thing you've ever seen if you can imagine your own baby has grown up and gotten married.


Scott and Renee's wedding was beautiful. Our highlights of the event were Scott's adorable, beaming face while walking down the aisle, delicious food, Renee and her dad dancing to Sir Mix A Lot for the father-daughter dance, their awesome photo booth and Nolan's skinny jeans complete with cute gray vest.


The wedding venue was great. It was an outdoor ceremony with with a tunnel of white archway pillars and a pretty water feature and trees. They married under a gazebo with white draped fabric. The reception was indoor in a giant room with fabric draped everywhere. The tables were decorated with black and purple and there was a dance floor under a giant staircase where the bridal party entered. All the guests were a lot of fun! We danced, toasted with champagne and had good conversation.


Scott and Renee, we are very happy for you! Renee, again, you looked gorgeous!


Aside from the rather unhappy security people at the Las Vegas airport (although one of them was nice), the flight home was even better than on the way to Vegas. Nolan fell in love with the beautiful animated woman in the seat behind me. He played with her and tried to crawl back towards her for a good portion of the flight.  "Bye, Handsome," she said to him when we parted ways.


Several passengers complimented him on the way off the plane. One guy said, "I didn't even hear that baby! At first I was all, 'aaaaaw man, I don't want to sit by the baby!' But he was great!" 


We had an amazing first real trip with our little family. 




P.S. We love you, Allisen and Hecho. 

Packing

Flight to Vegas

Portland Airport

Flight to Vegas

Rehearsal

Allisen

Rehearsal Dinner - Scott and his mom

Allisen and Hecho

This is what he did when we took him out of the car seat after the trip and laid him on the couch.