Winter Wonderland- Family Vacation

Whidbey Island- December 2008

After 3 years of putting my name in a staff lottery system, I won the SPU faculty house for a week of vacation during the winter break. It was such perfect timing for our family after I completed my first quarter back to work. We left in time to beat the incoming storm, stocked up on groceries and got snowed in at Camp Casey for a few days. It was such a change of pace from the bustle of the city and University life. We slept in, watched LOTS of Christmas movies, went on walks in the snow and once the snow cleared enough on the roads, we went exploring in the nearby towns.

Part of the fun is taking the ferry over!

Having time to relax just the three of us was wonderful. Nolan also got lots of play time and by the end of the week he had learned to roll over! Daniel noticed him on his tummy and asked if I had flipped him over...so we missed the VERY first roll, but after turning him over, we got to watch him repeat the skill...over and over and over and over again!

We also enjoyed daily walks in the snow. Here is Daniel and Nolan all bundled up!

Nature always refreshes me, so I enjoyed the trees, being near the water and the bald eagle we spotted in Oak Harbor.

Finally, it was time to make it home before the next storm hit. We stopped by to see Santa on the way home, but he wasn't in his chair, so the minature Santa had to do.

Thanks SPU for a great vacation!!

TRADITION- December 2008

SPU TRADITION

Nolan's first Christmas party

We hung out with Lacey while watching our husbands on stage. They used to play as students, so it was fun coming back as Alumni. Nolan is also a hit with our students...here he is with friends Vera and Ashley who we also went to Philly with last month.

Before I turn 30

So, here it is. I'm 29 years old and have a mere one year left to complete my list of things of "before I turn 30". These goals have never really been verbalized...more just in the back of my mind.

For 2008, all I wanted was a CHILL birthday after the holidays and the first few months of parenthood. So, I asked for pizza and family at home. Jon and Em hosted at their new house and my mom brought a cookie "cake" which was a blast from the past. This used to be my tradition when I was younger (Jodi- remember this? All we need now is the gymnastics facility or a sleepover to complete the concept). :)

It was nice to be low-key after all of the snow days and Christmas parties. Here's Nolan with Boppa. Boppa is the term cousin Noah uses, so we'll see what sticks.

And on Nani's lap.

The other request I made was to have an evening out just with Daniel. We went out and I enjoyed my crab feast at Chinooks.

So, before I turn 30 I wanted to:

• Travel Europe with a friend (Tara and I did this!)
• Go skydiving - hmm, maybe this summer?
• Go to New York and attend a Broadway show (we just booked the tickets!)
• Have a kid.... :)
• Do a triathalon (maybe I should get training for this)
• Become a member at a church (I have been now for a while, but this signified to me that I had a "home" of my own)
• Be in the Olympics....well, sometimes you have to dream big.
• Go to Australia!

Planes, Trains & Automobiles- November 2008

November 2008

With November, came the Elections, a trip to Philadephia for NCMSLC- National Christian Multicultural Leaders Conference and Thanksgiving with Daniel's family.

The trip to Philly was quite an adventure. Not only was it Nolan's first plane ride (2 in fact), it was my first time at NCMSLC, which is a conference I have been wanting to attend for a number of years. It did not disappoint. I arrived a bit out of my element, feeling exhausted from a red eye flight, but left feeling like I had just been at a family reunion.

In all, there were 20 college students and two staff members. Susan has become a dear friend and "aunt" to Nolan this year! I was very fortunate to have her as both a travel companion and staff leader on this trip.

It was also quite a relief to come home to Daniel! Here is Nolan cuddling with Daniel after a weekend away.

Thanksgiving with the cousins. We hardly see Nolan once we step in the door!

Picking up where I left off...October!!!

October 2008

I had 6 weeks of maternity leave this fall and I made the most of it. Although living in a residence hall made it both wonderful to stay connected to our community, it was also challenging for me to part with my "day job". I came to a realization about 2 weeks in that I better take the time to rest, play and spend quality time with Nolan and family!

I started going to MOPS and met some great women from my own church and community. Here's Nolan and I at our first MOPS play date. We've continued this time every other Tuesday morning and Daniel stays home Tuesday afternoons, so we've made it a great family day enjoying our lunch time overlap.

Julie had Carson Charles on September 13th, so we enjoyed sharing the early joys and challenges of motherhood. We took a walk at Greenlake and it only took us about twice as long!

We celebrated Leta's 1 year birthday with Matt & Mandy and the polka dot kingdom! It's amazing how fast a year seemed to go by watching Leta grow up! We have plans for Nolan and Leta if all of her other boyfriends don't get in the way! Mandy- you set the bar high for birthday parties!

Back to work...or play! My first day back to work was a weekend retreat series, starting with Intercultural Retreat and finishing with Emerson Hall Retreat at Camp Casey. I feel pretty fortunate to have such a great job and to get to bring Nolan along for the ride! My mom came and helped me on my first real trip...we rode the ferry to Whidbey Island and enjoyed 2 nights of festivities with college students. My mom said she got more sleep with Nolan than with the students who stayed up until 4am! I knew that I had been training for something...

I've had the distinct pleasure to continue my work with ABOLITION as their staff advisor. We attended a fundraiser event at the space needle this fall for the Tronie Foundation.
The weekend of Halloween wrapped things up. At the last minute, I remembered having been given a cow costume, and lo and behold, it was the perfect size! So, against our earlier agreement to not dress up our child in silly costumes...I fell in love with this little cow.

Our family also had a day in the park! I had wanted to get a group picture of the kids, but they were never all in the same place at once. We enjoyed having my cousin and his wife visit from Texas. I also got a chance to catch up with Emily and Luella, born this summer right before Nolan.

Let's hope I make it to the November update...you can see life has kept us busy!

Happy Halloween from Nolan!

We have lots to update you on, but life has gotten full very quickly! Daniel and I have both returned to work full time and are sharing time watching Nolan and enjoying a steady stream of visitors. We have also been blessed with meals from friends, family and our church community.

Nolan is celebrating 8 weeks today. He is an incredible baby...pretty chill, incredibly smiley and has burps and farts like an old man, not to mention a balding head and goofy gums to complete the image. It's been pretty amazing to watch this newborn start to interact with the world around him. He is loving faces, including his own as we introduced some toys with mirrors this week.

More to come soon...I promise!

1 Month Birthday!

After one month of sleep deprivation and the repetition of changing diapers and nursing at least every two hours, we looked up and realized it has been a month! Almost coinciding with one month has been a new, wonderfully rewarding stage of smiles, cooing and voice recognition. Not that we haven't enjoyed the early newborn stage of Nolan cuddling on our chest but there's something to be said for a little interaction! Today, I think he actually got bored for the first notable amount of time and it was incentive for me to pull out some toys and get the play mat out of storage.

This post could also be labeled, "for the OCD in me", "good birth control" or, "the inner geek". I am going to go out on a limb here and admit to an OCD tendency that started as a suggestion from the hospital staff and morphed into a slightly neurotic, new parent interest of tracking our "infants activity". I'm pretty certain when the hospital nurse gave us the 1 page (note the italics), infant activity log, that it was to help remind me what side to nurse on or to get a sense of whether we had a normal range of wet/dirty diapers. However, we came home from the hospital and found we both appreciated the log to continue to remind me what side to nurse on, but more than that, to start to see a pattern of sorts in Nolan's schedule and keep up on his healthy amounts of bowel movements.

That said, we really hoped to not be parents who started talking all about their kids dirty diapers, spit up or whatever gross habit of the week they portrayed...so, it is with slight embarrasment mixed with some parental pride, that I present to you, "the log".

Over the course of 30 days (from September 6th, our first day home from the hospital to October 5th), the stats are in. Here are the descriptions to prepare you...for the faint of heart, stop reading now.

Feedings: considered as what Nolan eats in one sitting which accounts for nursing either side, both, or eating from a bottle.

Wet: the amount of pee ridden diapers we've changed, not to mention the times Nolan has attempted or succeeded in peeing on us while being changed.

Stools: the amount of poopy diapers we've changed that have ranged from the early black tarry stage, to a weird mustard yellow, to greenish foulish goo.

Real time stats:

290 feedings or 9.6 feedings on average per day

176 wet diapers or 5.86 wet diapers per day

161 poopy diapers or 5.36 poopy diapers per day

As you can see, Nolan is doing his part to keep us awake, compete for the Common Family prize of enjoying what you eat and filling up the land fills.

One disclaimer: while the feedings stats are completely accurate, there is some margin of error in how many wet/poopy diapers Nolan has had...I would contribute this to welcoming help by grandparents, visitors and even a stranger if they had asked, we would probably let them change a diaper. Despite our (my) nuerotic behavior, I felt it was not fair to expect the same from others.

Lastly, we (I) really had intended to do this up to Nolan's 2 week Dr.'s visit but then I became somewhat fascinated as to what would be a real life portrayal of our first month as parents (not believing the literature could truly be right). At this point, I don't intend to keep track quite so religiously, but it has still proven helpful, so we'll see how long it lasts. I promise not to have documentation for his 18th birthday...

All in all, it's amazing that we have done anything at all this month outside of caring for Nolan!