Happy Birthday/Merry Christmas!

What an exciting month!

Nolan turns the big 5 tomorrow. Scott and I were talking, and we said that five just seems so big. He's now school-aged. Where did the time go!? We both got quite emotional as we looked back on videos, went through his monthly pictures, and talked about ways he has changed and stayed the same over time. 

The eyes stayed the same piercing gray, while the hair has turned darker and chins have disappeared. He thoroughly enjoys building through legos or constructing projects out of tape and random things around our house. He is easily amused, has big emotions, and needs things to work out the way he plans them in his head. We enjoy his spirit, attention to detail, and constant drive to get answers.  He still plays hockey, though these late nights/busy holiday season had him lying in the net most of last practice. I feel ya, bud.   He also is making big leaps in swimming! He enjoys swimming underwater and jumping in unassisted.  It has taken a while to get here, as he is a kid that does not take our word for his limits. 

He adores his little brother, but I think his little brother adores him exponentially more. While Nolan is at school, Isaac talks to his pictures on the wall, pictures on the computer, and eagerly awaits for him to come in to the car at pickup (he lets out a big coo every time Nolan enters). 

As Nolan turns five and Isaac is clearly on the upswing to one, I just want to formally request for time to slow down so we can savor these cheeks a little more and enjoy them being little. Isaac just got two teeth, and is thoroughly loving this big-kid life in the high chair (he'll scream at you if you even think about taking away his food before he is finished).  He fights sleep, and has a serious fear of missing out on something. He has mastered sitting independently, and gets so angry when Nolan finds the sweet spot of being just out of reach.  

I dread the constant running around/tasks of this month, but am looking forward to unplugging, unwinding, and just spending time together as a family during break.

So, if you've made it this far, we hope you have a wonderful holiday season! 

Love,

Halloween - 2018

You know the drill - it's Halloween time!

I'm sorry, Nolan. For the next 15 years or so (and hopefully more after that), you're stuck with your mom's silly traditions, dad's time lapse skills, silly costumes, and corny picture edits.  Some day, you'll appreciate us.

From our crew to yours, we hope you had a safe and happy Halloween!


Lots of love,

Halloween - 2017

I just realized I have 3 different drafts that I've written since our last post, that I haven't published for various reasons... but I'm going to publish this one despite my terrible track record. This blog has turned into my own sort of TimeHop. I can quickly find pictures I've used in the past for Christmas cards, or our annual pumpkin carving.

Anyway, Happy Halloween from us! :)

Here's our annual video. I am not ashamed to admit that Pumpkin Carving + Time Lapse + Family Costumes is one of my favorite times of the year. #Traditions. However, one of the three of us said the family pictures may be getting a bit too much. ;)

And, for good measure:
2016 - How to Train your Dragon
2015 - Rubber Ducky, you're the one.
2011 - Our first video.

A Halloween Break

A quick break from our usual updates to give you our annual Halloween picture.  Because #BabyCressman seems to attract media attention, the Halloween photo was already "leaked" via the front page of our local newspaper that is delivered free to EVERY household.

Anyway, here's our little Dragon.  We still haven't mastered how to train him.

And, in keeping with tradition (see last year's blog post here), here is this year's Pumpkin TimeLapse.

Be safe out there! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Doing these monthly posts can be exhausting.  I don't mind keeping the blog up to date, but I think our little stinker is done with the elephant poses.

This month was the hardest to date.  To start, he was especially sick.  If you didn't notice, we're a week late in the post.  Nolan came down with what we think is Roseola a week ago.  Scott and I each had to take a day off of work (which was difficult in itself), and we had a sick baby over the holidays.  I'll get to that in a second, but the picture taking process was plenty difficult.  The first take on the actual 11 month day was miserable.  We probably have 20 takes of him screaming in different positions while we tried to act as silly as possible.  Today's shoot went much better.  It's his first full day of having an appetite, being silly with us, etc. He was smiling/laughing with us and grinning ear to ear when he saw the cats.  The down side is that he can now move.  So he wanted to be silly on top of us, grab the cat, or crawl behind the blanket backdrop... sitting still is no longer one of our strengths.

However, a few batches of shots later, we have this cutie.

He now has a little more hair, has kept those baby blue eyes, and is slimming down quite a bit.  Now that he's healthy again, he's on the go a lot.  He can climb up and down stairs, up and down couches, and down from our bed.  On days like today, his 5:30am wake-up call was a bit too early for mom and dad... so while he played in our bed, we tried to get a few more minutes of sleep.  To keep things brief, I woke up to find that Nolan had managed to get down from our bed safely and was traveling downstairs.  He clearly was ready to play and start the day.  And, he successfully found his quiet, alone place to poop (he's very particular about this). 

The holidays were nice, despite some last minute changes.  Nolan got to see his cousins, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great grandma. Even though he was plenty irritable, he was a trooper.  He even celebrated his first birthday a little early on one side of the family. 

      

Nolan doesn't mind getting a bit messy.

This sickness has also brought on little fits (which I think are here to stay) and his new communication tool: yelling at us.  Rather than crying when he's awake and wants us, he now just does this little "yell" to get our attention.

We're not ready to go back to work.  While we always have been thankful for the love that surrounds us, this year has been especially noteworthy.  This peanut has made us feel even more grateful to our families, friends, and those that influence us. To Scott's side of the family, thank you for the adding Nolan's birthday to the Thanksgiving mix.  We enjoyed it and love his new toys and clothes.  To Selena's side, thank you for making last minute schedule changes due to Scott getting called in to work.  While we are thankful we have a job and are always grateful to those who have to work on the holidays, we know it caused a lot of  last-minute stress.  We were sad that we didn't get to see everyone, but we look forward to catching up in a few weeks.

Happy Halloween

When did we get a 10 month old?  I mean, obviously it's a natural progression from the last post, but I just feel like we're losing our baby.

This picture was the first that was truly miserable to capture.  He's adorable as usual, but he wanted nothing to do with sitting.  He wanted to watch the leaves, crawl to us, grab the kitties instead of look at them, and anything else that was not sitting with the elephant.  I have a feeling 11 and 12 will be the same.  But, we've almost made the whole year.

This month has been the month of personality.  He's hilarious, silly, and eager to please.  Then again, if he doesn't know you, he's very suspicious.  He loves his cats, standing, and is quickly learning cause and effect.  The teacher side of me is so fascinated at the new stuff every day, but I'm definitely becoming one of those emotional moms.  I've seen some of those emotional moments on dad's end, too.  My favorite moments currently include him being proud of himself (it's very cute!) and him learning to play independently or with the cats.  They're his little buddies. I don't think they've quite established the "best friend" level, but they tolerate him. I also find it a tiny bit cute when he's sad after we tell him "no". Those little pouty lips.

For kicks, here's a recap for those of you who haven't seen this on facebook (and now it's flipped the right way!)

All in all, I'm looking forward to the next few months.  We're going to lose our crawler, wobble into a toddler, and he's going to continue interacting with the world.  But, as we head into these involved months, I'm also eager to have a few vacations, celebrate a college roommate becoming a mommy, and go back home to see family. I truly enjoy the end of the year and all the holidays.  We're going to ignore the fact that it also becomes winter.

Before I sign off, here's a little Halloween treat.
Meet Bert, Ernie, and the little Rubber Ducky.

And here's a timelapse of our pumpkin carving experience, complete with cats, babies, and Sesame Street music!

Surviving the Holidays & Resolutions

Well, today is the last day of our vacation.  I'm definitely sad to see the return come so quickly, but I'm somewhat ready to get back in the routine. I just am not looking forward to the drive that comes with that routine.

Our first holiday together went smoothly.  We have done the whole sharing holidays with multiple families for a few years now, so this one wasn't all that different.  Sadly, schedules forced us to miss one of the Christmas', but we were able to successfully get to four others.

In the middle, we did take a short vacation in Canada (thanks to Scott's family).  For some reason, I've married into a family that decides to travel north during the cold months rather than south. ;) It's okay, it's always a pleasant trip.

Some pictures from the trip:

Butterfly Conservatory

The Gorge

While the new year has just begun, I have already accomplished something on my bucket list:

We went skiing! Sorry, we didn't get any action shots.  Don't we look darling in our helmets?  :P

I suppose bucket lists makes a nice transition to New Years Resolutions. I just asked Scott his, and he replied, "I don't have one."  I don't know if I have some "new" resolutions, but I do like to keep goals throughout the year.  They're basically on-going and have been for a few years... things like trying something new (skiing), eating healthier, exercising more, becoming more organized in my classroom, etc.  However, after watching Wheel of Fortune, I think I'll copy Vanna White's resolution.  She said that she wants to make a new recipe every week.  I feel like I've done that numerous times over break, but I like this goal.  Unfortunately, I'm not home to cook much for the week, so I'm going to say that I'll create (well, copy), one amazing meal per month. Or, at least cook an entire meal that I hope to be amazing.  Don't worry, I'll share.

While this isn't my amazing meal of the month for January, I did make a new recipe tonight: Chicken Spinach Pasta Bake.  Here's a link if you want to try it.  It was an odd concoction, but good.  It should make for decent leftovers for Scott during the week.  Feel free to share your favorites.

Well, I have an early night planned, as school starts in the morning.  Happy New Year! :)

They picked the right resolution. 

Fall Festivities

As a teacher, I don't care for Halloween.  At our school, Halloween parties are supposed to last an hour, and the students must bring their costumes to change into. So, if you want them to get changed at school, you need thirty minutes just to allow students to run back and forth from the bathroom to change (with every other fifth grade class).  Needless to say, it's just a hassle.  So, I tried to ease my frustration by just watching a simple movie, allowing them to pass out candy, and I brought in my favorite fall treat: apple cider.  I couldn't believe that so many kids had never had it before.

Other teachers went crazy. Susan, if you're reading, this is for you. Black lights, scary costumes, even scarier contacts (I hate those...), spider webs everywhere, etc. Something that screams, "You're the coolest teacher ever!" ..So, in my shame of disappointing the kids, I promised to at least put a little effort into decorating Christmas.  Besides, Christmas is 10x cooler.... minus the snow.  I'm dreading winter.  I'm sure I'll post more on that later.

Anyway, as a kid, I loved Halloween.  I think I was fairly creative too... looking back I've been a genie, duck, cowgirl, TY Beanie Baby, Oompa Loompa, Cinderella, and many more that I can't remember right now.  I was always determined to never repeat a costume, and not buy one from whatever store was mass producing Halloween costumes.  In fact, all of my costumes were homemade.  Though, I'm disappointed as I go through my collection of pictures and not finding a single digital proof of any of what was said above. :(

I was excited to pass out candy this past year. I've never lived on a street that actually had houses close enough together to go Trick or Treating. I wanted to guess the costumes and see kids. Rather, I saw repeat costumes, a lack of creativity, and greedy kids.  It was very disappointing. This year, however, I'll be at school... probably.. grading papers into the night.  Scary, right?

Anyway, back to the point of the blog... Kyle, our hometown friend (and one of Scott's best men), came up here this weekend, and we participated in my favorite Halloween tradition: carving pumpkins. This year, I tried a new technique where you scrape off the skin.  It was difficult and I cut my finger, but I was proud of the result.  Kyle and Scott had great pumpkins too.

As a side note, Scott doesn't care for Halloween at all.  I was slightly appalled that he had never even carved a pumpkin.  I don't care if he doesn't like Trick or Treating, but I was determined to start this tradition with him. :)

My husband is slightly obsessed with time lapses. We're still in the beginning stages, but now you get to see us carving our super awesome pumpkins.

I completely forgot to do a kitty blog (but Scott beat me to putting pictures on facebook)... but you can see them being hilarious in the video above.

And, the final result: