Welcome Toby and . . . A Snow Day!

Nolan loves our new kitten, Toby. Sometimes he loves him a little too much . . .
Toby has some figured out a hiding spot in everyroom of the house. lol


And, It snowed! We had fun sledding down the perfect slope in our backyard. Snow
is fun but, even more fun with friends . . . and hot chocolate afterwards!

Moving on . . .

I have finished my last research proposal and final so . . . I am finished with my
degre 100%! If I'm being completely honest, I'm a little sad. I really have loved
school but its time to move on. :0)

So, this afternoon I am combining the guestroom and the office to make room for the
preschool room! I'm so excited about this! I already have 4 kids signed up for
winter session (only 4 more spots to fill)! I just can't wait to get started with
my lesson plans and allthe fun stuff that we will be learning!

I'm so excited to be able to still work with children and be home with Nolan at the same time.

Off to work! :0)

Functional Families

Matt and I are both working on our very last assignment for our research class. Our
house looks like a press room blew up with papers and drafts everywhere! Why do we
always wait until the last minute to do what we need to do?

I'm doing my research proposal on what makes a family "work right", functional, or
the opposite of dysfunctional. It is definately a subject I feel passionate about
as my main focus in life right now is to create such a family environment. I'll
attach a great article about this topic at the end of this post.


So, if anyone is reading this and wants to add thier two cents, What makes your
family "work right"? What practices have you implemented to help your house run
smooth and help everyone to feel needed, appreciated and valued?


Any thoughts?
Thanks . . . Back to work

Here is the link to the article:
http://www.american-heritage.org/pdf/MacArthur.pdf

Preschool Program

So, heres whats been on my mind lately . . .

It has always been a dream of mine to teach preschool from my home. Even 10 years
ago when I started working with preschool age children, I know I had found my
niche. I taught for several years with a wonderful lady in her in home preschool
and then in a special needs preschool at Eastmont School District (among many other
preschool related things). I loved it so much I decided to learn more about child
development formally and have now completed my BS degree in Counseling, Education
and Developmental Psychology with an emphasis is early literacy and preschool learning.
So, all of this leads me to ask the question:
Does anyone want to participate in a preschool program starting Winter quarter
(First week in January or so)?


If anyone has any ideas, thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions . . . please
give me a call!
Thanks :0)
Bernadette

Cousins . . . and SNOW!

Matt's brother and two of his children followed us home from Wenatchee after
Thanksgiving. Nolan loved having his closest cousin Siera to play with for a few
day, Connor helped me decorate for Christmas and Matt got to learn the secret to his
brothers famous bean dip (and stayed up way to late playing XBox360) I love the
holiday season!








Here are the kids waiting for Matt to get home to surprise him with the Christmas decorations! They were so excited to show him, So cute!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I jumped in on 1st ward's super Saturday this last weekend and made our Family Home
Evening board. I love it! Now we just need to have three more kids, RIGHT!
Matt's convinced we are going to end up like Jon and Kate plus 8 with 6 babies at
once with all the fetility treatments weve been on. *Update* After over a year of
trying on our own and 6 months of fertility, no luck with the baby makin' except the
wonderful few extra pounds that constantly messing with your hormone levels always
seem to bring. I just started a new round yesterday, this time with a double dose
of Clomed so, cross your fingers for us but, not to tight I think I can only handle
one baby at a time! (Monica, remember, if theres more than one all the extras are
comming to your house!)


I know its not even Thanksgiving yet but, big surprise (Monica) we have been playing
Christmas music at our house for a few weeks already! I love Christmas! We had a
family Christmas photo taken this year while we were at the studio for Nolan's 3 yr. pictures. Merry Christmas!

Nolan turns 3 years old!!!

Baby Nolan

Sleeping with his hands behind his head, 2 days old . . .


one year old . . .


2 years old . . .


3 years old!

F.H.E. . . .

Today was just one of those days where everything seemed to just go right. The
house managed to stay clean, Nolan was a joy all day (maybe due to the fact he
received the funnest radio flyer scooter in the mail today from his great-grandparents!),
I had time to update our blog :0), I made a yummy healthy dinner and we had a great
(quick)lesson on when its Ok and not Ok to fight (since tomarrow is Vetren's Day)
and then for our activity we all made paper airplanes and then went out into the
street to see who's was the best flyer. How fun! To my surprise Matt and Nolan
REALLY got into it! And I think we found a hidden talent of Matt's!

Life is good.

EWU trick-or-treating and the Trunk-or-treat

These are some pictures from Halloween day . . .

Nolan was a monkey and Matt and I were Mr. and Mrs. Zookeeper. For those of you who
know Nolan, you all know how appropriatethis was!

On EWU campus, trick-or-treatin'

Nolan and I in the morning before his preschool party. . .

Eating the pumpkin muffins they made at preschool. . .

Nolan at preschool, showing off the spider he made!

On campus, getting a sucker from my friend Marilyn in the CEDPych Dept. Thats all
he wanted on Halloween "a suker suker sucker"!

The zoo keeper trying to get a hold of the monkey!

At the Trunk-or-treat

The night before Halloween

We started a tradition this year of watching some family favorite halloween movies
the night before halloween. We made candied apples and watched Charlie Brown's
The Great Pumpkin. What a fun filled family evening! We even moved the furniture
all around and all snuggled together for the movie. After Nolan went to bed, Matt
and I watched Hocus Pocus. I can't wait for next year!

Preschool Field Trip

That's Nolan in the orange coat, so cute!