.........................CRAWFORD FAMILY est. 2003...

Papercrafting Kit Club!

2011-12-31T20:01:00.000-08:00

http://handmadebybernadette.blogspot.com/

Hoping to Adopt!

2011-05-08T21:15:00.000-07:00

http://mattnbernadettehopingtoadopt.blogspot.com/

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-26T17:01:00.001-08:00

Yeah, so I'm pretty bad at this Blogging thing . . .

2010-08-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

This summer has been a busy one! Matt has been working at a group home for teenage boys.
It has been a challenging but priceless experience for him. He has had some incredible
experiences as well as many many challenging experiences. It has given him great
insight to many situations that he most likely will be dealing with as a School
Counselor. He starts his ***drum roll please*** LAST YEAR OF GRADUATE WORK! We have
been in school going on 7 years now. It is so nice to be nearing the end!

I have been busy teaching scrapbooking classes and working part time as the finance
manager for a child care center. Its has been a blast! I do their payroll, billing,
accounts payable and budget. Its fun playing with someone else's money :0)

Nolan has been super busy playing basketball at the YMCA, swimming, playing at the park,
riding his bike, playing with his buddies and works hard as a "worker man" around the
house. He such a good helper!

This summer we all have been super busy. In three weeks we are taking a two week long
family vacation to visit my sister in Florida. WOOOHOO!

Hope everyone is enjoying your summer!

New Handmade post!

2010-04-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.handmadebybernadette.blogspot.com/

SUMMER is here!

2010-02-23T19:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, maybe not but it sure feels like it! Today was another sunny day in the 50's!
I was able to finish cleaning out the garage and Nolan and Daddy played some
baseball. Is it really February?!?!?!? You know what an early spring brings . . .
an early YARD SALE SEASON! Can't wait!

:HandmadebyBernadette

2010-02-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

Check it out . . . and then tell your friends :0)

handmadebyBernadette.blogspot.com

Going Private . . .

2009-12-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

We have decided to go private with our blog so, if you would like to continue
viewing our blog place send me your email in a comment and I will add you. :0)
Thanks!

Nolan is 4!

2009-12-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

Family fun , coaching, carmel apples and the pumkin patch

2009-10-22T11:25:00.001-07:00

School and waiting at the Bus Stop

2009-10-22T11:17:00.000-07:00

Nolan's school

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Nolans best friend at school, Desiree

Waiting for the bus

Friends, water park and story time and the fair!

2009-10-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

WOW! I've waited to long to post!

2009-10-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

Alot has changed for us in the last few months. We are now living in Spokane
Valley. Its so nice to be just a few minutes away from everything! Matt is half
way thru his first quarter of graduate school. He is BUSY and still managing to
coach and volunteer at Spokane Mental Health. Nolan started school! He is loving
his pre-K program, all the friends he has met and that he gets to ride the bus!
This makes Matt a little nervous but Nolan LOVES it. I have started a part time
job at a scrapbook store down the street. This is the first time in 5 years I've
worked outside our home. I LOVE it and the schedule is so flexible. I drop Nolan
off at the bus and then go into work for a few hours- create scrapbook layouts for
the store (and get to go "shopping" and use the store's supplies to create with!)
and then pick Nolan up from the bus stop. Its a great schedule and the extra money
is always nice.
I think the easiest way to catch up is going to be just to post pictures from the
last two months. . .

Nolans first Marineres game

2009-08-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

We are in the middle of moving back over to Spokane and decided to take a day off from
packing and go to a Mariner's game with Matt's brother and sister-in-law. It was a
blast and Nolan even got a ball thrown to him during batting practice. Fun day, now
back to moving . . .

Check out my facebook page for more pictures.

Summer fun!

2009-08-26T20:22:00.001-07:00

Summer Time in Wenatchee and the livin' is EASY! (when you're 3)

2009-08-02T16:42:00.001-07:00

Mowing the lawn with Papa Crawford

2009-07-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

Summer Fun . . .

2009-07-08T21:05:00.001-07:00

Well, we have been in Wenatchee now for about a month. Matt had a whole 3 days off
between graduation and when he started work. He was offered a position with
Columbia Valley Medical Center couseling in mental health. He is in a transition
home where people who have just been released from a mental hospital go to try to
intigrate back into society. He is loving it and Nolan "goes to work" every day now
just like daddy. He always asks me to pack a lunch and then heads outside, comes
back in a few minutes later and wants dinner!

Here are a few pictures from the last month or so . . .

I caught a fish!

2009-06-22T10:49:00.000-07:00

Family Pictures

2009-06-16T21:46:00.001-07:00

I took some family pictures tonight of my sister-in-law, Kris' boys. It was really fun and they turned out great.
Here are a few of my favorite.

So much to catch up on!

2009-06-16T09:28:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures of our last day of preschool . . .

I miss my preschool kids! :0(

Family Pictures! :0)

2009-05-11T11:17:00.001-07:00

More to come . . .

Getting Ready for Church

2009-04-27T07:30:00.001-07:00

April Fun

2009-04-13T09:10:00.000-07:00

Lots of pictures . . . this last month we spent alot of time at the baseball field. We went to several of cousin Colby's games and Matt's coaching season also started.
I'm having a blast with my preschool kids and Nolan loves having playmates!
We also went on an early fishing trip!
Easter was at our house this year, it was busy bu fun.

I'm not sure how these pictures uploaded so . . . no captions :0)

Hooray!!!!

2009-03-12T07:18:00.000-07:00

Matt recieved his acceptance letter yesterday for EWU's School Counseling graduate
program! We have been waiting in limbo for about two weeks now waiting waiting
waiting. It has been SO stressful not knowing what we would be doing after the
quarter ended. There were somewhere between 60 and 80 applicants and the top 18
got interviews . . . Matt felt like he did really well, that was two Fridays ago.
After the interviews we had to just wait to recieve a letter in the mail. Everyday
around 1:00 Matt would call to see if the mail had come yet,( one day the mail
didn't come at all! It wbout drove us crazy!) And finally yesterday Matt recieved
a letter from Eastern in the mail. We sat down and decided that what ever that
letter said we were going to be happy with the decision. Matt was offered one of
the 10 spots! We already know of few of the other people in his cohort and we are
so excited to be staying in Spokane area for another 2 years! Horray!

Its funny how trials make you grow, I'm grateful for that but also SO grateful when
they are resolved! :0) Happy day at the Crawfords

Random pictures from this month . . .

2009-02-17T19:52:00.000-08:00

This is just a mogpog of random photos from this last month or so . . . we've been working, playing and just have a good time as a family.

Enjoy!

Nolan is doing a great job at keeping his big boy undies dry! Horray!

One of Nolan;s favorite things to do is line his cars up in trains. Most mornings you can find him doing this.

Painting apples to stamp in our preschool room.

Nolan LOVES to be outside riding his bike. This is where he is most afternoons.

I'm so glad we live at the end of a street! Great for bike riding, scootering and roller blading!

Clifford came to EWU for a visit.

We went to a chiefs hockey game with the Flynn's. Nolan and Grace are die hard fans and cheer "Go Cheifs Go!"

Nolan was thrilled to get his very own pop and Grace was more than happy to feed him popcorn piece by piece.

Nolan spent the night at Gracie's house one night while Matt and I had date night.

The snow is melting but there is still plenty for the sledding hill in the back yard.

Nolan and his friend Parker like to pull these chairs around and just sit next to each other, all over the back yard- to funny.

Nolan practicing his roller blading on a walk with Daddy.

I looked around the corner and Nolan was so serious on the potty, I had to take a picture.

Nolan being a goofy boy!

Mommy and Nolan.

Matt has turned his applications in for Graduate school and has his first interview
on Friday. It will be so nice to know where we will be for the next few years, the
anticipation is killing me! I guess I'll just practice patience. :0)

Looking thru old pictures . . .

2009-01-31T16:16:00.000-08:00

And, I just love this one of Nolan when he was about a week old! Precious!

My cool little rollerblader . . .

2009-01-26T13:24:00.000-08:00

Wow, its been awhile since my last post!

I was cleaning out the coat closet this morning and Nolan spotted the rollerblades I
traded for at Other Mothers a while ago. I was saving them for spring but, he
really wanted to try them so we strapped them on and he rolled around the house for
a good hour! I should have gotten these out months ago!

Welcome Toby and . . . A Snow Day!

2008-12-13T14:07:00.000-08:00

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 . . .

2008-12-11T14:28:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-08T13:13:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-29T17:25:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-11-19T07:47:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2008-11-11T08:54:00.001-08:00

Baby Nolan

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

one year old . . .

2 years old . . .

3 years old!

F.H.E. . . .

2008-11-10T20:17:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-10T15:33:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-09T22:10:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

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

Some pictures from Halloween still . . .

2008-11-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Carving Pumpkins at my parents house!

2008-10-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

Some pictures from the pumpkin patch . . .

The GREs

2008-10-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

Matt has been preparing now for a few months to take the GREs. From what everyone
who has taken this test says, it is a complete nightmare! It is a four hour long
test, kinda like the SATs, that is used in your grad school acceptance. The program
Matt is hoping to get into requires an above average score as a requirment for
acceptance, Yikes! Matt has prepared all that he can, which really is not much
unless you want to memorize the 50,000 words on the "most commonly used words
list". One of our friends studied and knew about 10,000 of those words before he
took the test and NOT ONE of them ended up being on the test! So, Matt has mostly
studied technique for answering surtain types of questions and such. Anyway, today
is the big day. He left at 7am this morning and will be testing from 8am to noon.
Say a prayer from him if you would, we'd appreciate all the prayers we can get! I
think I'm as nervous as he is!

My baby is turning three!

2008-10-23T12:02:00.001-07:00

I can't believe he's almost 3 years old! In some ways it feels like he was just born but then again it feels like we have had him forever.
We love you Nolan!

Fall!

2008-10-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

This time I'm talking about the weather, not Nolan. He is healing nicely however and his scare should be hiden nicely in his eyebrow.

Here are some pictures from this week, outside enjoying the nice fall weather. Have I mentioned WE LOVE HAVING A BACK YARD!

I like Nolan's way of helping Daddy rake leaves.

Jumping in the leaves that Nolan and Daddy raked.

Matt snapped this picture of me in my new winter coat, yea for cold weather!
Nolan and I are on our way to meet Monica and her girls for the last yard sale of the year.
Here are the kids on the way to the HUGE sale.
My favorite scrapbook store went out of business and they had a booth there,
so I got tons of great scrapbookings stuff for super cheap!

Nolan playing with my parent's dog, Sasha.

What a goofy boy. LOVE HIM!!!

Second trip to the ER in a week . . .

2008-10-09T13:03:00.001-07:00

Yes, what an exciting night we had. Last week Nolan was having extreme belly pain and Dr,. Staben sent us to the children's ER at Sacred Heart for ultasounds and Xrays, turned out he was just really constipated. The ER doc said he sees about 10-12 children daily for this! Crazy.

He's doing much better now but, last night we went back for a new reason.

After dinner, Matt, Nolan and I were all on our bed reading books. We would read one, Nolan would stick it on the finished pile on my night stand and then run off to his room to pick a new one. Well, he rolled off and split his head open on the night stand! Why in the world did we pick night stands with such sharp courners!?!?!?

Anyway, there was blood everywhere, we called 911 and the firefighters came and patched Nolan's head all up. And then sent us on to the Emergency room for stiches.

I had blood all over me.

Nolan ended up having about a 3 inch cut right in his eyebrow.

And got 8 stiches :0(

The doctors and nurses were so great! They had one nurse with us who's job was just to keep Nolan smiling. She was wonderful, singing songs with him, sharing fun flashy toys and cool animal noises. She even gave him a popcicle right after stiches, which he LOVED, and a cool truck toy.

Nolan says he's "bedder" and he'll get his stiches out in about aweek.
No more trips to the ER for a while, please.

Fall Football!

2008-10-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

Matt has started his fourth coaching season here in Cheney. Here are some pictures of his current team, the 7th grade varsity team for Cheney Middle School. We love going to his games and Nolan loves watching his daddy and all the big kids that get to play. We love Cheney athletics!

Visit with cousin Katelyn

2008-09-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

My little brother and his wife and baby were sealed together in the Columbia River temple this weekend. It was such a sweet experience. This is a video of Nolan and his cousin.

Woodland Park Zoo

2008-09-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we went to Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo with my parents. We had read probably every book the library had on zoo theme topics and we were ready! We has a blast! We walked for 6 hours and saw pretty much everything! It is a great zoo with beautiful animals, habitats and foliage. Here are just a few pictures:

There were so many beautiful flowers all around the zoo, here are a few:

Here is Matt wispering to Nolan about the animals while we waited in line to get in.

Now to the animals:

Milking a cow!

Granpa and Nolan checking out the goats. There was even one that looked just like the one Grandpa had a a little boy!

Us on the elephant.

Grandma and Grandpa Stanfield watching Nolan watch the elephants.

Watching the giraffes.

Feeding the giraffes!

Check out this one's tongue! Nolan was fearless when feeding the giraffes!

Trying to feed the birds.

Got one!

A monkey on my back!

The otters would swim right in front of Nolan and do flips and cool dives. Very entertaining.

Touching a snake, Gross!

This mommy gorilla just sat there and watched as her baby jumped around, climbed and tumbled around. So cute! Nolan was glued to the glass for this one.

Us on the gorilla.

Nolan pretty much ran to and from each exhibit! Boy did he sleep well that night!

There it is!

Gpa, Gma, me, Nolan and Matt. Woodland Park Zoo 8.30.08

and curly . . .

2008-08-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

So, here are some pictures of what the back looks like and how it looks curly.

I cut my hair!!!

2008-08-19T15:08:00.000-07:00

I was really nervous to get it cut so drastically, she cut 13 inches off! But, I love it!!! Matt likes it too, he says its "so soft and touchable"!

Family Pictures

2008-08-14T21:50:00.001-07:00

I realized we haven't had a family picture in almost two years! Nolan sat still long enough to snap a few, these are my favorites . . .

The Guys at Fish Lake

2008-07-13T16:21:00.000-07:00

Matt has so many fun childhood memories of weekend camping and fishing trips to Fish Lake. He was really looking forward to Nolan growing old enough to come along. Matt and his dad, brother Mike and nephew Colby took a guys weekend trip to the lake a fw weekends ago and I drove Nolan up for the day to fish for a bit. It was a fun day for everyone!

A HOUSE!

2008-07-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, we have outgrown our little 550 sq.ft. apartment and have been looking for a house for a few months now. We have really tried to be patient and trust that the right one would come along . . . we finally are moving in to a house! We are so excited about the HUGE fenched back yard (which Nolan calls his "ballfield") and the room this home will allow for our family. We are in the middle of moving right now so I'll post some pictures once we get a bit more settled.
Horray!

Summer Time!

2008-06-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

It finally feels like summer here in Cheney! Matt and I finished the quarter successfully and we got thru graduation. Our plans for the summer are to play, play, play! Nolan started swimming lessons today, Matt started his summer math class and continues coaching baseball, and I started my quest to get our house in order! I'll try to do a better job of keeping up on our blog . . . I'm sure some of you are shocked to see this new post! :0) Have a fun summer!

Baseball has started!!!

2008-04-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

Matt starts coaching spring ball at the middle school today. This will be his third season with them! He has also added coaching football in the fall and continues to coach beaseball thru the summer too. I'm enjoying the easy school schedule, class from noon to one each day! I'm also finishing my internship and capstone project- so fun! I'm loving both activities I have the privledge of working with. We've kept busy watching Matt's nephew Colby pitch for SFCC. I'll post some pictures from yesterday . . .

Hows everyone else?

Crunch Time!

2008-03-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well the end of the quarter is in sight . . . Matt and I are cramming to get our final assignment in and presentations prepared. Nolan is loving school and his vocaulary continues to explode each day! His favorite phrases are oh' Yeah!, Ineeyapple (I need an apple) and kenny-L-pee (Can you help me). Such a funny kid, keeps us smiling :0)

Just a quick update, hopefully I'll write more later . . .

Blogging

2008-02-20T09:57:00.001-08:00

So, I'm going to try to do better about keeping everyone up to speed with whats going on in our lives. This blogspot is my attempt :0)

Todays Blog:

Matt and Nolan are at school, I had the morning off. Matt just got over the FLU, Yuck! But he's feeling much better now, but Nolan is still stuck on saying "seck (sick)" and pointing to Matt everytime he sees him. I've been really working on meal time at our house. I've been creating a menu for the week and it really relieves so mcuh stress around 4:00 each day! And, we're doing much better at sitting at the table for meals. Its pretty cute to see how excited Matt gets over food. Tonight I'm making chicken enchiladas- I think Matt would eat these everynight if he could.
Well, I'd better go workout; I need to pick Nolan up from preschool in an hour.

2008-02-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

2008-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

Trial Blog

2008-02-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

Hi, Its the Crawfords! I'm just setting this up, but will write more later :0)