Cortney Update!

I want to write a couple things down about Cortney before I forget.

1. Cortney is in love with learning about the human body!  A while back I bought this how your body works book at DI for only a dollar - I figured she would like to look at it when she can read or if she has questions when she gets older.  She found it a couple weeks ago up in the office, and she loves looking at it!  She has learned so many new things - and so have I!  Almost anytime we eat something now she asks if it makes her big and strong or not.  It has been great for when she asks for candy or treats because she accepts it when I tell her it does not make us big and strong and we already had a treat today, so maybe tomorrow.  Gotta love that! 

2.  Cortney LOVES the new Taylor Swift song - we are never ever ever getting back together.  Every time we get in the car Cortney asks me to scan all the channels to see if her song is on, and if it is "Turn it up Mom!"  Last Sunday I walked past the nursery room on my way to class and I could hear out in the hall Cortney singing - loudly I might add - "We  are never, ever, ever!"  We love singing it together in the car!

3.  Still loving school!  Cortney is having a blast at school!  She is making new friends and learning lots of things!  For a while I have been wanting Cortney to be interested in writing, but I was trying not to push it too much.  Since school started she loves playing games I make up that uses writing her ABC's and we have even started writing letters to friends and family members (we only write 1 a week - but be on the look out one might be on its way to you!)

4.  Cheerleader a Doctor, and a Mom.  That is the answer Cortney will give you if you ask what she wants to be when she grows up.  With Jenn being the head cheerleading coach at Madison Cortney has been seeing a lot of cheerleading things lately and she is just in love.  Jenn sent this video to Cort that her girls made.  I think it was for some kind of camp - it teaches how to do a couple cheers and dances - we do the movie at least 3 times a week.  She even wrote her letter last week to the cheerleaders telling them how much she likes their movie - hopefully they will write a letter back soon!  And I am not sure where the doctor thing came from - I know she likes the human body but we never sat down and talked about being a doctor is what people who like learning about the human body do - maybe she picked it up at school, who knows?  But I'm guessing this is going to change (with exception of mom, which seems to stick) more than a hundered times before she finally decides what she really wants to do - after all it was only a year ago when she wanted to be a Panda when she grew up!

5.  The other night Chris went to an Oregon Duck game with friends and me and Cortney had a girls night!  So much fun - painted our nails, watched Rapunzel and then snuggled!  She is getting so stinking tall it is hard for us to snuggle the way we always have, with her head on my chest - but I was a little sneaky and got her to do it (I realize probably the last time she ever will)!  And to my absolute delight she feel asleep snuggling with me!  This hasn't happened in a long time - maybe over a year.  I soaked in every minute of it - there was over 45 minutes left in the movie and she was asleep the whole time!  Again, I realized at the moment that it would probably the last time I snuggled with my mini me that way. especially with her falling asleep on me.  Made me sad my baby is growing up, but happy that she is growing up to be such a sweet and smart little girl!

I think that is about it for now!  Stay tuned for Cortney's Halloween costume!  I am making it myself - first year I am actually making a costume myself, and it is looking pretty cute!  Cant wait to do a photo shoot with her when it is finished!

My Husband the Actor, Tobias Funke eat your heart out!

So last week I got an e-mail from Red Lobster (We are on the e-mail list because of Chris and is love for seafood especially shrimp).  When I first looked at it, I'm pretty sure it was after Cortney had gone to bed and I guess I was a little bored because I thought to myself, why not?

The contest was to say why you are the Ultimate Shrimp Fan and then say how you "sea" food differently.  Like I said I was just bored and wanted something to do, in fact I didn't even tell Chris I had done it.  But here is what I sent in:

Endless shrimp at Red Lobster is an annual tradition in our family, mainly because of me.  I really cannot get enough of it, refill after refill after refill!  Best thing ever!  We also love how endless shrimp is always around our anniversary, we go every year to celebrate.  Recently Sept 1 of this year we celebrated our fifth year together at Red Lobster!  As far as "seaing" food differently I wrote a poem about the way I feel:

How do I love shrimp,
Let me "sea"
If they have a word
good enough for me

Adore, devoted, or love,
Passion, gusto or fondness,
Mania, or infatuation,
Oh where is that Thesaurus?

After diligently searching,
I have come to a conclusion
There has not yet been invented
A word that describes this obsession

 If I ever come across
A word that might come close
I will most assuredly
To the word disclose

How do I love shrimp
Let me "sea"
If they have a word
Good enough for me!

My Name Chris Nield
Medford Oregon
(208)206-5526

Please find a photo of me and my wife attached to this e-mail!




Seriously I sent about 5 minutes writing the poem, and all I did was look at a thesaurus online.  Really I just wanted something to do.  I mean come on, totally not my best work - some of the rhymes are not even that good.  Plus people can send in videos so I thought for sure nothing would happen...that is until yesterday.

I got on to check my e-mail and said I had been selected for an interview with the casting director at Red Lobster.  After about 5 minutes of laughing I was able to call up Chris on the phone and tell him...

"By the way honey tomorrow you have a skype audition with the Casting Director for Red Lobster to possibly be in a commercial."  Kind of an awkward situation especially because he had no idea I had done it in the first place!  But don't worry Chris was super excited!  Bascially this was his response...

I'm going to be an Actor!

So Chris had his interview today - was not really that big of a deal, and to be honest we are not expecting a call back or anything, it is just kind of fun to talk about.  In the interview they just asked Chris questions about Shrimp, it was only 10/15 minutes long.  But now Chris can say he has had his offical first audition as an actor. Oh, and don't worry his isn't quitting his day job or anything!

  

Cortney's First Day of School

Oh my goodness!  What torn feelings I have had about this day!  I have wanted her to go to school for so long, basically since the day she was born, but I cannot believe she is finally old enough.  She was so excited, and has been loving school so much!

The day started off with her favorite breakfast French Toast with homemade Strawberry topping.  She was so excited about it, and ate as much as Chris and I combined!  Hungry little girl!

 When went to a park before school and were able to get some super cute pictures of her!  First - I cannot believe how big she is!  And Second - I cannot believe how much she looks like me - it is so crazy!

 I did some pictures of her favorite things!  PS - Like my chalkboard I made?!  I made it from a picture frame - awesomeness!  Her favorite toy is Honey Bear - basically the fourth member of our family.

 This one almost made me tear up a little!  I asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up - a doctor or a teacher.  And she said, "No, I just want to be a mom, just like my mom!"

 This was her front door shot!  Love how she popped her hips out, she is so cute!

These are her favorite books at the moment, they change every couple weeks or so, but right now these three are at the top of the list!

Her favorite movies are Little Mermaid and Tangled!

 One of my favorite shots!

The first day of school I got to go with her!  Here are a couple pictures of the things we did!
First Cortney wanted to play outside, I didn't take pictures of the whole outside area, but just a couple of different areas.  Such a cute little playground area!

 They had this little fairy set up on the bottom of a tree, Cortney loved it!

 Inside the classroom - this is actually from the back of the classroom - the lady with the yellow shirt is one of the teachers, Jana.  How cute is this room?!

 This is a little magnifying glass connected to the board full of things to look at.

 Cortney looking at the snake.

 Cortney and the fish - they also had Toby the turtle and Thumper the Bunny!

 Here is the little snack table

 A picture of different "works" - it is a Montessori school so they are big on teaching practical life skills - but to the kids they are kind of just lots of fun games to play that teach them skills they can use in real life - we played with at least 5 of them and she loved it!

 The light table is her favorite thing so far, she loves it!

The first week is a little different than all the other ones, so instead of MWF she went on tues, thr, and fri.  Thursday was the first day I left her alone at school - but don't worry I didn't cry...kind of wanted to but I was just too excited for her!  She loved her first day, and she also went to school today.  The teachers are amazing - I think Jana has been a teacher there for close to 20 years, if not more than that.  And you can really tell she is awesome with the kids.  My baby is growing up, love it!

Happy Birthday Audrey!

The other day we went to the park to celebrate Audrey's birthday!  She turned 4!  She wanted to show me how hold she was

 So of course Cortney had to show me she was 3.

 After these pictures they promptly told me they were done taking pictures and ran off!  Haha!

 Later we all sat down (There were a lot of people there) and had these yummy blackberry cupcakes her mom made!  FYI - they tasted better than they looked!

Mmmmmm!  All in all it was a fun day!

If You Give a Girl a Camera...

A while back we got Cortney her own camera.  It wasn't expensive at all, and she has thrown it a couple times and it still works great!  We got it to distract her from my new camera at the time, and it worked wonders!  It stores all the pictures in itself and for a while now it has been full and I finally got around to going through all the pictures. 

I wish I had done it sooner!   It was an unexpected and interesting experience!  I got to see from Cortney what was "picture worthy" for her.  The things she wanted to take a picture of, the things that mean the most to her!

Many of the pictures were completely black, white, or too blurry to even see what it was about.  I would say about of 1/4 of them (out of about 700) were of me - which was humbling in itself to think about - although most were very blurry.  There were also a couple of other good gems I wanted to share!

This was the first picture we took with the camera, I remember, she was so excited!

This was the first picture she took by herself..little blurry but I thought it was fun to remember!

 Her with awesome glasses...PS the next couple pictures (Including this one is from the day Jenn and Spencer got engaged!)

 Uncle Ryan!  (Pretty good shot too!)

 Half of Honey!

 Self Protrait

 Daddy!

 She took this in the car...I have no idea how the picture came out this good!  Not really blurry at all!  I think it was on our yellowstone trip!

 Another self protrait

 This is a picture of an old chair we had...I miss it and this is a fun little reminder!

 Candy from Halloween!

 Toys in her room!

 A little dog from a block set Nana gave her.

 A Quilt on her wall

 A view from her old room... I loved those old wood floors!

 Ming and her Mama  - so cute!

 Ming and Magenta in her tool box - she calls it their "boat"!

 Audrey - one of her good friends from Utah!

 Jenn and Spencer!

 Aunt Jenny!

 Uncle Spencer!

 Joesphine - another friend from Utah

 Toys in her room

 Her pony "Orange".

 A view of a rug in her room.

 Her play kitchen sink

 Her old backpack

The last one is one we took when w got the camera...like I said most of the pictures of me were blurry, but this one wasn't bad.

It was so interesting for me to go back and see her little view of the world.  I copied all the pictures into a folder on the computer and emptied out the space for her to take more...cant wait to see what she will take pictures of next!