Christmas Morning

Christmas morning was all Ms. Elise expected and more. I'm sure she was delighted with the trampoline that Santa brought her, as I heard her tell her Nana on the phone, "Guess what? Santa figured out a way to fit my trampoline in his bag!" (She told Santa at the mall she wanted a trampoline, and he told her he'd have to see if he could fit it in his bag). I love the picture I got of her running full speed toward her kitchen as she came down the stairs and saw it. She was just looking at it so adoringly. However, the cute apron, chefs hat, and oven mitt that I made for Elise was unfortunately not such a hit. I literally forced her to try it on one time and she cried, "I don't like it," took it off, and I haven't been able to talk her into trying it on since. She can be such a pill sometimes. Steven liked his bounce and spin zebra all right, but I don't think he really weighs enough to make it bounce yet, so he prefers big sister's trampoline. Luckily, she is distracted by her kitchen enough that he occasionally gets a turn on it. .

The kids and I before they went downstairs Christmas morning. I wanted a picture of them in their jammies I made them, but if I had looked in a mirror at all that morning, I would have left myself out of the picture.

Elise coming down the stairs. As soon as she saw her presents, she broke out in a run. I love the expression on her face in this picture.

Elise, looking at her new kitchen set with the most adoring eyes ever.Steven checking out his bounce and spin zebra, courtesy of Santa:

Elise, "checking out" her trampoline from Santa (checking out were her exact words) I made the kids these very soft robes out of minky to go with their jammies. I thought they turned out cute, and since they both are very attached to their minky blankets, they loved these robes. Elise kept telling me it was not a robe, it was a blankie that she could wear.

The apron and chef's hat I made for Elise, which she hates. You can tell by the look on her face that she was so mad I even made her try it on. I couldn't even get her to try on the oven mit. All that work for nothing. (I literally finished making this set about 10:30 pm Christmas Eve, I should have just gone to bed). You can see her cute kitchen in the background, courtesy of Nana and Papa. Chris thanks them for 4 hours of assembly on Christmas Eve (I told him it just wouldn't be Christmas without staying up all night to assemble something.)

SICK, SICK, SICK!

Both of my kids have been sick since the night after Christmas. They have one of the worst chest colds I have ever seen. Tons of coughing and more mucous that should come from any one small child for both of them. They also have horrible runny noses and can't breath, so they aren't getting any sleep (and neither are Mom and Dad). Yesterday Steven was screaming all day and came down with a temperature of 104 degrees, so we took him to the doctor and he has and ear infection. Chris had the throw ups a few days ago, and today, you guessed it, both of my kids came down with the throw ups. Yucky!!! We are surviving, but this is just no fun. I have been wanting to post some pictures from Christmas, maybe tonight if my kids go to bed and actually sleep, but we will see. Hopefully everyone else had a great Christmas!

The Train Quilt

My sister Krista has been making a beautiful quilt for Steven, and she finally finished it. She hand quilts everything which impresses even me, a non-quilter. We got it in the mail today and we love it! I will be very proud to display this in his room. Thanks Aunt Krista! Here are a few more pictures of her masterpiece.

Gingerbread Houses with Cousins

This year all of the Miller cousins got together at my sister in laws house to make gingerbread houses. We have never made them with Elise before, and she just loved it! She loved putting on all the little candies and the frosting. Also, she loves Aunt Sharilin's house anyway because she has a wooden rocking horse which Ms. Elise just loves to play on, and she had a great time playing on it with her cousin Elizabeth. They took turns "rocking" eachother by pulling on the horses reins while one of them rode. And they even took a turn riding together. It was a lot of fun for her.

Christmas Clothes

Every year my kids have gotten new church clothes for Christmas, and they get their picture taken wearing their new clothes before we go to church the Sunday before Christmas. The problem this year was that I had a meeting before church and so by the time I got home at 8:30, just a half an hour before church started, we were a little rushed to even get ready. I thought I would just snap a few photos, but of course as usual my children were highly uncooperative. Elise's Nana bought her the really cute red dress she is wearing under her white sweater, but we were so rushed I didn't even think to take the sweater off so the dress could be seen. And of course Steven wouldn't sit still or smile. Oh well, maybe we can do a repeat and try for better pictures next week, but here are a few of the photos I did get.

A Lesson Gone Bad

The other day I was driving through a not great area because the freeway was closed, so I had to go that way to get home. It was raining hard, and there was an older man riding his bike down the street with his groceries tied to the handle bars. Elise asked me, "Mom, why is that man riding a bike?" I thought this question presented a great opportunity to teach her a little lesson about being grateful for what we have, so I said to her, "Some people don't have enough money for cars so they just have to ride bikes everywhere they go, even in the rain. Aren't we lucky to have a car to drive in?" She sat quiet for a minute, and then said in a questioning voice, "So mom, me and Steven don't have enough money for bikes, so we just have to ride in our car everywhere?" Hmmm... I think the point I was trying to make was somehow missed in that little exchange.

I must love my nieces and nephews, because...

Every year my family trades names for who to buy for for Christmas, and this year I had my sister Krista's family. I bought a gift for her kids, but I had been sort of kicking the idea around in my head of making "church bags" (crayon and marker totes) for her kids and my kids for Christmas as well. I had done nothing about it, but yesterday afternoon I decided on a whim to go ahead and make the bags, which presented a small problem because I HAD to mail the package today because we are so close to Christmas. So, I started on them after my kids went to bed, and six hours later, Voila... Here they are.

Julia's bag (I used my favorite red velvet material left over from the red velvet coat I made Elise) I LOVE this fabric!:



Ashley's bag:Tyler's bag: (Please don't look closely at all of the crooked stitching lines or the top pocket that is put on so poorly it might fall off within a week)

The problem is I stayed up way too late, and by the time I got to the last bag (Tyler's bag) I didn't even care how it looked, I just wanted it DONE!!! So, I just sort of eyeballed everything, I didn't measure anything, and I made lots of mistakes from hurrying, but I was just too tired to care about fixing them. Oh well, he's a five year old boy so hopefully he won't be too critical of my work. The really big problem is that I actually cut out the materials for 5 bags, 3 for my sister's kids which are done, thank goodness, and two for my own kids which I am now thinking might never get done. I don't even want to look at those bags. If I do get around to them it definitely will not be before Christmas.

Puppy Dog

I just walked into the hall and found Steven attempting to drink a capri sun that Elise had set down. He was trying to drink out of the straw and couldn't quite make it work, so he started squeezing the juice out on the floor and lapping it up with his tongue like a puppy dog. He seriously cracks me up sometimes.

Dancing Boy!

I thought I would throw in a cute picture of Steven since I just posted several of Elise. I took this photo of him today. We have a Mickey that sings Christmas carols hanging from the fireplace, and Steven sits in front of it on his knees staring at it and bouncing up and down to the rhythm. It is really quite cute.

Meet Wilbert

Who is Wilbert? Wilbert is Elise's new best friend, the shampoo bottle. She is such a goof and a drama girl sometimes. When she was in the bath the other night she was playing with my shampoo bottle, and she named it Wilbert. She kept telling me, "Mom, Wilbert is my best friend." When it was time to get out of the bath I told her to set "Wilbert" on the side and let him dry, because I didn't want him to drip all over the floor. Well, she was just not going to have that. She felt that as her new best friend, Wilbert deserved to be taken out of the bath and lovingly dried off with a towel like her. I told her no, I was just not in the mood to dry off a shampoo bottle along with two wiggling kids. So, she exclaimed to me rather dramatically, "But Mom, this bottle is my whole world!" Where did that kid come from, anyway?

Another quick and funny Elise story, I sent her to her room yesterday because she was not being very obedient. I could hear her in her room crying and talking to herself saying, "My life is so hard." Where does she get these things? I guarantee you won't hear me saying anything like that, so I really am wondering where she comes up with these things. We may be in for some serious drama in about 10 years.

Big shoes to fill

Elise loves her dad's work boots, but they are so dirty and gross that I won't ever let her play with them. However, he got a new pair of work boots yesterday, and so I decided to let her have at them before we gave them to Dad. She had a ball playing with them on her feet, and trying to walk in them. It's amazing with all the toys she has that she doesn't hardly even look at, that the funniest things entertain her for so long.

The Stubborn Little Boy from Jesus

Steven is little mister stubborn. He is not a big fan of food or drink, but he does like to eat if he can use a fork and drink out of a big boy cup instead of a sippy. He is just 13 months old! I think he likes the challenge of figuring out how to do it. He was sitting on Grandpa's lap this morning and pilfering his eggs with his fork after refusing everything I tried to give him in his high chair with no fork. His Grandma said, "Where did that baby come from?" because he is such a goof. Elise looked at her very matter of factly and said, "He came from Jesus, and Mom and Dad brought him for me. Last year Nana came to our house to wait for him to come." What a cutie!

A Little bit Naughty and a Little bit Nice

I took my kids to see Santa at the mall today. Surprisingly, Elise who adores Santa, was initially a little scared and didn't want to sit by him. This particularly surprised me because she so adores Santa that she even wanted to be him for Halloween (I talked her out of it for something a little more girly). Maybe she was contemplating how she has been both a little bit naughty and a little bit nice, and deciding if she would get anything from Santa this year. She eventually warmed up to Santa and told him she wants him to bring her a trampoline for Christmas. We'll see if he can fit that in his bag! Steven screamed the whole time Santa held him, but luckily the photographer snapped a very quick photo when I first set him down before he started screaming.

Being Thankful

At this Thanksgiving time it is nice to remember all the things I have to be thankful for, and Family is at the top of my list. Although I have definitely missed being with my side of the family this Thanksgiving, it has been fun to have a big Miller Thanksgiving with every family member present, which is quite an accomplishment considering that my in laws now have 26 grandchildren living in 4 different states. It was a lot of fun. And since everyone was together, we had a big family picture taken today. I took a few fun shots with my own camera that I will post.

Here are a few pictures of all 25 of the grandchildren with Grandma and Grandpa. Aren't they a good looking bunch? Just for reference, the two tallest boys are both 6'6". They are quite a tall group!

Elise and Maggie hanging out with Grandma.Steven and his beautiful cousin, Courtnee. Steven doesn't like many people (his list is about 5 people long). However, Coco was determined he would like her before she left to go back to BYU, and I think she succeeded. Chelle, Mandy, Sarah and Elise playing on the chairs between photos.My college age nieces: Ashlee, Kelsey, Courtnee, and Kim.

Ashlee and Mandy: There is quite an age range in the Miller grandkids, from 1 to 26. I love how all the big kids really play with the little kids and help take care of them when we are all together. It provides kind of a nice break for the moms.Martina and Sharilin, the smart aunts who thought to bring M&M's to bribe the kids to smile. I guess since they have "semi-adult" kids as they call them, they know how to work the family pictures with kids. They've done it lots of times.

King of the Mountain

Steven has decided that he is a climber. He climbs EVERYTHING. Sometimes he falls and gets hurt, but it doesn't ever stop him. So, several times in the last couple of weeks I have walked into a room to see Steven perched on top of his Racing Ramps Car set, like pictured above, only without his dad behind him in case he falls. And earlier today, I walked into the room to see him almost to the top of the green chair behind him in the picture. His grandpa was watching him and standing with his arm out close behind him in case he fell. However, he reported that he watched Steven climb on top of his car set, then from there climbed up onto the chair, and then proceeded to climb up the back of the chair until he reached to almost the top. This kid is driving me a little nuts. One of these days, he is going to seriously hurt himself.

One of those ideas...

Yesterday I had one of those ideas that in retrospect was probably not very well thought out. I decided that I was going to make Santa hats for my kids, and then take pictures of them wearing them for our Christmas cards. The first problem with this plan was that after I had just finished both hats, Elise "broke in" to the sewing room to "fix" her hat. She decided it was too big, and so she took the scissors to it to make it fit right. Luckily, she only cut the back and I was able to repair it with some iron on patches I had laying around. Phew, first disaster averted. The second problem was that I had this picture in my head of a photo of my two kids sitting posed nicely, wearing their Santa hats, looking at me and smiling. Did I forget that I have a three year old and a one year old, or what? Steven refused to keep his hat on, so the only pictures I got of him actually wearing the hat were the ones where I was holding his hands in his lap just below the range of the camera so he couldn't yank it off, while using the other hand to attempt to shoot a picture. A little bit tricky to say the least. Then he didn't want to sit in any one spot and kept crawling away. And every time I would finally get him to look at the camera and smile, Elise would inevitably be distracted by a dog, a squirrel, a bird, or whatever. So, she would of course be looking in the other direction. I would try to get her to look at me and smile, but she would give me a lame attempt at smiling without actually taking her eyes off of whatever she was distracted by. Lets just say there was a fair amount of loud talking on my part. Not yelling... I don't yell :-). And in hindsight it seems like a silly thing to get worked up about, but the whole experience was quite frustrating. Lesson learned: Have no expectations for how things will go when dealing with a toddler and a baby, and just enjoy the moment and be happy with whatever happens. Now here is the question: Do I attempt this whole ordeal over again, or do I just settle for a shot that was different from what I had wanted to avoid the frustration a second time around. Some of them turned out cute I think, just not what I had pictured in my head. They did have a few individual pictures that turned out cute, so maybe I will just use those. Somehow taking a picture of one kid is at least 100 times easier than trying to get two kids to pose, look, and smile in sync.