A Rose Parade Tradition

Every year for more than 50 years, my mom's family has attended the Rose parade. My grandparents live in Pasadena within walking distance of the end of the parade route, so we always sit near the end, and as Chris has said, it is really a different parade down there (He used to sit near the beginning of the route in the parking lot of his uncles dental practice, so he's seen the parade when all the floats are still working properly, all of the bands are still playing with finesse, and all of the official "rescue vans" for those in the parade who can't make the whole route are still empty.) It is a lot of fun though. My family sits out on an island in the middle of a busy street (along with a lot of other crazy people) starting at 4am on the 31st, so they are out there for more than 24 hours saving our traditional spot. We play games, eat lots of junk food, chat, and depending on the weather that year, try to stay warm while saving seats. (Yes, we attend rain or shine - or at least some do). By the time the parade actually gets there, the teenagers who are usually nominated for the over night shift, are often too tired to care about the parade, but it is fun anyway.

Elise absolutely loved the parade this year. She loved the bands, loved the floats, and LOVED the horses. It was fun to watch her be so excited. On the other hand, Steven slept through more than half of the parade. Isn't it great how kids can sleep anywhere when they are that tired? My parents were in town (they come for the parade about every other year) and Chris' parents decided to join in our fun this year, so my kids had two sets of grandparents to cater to them, which made it especially nice for their parents :-).

After the parade they park all the floats at a High School just a couple of blocks from my grandparents house, and you can pay to go look at them. We had never done it before , and will probably never do it again, but it was an experience. It was so crowded you could hardly walk, which was not great with a double stroller, but we survived, and Elise enjoyed being able to see the floats again (Especially her favorite - Elmo!!)

Steven, Dad, and Grandma waiting for the parade to start:

Elise, looking for more donuts (one of her favorite parts of the parade):

Elise, hanging out with her Papa:My dad always has to see two floats. One is the Sierra Madre City float (where he grew up), and the other is the Cal Poly Float (his alma mater). We always give him a hard time because every year, with out fail, the Cal Poly float is broken down by the time it gets to us. I thought it was funny that this year, not only was teh Cal Poly float not functioning quite properly, but the Sierra Madre float was actually being towed, so I had to take a picture for him.:

Elise watching the parade wearing her great Nana's hat (my Nana):

Steven, sleeping trough the parade in his Grandma's arms:

Feeding Rudolph!

Elise's favorite movie is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She just adores Rudolph. We have light Reindeer in our yard, and Elise has named them Dasher, Dancer, Blitzen, Comet, and of course, Rudolph. She preteds to be Santa and goes around the yard feeding the reindeer play food and limes from the lime tree. She has to wear her red shoes and her santa hat, because, of course, she is Santa. She uses her deepest voice, and says, "Yo Ho Ho, I'm Santa. Here is some food for you," to each reindeer. Yes she is confused, so her Santa sounds a bit like a pirate. Here are a few pictures of her feeding the reindeer.

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.