How cute are these kids?

I may be a little biased, but I am pretty sure that these are three of the cutest kids around.



And this one slept 12 1/2 hours last night. At 6:30 Chris went in the closet to check on him (yep, he sleeps in the closet - maybe that's a subject for another post!) and he was laying there awake and happy and not making any noise at all. What a good boy he is.

Just a quick sidenote, this morning Elise told me she needs "a day off" and let me know that she would be watching TV all day long. I told her she would defintely not spend the entire day watching TV, so she decided that maybe she would add a little dancing into her day as well. I guess Kindergarten can tire a girl out. It's a good thing she has clear until Tuesday to rest up!

Happy Birthday, Elise!

Happy Birthday to our little drama girl, Elise. We love you!

Elise is such a fun girl to be around. She loves to sing, dance, and is always so full of energy. Unless, of course, you ask her to do something she doesn't want to. Then she is very quick to give us her favorite excuse which is that she is "too tired."

Steven follows her around and copies everything she does, and I'm pretty sure he thinks the whole world revolves around her. Elise is a great big sister to him. When we drop her off at Kindergarten in the morning Elise holds his hand on the playground and takes him with her to do whatever she is doing. When she was playing with a couple of friends one day at our house I heard them tell Steven he couldn't play, and she was quick to tell them that he could too play, and if they didn't let him then she wasn't going to play either.

She can be a little dramatic, but she always makes us laugh. Just today after school she said to me, "Oh good, I feel like I'm having a good birthday now. Earlier I wasn't feeling like I was having a good birthday." When I asked her why she wasn't having a good birthday she told me it was because somebody cut in front of her in line at school so she was crying. I, of course, trying not to encourage so much of the drama, told her that we don't cry at school unless we are hurt. I told her that someone cutting in line was a silly reason to cry, and she should just let things go sometimes. She looked at me very seriously and said, "But Mom, I was hurt! I was hurt in the feelings!" She is a laugh a minute and always good entertainment to have around.

She is a little overly sensitive and her feelings are sometimes too easily hurt, but she is also a very empathetic person and always wants to make sure everyone else is feeling okay. She gets very upset at school if kids call someone by a nickname they don't like or leave someone out.

It amazes me how fast she is growing up and what a big girl she is becoming. We love you Elise!

Reason to Celebrate!

If your thinking my reason to celebrate is that it is my first born's birthday today, you would be wrong. Obviously we will be celebrating her birthday, but the real reason for me to celebrate today is that these two champs both slept clear through the night last night!

One was up at 5:00am and the other was up at 5:30 am this morning, but if they'll sleep through the whole night, I'll take it. It was Cameron's first time ever - way to go Cameron! And as for Mr. Steven, well it was probably only his 15th or 20th time ever. For being almost three that is not very many times, but I'm thankful he chose to do it on a night that coordinated with his little brother so his mom could get some real sleep! Maybe they're turning over a new leaf!

First Day of Kindergarten

Elise started Kindergarten this week. She was so excited and wondered why all the parents were hanging around and why her mom wasn't leaving yet. I, on the other hand, was surprised that I was actually fighting back tears. Now that she has been going a few days I am fine, but there is a big difference between 9 hours a week of preschool and 30 hours a week of Kindergarten. Steven and I both miss her while she is gone. I was a little nervous about her making friends since I didn't think she would know anyone in her class. However it turned out that a little boy from her preschool class was also in her Kindergarten class. When she was playing in the yard before school started the first day, she and another little girl noticed that they were twins and were so excited that they were immediately friends. Granted, they wear uniforms so being twins was not that unlikely, but they thought it was very cool none the less. So far she has really enjoyed the whole Kindergarten experience. And one fun thing is that her school is literally a 3 minute walk from our front door so we get to walk to and from school each day. And I have to admit, I may have gone out of my way to drive by the school two or ten times on the first day just to see if I could get a glimpse of her on the playground, but I never managed to catch her.

Elise in front of Mrs. Platt's room before school on the first day. This is where they hang their backpacks each day.Inside the classroom on the mat next to her "twin." They both had pigtails and everything.

In front of our house with her brothers before school:Sporting her new Kindergarten backpack and lunchbox:

Not without an owner!

We went to Redding to visit my parents this last week and had a great time. While we were there Chris and I took a day and a half long excursion over to the Redwoods on the coast and my parents watched the kiddos. We had a great time and I'm pretty sure Elise and Steven had a good time being spoiled by Nana and Papa also. My mom said that she was putting Elise and Steven to bed that night and she remembered something she needed to tell my dad. He was out in the front room with Cameron so she got up and started walking out there. Elise asked her where she was going and she told her she was going to talk to Papa. I guess Elise said to her with hands on hips, "Now wait just a minute Nana, we do NOT go to sleep without an owner laying next to us." My mom said she was trying really hard not to laugh and asked her, "What do you mean, "an owner." Elise said, "You know, like a big person!" Sometimes this kid just cracks me up!

I Spy...

Have you ever seen those I Spy books where you have to find something hidden in the picture? Well, I've got one of those for you. Can you find what is hiding in the tree in our front yard?

In what would normally be a very quiet Sunday afternoon on our street, there were police out and about with guns drawn, cars full of lookie loos driving up and down the street, and the neighbors were all gathered outside. The cause of it all was this cute little baby bear who climbed up the tree in front like you or I would walk up and down the street. It seriously scaled it in no time flat:

It also dumped over the trash cans on our back porch. This happens to be where I first spotted the bear. I was in the kitchen getting Steven a snack when I heard a bit of noise out back. I walked to the back door and looked out the window to see a bear not 5 feet away from where I stood.

It hauled trash bags all over the yard:

And then it climbed the tree in front, which is where animal control found it. They were shooting bean bags at it to scare it away, but the police were right behind them with rifles drawn and ready to go. Scary! It scampered up the street and animal control and the police left. Not twenty minutes later we saw it again in our neighbors tree, and soon after that the Mama bear came walking up the sidewalk. My kids thought it was great fun, but I don't think I will be letting them out in the yard to play by themselves for some time.

How do you know when you've had a bad night?

You know you've had a bad night when you wake up in the morning (at 5am, by the way) to see this in your bed:...and these on the floor right next to your bed:

... and you have a very vague recollection of actually saying the words "shut up" to your newborn at some point during the night. It was more under my breath out of frustration than actually directed at him, but still. Good thing he doesn't know yet that those are not nice words. I also sort of recall telling Steven, "Go away, Steven." Oh well, I'm sure it was deserved, and he woke up on my floor this morning so I guess it didn't affect him too much. Yep, fun times at the Miller household last night and one very grouchy mom this morning.

New posts coming soon.... I hope!

We have had a very busy and very fun summer. With a new baby, I just have not had much time to post anything on the blog. I just noticed it has been over a month since my last post! I guess I have some catching up to do. The biggest change that has happened is this little guy:He's not little anymore! He is growing so fast I can't believe it. He has become a little fatty, and is starting to smile a lot. He is wearing size 2 diapers and is about to burst out of his size 0-3 month clothing. He weighs about 13 lbs., although I will have more official stats after I take him to the doctor next week. Elise and Steven are loving him more and more all the time. He is still such a cutie, but he doesn't even look like the same baby I gave birth to! It is so fun to see him grow and all of the changes he is going through, but at the same time I feel a little sad that he is not the same sweet little 6 lb newborn.

It's Rough Being the 3rd Child

I just realized today that I hadn't taken a picture of Cameron in close to two weeks except for one quick picture with his siblings a week ago before Elise's preschool graduation. When you are just 2 1/2 weeks old, that is the better part of your life that has gone unpictured. The really sad thing is that I am pretty sure by the time Elise was 2 1/2 weeks old we had taken enough pictures of her to fill an entire album and then some. I guess that is the difference between being the first child and the third. Anyway, I felt a little bit guilty about it so I got my camera out today and started clicking away. Nevermind the fact that these pictures were taken about 3:00 in the afternoon and he was still wearing his jammies from last night.... I guess that is another difference between the first and the third child. Elise had on the most fashionable girly outfit everyday of her life until she was well beyond a year old. This time around I'm just happy he made it through the night without peeing on himself, and if he has accomplished that why mess with changing his clothes. Don't worry, he eventually got a bath and a new set of pajamas on just in time to go to bed tonight in a nice clean set of clothing. Sometimes I wish I could wear my pajamas all day long, so I'm actually going to consider that a bonus of being the third child... less uncomfortable clothing and more comfy pajamas. Anyway, here are a few of the pictures I took today. I think he is definitely chunking up a little bit and looks a little different from the last pictures I posted.

Being a Mom of Three is Hard Work....

Warning: This post may be a little on the lengthy side. If you don't have some time on your hands, do not feel obligated to read on.

I have decided that being a mom to 3 kids is hard. We decided to take our first outing on Friday. Okay, maybe we didn't decide to go on an outing as much as I decided I didn't want to deal with potty training Steven this week due to him being completely out of diapers. But, whatever the reason, I left the house by myself with three kids in tow. I had been promising Elise she could get a library card so that she could do the summer reading program which started this week as well, so we decided to stop by the library and then head to Target for diapers. I first fed Cameron and got him to sleep in his carseat so we could leave him covered up and I hoped he would sleep the whole time. However, by the time I got him to sleep in the carseat and got all of our stuff plus the two other kiddos ready to leave, it had been an hour and a half since I'd fed him already so we were on a little bit of a time crunch.

We left about 11:00 and headed to the library first. I unloaded Cameron in his carseat as well as Elise and Steven from the car, we walked up to the door and found it was locked. What? I looked at the sign on the door, and of course it stated that the library opens at 10:00 am every weekday except Friday when it doesn't open until noon. Perfect. We walked back to the car, loaded everyone back up and headed to Target. We went in, got diapers, picked up a few other things on our list and got in line to pay. I got to the front of the line and Cameron started crying. It was about time for him to eat again. Oh well, at least I was at the front of the line. But then another employee came up to our cashier and proceeded to have a 5 minute conversation with her about who knows what. People in the lines all around us were flying through the checkout, and I was stuck there with a hungry crying baby that I didn't want to have to take out of his seat in a dirty store and a toddler who kept trying to pull everything off the shelves at the checkout. Lovely. Finally we got through the checkout and headed to the car. I put the kids in the back and told them they could play for a few minutes while I fed Cameron. I got Cameron out of his seat and started feeding him when I heard from the back seat, "Mom, I really have to go potty, right now!" Perfect. I was not about to go back into Target so I told Elise that she would have to hold it. She assured me that would not be possible. I thought for a minute and decided the best option was to put one of Steven's diapers on her in case she had an accident because there was no way I was unloading two kids and one hungry baby again. Now I had a crying four year old as well because she was asolutely certain she was too old to pee in a diaper, and of course she was right about that but sometimes you've just gotta do what you've gotta do, and this was definitely one of those times. I finished feeding Cameron, took off Elise's wet diaper (yep, she really couldn't hold it,) and headed back to the library. Of course the librarian wanted to see my driver's license to give Elise a library card. Oops. I recently lost my license and haven't had a chance to replace it just yet. I did have my passport for ID, but I was going to also need something with my address on it since my passport didn't list that. Hmmmm.... I looked through my purse and of course had nothing that could verify my address. As we were about to leave with two crying kids because they couldn't check out books, the librarian suggested that maybe I had a car registration in my car with an address listed and that would work to verify my address. Great, of course I did. We walked back to the car again, got my registration and went back to the desk to get a library card. I let each of the kids pick three books to check out, and of course Steven found himself in the Christmas section with all Christmas books. Oh well, I was too tired at this point to care, so Christmas books in June it would be! Finally we made it home, just in time for Cameron to eat again. I'm pretty sure I won't be going anywhere with all three kids again, maybe ever. Okay, I'm sure I'll have to attempt it again at some point, but I am at least going to need a couple more weeks.

Slipping Slide Time

We had a few very hot days here, and so Elise and Steven got to enjoy their "slipping slide" as Elise calls it. Cameron and I enjoyed watching from the porch. They had great fun jumping, rolling, sliding, and being pushed down the slip n' slide by Dad.

Our Sweet Little Boy

So far Cameron is a very sweet little baby. He rarely cries, and has been getting up just twice a night since he came home from the hospital The last two nights he has gotten up only once between 9:00pm and 5:00am. Yes, that's right, he is not quite two weeks old and already sleeping better than Mr. Steven! I'm hoping this is a good omen.

Preschool Happenings

This is Elise's last week of preschool. She is very excited for Kindergarten, but sad to be leaving her preschool, her friends, and her teachers.

Yesterday was the last official day of school. She helped me decoupage some paint buckets with Dick and Jane fabric for her teachers, and we filled them with cookies and various goodies. It was cute, she was so proud that she helped to make the buckets and was really excited to give them to her teachers.

Today was her preschool graduation. Her graduation was nice, but simple. She got to walk across the stage and get a "diploma," and sing a song with her class. Most importantly it was short, which is important when you are trying to keep a newborn and a two year old happy. Good thing Grandma and Grandpa came along and helped entertain Steven. After graduation I told her she could pick a treat to celebrate with, and she was quick to decide that she wanted a chocolate donut with sprinkles and chocolate milk. Yes, I have a little chocoholic on my hands here. We stopped at the donut store on the way home and got the very last chocolate donut with sprinkles in stock. It was definitely her lucky day!

This afternoon we are going to walk over to her elementary school and finish registering her for school next year. Can you say "last minute?" School is out Friday, and I'm not sure when the office closes, but we sure are cutting it close. I can't believe I will have a kid in elementary school next year!

Elise on her last day of school, ready to give her teachers their gifts:The buckets we made to put her teachers' gifts in:Hanging out with her brothers before graduation:Getting her "diploma":Celebrating with a chocolate donut with sprinkles. Things just don't get any better than this!:

So Sleepy

So far, Cameron is a good little baby. He sleeps A LOT, and is happy most of the time he is awake. He is happy just to sit in his swing or his bouncy chair most of the time. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this sweet little baby stays this way!

It's a Boy!

Cameron Rex Miller

6lbs. 9 oz., 18 inches

Born 6/3/2010 at 6:35 pm