Patty Cake and Biter Biscuits

Steven has become such a good and fun baby lately. Many of you probably know that it was touch and go with him for about the first 6 or 7 months of his life. The boy screamed nonstop, refused to eat, and was generally a difficult baby all the way around. The last month he has decided he likes to eat, especially if he can do it himself with puffs or a biter biscuit. He has found ways to entertain himself, like trying to crawl, doing patty cake and popcorn fingers, and making happy sounds which is way better than the screaming he used to do. We have decided to keep him after all. Here are a couple of pictures of him eating in his high chair and doing patty cake.

Slip N' Slide

Since Elise seems to have hit her terrible two's in its full force the last couple of weeks, I have been looking for anything to keep her busy and prevent whining, crying and tantruming. I have also been looking for anything to tire her out so that she will take a nap and go to bed early. It is the only way I can keep my sanity. The Dora slip n' slide seems to be a winner on both counts. It was one of my better purchases. Elise loves it and will play on it for hours. It has been a lot of fun. Here are a few pictures.




She turns three in about a month so I'm hoping the terrible two's will be short lived and she will magically outgrow them as soon as she turns three. You can all keep your fingers crossed for me on that one.

Utah Pit Stop

We flew in and out of Salt Lake and rented a car to drive to my family reunion in Island Park, so it made for a fun little pit stop. I graduated from BYU, and haven't been back to visit in about 4 years, so it was nice to visit. On the way there I had lunch with my old roommates, Lindsay and Elizabeth, and their darling children at one of my old favorite restaurants, Cafe Rio. It was just as delicious as I remembered. Here are some photos from lunch:

Then I visited with my brother and sister and law who moved to Springville about two years ago. It was fun to see them, and Elise loved seeing her cousins. Steven really loved his eleven year old cousin Megan. She would make a great babysitter. Too bad we couldn't bring her home with us. We also made a stop over to see my old roommate Carolyn and her very cute newborn baby boy, Finn. It was great to see old friends and family.

On the way back home we stopped off at Temple Square in Salt Lake. Here are a few photos of my kids from temple grounds:

Yellowstone Vacation

Last week we went to Island Park, Idaho near West Yellowstone for a family reunion. Family reunions every two years there have been a tradition for my dad's family for a long time, and it always makes a fun vacation. I was able to see a lot of cousins and family that I hadn't seen in four years because we didn't make it to the last reunion. We also did some of our favorite activities, and spent time with my parents, siblings, nieces and nephew. Here are some pictures of the fun times we had.

Steven riding a buffalo: (What? You think this picture is staged? Of course it is. I'm not quite crazy enough to let my 8 month old on a real buffalo!)

Elise, riding a moose:

Okay, this one is for real. Look at the huge rack of antlers on this elk that we saw in Yellowstone.

Chris and Elise walking on top of Sawtelle Mountain. This is one of my favorite places to visit in Island Park, because you get a spectacular view 360 degrees around, and you can drive clear to the top so there is absolutely no hiking involved! Unfortunately, smoke had carried over from the California fires and so the view was not quite as clear as usual, but it was still pretty.

Elise confronting a bear. Okay, actually this was at Bear World in West Yellowstone and the bears were enclosed. This is as close as we actually got to a bear this time around.

Our family in front of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which has an awesome view.

Here is the view of the Yellowstone Grand Canyon, as they call it.

Elise looking at the fish at Big Springs. Usually under the bridge is just covered solid in trout that are about 2 feet long, and it is a lot of fun for the kids to go feed them. We only saw 2 or 3 this time, but we saw a lot of pigeons. Maybe they chased the fish away.

Elise hanging out with her favorite aunt, "Aunt Kratin" (Kathryn). If any of her other aunts are reading this, she loves you too, but Kathryn was her babysitter everyday for a year and she has a baby cat, so that is hard to compete with. Kathryn is expecting her own little baby in February, so I guess Elise was giving her some parenting practice.
Steven catching up with his Uncle Eric. They seemed to get along pretty well. Eric and Lindsey are also expecting their first baby in February, so once again my children are providing some parenting practice. My kids are very excited for TWO new cousins a few months down the road.

Whoa! That was a close one!

Elise's new favorite thing to say is, "Whoa! That was a close one!" The first time I heard her use it was earlier this week at the arboretum. We were walking down a street and a service truck came driving very slowly behind us. Elise was running in the street ahead of me, so I yelled to her to get out of the way and onto the grass. I caught up to her and the truck passed, still going very slowly. As soon as it passed, she looked up at me and said, "Whoa mom, that was a close one! Thanks for telling me to get out of the way." I thought it was so funny, so I snapped this picture above of her running after the truck after it passed. I came home and was relaying the story to Chris, and he told me a similar experience he had swimming with her this week. Apparently she lost her footing in the pool and fell, and went under the water. Chris quickly snatched her out, and she looked up at him and said, "Whoa Dad, that was a close one! Thanks for saving me!" I am not really sure where she picked this saying up from, but I have heard her use the saying several more times this week since, and always in the correct context. She cracks me up. The way she talks, sometimes I have to remind myself that she is only 2 years old.

Below are a few more cute pics I snapped of my kids at the arboretum:

Wild Woman!

Elise is such a talker, sometimes it drives me a little bit crazy. However, sometimes she says the funniest things, and I have decided I need to start writing them down so that I can remember them someday. Yesterday she was playing with her Grandma Miller, and climbing and jumping on a piece of exercise equipment that she has. She looked at her grandma and said, "Grandma, I am a wild woman!" She cracks me up. I have no idea where she heard that.

A Little More My Speed, Dad!

Since swimming with her dad in the "big" pool on the 4th, and having him try to coax her to go down the "big" slide, Elise has talked about nothing all week but wanting to swim in her "little" elephant pool and go down her "little" slide. So today she finally convinced her mother to blow up her little elephant pool, and believe me, it took some convincing as we do not have an automatic pump to blow it up. We'll just say that there was a fair amount of huffing and puffing involved to get the pool set up. She was so excited to play in the pool, and to go down the little slide with absolutely no coaxing involved. I think perhaps this little pool and slide are a bit more her speed. She even tried to talk her dad into jumping on into her little elephant pool with her, and going down the slide after her, but he respectfully declined. Perhaps the big pool and the big slide are a little more his speed.

Elise going down her little slide:

Mover and Shaker

While Elise swam to her hearts content in her little elephant pool, Steven was contented to lay 0n a blanket on the grass and practice his crawling. It actually would be incorrect to call what he does crawling. He gets up on his hands and knees, but then he just sort of lunges forward with both legs and ends up back on his belly again. There is no real coordination between his hands and legs yet, but he'll get there. It's just going to take a little more practice. I'm sure that before we know it he'll be moving all over the place and getting into everything! That should make for great fun for his mom and dad.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone had a good Independence Day. We had a great day. We spent most of the day swimming with our kids, had a barbeque with some friends, and watched the fireworks. It was a very full day! The kids were fun to swim with. Elise spent most of the time at the top of the slide throwing balls down into the pool, while Chris kept trying to convince her she wanted to go down the slide herself. She eventually accidentally fell down the slide while trying to throw a ball, but it was a little scary because Chris and I were both at the other end of the pool and she didn't have her life jacket on. Her dad moved pretty quick though and pulled her out of the water. When we asked her if going down the slide was fun, she said "Yes!" Then we asked her if she wanted to go down the slide again, to which she said "NO!!!!" And Steven even warmed up to the idea of being in the pool eventually, so it was a fun day for all.

A Day At the Beach

Today Elise, Steven, and I went to the beach with some of my aunts and cousins. It is fun because several of my cousins have kids close in age to Elise and Steven, so they like to play together. We lasted two hours at the beach before I decided it was time to go home, which was actually longer than I would have predicted. The last time we went to the beach Elise was afraid of the sand and the water. So, when I asked her what she wanted to do at the beach today before we left, she said, "I want to take my shovel and my bucket and build a sandcastle, but I don't want to touch the sand or the water. They are yucky!" She couldn't explain how she planned on making a sandcastle without touching the sand, but when we got to the beach she demonstrated. She left her shoes on, and only touched the sand with her shovel and bucket. Whenever a speck of sand got on her, she had a meltdown, which I am sure you can imagine made for great fun for her mom. Steven was not a fan of the wind, and kept scowling at me every time I looked at him, as if to say, "Why would you bring me to such a dirty, windy place, mom?" However, everyone survived, and Elise even complained some when I said it was time to go, so she must have had at least a little bit of fun.

Elise building her sandcastle with cousins:

Steven saying he has had enough and is ready to go home:

Steven trying to get a little snack :-):

Elise doing her best to avoid any contact with sand or water:

Family Pictures

We just had some family pictures taken at the beach by our good friends the Weldons, who are photographers. You can view them by clicking on the following link, and then entering my email and the password listed below: http://www.weldonsphotography.com/gallery.php?skookslocation=Millers&SkooksKartUserSession=609f4c09e1e1d713bbe84476b1aa1e64

You then have to enter my email address (millkara@gmail.com), and the password which is millers2008. There are a ton of pictures, but if you click on the icon that says favorites at the top of the page, it will show you just our favorites.

Thunder Thighs!

Today Steven has been wearing just a onesie most of the day, and I noticed that he is getting a little chunky. He's even got rolls on his legs. I was so excited, I had to get the camera out and take some pictures. For those of you who haven't been around Steven much, for many months he has basically refused to eat. He just seals his lips and cries when I try to feed him, which is quite frustrating. He has, however, gotten a lot better with taking his bottle over the last month. He's still not great, but he's better. And he is starting to enjoy solid foods which probably helps, but I've decided what has really made him chunky is the paper that he seems to have in his mouth every time I turn around. For some reason he's got a thing for paper. Does anyone know what the calorie content of paper is? Maybe I should just let him have at it, because something is working!.

Check out those rolls: