Saturday, December 31, 2005

baby it's cold outside!





But not in these photos.. since I am trying to give a quick recap of the year, here is just a glimpse into what we did this summer. We were at the pool almost every day! Brigham loved it! We even went to the water park, where, mom enjoyed the big slide..even though the average age was 11!
So Bigs loves his innertube and the pool at Grandma's. Is he not the most hansome dude in his trunks!! They were always falling off, cuz he has no butt!.He also like to help me in the garden.. by taking all the mulch out of the flower beds.. eventually, he would put it back in!!
SO fun to see the innoncence of a child and the expressions on his little face as he experiences God's handy work!

Life moves at you pretty fast..

and so will this post.!! We spent Thanksgiving down on the farm with my Dad and the Lafuse family. Here is Brigham contemplating which food to dig into! Check out the high chair.. that was used by me, my dad, and my grandpa! Grandma had a hard time cleaning the four generations of grime!

we enjoyed a relaxing time of hanging out, watching football and stuffing ourselves with down home cookin!

The day after Thanksgiving, Brigham and I got up very early to fly out to see the Huff side of the family in Georgia. Andrew stayed home as he was offered unlimited overtime . He did enjoy living the bachelor life for a few days.. complete with a poker game...( and the house was clean and he even suprised me by having a Christmas tree up!)

We enjoyed time with aunts and uncles and GIGI and GGpa, and cousins we had not see in like 10 years!! Of course, Brigham was the life of the party and made us ache with laughter as he showed us his"mad face". It was very peaceful being at the Lake and having no schedules at all!!

OCTOBER was packed with all sorts of fall festivities. We had a fall party at our house with about 8 families . Our house was a mad house with kids from 2months -9 years old running around!. We then headed to a pumpkin patch and tried for some photo ops.. can you tell how excited Brigham was!! We got to go on a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick our own pumpkins! This was so much fun, but it got a little cold for the kiddos, and they all ended up with red cheeks and runny noses!. We had a great time as we met two other families for dinner and then went trick-or-treating downtown. Many of the stores stayed open later and handed out candy. The kids were so pumped! Things started out pretty slow, as you had to wait in line for what seemed like an hour before you could go in to a store. I think a couple of the parents were more disapointed(then the kids) in the amount of "loot" that was gotten! In the end we all had fun and ended up with about (10 pieces of candy!).. and besides this was a warm up for the real Halloween night.Here's a pict of (L-R) back row: Josh the pirate, Abby the Purdue Cheerleader, Emma as Snow White, Sophie as the princess, and Kiersten as a purdue cheerleader. front row: our little Brigham as the bumblebee , and Micha as a yellow jacket too! The high light of the night was the last booth we hit, which was the tatoo parler, handing out press on tattoos!! the kids loved it, and the adults were a little aprehensive of the dark creatures applying them to our kids!! Oh and Brigham had his first kiss from Sophie Kirk!! and then his second from Kiersten Wood!! We better watch out, he goes for older women!!

{the pictures are out of order...can't figure out how to switch them!!}
And here is a picture from our Harvest party we had on Halloween night. It was supposed to be a small gathering at our friends' house, but people kept inviting people, so in the end there were so many ghosts and gobblins, that we had to move the party to the church! It was raining, so we set up a grill outside and cooked hot dogs, and then roasted s'mores on the big church kitchen broiler!! Look at all these kids..
since the weather was not good, Andrew wanted to make sure the kids(and he) got some candy, so he went to the store and stocked up and then played a little game with the kids- pass the hot pumpkin! everyone had so much fun, and we all came together in a pinch to throw a fantastic fly by the seat of our pants mock cookout!!

Thursday, December 29, 2005

That's a Wrap...



Since I am new to this whole blog world, I have to move fast..! I decided to share a bit of the past few holidays. Since it will be a brand new year in just a few short days, I will move fast through Summer, Brig's 1st Bday, 4th Of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. To keep me in check, I'll start with most recent and work backwards.. stay with me.. you don't wanna miss some of the picts. Not that are lives are that exciting, but life with a one year old, has sure kept us on our toes!!

CHRISTMAS @ our house..
Tradition with Grandpa continues, though with one glitch---- The chinese restaurant was closed!!
(this had been a tradition started five years ago, as we would try and find a place to eat after Christmas Eve Service, and Szechuan Gardens was the only one serving past 8pm) FA RA RA RA RA/, RA,RA,RA, RA!!
So we kicked it up a notch.. and made reservations at Cajun Connection. BAM!!( in honor of our son's initials!) This is one of our faves, and apparently not that of many others.. there were only two other tables in the whole place.
So we ate a fabulous meal and headed back to our house for the gift giving.
Oh, I guess I need to say that we all went to Christmas Eve Service together, and Andrew had invited a coworker of his to join us. What a special time. We went to the early service.. KIDFRIENDLY< What a joy to see all the kiddo's performing off tune to Silent Night!. Even our little Brigham chimed in, as if he knew what he was doing!
However, when our little singer wanted to continue through the prayer, I had to take him out, and enjoy the rest of the service from the hallway! It was such a meaningful time to spend together and be able to share Jesus' birth with with friends.
Christmas Morning, was slow in starting.. as our little one would not awake!! My mom joined us for Christmas breakfast. Andrew left to volunteer at a local shelter serving a Christmas meal. He was very humbled and glad to be able to serve. Meanwhile, mom and I began the cooking..
We received a very special Unexpected gift from Brigham...(several lumps of coal, which fell out of his diaper, down to the foot of his jammies!) We had to fumagate his room, wash out his clothes, and unclog the toilet! How's that for a Merry Christmas!!
The show must go on... after some delay, we got back to cooking. Andrew returned, and we had quite a spread of appetizers, etc to munch on. And it is a good thing, because we did not end up eating Christmas dinner til 8pm!
We opened gifts in shifts, as Brigham was not cooperating, and the food needed preperation.
It is a good thing Chritmas came to town, because, all Brigham wanted to do was play with the paper.. He got SO excited when he could rip off a piece. He could care less about what was inside.
He did take a few breaks from unwrapping to go play with his "old" toys. Short attention span for sure!!
So that pretty much was our holiday .. fairly low key, kinda eventful, special time with family,stuffed to the gut with food( even though we had a small group, I had to try several new recipes..I should have been cooking for 24 ppl!!), and so fun to start new traditions with our own family.
*the teddy bear tea party under the tree is a tradition from my childhood

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Bundle up.. Chill out..

Okay, so I found this quote in one of my favorite magazines.. Creating Keepsakes. I have had a subscription (though it may as well be a prescription) for the last 3 years. I get so excited whenever a new issue arrives in my mailbox. I almost immediately have to sit down and dive in!.. It soon becomes overwhelming, and I have to set it down. Whew.! There is a whole lot of talent busting out in this thing.... My husband always listens to me whine about how awesome Ali or Becky is. ( and I always have to point out that Ali is/was a pea.. And look where she is now!).
So for you unsavvy scrapbookers, I need to explain that this magazine is only the coolest how to of the scrapbooking world. It could only be a dream to have one of my layouts published!!
I flip through the pages of the yummy paper and embellishments that are available. I take in the fabulous ideas that the designers have created. I am humbled to see names besides the layouts of many of the peas from the Bucket! I get so DEPRESSED!!
I can say that I do have all my issues nicely organized by month and year..(with some SS and other references) mixed in. So with all this advice, one would think that my scrapbooking repetoire would be overflowing! Not so!! I spend so much time looking, and looking, and shopping( the art of scrapping, truly is buying!) and then hardly ever scrapping..
This my friends.... is about to change. MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTION: scrap 2-3 pages a week!
Now that I have a office/craft/scrap room. I should have no excuse! I just have to put the finishing touches of organization in place, and then my creative juices shall begin to flow....
So back to the title.. I am going to bundle up.. in comfy clothes... try and stay up late(or get up early) and scrap away!
Brigham is 17 months old and I don't even have his first year done!( let alone my wedding album..maybe when he graduates high school!)
Seriously, I have set a goal, and I will accomplish it. I have photos by the bejillion, at least they are organized.. and I want to complete a Brigham album, my wedding album, and an All about Me album.. *this year*
AM I INSANE....? no, just crafty!

Wouldn't you like to be a blogger too?

He's a blogger, she's a blogger, wouldn't ya like to be blogger too?
Well, actually I don't know many personal friends who have their own blogs, but I have encountered this new found expression of..."whatever and everything" as a result of being a PEA on the everso famed TWOPEASINABUCKET website for scrapbooking, etc. I will go into more detail about the website at a later date- , what it is, how it helps my sanity, and how it is a amazing source of ideas for my growing passion of scrapbooking and photography.

I decided that creating a blog would be a fabulous way for me to keep up with those friends and family with whom I am sooo bad at keeping in touch. I am so sorry, it seems as though day to day life keeps us so busy.. and then not so busy(where I just lay around.. yep it is 3:45pm and I am still in my jams!). I am either on the go all the time, or just want the occasional spare time to just do NOTHING!. I know if my husband heard this he would not be amused!! .
But I have to say, even though I have not taken a shower today... I have dusted/vaccumed/cleaned up the toys/fed baby/ cleaned up dishes/ gave baby a bath/ did three loads of laundry/ changed the sheets on the bed/ wroted thankyou notes from Christmas/ fed the dog and cat/cleaned the bathroom/ and watched As the World Turns...(while organizing books)/okay and now I am creating my first entry while the baby takes his nap!
So, I think I got off track, but basically to say, that hopefully this blog will help keep everyone up with what is going on in the Miller household. I think it will also serve as an outlet for me to share thoughts and ideas on various subjects.. (sometimes talking to a 17 month old is not always reassuring). I hope that I will be discovering more about my self as I send out these messages. I can't gaurentee that each post will be completely fascinating, but I will try not to bore you. I welcome any questions and thoughts as you may or may not have feedback!
Sit back and enjoy the ride!

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