Amanda and Tim's Happenings

Where has Jan gone?

2012-01-27T11:30:00.005-07:00

Merry Christmas!!! This is us waiting for Adam to decide to wake up so we could start our Christmas morning!!

Well you would think that with Tim home my life wouldn't be nearly as crazy, but it is!! We have been busy enjoying time together when we can after work with Tim and trying to stay sane during the day with these winter months. This week the kids had a blast at the rec center gymnastics area where they had an open gym. It was a great deal, $2/ hour and they ran around and had so much fun!!! I think I will have to take them more often, and it was a nice change for the kids too!

They loved the running trampoline they have!

He finally got the hang of running down then walking back! We all took a good nap after this!

Shyler tried out the balance beam, and the uneven the bars and rings too!

Tim survived his trip home with minimal weather which was perfect for us waiting for him on the other end. He enjoyed a stop in Omaha and a nice dinner out with his Aunt and Uncle as well. He really enjoyed his project he worked on and the people he met in Ohio, but luckily we won out and he knew it was time to come home... if we would have been out there with him I'm pretty sure it would have gone from a 6 month project to an 18 month one! He received many thank you's and made some good friends while gaining some invaluable experience so we are happy to have supported him in this. Now we are just so happy to have him home again!!!

We had a wonderful Christmas with the family and enjoyed the craziness at the Miller's with 6 grandkids aged 4 and under! It was fun having Christmas on a Sunday. Our family woke up, well i was up first followed by Tim and Shyler then we sat next to Adam until he finally woke up to us staring at him, then we opened our stockings. We had some yummy Costco muffins and enjoyed a great time at church. We came home and opened our presents then we went to spend the rest of the day with the rest of Tim's family. It was nice to have my mom with us and it was a fun time had by all!

Now we are getting ready to celebrate! Poor Tim was in Ohio for his birthday, but we celebrated when he got home. Next week is Adam's and my birthday! I can't believe is his 2 already!!!! Fun Fun Fun and a lot of craziness around here!

Surprise!!!!

2011-12-15T14:23:00.006-07:00

We were so surprised!!!! Last weekend Tim got on a plane and came home for the weekend!!! It was a surprise for sure and such a great treat! He got to join in with his Mom's side of the family for our annual Christmas gathering and also our ward Christmas party at church and we decorated our gingerbread house! It was a great weekend together that we didn't think we were going to get. The kids also LOVED it of course. They got a fort built again, play time, and more exciting, they got their new beds set up!!!!! We love daddy!!!!

Shyler already has been in a big bed for like 2 years, but we got her off the floor finally! These beds are going to be nice when we need to save some space because they will convert to a bunk bed!!!

Adam loves his new bed and was a little sneaky the first few nights, but has been great otherwise!!! I also love that I don't have to get him out of his crib in the mornings anymore, they are sleeping all night in their own beds and then come in and join me about 7/7:30ish where I drag out waking up as long as possible! It's been nice!

Shyler was telling Santa what she wants for Christmas at our ward party. She knew she would see Santa twice so she decided that she needed to tell him something different each time, the same two things she's been telling us though. She wants a Princess Rapunzel doll and princess cowgirl boots! She is getting the doll from her nana, but she has too many pairs of shoes right now, we are hoping she will be content with the other present Santa is planning on bringing. Also we are trying to downplay Santa a little I think and appreciate the people she has around her. We have also been telling the real Christmas story a lot and watching the new videos the church put out that are AMAZING, watch them here!!! I feel they are very accurate to the New Testament scriptures which tell about the angel appearing to Mary, His birth and everything in between.

This year I thought I would be super crafty and make my own gingerbread house. I had all of the ingredients and the store bought ones smell bad to me so we tried it.... Next year I need to be patient, wait to find a template, build it ahead of time then decorate with the kids. So many lessons to be learned each year!

Tim was great at the construction process, although we waited to put the roof on to ensure structural stability.

The kids were content to decorate their people, Adam especially enjoyed the eating part!

The previous weekend Shyler got a special treat. My sister took her to see the Nutcracker! Shyler loved it! She loved getting all dressed up, going with just her aunt, and watching the ballet. She loved the sugar plum fairies the most! Then they got me a nutcracker ornament to match the Clara I got from my first visit to The Nutcracker. Such a special treat for Shyler! Thank you Aunt Kelli!

The night before that we crashed the Christmas party with Tim's parents ward. Since Karen and Jeannette's in-laws are in that ward they went too. The four cousins that were there had a good time together and waited patiently for Santa. Of course you never get 4 little ones all looking and smiling at the same time...

It took Shyler about 2 seconds after Santa walked in to point out that it was Walter! Oops, coincidentally Santa has a helper that looks a lot like Walter. Even with the close resemblance Shyler has opted for standing next to Santa this year... note the above picture... which is getting better every year. Adam would not go anywhere near the guy.

With only 10 days left I am proud to say I am done shopping, almost done wrapping, and ready to celebrate Christmas with Tim!!! All we have left is our annual baking day which is scheduled for Sat. We hope all is well and you are enjoying this wonderful time of year as we celebrate Christ, His birth and the glorious gift our Father in Heaven gave to us! Merry Christmas!!!!

2 posts to read ;-)

2011-12-02T00:03:00.001-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-12-01T23:29:00.004-07:00

We had such a great time together as a family for the whole week of Thanksgiving! We stayed together and did lots of fun stuff! We took the kids to Monkey Business to play and paint, we went to the park and ran, we shopped for our trashcan turkey and went to dinner with our friends the Haynie's. Then it was Turkey day!!!!

Tim was so excited to try out cooking a turkey in a trashcan! I left him in charge of getting to his parents with the kids and starting the turkey while I went to see Breaking Dawn with my mom and his mom. It was great but I can't wait for the next one! First he got the coals cooking then loaded the turkey and set up the "dutch oven" style trashcan. When it came out 2 hours later it was ready! Well, mostly ready, maybe it could have used another 15 minutes for the deeper stuff, but the breast meat was so unbelievably moist and delicious! He had also left the turkey in a brine overnight. After we got the good stuff we just put the rest into the oven.

We are so grateful to have been able to spend the with holiday with as many family members as we did, including my mom, Tim's parents and Uncle's and Aunt, and 2 of his sisters and their families. We are so lucky to have everyone so close by and to be so close to each other. We truly are blessed not only with our family, but with our health, job, safety, a roof over our head, and the Gospel in our lives. We couldn't have asked for a better life! And we are also so thankful for friends and people in our life that have been such wonderful influences to us, and to the people that have been there to help us, especially these past few months!

After a great dinner we started our annual craziness of plotting out black friday! We were so torn this year. Why did stores have to open on Thanksgiving??? They are ruining the spirit of Thanksgiving. Instead, they have people leaving their families to go shopping! I really tried to oppose going out when they opened at 9 and 10 but I caved... :-( we had a good time getting the stuff we wanted, but we were not a fan of the long lines to get into the stores and the different group of people out shopping to get a good deal. I prefer the people who are also crazy enough to wake up at 4 and shop. We also missed our usual post shopping meal, it is another highlight, but when you finish shopping at 2am there isn't much open nor are you in the mood to hang out when you are so tired. Next year I think we will try harder to stick with our normal early morning shopping and still get the deals.

After sleeping in a little, Christmas swept through our house! We got out all of our decorations and even put up our new LED lights on the house and ornaments on our new tree! Tim went out at 5 to get some door busters at Home Depot! Then the night was competed with watching Elf!

Our last day together was Sat. We went to the Temple with family and enjoyed some time together. One the way home we went looking for a new entertainment center for when Tim gets home. We found some we liked but we took the kids back out later to check out another store... Then we completely went from looking to buying that and detachable bunk beds for the kids and a mattress for Adam! Yep we are moving him into a big boy bed! Well, around Christmas time we are. Then we opened the entertainment center box... wow what a way to finish the night. First the corner was dented, the cupboards were not closing well, and then the back was falling apart!!! Super annoying! So off Tim went to take it back! I guess we will get to go shopping again.

After a crazy, intense, and exciting Broncos game we went to the airport and now wait for Christmas to come!!! Only 3 more weeks! Time to enjoy the season!!!

Tim has been filling his time with as much things as he can. This weekend he is going to a nativity his church out there is putting on. A few weeks ago he went to the football hall of fame! He was in heaven! Here is the actual shoe and ball Jason Elam used to kick his record setting field goal.

Fight Fight Go Rams!!! and our leaves!

2011-12-01T22:52:00.008-07:00

November was a fun month! After Halloween we only had three weeks to fill before Tim was home again. We spent some time enjoying the pretty mild fall and played outside and ran and went to the park a lot.

We raked leaves and then played in the leaf pile! Funny how we had a huge pile in the backyard, but we don't have any trees in our own yard! One weekend we got to spend in Fort Collins. We got tickets to the CSU game from our Aunt Mary and the kids and I had a Fort Collins filled weekend! First we went to the farm.

The kids loved it! I think I'll have to bring them back in the spring to see the new babies!

Then we went to the game. The kids did not take a nap so Adam fell asleep for most of the first quarter, Shyler was just being silly.

It was fun, minus the intense wind! A women sitting in front of us was so nice and invited us to go with her and her nephews onto the field at the end of half time! All of the kids in the junior ram club were invited to give the players high five as they came back out for the second half. I thought it was so cool, maybe the kids did too.

But then we left because it was just too windy and cold for me to bare. Then I lost Adam's shoe!!! He is in love with his crocs and wouldn't wear his warm boot, and running back to the car we lost one! So I loaded the kids up and poor Shyler was so upset for him, it was pretty cute. So after looking around the car I decided the only other option would be to drive as far as I could retracing our steps.... and then by some miracle we found it!!! This is the second time we miraculously found the missing croc! Then we picked one of my favorite places to eat dinner, Cafe Mexicali! I love that place, so does everyone else now apparently because it was packed!

On the 17th we got to celebrate Uncle Mel's 70th birthday! We met at one of his favorite restaurants and surprised him! It was a fun night that was finished with a win from the Broncos! Perfect for Mel! Happy Birthday!

I didn't get to watch most of the game though because I had to leave. It was the season ending tournament. The week before however we played in a few games called positional rounds and we won! So for the tournament we went in ranked and had a bye. We won our first game, and after a very very very intense and long game we lost to the other team in 3 games. I was so sad to finish the season losing, especially when I wasn't happy with how I played, but I have to remember the season as a whole. We had lots of fun, I met new people, and I got to do something that I love and something for myself! I hope I'm able to get on another team soon! I don't know why it took me this long to play!

So besides getting the house cleaned and such we were ready for Tim to come home and to celebrate Thanksgiving!

Happy Halloween and Daddy Time!!!

2011-11-09T13:16:00.006-07:00

The day Tim was scheduled to come in we received our first snow storm of the season. Six inches and none of it stuck to the driveway or sidewalks!!! The perfect storm! Well, except for the wet heavy snow that broke our poor peach tree. We hope it will survive! The kids had fun out in the snow. Well, Shyler loved it, Adam couldn't get over getting stuck in the snow and getting his gloves covered in snow. Luckily Tim got in later that night with only an hour delay and we had a fun weekend with him!

Tim came home to take a big test for work. So with him he brought lots of big heavy books and the kids loved his fort he made. He is way better at it than I was!

We had fun picking out designs and carving our pumpkins grown in our own backyard!!!

Saturday we also got family pictures taken by our good friend Katelyn Roberts. I love them!!!! There are many more that I love!

We went to the trunk or treat at Tim's parent's church and met two of his sisters there too.

The little ones had fun playing some of the games, but mostly just dancing!

Four little kids do not pose together very well

Shyler and Grandma were both brides!

Tim only stayed until Sunday night, but we loved every minute we had with him and we are super glad it is only a 3 week gap between trips this time!

Halloween is now the favorite holiday for both of the kids. They are little sugar babies and Adam caught on quickly to the trunk or treating and was a pro on Halloween. Shyler was quick to ring the doorbell at each house, but luckily they remembered their manners each time and said thank you!

Adam was a little Bronco and Shyler was a "Bride Marry Girl"!

Farmers

2011-10-16T22:02:00.006-06:00

Look what we grew!!!

We have been enjoying tons of zucchini and tomatoes all summer, but I just pulled out our carrots... This was our first attempt, and they are a little short, but they look pretty good!

Our 4 pumpkins! We are so excited to have so much, I really can garden... a little

This week we went to a real farm, Miller Farms, with some of Shyler's preschool buddies. We had a great time picking corn, cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and another little pumpkin to add to our collection! We had a picnic lunch, played a little then tried to figure out what we could do with all of our stuff!

Adam had fun picking too! He wasn't too sure about some onion skin that fell off into the tractor

Luckily Tim's dad loves cabbage pockets so he got a ginormous head of cabbage and some onions to start him out.

This week was my week to teach preschool. There are 5 total girls, but this past Thurs one of them was gone. I love doing the Mother Goose Time curriculum. This month is Ocean Commotion, and I got to teach about whales, sharks, dolphins, sea turtles and octopuses! They have so many great games and learning opportunities and so many cute easy crafts! The girls are loving the time together and Shyler loves to learn and play with her friends! They especially enjoy the added half hour at the end when they get to have free play. Of course I didn't take a picture of the super cool crafts they make, but dressed up and dancing and having a tea party.

Shyler has been loving the space between the chair and the couch and she keeps putting a blanket up and making a fort, so this weekend we tried to make a huge fort! She loved it and now always wants one. We'll have to keep it up so we can make it awesome, this one was just the work of an amateur.

Last week I also was able to go to the Denver Temple. It was closed for 2 months and it was weird how much more I wanted to be able to go knowing I couldn't. It was good to be back! I also have been loving the our stakes volleyball night on Fridays and someone invited me to play in their city league! So last week I had 2 games on Thursday night. We won and my super competitive side comes out, it reminds me of the good ol' days of high school volleyball!

Maybe I'll become a more regular blogger... haha!

OHIO

2011-10-08T14:21:00.012-06:00

Brace yourself we had a fun time out in Ohio, but we also did a lot and took a lot of pictures! I narrowed down the pictures, but I still was quite wordy. If you are friends with me on Facebook, you probably already saw these pics and about 60 more, but here is a nice detailed account of our fun times!

First we had a fun adventure on a super full plane as we flew to Detriot with Grandma and Grandpa. It wasn't too bad of a flight in the end. Shyler was great and Adam was good most of the time, but did decide after a while sitting still was not on his agenda.

Thursday we got ready for our road trip! We picked Tim up at work, had a picnic lunch at a park next to Lake Erie and then we were off!

Our first stop was in Kirtland, Ohio. For those not familiar with Kirtland, it is the place where Joseph Smith and the church moved after they left New York. This is where the first temple was built and many revelations occurred. There of course are many other wonderful events that took place here. The Kirtland temple is actually owned by the Community of Christ Church, which branched away for the LDS church a long time ago. We arrived at 4 and much to our dismay we had missed the 3:30 tour of the temple and the 4:30 tour was booked with a tour bus. So we were only able to walk around the outside. They had beautiful flowers on the grounds and it was still neat to see it.

After the temple, we were able to walk down the street to where the people lived at the time in the 1830's. There is a store which is also important to church history called the NK Whitney Store. Also in here there were many revelations and Joseph Smith came here first when he arrived in town. Newell K Whitney was very helpful in the building up of the church in Kirtland. The store is 85% of its original structure so that was cool to really feel the spirit and imagine life back then going to the "store". We got to explore all of the rooms including the upstairs where Jospeh held the school of the prophets, which was pretty much a class he taught on gospel principles. By then the kids were done and hungry so that was most of what we saw. We found the nearest place to eat which ended up being Wendy's. A quick dinner then we got ready for a bigger chunk of driving to Rochester, NY.

We got in close to 11 and we all crashed!! The next day was a new day and a new adventure. We drove about 30 min east to Palmyra, NY. This is where Joseph Smith grew up. We went to the site of the recreated log home he was living in when he read James 1:5. He felt inspired pray to the Lord about which church he should join since there was a lot of commotion about different churches at the time. He went into the grove of trees by his house and got on his knees and prayed. This is where he saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This special place is know known as the Sacred Grove. We got to walk through the grove and the log home and the other home they lived in while he was growing up see some of the places where different events happened. There are many stories about people trying to steal the golden plates and we saw some of the places he was able to hide them. After the grove the kids were ready for lunch so we headed to town. Thanks to our trusty GPS we discovered a yummy pizza place that made cheesy bread just right for our picky kids who don't eat pizza. Then we were able to go to the Grandin Print Shop where the first 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon was published. We got to see the process and how much work it used to take to make books. Shyler even got to practice creasing the pages and get them ready to be bound.

On our way back out of town we stopped at the Palmyra Temple. It is beautiful, and as you are at the Smith family farm you can see the temple through the trees and as you are at the temple you can see across into the sacred grove. Our guide told us that this temple is the only one with clear glass, and it is on the window looking into the grove, they call it the Hinckley window after our previous prophet. All other temples just have stained glass all around. Our last stop was the Hill Cumorah. This is the place where the last prophet from the days of the Book of Mormon finished writing on the plates and buried them. It is here where Joseph Smith retrieved the plates to translate them.

After our fun morning adventure we headed back to Rochester and were lucky enough to meet up with Tim's Great-Uncle Don and his wife Mary Lou. They are super nice and we had fun getting to know them a little better. They took us to Cheesecake Factory where we of course ate a lot of yummy food and then indulged on some yummy cheesecake! After dinner they took us along the Erie canal and the kids got to feed ducks. It was a little bit of a history review as I remember hearing about the Erie canal and singing a song about it when I was younger, but never thought I would see it. It really is just like a river running through town, but there is just an amazing amount of history behind it. We saw no barges, but we did see a crew team parcticing, which still a first for us and the ducks loved the yummy treats!

On the road again... We made our way a little north of Rochester to an apple farm! It was a fun family farm that was at prime time for apple picking! We got to pick a variety of apples; cortland, empire, and macoun then we also picked fall raspberries. The kids enjoyed the picking and the play area. We also bought honeycrisp and sweetango from the market. We loved having freshly picked apples for the rest of our trip! They weren't super happy with us bringing them into Canada, but the border patrol lady just said make sure we brought them all back!

So after the farm we headed for Niagara Falls! We got there and the kids were ready to get out and we were excited to see the beauty of one of God's creations. It was beautiful! We convinced Grandpa that the boat ride would be fun and we experienced the falls up close on the Maid of the Mist boat ride. It was wet and we all looked like smurfs, but it was worth it. We only wish we would have spent more time walking around on the Canadian side, just driving by it was beautiful. We enjoyed getting grilled by the canadian border patrol, and like I said earlier we had to promise to bring back our apples...

We made it Toronto after that for a late dinner, then another night in a hotel. We did however wake up to a beautiful fall day and spent the morning going to church and walking around the Toronto Temple. It is beautiful and so peaceful. We had a picnic lunch with some of our apples and snacks then headed back for an actual nap time at the hotel! We headed down town for dinner to The Spaghetti Factory, I know real original, but it was still delicious. After we had paid $20 bucks for parking we decided that we would do the CN tower that night. It was a tall tower and stepping off the elevator, it was crazy to think we were standing on a little tower 1,100 feet off the ground.

Monday we drove back to Toledo. When we got up in the morning Tim was so thoughtful and decided to go get doughnuts from Tim Hortons. Apparently they are like Starbucks out in the northeast and they are everywhere!!! They call their little doughnut holes Tim Bits... so fun! We packed up and decided that we didn't really know what we were doing, except driving to Toledo with no GPS, just our map I bought at Niagara Falls to guide us. Luckily I was an expert navigator with an even better driver and we never got lost :-) we did decide to take a detour when we saw a sign for a maple farm. We saw them bottling maple syrup and got some fresh yummy treats. We also stopped in London, Ontario for lunch for another round of Wendy's. Driving out of town we saw what looked like a riot! Grandpa and I were curious, while Tim and Grandma were more like let's get out of here! Turns out it was just some high school kids protesting the police over a pepper spray incident.

Almost there... we decided to take the northern route back into America through a town called Sarnia, instead of through Windsor. I don't know what the difference would have been, but we waited in line on the bridge for an hour to cross the border!!! But it was nice to be that much closer to "home". We got back close to dinner time and for the famous Tony Packo's. They have their specialty hot dog that you just have to try... well that is what everyone told Tim. So I tried it. Tim and I both agree we are not fans. It is a delicious hot dog, more like a sausage on a bun which is also good, but then it is topped with mustard, onions, a special sauce (it seemed like beanless chili), and then cheese... I would have been better with the chicken chili that I also got as part of my meal, now that was good! They have buns signed by so many famous people on display all around the restaurant, including the current and previous 3 presidents!

I'm pretty sure no one is still reading about our trip, but we really did a lot of fun stuff in 5 short days, I don't want to forget anything! So after dinner we checked G and G into their hotel room. Well, Tim had enough points so they just upgraded them for free. They got a king size bed with a ginormous hot tub in room!!! With a little nudging, Shyler decided that the hot tub would be way cooler to swim in than the hotel pool and so she finally got to go swimming and we got to stay in the comfort of the room and not worry about it being too deep!

G and G's last day... They decided to visit the Sauder Village just west of Toledo. It is founded by the maker of Sauder furniture and it is a whole village set up in pioneer times with actors in each little shop or cabin dressed to the part. It was fun and cool to see them still making toys or baskets like they used to and Shyler got to see a real spinning wheel at work!!! They also had a children's area which the kids loved! They got to milk a cow and play in the kitchen and even iron, that was much more interesting to the kids than the rest of the place, but it was still really cool. Then we headed up to Detriot to drop them off. On the way back home we got... Wendy's for dinner, yes, the 3rd time in 6 days! We are so original I know... but our kids like their chicken nuggets, and they have a fruit you can get, or a yogurt if you are in Canada, and the toy was a little sports themed toy which was also cool! I think we ended up with a football , volleyball and 3 soccer balls!

Family time! So we had a few more days with just the 4 of us. Tim worked during the day, but Wed. Shyler got to go on a date with him to the movies! She saw Lion King in 3-D! I got a date with Tim on Friday and a delicious dinner at the Japanese steakhouse. We were so grateful to his co-worker that offered to babysit! Lindsey was a lifesaver! On our last day we met another coworker at another apple farm and went to the apple butter festival. Besides having the wind chill making it feel like 40 degrees, it was fun to pick apples again and enjoy the festivities. The kids loved the pony ride they got, Adam went back for another one after we took him off!

So then we were done :-( Tim dropped us off at the airport and I went through security with my 2 kids, a stroller, 2 backpacks, and a giant bag of apples! We survived and I was glad I had my sister to help on the other end. The kids were great on the flight and we had a whole row to ourselves. Adam even took a nap this time! We miss Tim, but glad how quickly the time is going and how soon it will be when we see him again! That also means that this experience is getting closer to being over! We can't wait!!!

There are 2 new posts to read!!!

2011-08-22T00:14:00.000-06:00

California here we come!!!!!

2011-08-21T22:51:00.007-06:00

As promised we have been busy busy! We finished off July with a trip up to Cheyenne to visit the Fournier's and Cheyenne Frontier Days. Becky Cody and I had a great time going to see Darius Rucker in concert, no fainting for me this time (unlike my last CFD concert of Taylor Swift when I was pregnant and I did pass out) and then we all had a great time at the pancake breakfast. Luckily, Shyler did not drop her pancakes, unlike last year and Adam and Finn got to indulge on some as well! All in all it was a great time! A tradition to continue for many more years, especially since it's been 4 already!!!

Watching Kevin Costner and Modern West getting ready for Darius Rucker! FYI He is really good in concert and does little dance moves while he's singing, a little hip swinging and such.

Shyler loving her pancakes, she ate 2 big ones!

Adam also ate 2 big ones!

Let the real vacation begin...

Last week we returned home from a 6 day trip to the Central California coast. It was another great time! We spent a lot of time with my brother and his kids and enjoyed the cool coastal weather. Tim and I especially enjoyed a weekend getaway to Santa Barbara to celebrate our anniversary! (See other post)

Adam got to sit with me and Nana for the flight and was so good! He just fell asleep before we even took off! Tim did a great job running them around before our flight. He slept for the first hour and then enjoyed watching the drink cart and the yummy cookie cart for another chunk then played nicely. Shyer didn't behave as well, but was still pretty good. She enjoyed her daddy time as they sat 2 rows behind us and read some of her new books daddy bought her and of course enjoyed the ipad!

Once we were in CA our first stop was IN-n-Out. Some may not understand our family obsession with a hamburger, but we love them! My mom has had 6 double doubles since our trip to Nevada and CA! They just taste so good! Plus we can't have them so we have to indulge when we can because we never know when the next time will be. Plus if you are gonna eat fast food, why not something so delicious! Plus the strawberry shakes are so good. I think I might have to start getting Shyler her own, she drank half of mine!!!

Then it was play time! We spent a couple days just playing around with the cousins. We played with blocks waiting for the marine layer to burn off...

...we played at the park

...we had a picnic, and we had fun! My brother's oldest daughter was also there and we had fun seeing her for the first time in a long time! It was fun playing and if you notice they are wearing plants and long sleeves... yes it is California and yes it is the middle of August, but something I forgot and had a hard time believing was how the temp stays the same all year. By the end of our trip it got up into the mid-70's and it was hot for there!

We spent one morning driving up the coast. We decided to visit Morro Bay. It was a cute little town on the coast with lots of boats in the harbor and of course a chilly beach.

There is a random huge rock right on the coast

Shyler was so excited to build a sand castle on the beach but first Tim tried to convince her to get her feet a little wet. She's like her mom and not a fan of things that make her cold, so she didn't get in too much and preferred to play in the sand and try to build a castle.

Adam started out very cautious of the giant mass of water rolling in and out of the beach, but after a little convincing he went in with Tim and LOVED it!!! His poor little toes were so red but he didn't even care! Luckily I was smart enough to bring a change of clothes for both of them!

The main event!

So the real reason for a trip to CA was to congratulate and support my brother on his 21 years he served our US military in the Air Force. I am so proud of him and all of the work he has done and the sacrifices he has made. I am thankful also to my sister-in-law who supports him as well in this part of his life. They both have given so much to serve our country and I can't even comprehend all that they have done and that every military member does do each and every day for us. I was so sad Steph couldn't be there, but she was busy sacrificing for our country halfway across the world. Thank you!!!

Matt was presented with a shadow box that he designed. It was also so sweet to see him give each of his 3 children a set of his dog tags as he hung them up for good.

My mom got the girls matching shirts and my Aunt got crowns for them to wear too! Of course the only way to get the 5 of them to sit still was to turn on the tv... and I still didn't get a good one of them all.

Before Tim and I left for our weekend we went to an event on base called, "Touch a Truck". Hearing the name, it sounded so weird to me, but it was really cool. The kids were invited to come and see an assortment of cars, trucks, rescue vehicles and heavy machinery. They got to climb inside and check them out.

Taylor enjoying the jet ski

Shyler and Jordan modeling the fire truck for us

Adam trying to stop the bulldozer

While we were gone the kids got to enjoy the beach one more time with their cousins. I think the attempt may have been a little better because Matt was there with the magic word, 1-2-3... Boogers!

We also went swimming and I enjoyed being in the water more than out because it was surprisingly warmer in there... then I ran home as fast as I could to get warm, because I tried to shower off but the water was not warm... Have I mentioned how I don't like to be cold?

The flight home was pretty good and I got to try to entertain for almost the whole flight. The flight attendant was brilliant though and handed me a stack of cups to give him and that was very helpful. The chocolate chip cookie was of course a nice treat again as well. Then after I kept him busy for the whole flight he sat on my mom's lap to look out the window during our landing and... fell asleep!!!!

We are back home and trying hard to re-adjust to life at home and all of its craziness. Adam has been having a hard time, but tonight he finally put himself to sleep. Much better than Wednesday night when he screamed for an hour and a half and never wanted me to put him down. Yikes that was hard!!! But, we are doing alright now. My sister has been staying here and got a job so it has been nice to have the extra help and another adult to talk to! I'm not sure how long she'll be around, but I will keep enjoying having a babysitter on hand and someone to talk to while it lasts :-)

Before our trip to California we booked the days we would be going to Ohio. I tried hard not to plan that trip before I planned and enjoyed our California trip, but while my brother was driving us to the airport Tim and I started planning. We are super excited to get to see Niagara Falls and some historical sites for our church! It will be another great vacation. I hope it won't be too early in the season to see some of the fall leaves. I also really have to enjoy this one since I have been told we are going to try not to travel for at least a year or more... That's a good idea, but it's just so fun!! We still might take a road trip somewhere ;-)

A weekend away!

2011-08-21T21:56:00.010-06:00

Our weekend in Santa Barbara was amazing and so relaxing. It included walking... a lot, relaxing, eating and just enjoying some quality time together! We walked up and down the beach, the harbor and the pier. We also borrowed bikes from our hotel and rode up to the Mission. Sort of a funny story with that... The lady checking the bikes out to us looked at me like we were crazy for wanting to bike the 3 miles to the mission. It was mostly an uphill ride but for 2/3 of it we rode our beach cruisers like normal and then had to stand up to push ourselves the rest of the way. Mostly I wanted to prove the lady wrong so I was determined to make it feel like no big deal, even when we arrived a little sweaty... The ride home wasn't too bad considering it was all downhill, it was only slightly scary having only the brakes be pushing the pedals back, so we rode slow even though it was downhill. Overall it wasn't that hard of a thing to do and was fun! Mostly it makes me laugh at how crazy she thought I was for wanting to bike instead of hop on the freeway and drive... silly. But another funny detail is that I seriously almost fell off the bike when I first got on. It was hard getting used to the positioning. Lucky for Tim those are the bikes he gets to ride around his plant when he needs to go check stuff out so he was a pro.

There are so many boats in the harbor

Enjoying the beautiful flower garden outside of the mission. And wishing I had a camera that would let me manually focus on what I want!

Our super cool cruiser bikes! They even matched!

The mission. This fountain was built as part of the original mission in 1808. The mission has had to be re built a couple times for various reasons such as good old California earthquakes.

Some of the "few"palm trees. They were everywhere! Such an interesting tree. How do they not blow over?

I found it so crazy that you could drive onto the pier and eat at one of the many restaurants. I guess I haven't been on too many big piers. But this person, driving their super cool Tesla, knew! Tim was pretty excited to see such a cool car and didn't feel so dumb having me snap a picture because we weren't the only ones! I didn't know this, but this is one of the first and maybe only fully electric sports cars. It is made in California and there are a limited number and as you can guess is pretty pricey.

Loving life!!!

The pier is pretty long and has a great view of the beach. You can see the restaurant we ate at just behind the flagpole with my friend Brittany from high school. She is such a great friend, we don't see each other much, but I know that she is there and I can always count on her!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!

We enjoyed our first night in Santa Barbara celebrating our anniversary. We picked this small Italian restaurant on State Street, the big popular street with everything on it. We also walked up and down and looked at all of the fun shops, and once we knew that there was a yogurtland we made sure we saved room for dessert!!!

I LOVE YOU TIM!!!!

Thanks for being my best friend, husband and the father of my children! I am so lucky to have you for eternity!!!

July 2011

2011-07-26T14:36:00.006-06:00

July 1st started our month out with a bang! We had a joint first birthday party at the park for Kimberly and Scarlette. Adam and Shyler had so much playing with their cousins and in the water feature of the park!

Happy Birthday Scarlette!

Happy Birthday Kimberly!!!

I finally bought Adam a helmet and the kids love riding in the bike seat and taking turns in the Burley! I try to bike more often, until the 95 degree days hit! But most Wednesdays we bike to Chick-fil-a to get their free breakfast item! Yummy!

We went to the zoo again... this time with my sister and 2 of her kids and I just loved the seals! They gave each other a little kiss, and I was so excited to get a picture of it! Much better than one time when we went and the giraffes were doing something even crazier and much better than the rhino turning with his rear towards us and letting go! That was gross!!!

Road Trip!!!!

We drove to Utah and Nevada one weekend. Of course we got our In-n-out fix, (my mom got it twice). We also got to visit some friends. First we saw my friend Holli who used to live near us. I had so much fun with her! She is super crafty and I just wish I could be like her! She is also fast, I think that is my downfall. Well I told her I wanted to do something crafty with her so we made cute flower magnets with just 3 different sized pieces of fabric and put a stitch or button in the middle. Simple but cute!!!

I feel my mom deserves the note that she did not eat 3 hamburgers, she was just super excited to get hers!

The purpose of the trip! We went ot Nevada to be there when my Aunt Sandi got baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She was so kind to ask me to speak on the topic of baptism, and then they both made a covenant with our Heavenly Father to follow the example of Christ and to take upon them His name. It was a neat experience! We are so happy for them too!

With their missionaries who spent a lot of time teaching them about the Gospel

The kids found many ways to entertain themselves along the way of 24 hours of drive time! Shyler played with her dolls, they colored, read books, played with toys, watched movies, ate snacks, and slept... a little. I couldn't believe how little they slept on the trip, I've always been a fan of sleeping, but apparently not my kids. On the drive home on Mon. which was 9 total hours including stops for gas, lunch at McDonald's so they could play and dropping my mom off, Adam only slept for 1 1/2 hours and Shyler was only 45 min!!!!

Also on the trip we went to a barbecue after the baptism. We stayed at someones house my Aunt knew and got to experience life on the ranch, and do wheelbarrow races. We also saw some of my mom's dear friends from CA and stayed with them. They were so thoughtful and the kids finally got a good meal! They also went on donkey rides with the neighbor!!! Tim wanted to know where I had taken our kids after the wheelbarrow races and burro rides!!! We also got to see my grandmother's cousin and her daughter. Also exciting for my mom, and cool to meet other members of my extended family.

After the road trip we continued to stay busy and go to park days and to a picnic celebrating the anniversary of the Mormon pioneers making it to Salt Lake. It really wasn't a super exciting picnic, but Shyler insisted on wearing her dress because the flyer said there would be dancing.

Adam found someone's softball and bat and decided he needed to have it and walked around the big tree for nearly 20 minutes until it was time to leave, and even then he was sad to say goodbye... to the ball of course.

After the picnic I had a message from my friend Becky inviting us to the Rapids game. So in the tradition of keeping us busy we ate a quick dinner and made it just in time for the game against the New England Revolution!

They are so cute!!! We love them!

Watching the action! We got really good seats, because Cody and his Awesomeness had just played in a 3v3 tournament and everyone that played got a free ticket to Saturday's game. He is so awesome because his team were studs and they crushed everyone and won the tournament for the second year in a row and qualified to play at the world's in jan, or something like that. And at the soccer game Shyler also insisted on the Sleeping Beauty dress, she is such a silly girl!

The game was mostly fun besides chasing around 2 little kids. Adam and Shyler lost interest pretty quickly and we got to walk around the concourse a lot, but when we did sneak back down to our seats we got to witness a lot of action including a red card, a penalty kick goal and another goal!!! It was fun during that!

Now that July is almost over, I'm sure it'll be another month, but we will have lots more adventures to share!!!

2011-06-25T13:32:00.006-06:00

So I was reminded the other day by my lovely mother that I haven't updated the blog in a while... 3 1/2 months actually, but who's counting. Then I saw another friend write on Facebook how she was unmotivated to post on her blog... so here I am finally blogging and reminding my friends that I still like to blog I have just been busy and forgetful... more forgetful though.

Perhaps I should start now and work back....

Pudding night at our house... it was pretty funny!!!! Shyler couldn't get over adam's new look

He whipped off his bib and left a little for later, including all over his head. Yeah it was bath time after that

So last time we ate pudding I gave him a vanilla one and he wouldn't touch it. This time I let him pick and he devoured the chocolate. I guess he doesn't take after me in all things food.

Sassy Shyler loving her chocolate pudding

A fun family day at Little Monkey Bizness! The kids had a blast spending the day with us

I went to girls camp with the Young Women in my ward from church and Tim and his Uncle Mel and his dad took the kids fishing. Shyler loved her princess fishing pole Grandpa got her and actually caught the first fish of the day. She insisted that Uncle Mel let it go back in the water. Adam just wanted to run around with the pole I guess.

We've taken a few trips to the zoo. This last one was with Calvin and Grandpa and Daddy finally got to come with us too!

We went camping... Amanda style! We went to the Irwin family cabin just on the other side of the Wyoming border outside of Laramie and enjoyed 4 walls and a roof over our head and a set of bunk beds to sleep in. It was still roughin' it with no electricity or running water.

It was a beautiful sunset

Shyler actually took this one of Adam climbing around the rocks

Going for a "hike" really just down the road to the pond, but she insisted on going in the backpack. Adam made it some of the way then I had to carry him and then he fell asleep... which was not according to plans.

Adam was a great helper sweeping up the cabin. Outside he found lots of sticks, rocks, and little round deer poop pebbles...yuck!

Our little photographer Shlyer snapped a picture for us

Memorial Day weekend we were up in Fort Collins, but I don't think we got any pictures of that and on Memorial Day Tim and I ran the Bolder Boulder. And when I say ran I mean ran... he kept me going and we ran the whole time!!! It was crazy and hard to believe we did that, especially since we haven't gone for many runs since... This week I keep telling myself, but I have been taking the kids around town in the bike trailer so I figure I've just traded my type of physical exercise.

Mother's Day was great and even though Tim and I said we wouldn't spend money on each other, he still bought Shyler and me matching aprons!!! I'm excited to at least have one now, and it's cute!

Silly kids!
Happy Mother's Day to G-ma Miller. Here are the six of them, can you see who's the squirmiest? That'd be Adam crawling away

Shyler and her pink bows that she loves and a princess dress and showing off her stepping stone that each of the grandkids made for Grandma

Adam was also proud of his stone

Easter was fun. We went to the CSU Alumni track meet and spent Friday night and Sat up there. The kids loved the track meet and Shyler got to run the kids 100m race. We got to dye eggs with Tyler and have an Easter egg hunt too. Shyler really enjoyed the egg dying part including turning her hand green!

Adam was silly and trying to be sneaky at my mom's house. He's so cute!!!

That's probably enough of an update and I will do a better job for sure!!!

To all our friends, hope all is well on your end!

Happy Birthday Shyler!!!

2011-03-08T11:13:00.004-07:00

Last week was Shyler's 3rd birthday. Her golden birthday, she was 3 on 3-3!!!

Of course she is obsessed with princesses and so she got a pink cake with pink frosting and princesses!

So now I officially have a 1 and 3 year old and they keep me on my toes. We stay busy cleaning the house, doing puzzles, coloring, eating, going to the park and spending time with Tim when he gets home from work. We also try to run. Normally I push them in our Burley bike trailer that converts to a stroller, but it was a little rough when that had a flat and I had to push them in the regular double stroller! Yuck, now it's better, but I still enjoy the days I get to run alone, like Saturdays and some Fridays when Tim is home. I have to keep training because we are determined to run the Boulder Boulder this year! Our first 10K!!!!

I don't get much alone time these days since Shyler either doesn't nap or they are on the opposite schedules. And if I throw in doing Young Women's at church I really have none since I want to see Tim and spend time with him at night. So blogging and emailing and facebook is limited, unless it's a day like to today when they are running around and I am ignoring them. They are mostly playing nice though chasing each other from their room to mine... oh the fun of having 2 kids!!! Luckily when Adam does nap I can do a little bit more and some days Shyler gets to watch a show so I can get some sanity :-)

The cake we had on Sunday at her family party. I didn't want a whole cake for just the four of us to eat on Thursday so she just got one on Sunday!

On Thursday she had some friends over from church including Kiersten who shares the same birthday and was even born at the same hospital as Shyler, so these two are only hours apart!!

Shyler got some roller skates from Grandma and Grandpa so she got to try them out in the kitchen since it was only 30 degrees out on Monday.

When we sang to her on Sunday she decided to be shy and hide her face... silly girl

She loved opening presents and insisted that her cousin help her unwrap. Ethan liked the extra paper too.

She got a cabbage patch doll from her great grandma irwin for her first Christmas but we saved it for her birthday this year so we could tell her it was a special doll. It is really cool too because it actually has her same birthday on the birth certificate! She also loves the brush, blow dryer, curlers and curling iron that she got to pretend with also!

S0me of the princesses that were at her princesses tea party! They all came dressed up and of course Shyler was Sleeping Beauty!

Sorry the pics are all out of order, I just didn't feel like fixing them since I uploaded them out of order.

Now that Christmas and all of our birthdays are over we feel like life may calm down a little so we are excited for that! Now it's just fun time!

Happy Birthday to our little guy!!!

2011-02-04T22:52:00.003-07:00

On Wed Adam turned one!!!

We are so excited to be able to celebrate his birthday! He is such a fun little guy who is such a boy and so in turn has been a completely different child than his sister, which is becoming more and more apparent as he gets older.

We are excited to have his family party on sunday and so naturally he gets a football super bowl themed party! WooHoo.

On his actual birthday we didn't do too much since it was super cold out and not even above 0 degrees outside. He got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch and chicken nuggets for dinner, which are becoming some of his favorite meals, and a cupcake for dessert! He was not a fan of the frosting which I wasn't surprised about that since he woke up from his nap while Shyler and I were decorating them that morning and he didn't like the stickiness on his fingers, but unlike Shyler he actually got over the frosting and ate the cupcake and I'm pretty sure would have had another if we gave it to him.

I feel like he eats a ton, and for the last month has only been on table foods since he firmly but an end to his pureed baby food days. But after his visit to the doctor he is no where near where I thought he would be on the charts. He was 20 lbs 5 oz and was in the 10-25%. He is not quite the string bean as Shyler was and was average in height at 30 in. I have to remember that he is walking all over the house and climbing up and down our stairs and all over our furniture burning tons of calories. His newest favs also include the couch and Shyler's baby doll stroller... boys boys boys.

So Happy Birthday to our little guy and we look forward to many many more with you!

The new born babe

Adam in his super cute football outfit just a few days old, on his first super bowl actually

Happy Birthday Adam!!!

...I'm not so sure about this

Yummy!!!!

Christmas, New Years, and Tim's Birthday....

2011-01-14T11:13:00.003-07:00

After a busy couple of weeks we are slowing down a little. We had a great Christmas and enjoyed our time together as a family. The kids also loved getting presents and spending time with Grandma Grandpa and Nana all day!! Adam has taken a special liking to Grandpa, he even prefers him over mommy sometimes! That is shocking considering how attached he is to me!

We had a great time with Tim home from work for 11 days and we spent a lot of time together. The kids and I were ready to relax once he went back to work.

While he was home we went to the blossoms of light, Fort Collins for our friend Augustine's 1st birthday and dinner with the Fournier's, New Year's with some friends from church, Tim got a ski day at Winter Park, lots of present wrapping, and Christmas of course!

This week was Tim's birthday. He was excited to watch the BCS Championship game, but since we don't have cable his parents were happy to have us over and they even offered to cook his favorite Stroganoff for dinner! He was also given 6 inches of snow for his birthday that Shyler and I had fun shoveling and playing in. And the week before we got to go to an Av's game. They didn't play great but we were spoiled again to sit super close!

Our biggest news and Adam's present to Tim is that we decided that he is officially a walker now! On Tim's birthday he really started walking around much more and doing it on his own. So we have a walker now!!!!

Here are some pics of what's been happening!

Grandma and Shyler at the Blossom's of Light at the Botanic Gardens

My Handsome boys ready for church

Super Grandpa! Tim's dad was excited to get his super-man snuggie for Christmas

G and G helping Adam open presents on Christmas

Shyler and her pretty dress my mom made her opening Christmas presents

Shyler and Mommy snow angels! Her very first one!

Helping shovel, or should I say sweep

Happy Birthday Tim! I found him a shirt that matches Adam exactly!!! I'm excited to have them match... pictures to follow!

Go Av's!!!!

Matching Family PJ's!!! Our friends Becky and Cody got us matching family PJ's, they are so fun!!!!

We aren't slowing down yet as we get ready for little A's big day!!!! the big one!!!! He's having a super bowl party, mostly because that is the day that works best, but it will be fun to tell him later on in life I guess.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-21T12:03:00.004-07:00

Merry Christmas!!! We are such slackers... but we have been so busy having fun together as a family and getting ready for Christmas to come. We have been to a few holiday parties with friends, shopping and spending time with family. We are staying busy during the week wrapping presents, making a few presents and trying to keep the kids sane by not staying in. It has been super nice and I have even attempted to run a few times... yeah after the homecoming race I lost all motivation and came up with many excuses. But since it feels like we are in some tropical... well maybe more like a warm climate I told myself I should probably take advantage of it. I was also justifying that on the few days that it was cold that Just Dance 2 was a great alternative! It's also fun! Shyler is doing great. She loves her princesses still and going to the library and dancing and helping me. Adam is also great. He is trying to walk but is a little timid. He took a lot of steps to Tim last night. It is funny to see him so cautious. Shyler was a no fear type of baby and he takes a little more time to be adventurous. I finally have him on a good schedule. Too bad he likes to nap from about 10:30 to 11:30 or so... just in time for lunch, then in theory, Shyler should nap, then he goes down. So we do spend a lot of time at home. But like today I had to mail some things and we didn't get home until 11 so after a snack he wasn't asleep until 11:20. He's pretty flexible. He also doesn't sleep through the night which is sad, but hard to fix without having Shyler screaming back at him... or having her in our room which is most nights. We'll figure it out one day. Tim is excited to have a nice long vacation! He only has to work tomorrow then has 10 days off!!!! We are excited to have him home too! He has also been enjoying figuring out our new computer! We got a mac and love it, even though we don't even know its full potential but there are a lot of things we know it can do! We should try to make a movie!

Well Merry Christmas to all!!!

We got a recent picture on Sunday of all of the cousins. L to R

Kimberly, Scarlette, Adam, Shyler, Ethan, and Calvin

Halloween and Virginia

2010-11-15T14:12:00.009-07:00

So I wasn't as good at blogging as I had hoped to be, but alas, here is another month of fun packed into one post. We had a great time running the 5k race. We didn't really get to run much to train for it since Tim had to go out of town so much, but we did ok and it was great weather. My mom watched the kids while we ran and then we enjoyed our traditional Silver Grille breakfast! We also made it the night before for the Homecoming parade. Shyler loved it and we also had fun at the bonfire and firework show. Something I thing they always do but was a first for us.

Soon it was Halloween and we had fun carving pumpkins! Adam tried to get in the guts, but it was too weird for him and Shyler prefered to sit back and watch. She was excited to be Sleeping Beauty and she was a pro at the trunk or treats. She was also very polite and said Happy Halloween, trick or treat and thank you. When it came time for the real deal she wasn't so sure about it. She even asked to go home... until she saw the 4 neighbor girls that are about 8-12 years old and she wanted to go with them, then she had a blast!!!!

Then we went on our trip to Virginia!!! We could have done some of our planning a little better but in the end it worked out that we went straight to DC and got a hotel for Wed night. We had left our house at 4 and Tim and Shyler were able to skip their connection and just stay in DC. I was on a flight into the other DC airport and got on a shuttle and we meet tim and Shyler at the hotel. That night the kids tried swimming in the pool and we drove in (our hotel was in Arlington) to see everything all lit up. Adam crashed in the car and had one of his best nights sleeping... ever! Then we woke up to the forecasted day of gloom and rain and went for it anyways!

Our hotel shuttled us to a metro station that we rode into town...

...and we walked through the rain to the monuments up close. Don't worry we were nice parents and bought the $11 umbrella so each kid had one and stayed dry. Not so much Tim and I. This is the back of the Lincoln memorial looking over the Potomac river towards Arlington... it doesn't even begin to show how much fun we had walking through the rain.

Tim and Shyler look so tiny! I knew it was big but it's still so crazy to see in person!

THe Washington Monument. We were also able to see the Vietnam and WWII memorials. We walked to Washington Monument, but it was too wet to get the camera out. Like most of that day. Sad.

The Smithsonians are so cool. We really didn't get to see all of them but we spent 3 hours inside the American History museum! We were sick of being wet and they had an really cool place for the kids both of them loved the spark lab! We also went inside the Air and Space museum which made Tim happy. Shyler however insisted that all of the rocket ships were airplanes, only mickey mouse has a rocket ship she said. (I think from one of the episodes she had seen, he goes in one)

The white house! Shyler was so excited to get to see this. Leading up to it she would see it or the Capital and say she was going to see it and she was so happy! Well she had fallen asleep for like 5 minutes but we woke her up so she could see it! We think she really liked the white house because we said that that is where the president is and she thought we said presents so she thought there were lots of different presents inside!!!

After our long day in DC and long trek back to the hotel to get the car we made the 2 hour drive to Richmond. We are so glad we didn't try to take a day trip up to see DC that would have been a real adventure!

Turns out I didn't get many of the pictures of Adam and Augustine, but these two little guys are only 5 weeks apart! It was fun to watch them play together, but I'm sure Andrea wasn't excited that Adam was showing him how to get in the kitchen cupboards and drawers and the dishwasher and how to climb upstairs. I have such a little trouble maker!

On Sat we went to Maymont to walk around. It is this really pretty place with gardens and Animals and the original "mansion" from the 1800's. Shlyer had fun seeing the animals including the bald eagle, the black bear and the buffalo scratching himself with a stick! That was funny. They also had farm animals too!

Tim and Shyler walking around the Japenese garden, there's Luke looking around too

As we were leaving we had fun trying to do a family picture. Of course it's hard with 2 small children, but it was too hard to pass up the beautiful scenery of the fall leaves!

We didn't do much other sightseeing, but it was exhausting enough trying to tote the two of them around when we did. They were great sports and we are so glad we got to go and spend so much time with our friends and celebrate Andrea's birthday with her! Oh I almost forgot about the yummy cupcakes she got! I had a delicious pumpkin one and Tim got a yummy chocolate chip one. They were from one of those cool cupcakeries!

Happy Birthday Andrea and thank you so much for having us and feeding us and letting us stay with you!

Are you ready for some football?

2010-10-14T14:18:00.008-06:00

So way back when I only had one kid I wondered what was with my friends of multiple kids. Blogging is fun, why can't they blog once a week like I do? Now fast forward to my life now and I see why. It's not that I don't like to, I really actually do, but I feel like I am always folding laundry, cleaning up the kitchen or feeding Adam! It is crazy! But we are still here and doing well! We are surviving Shyler and her 2 year old tantrums and the days she feels she doesn't need a nap. Adam is pretty much a 2 a day napper which means he naps we eat lunch Shyler naps we have about an hour and then Adam naps again! FUN!!! So on some days when I didn't get a shower the night before I bribe Shyler with M

ickey Mouse so I can shower or put away the laundry or we just play!

I misplaced my camera for half of Sept. but we have had some fun over the last 2 months! It was not fun having my husband gone on business for pretty much those 2 weeks! I'm glad there are not really any trips planned for a while. The kids and I all go a little crazy!

Miller Farm... I just got these off of Tiffany's blog because most of the time she held Adam for me while he slept on her and I did a lot more picking since she was about to leave for her trip. Shyler loved getting dirty and playing with Madi!

Adam and his first bloody nose, he slipped while crawling on the kitchen floor

GO RAMS!!!
The family battle, the buffs may have won, but Rams are still better
Little Miss Scarlette
Calvin and Shyler swinging at the park for his 3rd birthday
Adam LOVES the swing
Ethan and his first try at the swing
Mini- representers
We went with Tiffany and Madi to the Miller Farm. It was so much fun to harvest our own vegetables! We got so dirty, but it was fun. We even had fun running into some friends from Fort Collins!
I love that Adam is a big boy now and bath time is so much shorter!!! They have fun together in the bath!
Mr. A has gone from scooching to crawling to pulling up to realizing he can use this walker to walk across the living room! He is such a big boy!
In the kitchen he loves to push around and climb over the high chair. One day he pushed it down the stairs! (on Tim's watch)
Jeannette and Kimberly, so cute!
Last weekend we went to the Air Force vs. CSU football game with our friends Tyler and Shannon. It was a lot of fun and the kids were pretty good. Shyler's favorite parts included the bouncy slide and swings they had brought in because it was kids day, and she also liked the men falling out of the plane (parachuter's landing onto the field). The fly over was also pretty good. It was not fun to watch the Rammies get beat up most of the game, but the forth quarter was pretty good minus the fact that it was the end of the game and we lost.

Tim and Shyler (no clue who that lady is)
CSU actually about to score. We loved that Tyler got free tickets from his work right on the 50 yard line about 25 rows up! It was sweet! Thanks Tyler!
Always a ram fan!

Lots of snacks were involved but we had fun!

Maybe I'll be less than a month before my next post. We have a lot to look forward to. This weekend is the annual CSU homecoming weekend and we are going to try to go to the parade and then run the 5k. This is my 5th in a row!!! Then Halloween!!!! Then our trip to visit my friend Andrea and Luke and their little one for her birthday!!!!! FUN FUN FUN!!!!

where to begin....

2010-08-16T14:48:00.007-06:00

Happy 4th of July

Ok so it has only been a month and a half... I can't really even say that we've been that busy, just busy with the day to day stuff mostly. Although, there has been a lot happening around here and with our family! Shortly after our last post our 2 nieces were born, one on June 30, and the next one the day after! That was crazy so there are now 4 cousins within 5 months of each other. It is already so fun to do family gatherings and we can't wait to watch them grow and be best buds and to have absolute craziness at the Miller house during family gatherings!

Shyler is little Miss Princess and really really is into dressing up in her tutu and dress up shoes and listening to Princess music, or "temple music", also known as Mormon Tabernacle Choir. (F YI- she did that all on her own). She loves the princess movies and is quite the couch potato if we let her and will watch the whole movie or mickey mouse. She is still very much into touching Adam and of course being a big helper even when she's not needed. She is very silly sometimes and when she's not driving me crazy she makes me laugh!

She also fell asleep on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, she went to get a tissue and this is how I found her...

Adam is Mr. Crawler. He is doing a modified army crawl and rolling everywhere. He loves remotes and phones even more than Shyler did if that is at all possible. He's eating more solids and recovering from his hernia surgery and doing pretty well. It was hard to leave him with his nurse but it all worked out fine. He came out of surgery and sounded like he did the day he was born... his little sheep baa-ing. He is not the best sleeper and wakes me up to eat around 3:30 and then wakes up at 6 mostly because he wants to be held or something, that is the conclusion we've come up with. But then we fall asleep until around 7 or 7:30 if I'm really lucky... I miss the days of sleeping until 8 even... One day it will come!

Just chillin in the bath. After his surgery we have had to give him 20 minute baths 4 times a day! That's a lot of bath time!
Ready to go in wearing his little gown

Last week Tim and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! My mom came down and watched the kids and we had a picnic in the park for lunch and played catch. Then we went downtown to the Chophouse for dinner. It was so good! Tim got a steak and I got a ginormous burger with the best ever sweet potato fries! That was my favorite part. We were going to get Coldstone for old times sakes, but I couldn't even think of eating one more thing, but at least Tim got some ice cream at home!
Family picnic in the park after our anniversary picnic in the park

So that is most of our crazy life in a nut shell! We are looking forward to cooler weather and fun times together as a family and for me to not go crazy with 2 kids home all day with me!

At the aquarium!

2010-06-25T21:25:00.003-06:00

First of all, it is officially summer, it is hot, we have no a/c and poor little Adam gets so hot! He won't give up the swaddle just yet so I do my "summer swaddle" and leave his legs out. He's so silly, but he is doing great most days when I just lay him down for a nap. He hardly screams and when he does it is only for a couple of minutes. Nothing compared to Shyler, who would scream for 20 minutes sometimes. Cross my fingers that he keeps it up! We also had to take out the bumper after I went in and found him rolled over on his tummy still wrapped with his face in the corner... just a little scary! Most of the time he can get his arms out though, and we are trying to phase out the swaddle with our little wiggle worm!

We love our friends Joe and Tiffany, we also love that they got passes to the zoo and aquarium and invite us to go along. Shyler loves Madi and they play well together and have such fun, so this trip to the aquarium was pretty fun. Even Adam seemed to like looking at the fish!

Adam loved being a big boy sitting in the front of the stroller and seeing everything, especially since Shyler wouldn't sit in it since Madi wasn't in one. It worked though.

Tiffany, Shyler, Madi, and Grandma Angie (Tiffany's mom) checking out the fish!With the pass they get to get a face painting, Shyler picked a pink turtle! Can you tell she was into pink that day. It flip flops between pink and purple and sometimes blue!
Madi got a pink monkey on her leg. Neither of them were too excited for the airbrush machine to spray it on, but they survived and Shyler wouldn't stop talking about it!!!! She can't wait to get another one!
We are just trying to stay cool and busy. Some days we just have so much to do around the house, but we have been keeping busy for sure! We do love playing with our friends though! Shyler needs to bug someone besides Adam and I need adult conversation!!!!

2010-06-14T14:30:00.003-06:00

Maybe I'll be better at blogging...

Enjoying the beautiful mountains on a hike on Memorial Day. Shyler got a little tired, but don't let the picture fool you, she only was like that for 5 minutes!

She loved trying to feed Adam a bottle, but he does not love taking them, in fact he really doesn't take one.

Shyler loved having her cousin Tyler come to visit. She played in the water and learned how to spray him!

And they had a great time going to the zoo together. But I do have to thank my friend Tiffany for letting us come with her and her pass!

Happy 4 months!!!!!
Now that Adam is 4 months we thought we would try cereal. He seemed interested and ready so...

... he was messy, but he liked the idea of being a big boy I think!

At his visit he did great and has similar stats as Shyler did, at least in the percentile category because boys are just a little bit bigger.

Weight- 15 lb 6 oz - 50%

Height- 26 inches - 75- 90th%, maybe a little shorter

2010-05-30T15:38:00.004-06:00

Wow we are slacking on the blogging. May definitely came and went and we aren't even sure where the time went. We spent a lot of time together at least! I got a new calling at church and have been busy with Young Women's and Tim has actually been quite busy at work. Now that it isn't trying to snow in May here we are trying to have a garden again and hoping that it isn't too late to get the other plants in the ground besides the tomatoes we bought. Tim is also is enjoying the joys of having a lawn and mowing every week. The kids are doing great and I finally feel like life is a little more normal. I don't even take/get a nap most days now. They are doing great sharing a room though. Shyler has learned to sleep through his crying most days, and Adam sleeps through her temper tantrums.
Shyler still loves her little brother, a little too much sometimes, but we're working on it. She is so funny and so helpful, she is in the stage of doing it all by herself and she lets us know that too. She got a real hair cut that she let me do! We cut off almost 2 inches in the back! Today she told me she was all done with her muffin but when I asked if I could eat the rest she said, "no". So she has lots of opinions as well.
Adam is growing like a weed and will be 4 months old this week!!!!!! He is really good on his tummy, and has a super contagious smile! Tim just got him to laugh and it is so cute! It always makes my heart melt to see them so pure and innocent and happy! I love my little babies!!!
We love all of our time together and are so thankful for all that we have and all of our blessings and are so thankful to know we are an eternal family!

Hapoy Birthday Shyler, Easter, and such

2010-04-12T15:55:00.003-06:00

Well we have been busy if you couldn't have guessed it. There is just not enough time in the day to do all that you want. I feel like I am always just trying to catch up on the basic housework, let alone attack anything fun like blogging or one of my other projects. I made a few birth announcements, not many and that took me 2 months to do alone!!! I had no idea! Luckily things seem to be calming down and Adam is getting into a nice routine and Shyler is learning to deal with this new life. I'm sort of getting more sleep at night and all in all we are adjusting... finally!

Over a month ago we had fun celebrating Shyler's 2nd birthday. Her birthday was on a wednesday and she had a blast playing with a couple friends at Monkey Business, a fun place perfect for little kids to play and have fun!

After one of her favorite meals of spaghetti for dinner she got to open presents from us
She loves her mommy and gives great hugs!
The following Sunday we were able to bless Adam and have family over to celebrate her birthday. She loves her pretty blue dress she got from us for her birthday!

We had a great Easter at Grandma and Grandpa Miller's house with Nana (tim's parent's and my mom) Shyler really enjoyed Easter egg hunts, dying eggs, getting the movie up in her basket and all of the yummy candy! Adam enjoyed playing with his cousin!

We are busy but having fun and enjoying our bigger family. We also are LOVING the warmer weather! Family walks and playing at the park are so nice and help with the cabin fever we had during a little colder than normal winter!

Dying Eggs
We set up the crib in Shyler's room finally and he loves to sleep in there and enjoy the room, but he still sleeps in the bassinet at night in our room
Enjoying the egg hunt
Shyler wasn't so sure of the bunny walking around but thought this one was pretty cool at the egg hunt
scoring big with daddy

Easter morning

Adam's first Easter basket
little Easter bunny boy
loving play time with his cousin ethan who is 6 weeks younger than Adam
Grandma and Grandpa with the grandkids

Life with 2...

2010-02-20T13:14:00.005-07:00

So this week Tim went back to work and I got to get used to life with 2! It was interesting and challenging at times, but we survived. The great thing is that they both will nap at the same time for about an hour to an hour and a half. That is the time when I sleep and shower! One day I didn't get that and I was a little cranky by the time Tim got home from work!

Here is Adam at one week

Here is Shyler at one week, I thought it would be fun to compare, and they are even sitting in the same little seat thing. They have really similar eyes, when they are open.

Feeling some Grandma love

Shyler is so silly. She decided she wanted a ketchup sandwich instead of the hot dog in the bun for dinner one night. She did it all on her own too, but she really only ate a couple bites before she got bored with it.

On Valentine's Day my mom and 2 of my nephews came down and made us dinner. Shyler was loving playing with Tyler and Nickle did a great job holding Adam. He even gave him a kiss! So cute to see a 10 year old be so affectionate!!

Nana Love!

Family Love on Valentine's Day

His first Valentine's Day. I was going to say his first holiday, but does Groundhog's day count, if so that was the first...

This is my little guy when I want him to be asleep! Wide eyed and very curious looking! Today he wanted to stay awake for a long time when he was supposed to be asleep while Shyler was napping.

My 2 favorite men! Tim and Adam catching a quick cat nap last night.

Shyler of course wanted to get in on the action, but she was only full of cheesy grins instead of pretend sleep!

So we are surviving and just taking it day by day. Soon we will get out of the lack of sleep stage and will feel like we can function like normal. But until then weekends are great when I don't feel guilty having Tim wake up to help put Adam back to sleep or to wake up with Shyler so I can sleep just a little bit longer. Oh the things you forget and take for granted when you don't have a newborn or young infant...

Adam Joseph Miller

2010-02-07T12:37:00.005-07:00

He's here!!! We are finally pleased to announce the arrival of Adam Joseph Miller! He came on Tuesday February 2 at 11:36 am. He weighed 7 lb 12 oz and was 20.5 in. Mom and baby are doing great and Shyler and Daddy are also doing well and we are all excited to have this new addition in our family and are so thankful that he is healthy and happy!!! The delivery was quick and easy for Amanda. She was given pitocin at 7 to start labor, had her water broken at 9, started feeling real contractions, was a pain wuss and got an epidural, pushed through 2 contractions and out he came at 11:36. If only all deliveries were as nice as this one was!

Shyler is loving her baby brother. She loves to hug him and kiss him and especially hold him. She is doing pretty well considering all of the new changes and she is being such a helper as well. She does like to show off when we have visitors and run around like crazy and get their attention, and she does like mommy to do stuff with her like change her diaper, but she is at least sleeping well and showing signs that she loves her brother!

We are just adjusting to the middle of the night feedings now and trying to get sleep and enjoy our time together as a family! Thank you to all of you who have sent your love and congrats our way!

Our family
Little Adam
Shyler showing what a good helper she is, He's hungry!

She really wanted to hold him
One day old with the family
She finally got her way
She loved pointing out all of his different parts, like his nose!
Giving him a big hug!
Photo Shoot! They were showing off their coordinating shirts!

Ready for the super bowl, 5 days old!

Our Fun!!

2010-01-26T13:04:00.005-07:00

I don't know how in my last post I could have forgotten about our fun and exciting times! We really haven't just been sitting around waiting for Adam to grace us with his presence and we have tried to do fun things together as a family and as a couple.

The funnest thing we have done is go to an Av's game. The great thing about this game was... it was just before Tim's birthday, or was it because we didn't have Shyler and Tim's sister babysat, or was it because it was FREE, or was is because we got to sit just 2 ROWS off the ice!!!! I'm going with all of those were why it was so fun, especially the last reason! We owe a huge Thank you to our Brother-in-law Andreas for giving us the tickets, and Tim's parents for coming with us.

We finally went on a date to the movies and saw The Blind Side. It was a really good story and really makes you want him to do well in the NFL.

We got to go out for pie just like we did when we were first dating and married.
Tim enjoyed a yummy slice of Peanut Butter Silk and I opted for a Blueberry muffin, both were delicious!

We went to the Temple, and Shyler is very obsessed with the Temple now. Every time she sees one she gets excited and that is the first song request before bed. We were glad that Tim's mom volunteered to come down with us and watch her while we went inside.

And as mentioned in the previous post we had a baby shower, Tim went skiing and I went to my sister-in-laws shower, and Shyler got her first family movie night and a special slumber party with mommy and daddy. Now that it is finally warming up in Colorado and the snow is melting Shyler has remembered that she loves the park and we take walks to the park to swing and slide. We also are enjoying some R and R which usually includes me napping when Shyler naps and lounging around.

And we are still waiting...

Up and still here!

2010-01-25T13:31:00.004-07:00

So on Saturday night we decided to spoil Shyler. Tim got a dresser from his parents house that he stripped and sanded and varnished that he got all ready for Shyler. She was excited to move her clothes over and for her new dresser that daddy made. We were also so excited to have it done that we didn't care that it smelled like varnish still, so we brought it in the house. We took it to her room and rearranged and got it all ready for the crib to come in next. Since she had the smelly dresser in her room we decided she didn't need to sleep in there that night. So we got all ready for bed and she got to stay up and watch the movie Up with us. She loved it!!! We were so shocked to see that she sat through the entire movie and was so concerned with the balloons whenever they weren't in the picture. The most adorable part of the movie was when the house floated away and she almost cried!!! It was the cutest thing to see ever!!! She kept asking where the house and balloons went, even the next morning! We will have to remind her of this when she makes fun of me for crying through movies later in life.

After her late night movie that she watched and sat through and didn't fall asleep during, we went to bed and she got to sleep with mommy and daddy! She loves sleeping in our bed and there have been many mornings where she ends up sleeping the last hour or so with us because we are too lazy and tired to take her back to her room. So to be able to fall asleep with us was a big deal for her!!
We love her so much and all of her cute toddlerness that she is right now. We are also excited for her to have a new brother, but we want to make sure she doesn't feel left out when he comes. We'll see how she does. We think she will love him a lot and want to give him lots of hugs and kisses, and she will be a great helper.

We have been waiting around this last month as I await his arrival, but trying to not be too bored. I have actually dilated a little this time and got my hopes up, but I think that I have conceded to the fact that he likes me and will stay in until we force him out on the 2nd. I have sorted and resorted and washed all of his clothes and blankets and rearranged and organized and cleaned and shopped and stockpiled our house multiple times in the last few weeks.

I was able to have a fun baby shower with some of my friends and family down her at my house. It was so fun to see everyone and I really appreciated all of the thoughtful gifts. I loved my cute diaper cake and the fun games we played, but most of all feeling so loved! Tim liked it because he got to go skiing for the first time this season.

Last weekend I got to go to a baby shower for Tim's sister, Karen, who is due 6 weeks after me! It was fun to have all 4 of us pregnant sisters together and to get one last belly shot!

So with one week to go we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our little man and hope and pray that things go smoothly and that he is healthy! I am very tempted to take my doctor up on her offer to induce anytime this week, but I am trying to hold out. Is it weird that I want to know what going into labor is like? We'll see if I can hold out or if the heartburn and other ailments of carrying a full term baby win out in the end.

Happy Holidays!

2010-01-06T12:46:00.005-07:00

Merry Christmas! We had a fun and busy fun filled week celebrating Christmas. Some pictures that we actually got start with Shyler's second visit to see Santa. We went to Tim's parents ward Christmas party and a very familiar looking Santa stopped by. Yet again she was terrified at the thought of me even letting go of her! Her cousin Calvin however, got along great with Santa and appreciated his little treat he left him... Perhaps he was confused as well that Santa and Uncle Walter sounded very similar....

Jeannette was a very good girl and got to sit on Santa's lap as well. (in case you haven't caught on, this is Tim's sister and her husband)

Our festivities began at Amanda's sister Kasie's house with highly talked about "Turducken" besides taking 6 1/2 hours to cook instead of the promised 4, it was a pretty good dinner. Although, we decided that we are not fans of the pink slimy duck, but it flavored the chicken and turkey very well and kept it very moist.

Ahh Christmas morning.... Tim has insisted that we store all presents until after bed and then they can be brought out, that was fun and Shyler was excited to see so many colorful boxes. She was also a great helper getting presents and taking them to people. She prefered presents in bags though because they were much easier to get in. She was super spoiled and got a lot of fun stuff! We are enjoying the bog box which was our family present of a keyboard... thank you for black Friday and half off!

All of the stockings were set in a row... I have enjoyed making everyones stockings and this year my mom got one added to the pile as well as our stand by stocking which got to be filled for my good friend Kat who came to visit as well!

Such a good helper!

By the time we made it to Grandma and Grandpa Miller's Shyler was a little exhausted from presents and got lots of help from everyone in the family.

A proud moment for Uncle Walter... He loves guns and loved showing Shyler how to shoot Calvins new little dart gun.

Other exciting events were bowling in Cheyenne with the Fournier's the day after Christmas and New Year's Eve with the Haynie's

Tim actually got a spare on this bowl! GO TIM!!! The first game was a little sad for most of us and then we were much better the second game. Shyler loved watching the balls come out and telling us which ball to use. Daddy was the orange one and Mommy always used the blue one!

We had such a fun time with the Haynies on New Year's Eve. Shyler loved playing with Madi and helping her walk. They even got to sleep in the same room while we stayed up to ring in the new year... that was good news for us that Shyler could sleep through Madi. And good news for Joe and Tiffany that Madi could sleep through Shyler when she woke up a little confused a couple hours later.

And finally here is my huge belly! I am looking forward to the next 4 weeks and the changes it will bring. We are trying to get things ready, not psyc ourselves out, and get Shyler ready and spend lots of quality time with her and each other. Here's to 2/2 (my induction date) or sooner and the expansion of our family with our little man! Who by the way is the biggest kicker ever! Sometimes I think he is trying to kick his way out of my belly!!!

Gingerbread House

2009-12-17T14:30:00.002-07:00

Shyler's visit with Santa at Tim's work party... she was so excited until she got in the room with him. This would have been great to put with our Christmas cards, but we just got it... so at least you can enjoy it now.

For Family Home Evening this week we made our Gingerbread house. Not our best one ever, but we still have fun making one every year!

Shyler was so excited for the candy, we had to slow her down! She was just dripping from all of the juice! She loved the Mike-n-Ikes Tim got! She also had fun being able to decorate her own graham crackers!

Showing off her work, she liked the snowflake ones the best and really did put most of the pieces in place herself.

Mommy and Shyler working away!

2009-12-15T15:01:00.002-07:00

Happy Holidays!!!

We have been so busy with the holidays, but we have been having a great time enjoying the season and being with family and friends. Here we are on Thanksgiving at Amanda's sister's house. Look at that belly! It's there really it is.... and don't worry I am having killer heartburn, and am feeling huge for those of you who think I am not that big!

Shyler had fun at Tim's work Children's party. Our little helper! She got to make this cool craft project with tissue paper and glue on a glass jar that had a handle on it and it turns into a really cool lantern. They even supplied a little battery operated candle! Shyler, however really only helped with about 3 pieces and then was done and enjoyed watching mom get her fingers all gluey.
They had a game room and Shyler loved playing the games and getting a prize out of the giant stocking. She also loved carrying around her cool treat back that she got to decorate.

32 week picture and getting even bigger! This baby is a lot lower and bigger than Shyler already, but other than that I shouldn't complain too much, he was healthy at a 30 week ultrasound and already weighed 3 1/2 lbs and growing bigger! He is still a big kicker and lets me know he is there. We are so excited to see him when he finally comes out to meet us!!!

Not much news

2009-11-16T13:13:00.005-07:00

So not much is new with us. Baby boy is getting so big in my tummy and as always during every stage of your pregnancy, I feel huge!!! He kicks all the time and sometimes I think I'm going to have a bruise from all of his hard kicks! Only 11 weeks left and with Thanksgiving and Christmas and all of the fun stuff in between these next 11 weeks are going to fly by. Next week we will have more exciting news as we get a 30 week ultrasound to check a spot on his head. We hope to see that he is getting so big and is doing great!

Here I am last week at 28 weeks

Here I am at 28 weeks with Shyler, I think I'm a lot bigger already!!

We are excited to spend Thanksgiving with Amanda's family in Fort Collins and then go out with all of the crazies and go shopping!! It will be a fun next week! You'd think I would have a picture of Shyler to put up here at least, but we keep forgetting. Most likely it would be one of her newest fashion trends, don't worry, I'm sure there will be many more to come!

Happy Halloween for real

2009-11-04T12:56:00.007-07:00

Luckily this was not how we had to spend Halloween. Just a few days before! She looks so cold in this picture. We tried to play in the snow, but when she won't wear her gloves the snow can be pretty cold.

She did like how I showed her she could kick the snow off with the side of the house, but that's about all she liked.

Like many of our friends we also got a little cabin fever. I was going crazy! I got her to sit still, sort of, long enough to try out two french braids in her hair. I was pretty excited I could actually do it and she has hair long enough already!

Now that Halloween has come and gone we are thinking that it is one of Shyler's favorite times of the year. She loved the trunk or treating that we did and her favorite candy is a lollipop! She was really good at finding them and unwrapping them. On Halloween night we were with Tim's sister Jeannette at their ward trunk or treat and she kept appearing with a new sucker, I think she had like 5 in that one night! Silly girl!

Here she is ready to go! She liked wearing her costume for the most part and when she didn't want to wear it Tim just told her she was going to get candy so she had to put it on and she listened.

After it was all said and done, she LOVED her loot! She of course found a sucker and opened it up after she dumped out the entire contents of her bucket on the kitchen floor

This is what happens when daddy is in charge and you have a very independent toddler. This is how Shyler woke up to me this morning. Polka dot footie pajamas, her blue stripped shirt that she now loves because it is blue and, please note the next picture, her elmo socks! Apparently she insisted on the sock picture as well during her photo shoot last night. She loves taking pictures now and after you click she says, " see, see, shyler see"

This is Lindsey, I get to watch her once or twice a week and her and Shyler are only a month apart. Today they were trying out Fruit Loop necklaces. (Thanks Dre for the idea) They both loved them. Not so good at the construction part of the project but they liked eating it. Lindsey had already gobbled hers up by the time I got the camera and was happy to just munch away.

But here is Shyler loving her fruity edible necklace

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-28T13:31:00.006-06:00

Ok so it's not Halloween yet, but we have been having fun getting ready for it! We went to the pumpkin patch and farm to get in the mood with Tim's parents, Uncle Mel, Amanda's Mom and Tim's sister Sarah and her family. Shyler and her cousin are finally starting to like to play with each other and have a good time! We are happy for them and can't wait to see if they will be good friends as they grow up. We are also excited for our little guy on the way. We just found out Tim's sister who is only 6 weeks behind us is having a boy too! We will have two little guys running around that will also be best buds! We hope that the other 2 sisters are able to have one so we can have a round of cousins within a year of each other, that will be so fun!!!

The two farm boys so excited to see an oliver, bringing back so many memories for them!
Shyler loving the little kid maze
Mel and Calvin sitting in the patch
Sarah Calvin and Roger
Why is Shyler squating like that? We're not sure but she does that a lot lately for pictures, she is so silly!
Shyler got to try out her costume early at the Trunk or Treat for Tim's parents ward. I was at a baby shower so I didn't even get to see how cute she looked and I also had the camera, thank goodness for camera phones. Shyler also discovered the joy of the trunk or treat and the candy that comes with it! She loved her glow in the dark braclets one car was passing out.

What happens with Shyler in the bathroom while mommy is getting ready for the baby shower... somehow she slipped them under the lid. Didn't know that was happening I thought they were just on top of the toilet... needless to say we are down a few hair elastics and barrettes.

After her fun time at the Trunk or Treat she was so excited she didn't want to go to bed, and like most nights tries to procrastinate... well Sat night she found her headband and we couldn't stop laughing at how silly she looked and the cheesy grins she was flashing.

On Monday we braved a rough cranky morning and took a trip to Colorado Springs to visit Shannon and Travis and Dre and Lexi met us down there. It was fun to visit with old friends and to watch the little ones interact. I think Travis is afraid of Shyler and all of the hugs she tried to give him, and Lexi wished Shyler would stop following her and getting in her space. Shyler has a problem with personal space sometimes. I wish they were more cooperative while I took pictures, but they loved giving hugs goodbye

And Lexi waved goodbye to her too

Last night we had a chance to carve our pumpkins! This is the first year we actually both carved our own! We had Tim's sister Karen over to carve with us. Shyler wasn't so into it, but maybe because she had an upset tummy. Mine is on the left with Tim's in the middle and Karen's on the Right. We have learned that we like the templates but we are not smart enough to follow our dots that we poke so we outlined the dots with marker so we would know where to carve. It worked out great and will have to be something I do from now on!

Happy Halloween! We hope you all have a great weekend!

24 weeks down... so much more fun to go

2009-10-12T13:26:00.005-06:00

So we have been slackers again and should probably post more often than once every 4 weeks. But we have had a lot of fun the last 4 weeks and have been busy doing a lot of the same and some other fun stuff. I am 24 weeks along and am still growing big, but staying busy with the family.

I love this candid picture of Tim and Shlyer reading together! She loves to read!
GO RAMS! Shyler was all set to cheer on her favorite college ram team and she even let me try to do her hair, of course I had to let her play with the bathroom cups. Maybe they haven't been winning because she hasn't been wearing her cheerleading outfit to cheer them on... we'll try next week.

One night after a good day, Tim decided Shyler deserved a real treat before bed so Shyler got oreos! They are her favorite and when she sees a package of them she gets super excited! She is a big fan of licking off the icing!
You can't have oreos without milk! Yum!

Our biggest adventure was taking a trip to Utah! We packed up and took my mom out with us to visit some friends and to get away. We didn't end up going to a session of conference, but we did get to go to the Salt Lake Temple.

It was so nice to be together in the temple and to feel the spirit. It was also great to visit our friends the Jacobsen's. I got a fun girls night with candy and The Hannah Montana movie and trying to learn a dance while Tim went to the BYU vs. Utah State football game. He didn't really care who won, but he had fun with that very, very different college football game experience.

So if you are ever in the American Fork area with kids they have this great place called Kangaroo Zoo. It was so cool it was a giant room full of different bounce castles! Shyler was a little apprehensive at first but then ended up having a great time!

Here she is going down one of the slides
Going down with Hyrum, her boyfriend

Playing on the alligator with daddy watching
Trying to climb up the ladder in the obstacle course

After a fun time with the Jacobsen's we also got to visit Tim's mission companion, Mitch and his wife, Shannon. They were so nice to let us come visit and watch conference with them. Too bad for them they had to watch it with a very energetic toddler. We hope they were able to get a message out of it. On Sat. night when the boys went to the priesthood session us girls went shopping! Don't go to a mall in Salt Lake on the same night as the priesthood session. Craziness!! It was fun and we got some great stuff. Shannon who is expecting their little guy in Nov got some new clothes and I found little our little guy a couple of things.

The drive home was ok. I had to drop Tim off in Rock Springs, WY for a work trip and then drive the rest of the way. Luckily I had my mom with me so help keep Shyler entertained. We busted out the DVD player and that was very helpful. The fact that I was driving wasn't bad, it was the fact that I was driving in rain, sleet, snow, fog... you name it, it fell on us.

Our latest adventure, which might be one of our craziest is that we ran the CSU homecoming race this past weekend. It was 16 degrees with a couple inches of snow on the grass and snowing while we ran!!!!!! We are crazy but we actually had a lot of fun! Thankfully my mom watched Shyler so she didn't have to be subjected to that, but Tim's sister Jeannette, Tim and I all ran the 5k!!! I won't say that we had good times, but we ran the whole time and I like to remember the weather conditions and the fact that I am 5 1/2 months pregnant... can you tell I'm pretty proud of it? Since it was so cold we didn't bring our camera to document it, but we got our shirts and you could find our time and name if you really wanted to know on the website. That is my 4th year in a row running the race and I love our tradition of running this race. I also love our breakfast tradition of Silver Grille's cinnamon roll french toast afterwards... YUMMY!!!!

IT'S A...

2009-09-17T22:37:00.004-06:00

It's a BOY!!!!!!!
We had our 20 week ultrasound today and we are excited to share that we are having a boy! It took about 2 seconds on the screen to see him showing himself off we could tell right away. He was very cooperative and the technician got great shots and we got to see all of his perfect little parts! Amanda's mom watched Shyler during our visit since it was during nap time and when we got home she was teaching her how to say brother... sounds like bra- der, so cute!!!

He looks like he is blowing a bubble if you look close enough. We had fun watching him swim around and kick A LOT! He is an active little guy and is practicing for when he gets out and has to keep up with his sister.

Here I am at 20 weeks. I feel big and comparing to when I was pregnant with Shyler I am bigger and have gained a little more faster. Hopefully I don't gain a ton more. Luckily I am feeling well and not too much is happening except for getting full fast, so sad when something is so tasty! I have gotten over the super tired phase as well, but I do love my sleep!

We can't forget about our little princess, the other day she was so tired she fell asleep on me at like 11am before lunch and so I just put her in bed. She slept for 2 hours and then was ready for lunch. She has also been doing very well in her big girl bed. She stays in it for the most part, even at night when she doesn't want us to leave she will stand up and cry a little but then will lay down and go to sleep eventually. Hopefully that is not a jinx on us, and she keeps it up. In the morning we love that she gets up and knocks on the door and calls for us! Soon she'll be able to reach the knob, but for now we love the knock!

Sporting a fresh bang trim and an old hat from when her Great Grandpa Irwin ran for state legislature. She just loves hats!

A little of this and a little of that....

2009-09-08T13:53:00.007-06:00

So I haven't posted in a while because I didn't think we had much to talk about, but then we had a super busy weekend and have lots to share!!!!

Starting on Thursday night we started painting our family room. We have slowly been going room by room painting and this was one of the last big ones we really wanted to do. We are almost done making it look pretty but the paint job alone is great! It is the same colors that are in the living room and kitchen because we figured it was all kind of open to each other and we wanted a nice flow. For those of you that have been in our house we also re-arranged too!

We have a kid, can you tell? We want to get those little bins to put in those 4 little cubby holes in the entertainment center. We also want to get slip covers for the couch and recliner so it will match a little better and new blinds for the window.

This wall had 3 wood shelves that we took down and patched up.

The view from the kitchen table

On Sat. I had to work, but Tim wanted to get out and enjoy our beautiful mountains. They left at 6:30 and drove to the top of Mt. Evans!

The Moon at 6:30 am

The mountain goats
Shyler sitting at the official marker, her first 14'er

Our little monkey mountain climber!

GO RAMS!!!! We can't forget that we had a fun Sunday night watching the Rams beat the Buffs!

On Monday we finished out a long weekend with a trip to A Taste of Colorado. We love going and enjoying the variety of food and looking around. We went with Tim's sister Karen and his mom and dad. We enjoyed a tasty buffalo burger along with a few other treats!

Shyler liked the ear of corn she split with her daddy

But, she LOVED the snow cone she got to split with her mommy, well more like took over!

Our final event of the long weekend involved the purchase of Shyler's new bed! She fell out of her crib last week and has been trying to climb out for a while. So after lots of thinking and a chat with her pediatrician we decided on a twin bed on the floor for now. We kept her up late while we set it up and washed her new sheets. Then I had to stay in there with her until she fell asleep. She slept all night and did really well and is super excited to have a new bed! She kept pointing at it while we were re-arranging her room and the bed was downstairs. We also rearranged so that when our next little one comes there will be a spot ready for the crib to go back.
Shyler also got her 18 month check up this week and what a surprise she is where she always is in the percentiles.
34 1/2" ~ 97 %
23 lb 5 oz ~ 25%
She is still our tall skinny girl!!!

Big yawn for the big girl!

Shyler's news

2009-08-03T10:54:00.007-06:00

We haven't been up to too much around here at the Miller house, but we still have been busy. A couple of weeks ago Tim and Shyler got to go up to Estes Park with a coworker from out of town. They had fun playing at the park and brought home a big box of salt water taffy, yummy!

On the 23rd of July Tim and I went to a concert! We saw Taylor Swift at Cheyenne Frontier Days. It was for the most part a great concert, minus me fainting! So we were in standing room only and it was a little hot and I was a little dehydrated and I rested my head on Tim's shoulder and down I went, more explanation at the end of the blog. Props to the security guys they were real quick to help and lifted me over the guard rail since I had passed out again and walked with us to first aid where I got some water and powerade and was good to go! Luckily I passed out during the opening act, Kellie Pickler, and we were ready for Taylor Swift. After I recovered we hung out in the back and found a good place to sit if I got tired. It was a fun time and it was great to be out all night without little miss Shyler. We stayed at our friends Becky and Cody's house and woke up early for the FREE pancake breakfast, that was yummy too! We left Shyler for the first time over night and she did really well. She stayed with my sister Kelli in Fort Collins and got to play with her cousins and go swimming and stay up late! We're glad Kelli could help us like that and that Shyler was so good for her.

Here we are at the breakfast!

This summer I have been trying to keep Shyler busy because if not she gets bored, what a surprise. We try to go to park days with people from church, we have gone to the zoo and we go swimming with our friends from the breastfeeding support group. She also loves to play with other kids, and we are working on the no hitting and sharing with others.

Saturday was our ward pool party and she had a blast swimming with her daddy! She was mad when we took her out, but she was shaking pretty bad because she was so cold!

Our biggest news that Shyler wants to share is that she is going to be a big sister! She doesn't really show it yet, or know it, but she is excited!!!

Tim and I are excited too! So it has been fun, ok not fun, this summer dealing with the first trimester yuckiness but we're getting through it and I've become the queen of napping when Shyler naps! Today we are 14 weeks and we are excited about our due date of Feb 1, but we are hoping for the 2nd so we can have a 3/3 baby and a 2/2 baby!!! I love number patterns like that!

I look especially tired today because someone wanted to wake up at 6:30!!! Not my idea of fun! So another reason why I probably passed out at the concert with the other factors is that I have a little baby taking up all of my energy! Don't worry the doctor said the baby should be fine after my little ordeal.

Our new bathroom

2009-07-12T21:40:00.005-06:00

Ever since we moved in we have not liked our bathroom, so for our 4th of July we bribed Tyler with a steak Bar-b-que and had him and Shannon come help us remodel our bathroom. We disliked the maroon counter top, wallpaper border and the rusted sink, and Tim really didn't like the shower doors. So out they all came and in came a new vanity, sink, counter top, medicene cabinet, low-flow efficient toilet, and shower rod.

We forgot the camera before we started tearing stuff out, so this is actually from last year before we moved in.
So you really can't see much in this pic, just that there are 2 doors and it was painted an off white and that the shower doors were framed in gold.

Ta da!!!! Here it is now! We ended up getting a white vanity, countertop/sink combo, and painted the trim white. We also added nickle brushed towel rods and already had the shower curtain that goes with the brushed look.

We are loving it 10 times more than before, and are so grateful for the Read's for their help with our project.

Not much is going on with our family. Shyler got to play with her cousin on the 4th of July when they came over for dinner and she has been getting used to the idea of her little swimming pool in the backyard. She really loves putting her suit on but is still getting used to the idea of swimming.

Tommorow is Tim's parents anniversary and we want to let them know how happy we are for them. They have been married for 30 years and we look up to them so much for the great example they are to us. They are enjoying a long weekend spending time together and doing stuff in Denver they don't normally do. On Sat they took Shyer and Calvin to the zoo!!! They all had a blast!

After a long morning at the zoo then we took Shyler to a wedding. She wasn't really into the whole ceremony, she thought playing in the trees and grass was more exciting, she liked the food at the reception, and she loved playing with the other little ones on the dance floor, but we are going to try harder to find her a babysitter for the next wedding we go to! We did think she looked pretty cute in her dress she finally got to wear that she got for her birthday from Great Uncle Bob and Great Aunt Karen.

Home again, Home again

2009-06-22T14:05:00.012-06:00

Finally we are home again from our fantastic vacation to California!!! We had a great time! To sum it up we visited lots of family and drove a lot, good thing we had unlimited miles in our rental car. Shyler was so good and Tim gives her a gold star for the trip. We took her from place to place and most of her naps were taken in the car, not normally a good idea for her. Her are some pictures and more details of the trip...

Stop one... Amanda's brother Matt and his family in Lompoc, CA, Vandenburg Air Force Base, Pismo Beach, and Solvang

She loved the swings!! She insisted on trying out all 4!

Walking on the pier in Pismo Beach, we even got to see dolphins, and try some world famous santa maria style barbecue

We stopped at The La Purisima de Consepcion Mission just outside of Lompoc

The beach on base was COLD!!!

Amanda's brother Matt and his son Conner, showing us around the base

Shyler and her cousin Jordan swinging at a park, they had so much fun playing together!

The 3 little cousins

Stop 2... Amanda's sister Debbie and family, Reagan Presidential Library- Simi Valley, CA, Amanda's home town of Moorpark, Burbank, CA and the Griffith Observatory, and Huntington Library and Gardens in Pasadena

A section of the Berlin wall at the Reagan Library

The Air Force President Reagan flew on

Shyler's thoughts on the Moorpark tour... and also the start of her fever

We stopped by all of Amanda's old houses and schools and this was her Grandma Allie's house. Looks the same as she remembered, some of the others had been remodeled

Shyler at dinner. She sat there with her hands at her side and we had to feed her, she didn't feel good

When we got back to the hotel she went straight for our bed and curled up

The BEST sandwiches!!! A little hole in the wall Amanda's mom used to go to. Tim got a meatball sub and Amanda got a hot pastrami, the part that makes it so good is the chopped up pickles, tomatoes, and onions you can get scooped on top. Not a relish, just little chunks of each!

We stopped at the Griffith Observatory and got a good view of the city and learned a little about space and such. The most recent movie filmed here was, Yes Man with Jim Carrey.

Amanda and the Hollywood sign in the background

Shyler giving a speech... not really but she loved the little podium placard in front of the statue out front of samous astonomers throughout time

We went to this cool garden and library with Amanda's Sister Debbie and son Shane

One of Amanda's favorites, the rose garden with this statue thing devoted to love, or something like that

Tim ws excited to see some of the cool books they had on display like an original Guttenburg Bible (One of the people who invented the printing press) But another reason was to see the Corpse Flower. It was supposed to bloom and smell like dead flesh and attract flies. Well we missed the bloom by one day, too bad! Maybe in another 7 years, because that is how often it blooms.

Stop 3... Amanda's sort of adopted brother and his family in Carlsbad, CA

Shyler at the beach. Not a fan of the water, even when it's warmer out

We picked our own fresh strawberries

Stop 4... Amanda's friend Kat, The San Diego Temple, The San Diego Zoo

So breath taking, this temple is so pretty. We didn't get to go inside, but we had fun walking around the grounds with Shyler. It is a huge attraction to people because it is right on a major freeway driving into San Diego. We are pretty much standing at the end of the grounds with the freeway to our backs taking this picture.

So many pretty flowers on the temple grounds and all over CA

Our last night... Shyler got lucky and we were able to borrow a pack and play at every stop except the last one. So Shyler, Amanda and Oliver the cat shared the air mattress while Tim slept on the couch. This is how she woke up with her legs hanging over the edge!

Shyler seemed to like the elephants the best at the zoo. They also just opened a cool new area for the elephants that is ginormous!!

We thought it would be fun to turn our little one into a giraffe!

The famous Panda Bears, asleep of course!

We loved our cool rental car. We totally got hooked up and upgraded!! We were going for the cheaper level, but we couldn't pass up the brand new suv with only 142 miles on it!!! Plus it ended up being a great place to let shyler roam when we had to stop and to change her diaper! It's not so new anymore, we put 800 miles on it!!!!

We had so much fun and are so thankful to everyone who we saw and who took us in and took us out!!! We were able to have a fun, exciting, and affordable vacation!!!

Many adventures of a 1 year old

2009-05-23T20:53:00.006-06:00

So it may be a Sat. night, but I am sitting at home by myself as Tim helps his mom rescue the family dog, Dotty. She decided to get into the garage and lick some De Con, rat poison, So off he went to help take her to the Doggy ER. She'll be ok, she does have an iron stomach and has definitely eaten her share of doggy no no's.

So I thought I would blog and show off some of the pictures we have, since I went a little camera crazy and took a lot of shots and even filled our memory card.

This past week Shyler has had many adventures and big moments. She's had to say a lot of goodbyes and also gone to new places while doing a lot of the same old same old.

Last week started with a goodbye to our good friends the Tucker's. Derek got a job with the Navy and they now live in Florida. We will miss them so much!! I really want to go visit, and maybe we will get to this fall to see their new little one!

A 7 month pregnant lady golfing. She still beat me too! No handicap needed. Then there is Derek and his dad in the background. Can you tell they are related?

I bet you could have guessed how mini golfing would be with a one year old. She stole all of the balls, put them in new places, and stood in the way, on purpose. Luckily everyone was very understanding of the inevitable and we all had fun!

Saying goodbye after a yummy dinner at BeauJo's The four of us

Then on Thursday Shyler had to say goodbye to her boyfriend! So sad!! One of my really good friends here in Thornton is moving. We are happy for them because they have a really great opportunity ahead of them and they can be near family, but we are still sad to see them leave. Shyler and I have been walking and running with them since she was born. Holli has been such a great person to talk to and get advice when it comes to being a mom and just a great person. Did I mention I'm going to miss them?

The 2 of them sitting in their joggers, such a great invention. I love having this!

Shyler now loves the swing at the park and the slide, sometimesHolli and Hyrum

Those other suitors for Shyler better watch out!

Last Sunday Shyler decided she needed to wake up screaming and wouldn't go back to sleep unless Tim stayed with her. So he did but then he came back to bed and left her on the floor. When I went in to check on her this is what we found

What was even funnier is what was underneath the pink blanket. Notice the duck and the baby and blanket all securely tucked under her and her little sleepy head and the boppy she insisted sleeping on

On this note. I have some super exciting news and one last goodbye for Shyler.....

She is WEANED!!!!!!!! On Monday and Tuesday night I had to work so we just decided we would do it now. She gave up the morning fairly easily the week before and this last week wasn't too bad. She's been a little fussy, but that's not new. We have other things we do at bedtime that help her get ready for bed so even when I put her to sleep on Wednesday she went pretty willingly. It was kind of sad for me but also really nice too. I know I'll have others and I don't miss the whole dependency part since she wouldn't take a bottle, but I do and will miss the bonding time. I am also grateful I got to do it for 14 1/2 months, I remember being pregnant and hoping for 6 months!

Fun hike and bike tour! Today Tim went on a bike ride with his friends from freshman year of college. They all bike to the brewery's in Fort Collins and tour them. He enjoyed the company and some root beer! We don't have any pictures, but he did get soaked as he rode out to Budweiser.

We on the other hand stayed dry as we opted to hike up to Horsetooth Falls with my mom.

Touching the tree
The pond, so tempting

So tempting in fact she dove right on in! Face first!
We had to take off the pants and outer jacket and wrap her in my sweatshirt for the hike back. Pretty funny, but poor baby!

I loved these flowers!! They are purple and I think they have such a cool shape!

Our fun week!

Our House

2009-05-13T15:06:00.005-06:00

So we finally planted flowers and our garden and I took pictures and we have our finished product. We are pretty happy considering we don't really know what we are doing. Here are some before and after shots!

Our garden boxes

The Dirt

Our garden

The yard before with the hole

Boring dirt

The hole

The mostly dead tree from the hole

Our new peach tree! (the towel doesn't belong there)

Our new and improved yard!
My fault for taking it with the sun glare.

Tim and Shyler playing out front

New rock, tree, and flowers!

Fun stepping stones to the water spigot

Flowers in the front planter

The whiskey barrel with flowers

Our new yard!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

2009-05-10T17:20:00.004-06:00

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

We're trying to teach Shyler to tell us that she is one year old

After a bad experience on her birthday of NOT touching her cupcake, she got another chance and really does like them, who wouldn't it's a bunch of yummy sweetness!

Today has been a great day. I have the best husband who totally let me slack off today and do nothing!!! He slaved in the kitchen to make me homemade cinnamon rolls and tonight he is making me my favorite parma rosa pasta! He also let me sleep in!!! I didn't even wake up to nurse Shyler! (We're trying to get rid of that one) It's a great day to be a mom!!!

I am also so thankful for all of the other mother's in my life. My own mom is so great. She is so helpful and loving and caring. She tried so hard to teach me and give me all that I would need when I was growing up all without the help of a husband. Even today she is there for me whenever I need her help. She is always there to lend a helping hand!! I Love you Mom!!!

My other mom, Tim's mom is also so wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better mother-in-law! She also has many of the qualities my mom has, but she raised Tim to be a worthy priesthood holder and encouraged him to follow his dreams to be the man he is today! Thanks, we love you!

I also am so thankful for all of my sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends who are mom's or who will be a mom one day. You are all such inspirations and truely amazing daughters of God. Thank you so much!!!

We did get new rock and a new tree put in our front yard, I did not take any after shots yet. I also need to plant some flowers and then I'll be proud of our work!! So we will keep you in suspense a little longer.

Pigtails and bruises

2009-04-28T13:32:00.006-06:00

So here I was bragging about my non swollen face after I got my wisdom teeth out, well I may not have swelled up, but I got a funny bruise!! Other than that i'm doing fine, minus the little bit of tooth that is poking out of my gums that he must have forgotten. (I'm going back on Friday to have it taken out.)

Looking like I colored my face with a highlighter last Tuesday, 5 days after they came out

Shyler and I on Sunday before church, a little more purple

Today, a week and a half later, still purple and yellow

Shyler is doing great and becoming quite the temper tantrum throwing little one. We're working on it, and most of the time she is pretty good.She just doesn't like people to leave or for you to take something away from her. She LOVES to wear things she finds around the house. On Sunday she decided she should wear this Kentucky beanie Tim got on his mission. Today it was a lai or how ever you spell that. She likes headbands and she even was good last week and let me try pigtails!!! Silly girl!

She wasn't big on looking at the camera

Our little thug

Tim is also doing good if anyone wonders. He still has and likes his job and is super excited to landscape our front yard this weekend. We are putting in rock and a new tree!!! We'll have to do some before and after shots. Also we are so excited to try a garden for the first time!!!

A wisdomless Amanda and a Happy Easter!

2009-04-17T11:13:00.004-06:00

Shlyer and our family had a great Easter. Of course we had to take part in as many Easter egg hunts as we could and we also got the spend the day with our friends Tyler and Shannon as they also got to bless their baby Travis.

On Sat. we took Shyler to the City of Thornton's egg hunt. Unfortunately it was like 40 degrees and she was more interested in all the other little kids than the stuff in the grass. That's OK she'll rock the 0-2 year old age group next year.

After the egg hunt we tried to dye eggs. Well, Amanda is forgetful and never remembers how to cook eggs right so they were more like soft boiled eggs, solid whites, but soft yolks, that shyler had fun throwing in the cups and then trying to drink. We almost let her try some but didn't think the vinegar dye wayer it would go over too well.

Shyler LOVED her Easter basket and all of the goodies she got!

SO excited!
We tried an egg hunt again on Easter morning and she did much better. She found the eggs all over the living room and then brought them to me and put them on my lap. She was also so excited when she got one opened and there were goldfish and cheerios in the eggs.

All pretty in her dress! Not only did she have to wear a long sleeved onsie under dress there was also a sweater and pink tights, because when we got to Colorado Springs it was SNOWING!!! We felt babd that she was wearing cute little sandals, but she survived. Only in CO do you get 6 inches of snow on Easter Sunday in the middle of April.

After a great baby blessing we got to spend the day with some of our good friends from college. All of their families were there too so there were lots of little ones for Shyler's 3rd egg hunt! She actually put eggs in her bucket and found a corner where she scored big time! It was so fun! Thanks again to Tyler and Shannon for letting us be apart of the family and spending Easter with you!

And to finish out this week, I got my wisdom teeth out yesterday!

I was so nervous all week and I didn't know what to expect. Well let me just say, I am woman, hear me roar! I gave birth to Shyler and compared to that, this was nothing!!! I am a little sore still, but I slept so much yesterday that I woke up at 4 in the morning wide awake!!! Even by 5 last night I was doing ok. I still have the gauze in the mouth in these pictures, so I really didn't even swell up that much. Funny that Shyler is passed out and not me, but we'll take it!

Haircut and Pudding

2009-04-08T11:39:00.004-06:00

Shyler loves to wear whatever she can find that keeps her warm, including her daddy's ear warmers. GO RAMS!!!!!

She loves eating her snack pack! She is also her mother's daughter and preferred the vanilla to the chocolate!! Good girl!!

This is from a couple weeks ago, but it was the most recent one that would sort of show off her mullet that was forming and driving me nuts.

So I cut her hair! She got a little trim up front...

...And a cute little bob cut in the back. It's not perfect, but considering how squirmy she is, I'm pretty impressed with my work. Let's just say when you let her get into your drawer in the bathroom and you don't stop her you can do what you want to her hair. Well, for a few minutes at least.

SNOW!!!!

2009-03-26T10:16:00.005-06:00

So we finally got some real snow here, they say we are going to get a foot! I'll believe it when I see it, but so far we have like 3 inches of the good wet and heavy stuff and Shyler got to use her snow pants and play in the snow. We've tried it a little bit before, but today was the first day with the pants my mom got her. She even willingly put gloves on! It was OK until she slipped and fell, and then a glove came off and every time she touched the cold wet white stuff she freaked out. So, it was a short adventure, but it was fun to watch her freak out at the snow and explore a little. For now I think she would much rather stay inside and look out the window and point! Luckily her snow pants are gigantic and even though they say 12 months on them, hopefully they will fit next year too, we can hope at least.

Not really sure why she randomly takes a pacifier and sticks it in her mouth, but this morning she did and then she dropped it somewhere, and will one day find it and stick it in her mouth for 5 minutes.

She got her pants on, and was not really happy about them, but she survived

All ready to go outside!

Walking to the snow!! Her coat and pants look so big on her but they are only 12 months and I would think they should be a little smaller on her.

Walking around the driveway

Making sure mommy is nearby, still not sure about this stuff

And then she fell

MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!

Actually a lot of her day has been spent crying, "Mommy, pick me up!" I'm sure your kids have gone through this phase, but she is being super duper needy and clingy, even more so than normal. Not my favorite part about her, but she still has her cute moments and I know one day she'll get over it, and one day I'll even wish I still had it.

She makes us laugh

2009-03-16T22:07:00.003-06:00

Shyler makes us laugh, a lot!!! She loves to be a big girl and use and wear all of the things we use. Some of her favorites are playing with the cell phone, remote control, and oven mitts, you name it...

Sunday night it was all about wearing daddy's socks, she thought that was so cool

After her bath on sunday morning she also decided she needed to continue wearing her towel while she played in her room

She also loves to play in her closet, opening and closing the doors and putting stuff in her shopping cart

and today she decided she needed to go shopping again, so was carrying all of our reusable grocery bags around on her shoulder, she had like 5 of them

ok mom, lets go...

A crazy birthday week

2009-03-09T11:32:00.007-06:00

So after Shyler's party on Sunday we ended up having a crazy week.

First the craziest thing... of all of our family that came to Shyler's part and a couple others that couldn't make it, 11 out of 20 people ended up with something yucky. We are going with the stomach flu because 3 people who were not at the party and 1 who came and didn't eat anything got sick. They all had all of the yucky symptoms of the stomach flu. We felt so bad that so many people got sick and will always have a story to tell Shyler about her first birthday. Luckily Shyler and I didn't get sick so we are pretty happy about that, but Tim did. To make it worse for Tim he was on a business trip near Green River, WY and was sick. Poor Tim! Luckily everyone has recovered and we hope that we didn't get anyone else sick.

Second Ccazy thing... While Tim was gone I got the bright idea that I should surprise him and repaint our bedroom. I have spent 7 months staring at this awful chair rail border and I figured instead of complaining more about it I would surprise him and do it myself! I took advantage of the nice weather and convinced my mom to come down and help and I was ready to go. My mom unfortunately got hit with the stomach flu bug a little and ended up out of commission for most of the work. With a little extra help from my sister- in- law Karen watching Shyler and me staying up until 1, I finished in time. When Tim came home I told him I had a surprise in the bedroom and he just thought it was new comforter... I fooled him!!!

Third crazy thing... Shyler's One Year check-up. So this wasn't super crazy, just created a cranky child after she got her shots. Here are her stats though...
Length 31.5" = > 97%
Weight 19 lb 3 oz = 10-25 %
So, as if you didn't already know it, we have a long skinny baby!

So after those crazy happenings and Tim coming home we were almost back to a normal level of craziness! Here are some pictures of Shyler eating birthday cake take 2 and some of the work I did in our room!

Picking at the cake

I'm not so sure about this stuff

I like the fork better

Classic Shyler smooshy face

All done!

Our doorway before

Bed area before

The second layer of border

Door area after

Bed area after

New quilt up close

A Fun Birthday Party!

2009-03-02T22:18:00.003-07:00

Shyler is almost 1! On Sunday we had family over and celebrated this exciting time. We can't even believe how fast this past year has flown by, and now our little princess is now a walking talking independent toddler! Here are 12 fun facts about Shyler for every month she has been alive.

1. Shyler loves cheese! Mac and cheese, quesadillas, and grilled cheese are some of her favorites
2. She loves to hug her friends
3. She loves the phone and even calls people
4. She loves holding and carrying around stuffed animals and her baby doll
5. She loves to sleep with a blanket, a washcloth, and now a stuffed animal
6. The swing and slide at the park seem to scare her
7. She loves bath time and runs into the bathroom when she hears the water running
8. She is good at bringing you things when you ask her nicely
9. She loves to point and say, "What's that?"
10. She is afraid of the vacuum when it's running, but loves to help sweep the floor
11. She is so strong and can knock you over
12. She loves dirt and grass and wishes her mommy would let her eat it and play in it more often

Her butterfly cake I made for her

Nobody got a good picture of her eating her cupcake because she didn't eat it!!!! She put her hand down on the frosting and it freaked her out and didn't want anything to do with the cupcake. We'll try it again on Tuesday...

Shyler and her cousin playing with her new car. She likes to play with it, but not sit on it, pretty funny to see her reaction when you try to put her on it.

Her new phone, she was quick to start talking on it

Playing with her new puzzles

She had a fun time at her party, minus the cake part. We are so happy our family was able to be there with her to celebrate and we can't wait to celebrate many more with her. One other thing that we are so excited about it is her time capsule. We are having her family write her a letter or put things together to go in a time capsule for her to open on her 18th birthday! It was neat to see some of the stuff people thought of to put in there. I hope everyone will be able to be around to see her open it, but I am so happy that she will have something special just for her from the people that love her!

One of those weeks

2009-02-26T11:30:00.004-07:00

So we have had an interesting week here at our house. Well not super interesting, but trying on my patience. Shyler is a crazy crazy girl and some days she is a handful and others she is the sweetest ever. Yesterday was a harder day. I think some of it is because she is 1. little Miss Independent 2. She thinks she only needs one nap now, when she is a little in between that stage and 3. she is cutting a tooth, number 3 on the bottom and number 7 total. Last night we got to wake up at 1:45 and listen to her scream unless we were holding her. Eventually I caved and fed her, but that did not help, so after more screaming we caved even more and brought her into our bed to sleep. Well she thought that was more fun than anything, so Tim ended up sleeping on the couch so he could get some sleep and wake up for work, and Shyler and I eventually fell asleep on the bed. Turns out, if I would have thought about this, a little bit of Tylenol might have been helpful. You don't always think clearly at 3 in the morning.

So, to not make my child look like a complete monster, you should know that I do love her and she is pretty sweet. On Tuesday when I was babysitting Lindsey she was so nice. Lindsey's Grandma left and she was sad and started to cry. Shyler saw that and I said, "go get her a toy," so she went to her toy box and gave Lindsey her glow worm. It was so cute. I was worried that she would have a hard time with sharing because she used to not be so good at it, but it was so cute to watch her try and help Linsdey feel better. Shyler also loves other babies. She will walk over to any baby she sees and try to hug them. At church she loves to see Kirsten who shares her same birthday and they practically tackle each other and then they do laps around the church together during primary. Another fun and adorable time!

Here are some silly pictures of her and some of what yesterday was like

When I was at work last week she had a great time eating grapes and stuffing herself

She also loved making a new hair style up with her Au- natural grape hair gel

Yesterday she decided she needed to use the oven mitts when I was making dinner

Every time I got ready for a good shot she did this, charged after me and smiled as she tried to grab the camera

and then after she got bored with the oven mitts she wanted up. Poor girl, life is tough when you are short!

and then she was mad I wouldn't pick her up, don't worry I did.

Sleepy Head

2009-02-09T11:55:00.004-07:00

So I love when you have a sleeping baby, I also love when they take super long naps!

On Sunday Shyler decided she needed to wake up at 6:30, which we don't love, but then when it came time for her nap she went right to sleep at 9:30 and when we went to wake her up at 12:15 for lunch before church she just kept sleeping (normally she wakes up the minute you open her door). It was just so cute to watch her sleep, now that she is a light sleeper we don't get to see it too often.

She is a funny sleeper too, she has to sleep with a blanket and a washcloth! It started out as just a washcloth, but when it started getting colder we added the blanket and now she loves them both! I think she would sleep with a doll or stuffed animal if we let her. When she wakes up she has to make sure to grab both of them and then you can pick her up. Luckily she hasn't gotten attached to a specific one yet!

When she finally did wake up I think we kind of scared her as we were hovering over, and she also had some wicked hair! It was pretty funny looking and Tim wanted to take her to church like that!

Silly girl, I'm glad that today she slept like normal, and is taking a good nap too!

She's a walking!!!

2009-01-29T10:28:00.005-07:00

So it has actually been 2 weeks, but I finally got some better video of our little walker!!! She really is into everything and going everywhere. Shyler loves to climb up and down the stairs and go into the bathroom and go into her mommy and daddy's room. It's so fun to watch her, especially at the beginning when she looked like a drunken sailor walking around.

Here is a short one of her when she first started 2 weeks ago

Here she was this morning!

We're so proud of her!

Skiing pictures

2009-01-15T16:30:00.002-07:00

So I figured out where the pictures of us skiing were, so here are a couple

Derek and Nichole

Tim and Amanda ready to go down

Riding the Gondola up the mountain

Correction... not JH

2009-01-15T16:13:00.003-07:00

So I was wrong and should correct the previous blog. That is not Jackson Hole Ski Resort in the picture, it is the one like 5 minutes from Derek's house. Jackson Hole looks way cooler! and what I said about it was true, just not the picture.
Which by the way brings me to another point, Tim had to clarify why my mom would want one of the stickers from the resort that are oval and black and white with the initials JH... Duh Amanda, it was not just because we went there, but because those are her initials!