Happy Sweet 6th Birthday!

It is hard to believe how fast the year has gone and it has been such an exciting year for Miss Abigail. This year she has learned to ski, learned to swim, learned to ride her bike without training wheels, and learned to read. Plus she started Kindergarten. What an fun year!! It has been so much fun watching her grow and mature and progress. As hard as it is to see her grow up, it is equally as joyful to watch her become a wonderful girl. She is sweet as can be, but definitely knows what she wants and makes it known. She is a fashion diva and has a very good sense of style. I am ever so thankful she has grown out of her "I will only wear my Dora pajamas" and her "I will only wear dresses that spin" stages. She will actually let me pick out what she will wear and now she is only particular about her hair. She lets me know how many ponytails, if she wants it straightened or curled or wavy, etc etc.

Abby is a perfect middle child. Heavenly Father definitely knew what he was doing when he put her in between Britton and Maycee. She is a pleaser, peacemaker, and loving sister. She is a great example for Maycee and Maycee just loves Abby. My favorite moments are when they go in their room, shut their door and play pretend for hours. They love to play house, preschool, and lately I have heard them playing "young women" Love it.

Abby has adjusted well to the life of a Kindergartner. She has taken particular interest in being a friend to a special needs girl in her class. This just warms my heart. Abby always reports to me each day things she did to be nice to this little girl.

Abby loves her music. Her favorite channel is CMT. She would watch music videos all day if I let her. She LOVES Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood. Lately, we can hear her singing Mine, Haunted, and Speak Now from TS new album.

They say the funniest things

Today Maycee said to me out of the blue, "Mom, why does Jesus have girl hair?"

Love This Time of Year

This is a pose Britton does about 100 times a day. He is air pitching.

Abby setting up the Nativity.

Maycee gracefully putting on the star!

I love decorating for Christmas! It is such a fun time and brings back such fun memories of my parents getting the tree out (or even us going to pick out a real tree) and then helping decorating it. I remember stringing real popcorn with thread, and was appalled to see they actually sell fake popcorn garland (it just doesn't seem right). I just love the magical feeling of Christmas. Our kids are at fun ages~ it is so fun to try see things through their eyes. We had a fun night decorating the Christmas tree and getting out all the decorations. Everyone remembered that it was Maycee's turn to put the star on the Christmas tree. She was happy to do her job. One of the kids favorite things is to see which ornaments are theirs, they also love to remind me how old I am when they say, "Mom, look this ornament is yours and its from 1985!!"

Multi tasking at its best

This scene just cracked me up. Some of you may feel bad for this cat, seeing how Maycee has her in a partial death grip/chest lock while she is vacuuming the rug. I don't feel too bad for Shady, she could get out of it if she wanted too....maybe.

Our Long Drawn out Halloween

Maycee was a Barbie princess this year, after digging through our dress ups and finding one that she was happy with..



Abby decided on Tinkerbell this year and I had so much fun helping her and her classmates make pumpkin necklaces. Being in the Kindergarten room makes me so happy!


The edible eyeballs I made for Britton's Fall Party...



Brittons teacher took this pic of B dog and I at his pumpkin carving party. Britton initially was going to be a football player, but then wanted to be a clown. By the time I got there, most of the costume (and make up) had disappeared!


Who really only celebrates Halloween on the actual day?? Apparently not this family. By the 31st, we were DONE dressing up!!! We had a great time prior to that day, as celebrations at the work place and at the school called for great costumes and lots of yummy treats!

Blake's new Toy!

I have to admit, I am one lucky gal. It doesn't take much to make this guy happy! And he even earned it, so it didn't cost us anything, except a couple of Saturday's time. Blake loves to be on the water and hopefully as the kids get older, we hope to be able to do lots of camping and rafting trips. For now, we are content using the inflatable kayak on the lake behind our house. One Friday night, we decided to get it out and at one point we were all in it! It is fun to be on the water and Abby even decided to be brave and jump in at one point.

Rockies Fun!!

Abby and Blake at the Rockies Dodgers Game

Britton at one of his baseball games this summer. He was so proud to wear the #5 (same as Cargo!)

We got to go to a game with Uncle Brett, Austin, and Grandpa earlier in the summer. Britton has been so lucky- 3 games this summer! (Thanks to Uncle Brian's girlfriend who shares her tickets!!)

Rockies Fans.
If you spent 24 hours in our house, you would realize quickly that much of Britton's life right now revolves around the Colorado Rockies. He knows every player, their stats, and will watch every game, all 9 innings if we let him. School, homework, and now flag football, piano, and cub scouts are all interfering with Britton's nightly routine of settling down in front of the tv to watch his Colorado Rockies play. He manages to stay on top of the games he misses, as he will run downstairs the morning after they play and get on MLB.com to watch all the highlights. I have been impressed with his memory skills and he will tell me all the stats, standings, players histories and more information about "Cargo," "Tulo", and "Dex Fow" then I thought I would ever know.

Nevertheless, I truly do love the fact that Britton loves sports. Blake and I are sports minded people and we love to watch them, and participate in them as well. We loved watching Britton play baseball this summer and would crack up at the intensity this kid would display on the field. He does more fist pumps then any one else on the team. He truly loves it. During one of the games, his team was behind by 8 in the second inning. I looked over and Britton was crying. Sobbing. He could not STAND that they were losing. Thankfully, his team came back and one that game, but we had to have a talk with him about being a gracious loser. This kid doesn't like to lose. I am thinking he gets that from Blake, who recently came home after a tennis match and proudly announced to the family, "Well guys, someone's gotta win. It might as well be me.!" Wow.

Abby K goes to Kindergarten

Wow, what a huge day... Abby has been pretty much waiting to go to Kindergarten since she was 3! Watching your big brother and going to all his school activities, makes a girl feel left out! Now it is her turn! She was so excited last night knowing that she would go to school today,but did tell me she was feeling "a little nervous." This morning she got dressed in her outfit that she had picked out 2 weeks ago (this was at 7:30 am) and said, "I'm ready to get on the bus!" I had to tell her she still had 4 more hours until the bus came, as she is in afternoon Kindergarten.

Abby was so confident as she walked on the bus. I followed the bus to school and watched her walk into the building with a huge smile on her face. She was so ready. It is bitter sweet for me to watch her go to school. I love seeing how excited she was and knowing all the fun things that will help her learn and grow. I am sad knowing she is going to be exposed to things I can't control and sad that sending her to school means she is growing up. Real life is hard!

Maycee cried hard, as we expected. She also asked me where Abby was several times. Poor little thing, it was hard to watch her best friend get on that bus, she was so excited to see her when she got home and maycee gave Abby the sweetest little kiss on her arm. Ahhhhh, love those moments..

1st day of 3rd grade....

B-dog 2010 3rd grade

B-dog 2007 Kindergarten


These sorts of days make me realize how time is going by so fast and how my kids are growing up way too quick. On Monday, we took Britton and Abby in to meet their teachers and see their classrooms. Britton is now on the intermediate side of the school, and he is thrilled that he now gets to play on the "big kids" playground. Britton and I both fell in love with his new teacher within minutes of meeting her. I am so excited for him and know that he is going to have a great year. It is so hard for me to believe that just three years ago he was starting Kindergarten and he cried everyday the whole year (no exaggeration) when I would put him on the bus. Now he is a confident 3rd grader, who didn't even look back when he walked into the school. I am so proud of him!!

12 inches later!!!!!

I have grown my hair out the past 2 years, with intention of being able to donate to Locks of Love. I have had enough hair to donate for the past year, but have been hesitant to cut it! I finally did it while we were in Wyoming, a friend of my sisters was happy to take her scissors to it! I hope they do something useful with my long ponytail that was donated!!

ROAD TRIP

Here are the kids celebrating as we passed into Texas! They were so thrilled to be close!

Cute Maycee after waking up with a bloody nose...

I love sleeping kids!

If you don't have a pillow, use a notebook!


Eariler in the year, we talked about doing some kind of summer vacation. All my kids talk about is wanting to go see their cousins in Texas. I knew that to fly their would be way to expensive, so I approached Blake about the possibility of taking a road trip down to Dallas to see the Griffiths family. With his new job, he got 18 days vacation to start with (which is AWESOME!), so he was very easy to persuade to take a week off.... Once we decided we would do it, the kids were so excited it about it and talked about it all the time. Honestly, I was dreading the drive, mainily because they are so used to only being in the car for 3 hours to go to Wyoming. 13 hours is a little different. They did so great and we even had FUN in the car!! Who would have thought???????

Eclispe/My Birthday

Twi-moms with our BK hats!

The entire group at dinner

My fellow edward/jacob fans...

Julie and I at our pre-eclispe night

My awesome birthday cake made with love by my super talented friend. Doesn't get much better than this...


I can't really say I dreaded this birthday of mine that just passed...Yes, it meant another year older, but it also meant the night had arrived that we had been waiting for since 11/22/2009---The movie Eclipse....I am so happy that my friends and I share this love of the Stephanie Meyer Books. We sure love to act like we are still in High School and forget that we are responsible, upstanding mothers. We were all so excited when we found out that Eclipse would come out on my birthday! Double the reason to celebrate!!

We were not disappointed. Our night started with a yummy dinner at the restaurant of my choice- PF Changs- of course!!! We then ventured out to stand in line with nearly 1,000 other Twi-hards, so view the 11:59 p.m. showing. One of my most favorite parts of the night was walking around the outside of the theater with my burger king crown on and watching everyone stare at me. It was priceless! Somehow I managed to convince all my other friends to wear theirs as well. Love it!

Honestly, I have the best friends. Not just because they love Edward as much as I do, but because they are the most fun to be around. Love them!

Cupstacking Shuffle

This video makes me laugh. Not because he is amazing at cupstacking, but I love his football shuffle as he prepares for them to say go. He's not competitive at all.

Summer is almost here!!!

1.5 days until school is out!!! I am very excited!!! Maycee is excited too!!!

Things I am looking foward to this summer:
Celebrating our 10th Anniversary next weekend with a 24 hour getaway
Taking care of my garden*** (crossing my fingers for success)
Going to girls camp
Going to Texas (not looking forward to the drive!)
Camping
Going to Wyoming
ECLISPE!!!! which just so happens to come out on my birthday!!!
watching Britton play baseball
lazy days at the pool
not having to bug Britton to get his homework done
U2 concert in SLC with my little bro
BBQs
not having to make Britton's lunch everyday
Family bike rides
no snow (we still had snow last week???)

Please summer don't go by too fast, you are too much fun!!!!!

I have a Cub Scout??

Part of turning eight means going to Cub Scouts!! Britton has been so excited to be a part of the Cub Scout program. He was very nervous for his first pack meeting, as he had a speaking part! He did great! He also received his Bobcat award. This will be the first of many pack meetings for the Miller family! I love the Scouting program. I think it is a great program for boys and young men. They learn lots of valuable life skills.

catching up

I finally have a few minutes to play catch up with some pictures and events that have happened the month or so.

Britton's baptism was one month ago. I still like to think about that weekend and how much fun it was. We were so blessed to have lots of family and friends come to the baptism. It was so fun for my family and Blakes family to be able to be together for such a special event. I always tell my kids how lucky they are- they have lots of people who love them and care about them. I am proud of Britton for making the decision to be baptized. Being a member of the LDS church has brought me much comfort, support, and happiness in my life. I know he will have the same experience.

Eight is Great...

The past few weeks have been have been so fun and I am so mad that right before I went to Wyoming for Spring Break, my camera broke, so I missed lots of opportunities to take cute pictures of the kids with their cousins and their grandparents. Major bummer. It didn't take me too long to find a new camera to buy once I got back to Colorado, as I am not one for being okay with not taking pictures on a daily basis. I got the camera right in time for Britton's Birthday and his baptism, which was last Saturday.

It's hard for me to grasp that I have a child who is 8. I feel like my life is shifting a little, as my kids have grown out of their baby stages and that they are reaching milestones like baptism, losing teeth, being emotional about quarrels with friends- instead of dealing with potty training, getting new teeth, and tantrums. I have been thinking about how for the past 8 years I have been totally consumed in my children's physical health and well being- teaching them how to stay out of the street, keeping them in my eyes watch at all times, putting things away at home that may be dangerous. Now as Britton is older, I find myself more worried about his emotional well being. What is he exposed to at school? What are kids telling him? (Besides that there is a movie about a killer that gets people with a chainsaw- I mean what 2nd grader knows that???) Anyway, I am totally rambling, but bottom line is, it is dang hard to be a MOM. As hard as it is to be up all night with babies and trying to potty train, I really don't want my kids to grow up. I want them to stay nice and safe in my home where I can watch them all the time and keep them from the evils of the world.

Anyway, my baby boy is 8, and I couldn't be happier with the little boy that he has become. Britton is a kind, tenderhearted, thoughtful little guy. This past year he has become obsessed with the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB. He memorizes statistics, team records, and players histories. Britton usually can't sit still for anything- even when we watch movies, he doesn't last long- he is just too busy. However, he can easily watch an entire NBA basketball game with his dad. If we let him watch TV, it isn't cartoons he chooses to watch- it is sportscenter.

Britton's teacher this year described as an "inspirational leader." She told me that Britton can get kids to write, who normally would not want to. I thought that was so cute. I hope he can always inspire, because I think that it is a great quality.

Happy Birthday B-dog!!!

Thanks for the Ideas!

I have no shame in trying to copy people's fabulous ideas from the internet! I can't believe everything that is out there and I just love those great people who take the time to take pictures and post directions on the internet for me to enjoy!! Thank you internet domestic godesess. I found this cute bag on this cute website http://undermypolkadotumbrella.blogspot.com and we are going to make them tomorrow night at Young Womens. The theme this month is divine nature, so we are trying to teach some homemaking skills- basic sewing being one of them. I thought this turned out cute- made out of a placemat.

My baby's 3rd Birthday!

Really??? She turned three. TOTALLY DEPRESSING... This birthday hit me hard. I am not sure why, but it has made me sad for a few days (which is pretty hard to do). She isn't a baby anymore. She doesn't wear diapers, doesn't sleep in a crip, in fact, she hardly even takes naps anymore. She talks in completes sentences and says things like,"Snow white is my favorite girl," and "I didn't mean to cut my hair, it was an accident." She also loves to pretend that she is snow white, which entails me feeding her an apple, her falling over and "dying" and then me kissing her so she can come back to life. Babies don't do that, big girls do, and I don't want her to grow up!!

Maycee is such a sweetie...her long blonde curls, dimples, chubby cheeks, and big teeth, make me smile all the time. She has such a fun personality and makes us giggle all the time. Out of all of our children, she is the least shy. She loves to talk to anyone who will listen and demands that she says the prayer every night at dinner. Our family wouldn't be the same with out her!

We had a fun time celebrating Maycee's birthday with friends and family. It was a blast to watch her enjoy being in the spotlight!