On second thought...

maybe the markers weren't such a great idea.

At least their washable!

Sweet Moments

I hope I never, ever forget moments like the one I had last night.  Since I have the world's worst memory, I better document it just in case.  

Last night after reading Bible stories and saying prayers, Miller cuddled up in my lap and let me rock him.  We do this many nights for a minute or two, but he's usually too wiggly to let it go on for too long.  Last night was very different.  He wrapped his sweet little chubby hand around mine, cuddled up close to me, and began commanding, "eyes", "nose", "lips".  For those not familiar with Millerese, "eyes" means butterfly kisses, "nose" means Eskimo kisses, and "lips" means regular kisses.  I promise you he repeated these orders at least a hundred times.  Obviously, I willingly obliged :) Every time I gave him butterfly kisses, he would explode with contagious giggles that made my heart feel like it might explode out of my chest.  After a while, his eyes began to grow heavy and I just stared at him while I rocked him.  Just when I thought it couldn't get any sweeter he'd look back into my eyes and smile.  Oh. my. goodness.  Melt me.

Now before anyone says, "I told you so" on the issue of rocking, as sweet as these moments are it makes all the difference in the world that I do not HAVE to rock him to sleep every night.  I'm so thankful that he goes to sleep on his own and that we can truly just enjoy sweet moments like this occasionally.  Just had to get my Babywise disclaimer in there ;)

Sorry again for no pictures.  I'd give anything to have had that moment captured.  This will just have to do.

First Day of K-2

Miller had his first day of K-2 Preschool yesterday!  He is attending the same preschool he went to last year and will go two days a week again.

For some reason he plopped himself down in front of the door and wouldn't stand up.  Doesn't he know how first-day-of-school-pictures are taken?  Thankfully, an airplane decided to fly over our neighborhood so that got him up.  I was even able to slip his bag over his arm without him noticing.

 We were so thankful to see so many familiar faces, especially this one...

Ms. Jennifer was Miller's teacher last year and she liked him so much that she moved up to the two year old class :)  Only kidding of course.  We are so glad she did though!  We had an awesome year with her and look forward to another great year.

 Thanks for loving on our baby, Ms. Jennifer!

Girls' Trip

Hi friends!  Did you all think I'd suffocated from poop and was never going to return?  By the way, that same scenario happened AGAIN a couple of days later.  We are now going full-footy-zip-up pajamas for naps and bedtime.  Thankfully, I had a girls' beach trip planned for a long weekend and it was not a moment too soon.  It was supposed to be large group of my college girlfriends, but unfortunately it slowly dwindled down to just three of us.  We hated everyone couldn't be there, but it was still relaxing and fun anyway.  It was so much fun to hang out, laugh, and talk (a LOT!) with these sweet girls.  I grow more thankful for these friendships with each passing day and don't know what I'd do without them.  There's just something about girl time.  Can I get an amen?

While we had fun in Panama City, Miller stayed with Poppy & Cissy in Birmingham.  They had a busy, busy time while he was there and Miller is still talking about all that they did.  Cindy had fun playing dress-up with all of her boys' old clothes and Dad got to be his big-kid self with his grandson.

 They both look pretty pitiful in this one, but I think they were both exhausted!

 Checking out the "big choo choo"

 Dad said he was loving it until the train actually started moving...

 They went to visit Merrye Summers who is always so sweet to Miller...

 and then headed to the McWane Center.

This is funny to me.  Miller made a friend, Ryder, while they were there (my dad knows his grandfather who was with him, or something).  Anyway, I had JUST met this little cutie and his mom on Thursday when I was getting lunch with Katie.  Small world...

Sunday before church.  Bryant about croaked when he saw Miller in this sweet little outfit.

Thanks for a great long weekend, Poppy & Cissy!  Miller had so much fun and I really enjoyed the getaway!

One of those days...

Today was one of those days.  Really, it's been one of those weeks.  Among other things, Miller napped for thirty minutes today {which is thirty minutes longer than he napped yesterday or the day before}.  I'm big on routine, so I always leave Miller in his crib for two hours during nap time {unless he's screaming his guts out or something}.   Today, although he was awake for most of the nap time, he was relatively quiet for the last hour or so.  At the end of the two hour mark, I had intentions of seeing if he might let me rock him and get a few more minutes of sleep.  I walked in and immediately smelled a dirty diaper.  I decided to leave all of the lights off and try to change him without getting him too riled up.  I had to turn on the lamp on the changing table and THANK THE LORD I did.  Disclaimer:  stop reading right now if you are squeamish about gross things. This.  will.  be.  gross. 

Poop.  Everywhere.  His hands were completely covered on all sides by it.  It was in his hair.  In his ears.  On his face.  On his clothes.  On my clothes from picking him up.  I glanced back at his crib. 

It.  was.  everywhere.  On the bed.  All over the sheets.  On the bumper.  On his blanket.  On his stuffed animals.  On the rug below his bed.  Somehow the wall behind his crib was spared.  

After two baths, a bottle of Clean-Up Clorox, two loads of laundry, and washing my hands 1, 253 times, and a fair share of gagging I think we got it all.  I tried to emphasize to Miller how very, very bad this was by telling him, "We don't play with poop."  To which he responded every time, "In da bed."  No buddy, we don't play with poop anywhere.  Got it?  Let's hope so. 

Party Time

My only regret from the party is not recording the singing of "Happy Birthday".  Miller was so excited to have everyone sing to him.  It was so sweet!

 The engineers trying to get Miller's bubble mower to work.

 Brad and Lauren just returned from Hawaii and brought Miller this cute shirt.

 The aftermath.

Two, Part Two

I'm back as promised!  I realize that 99.999999% of those of you who read my blog could care less about each and every little thing that Miller has learned to do, but I still want to document and remember this time.  I got a little nostalgic and started looking through old pictures and decided to do a little comparison...

August 2, 2009

September 2, 2009 (One Month)

August 2, 2010 (One Year Old)

 August 2, 2011 (Two Years Old)

We went to the doctor today and she said that everything looks great!  Here are his stats and what he is up to these days:

Height 33.5 in (31%)

Weight 28.5 lbs. (59%)

Vocabulary:  Miller is calling me "mommy" sometimes now and he sounds so much older  when he calls me that than when he says "mama".  Miller has definitely mastered all of his colors (probably about two months back) and we're working on shapes, letters, and counting.  He's almost mastered identifying triangles, squares, and circles.  He still skips numbers when he's counting, but is starting to get a little better at one-to-one correspondence {actually counting objects, not just calling out numbers in order - or more often, out of order}.  He firmly understands the concept of "1" and "2", but that's all.  He can identify and tell you the sounds of letters "A", "B", "C", "D" and sometimes "M" and "R".  He is also speaking in two or three word sentences frequently.  He can also finish lines to songs and nursery rhymes, which I think is so cute and so fun.  For example, "Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool?  Yes sir!  Yes sir!  Three bags full.  One for the master and one for the dame and one for the little boy who lives down the lane."  I was able to capture of few of these skills on camera, but not all of them.

Sizes:  Miller is still in 18-24 month, but not for long.  I'm hoping we can make it to Fall before we have to go up to 2T to avoid buying summer clothes for only a couple of months.  The same applies to shoes.  He's still in his size 7 sandals, but there isn't any growing room left in them.

I hope it's just a phase:  This week Miller has cut his naps down to 30-40 minutes of sleep.  Not cool.  We also had a major naptime casualty the other day.  Monkey is in mommy's sewing hospital waiting to be fixed up.

Favorite Foods:  Most of Miller's favorites are the same, but he has a new love for raisins.  Today {after he'd already had two boxes} I found him in the kitchen with the trash dumped out, because he saw a raisin box in it.

Favorite Toys:  He is still really into driving trucks, etc. and has found a new obsession with "bridges" and ramps.  He is also starting to build with blocks a little more.

Other tidbits:  Not much else to share, besides this cute pic from lunch the other day.  This hat has provided a lot of entertainment for him!

Two!

My sweet baby boy turned two today and we had so much fun celebrating all day long.  I have a feeling this post is going to pretty long, so I'll be postponing my normal developmental updates until a later post.  For now, I want to document this special day.  When I woke up this morning, I reminded myself that this will be the only second birthday this little boy has and I am lucky enough to share it with him.  This day wasn't going to be wasted on laundry or chores.  We started out with a round of "Happy Birthday" and a candle in a muffin for breakfast. 
 
 
After playing "baketball shoot" and "baseball bayoon" (that would be hitting a balloon with a little baseball bat), we ran a few errands and visited Nana at work.  We were a little early for our lunch date, so I decided to go through a quick car wash.  Big mistake.  Miller was traumatized.  I really didn't even think about how scary that would be to a toddler.  My bad.  Thankfully, as soon as we came out of it he was fine.  From there we met Kendall, Hunter, Hays, and a few other friends at Chick-fil-a.  Can I just give a quick shout-out to Chick-fil-a?  That is the best place to take toddlers out to eat, in my opinion.  The food is slightly more nutritious, everything is always so clean, they have tons of highchairs which are always equipped with plastic place mats, and they have a great indoor play center.  Sold.  We had five toddlers and five adults, so we were quite a sight.  Thankfully all of the little ones were well behaved and we didn't cause too much of a scene.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a group shot and all of the pictures I got of Miller playing looked like this...

After nap, we went outside to see his birthday present.  He was so sweet and so excited!

 

We only lasted about twenty minutes out there though since it was about 100 degrees today.  Miller requested "Cars" which I willingly obliged to as a good way to cool off a little.  Miller actually watched it for about 45 minutes, which is a record for him.  He might have lasted longer, but Daddy got home and playing with him is much more fun.

After dinner we celebrated with another round of "Happy Birthday" and cupcakes.  

Miller Man, you have rocked my world baby.  In such an incredible way.  I am so so BLESSED to be your mother and I'm so thankful for these past two years.  It doesn't seem possible that two years have passed since I looked into those baby blues for the first time.  You are growing into such a sweet,  fun, smart, laid-back little boy and watching you grow and learn is honestly the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed.  If ever I doubt our loving Creator, all it takes is one look at you.  I love you more than words could say.  Happy, happy birthday Mill Mill!