Two & a Half

I'm a few weeks late, but Miller is officially two and a half years old.  I wanted to be sure and document a few of his favorite things right now and some of our favorite things he says.  I've been putting off this post, because I wanted to include some pictures but that's just not happening these days.  Sorry folks.

Favorite song to listen to: "Noah" ("Arky Arky")

Favorite song to sing:  "Baby Jesus" ("Away in a Manger")
Favorite books: A Crack in the Track, The Thinks You Can Think, ABC Jamboree, The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Favorite Toy: train table
Favorite Foods:  milk, bananas, biscuits, cheese, avocado, raisins, fruit snacks

Some of Miller's cute words/sayings:

polka dotty (his polka dot blanket)
dat's si-yee (That's silly)
doowin? (What are you doing?)
Sure is
oh dear
baby jo (Betty Jo - his great grandmother)
baby daddy (Baby Addie - Kendall and Will's baby girl)
tomato (tornado)
Wanna cuddle mommy?

He also uses the pronoun "my" instead of "I".  For example, instead of saying "I want to get down" he'll say "Want my get down".

We potty trained Miller this past weekend and he is doing pretty well so far. We've made it a few days with no accidents and the other days he's only had one each day.  Today he had an accident at school which got his shoes wet so he was barefoot when I picked him up.  On the way home he told me he had to tee-tee.  Since I'm not really sure how long I have when he says that I pulled over and had him go on the side of the road.  So there we were.  He had on no shoes, his pants around his ankles, peeing on the side of the road.  I didn't look like a redneck at all.

We also seemed to have officially hit the "terrible twos" this week.  He usually gets a good report whenever I leave him somewhere (school, church nursery, gym nursery, etc).  This week almost every time we went somewhere he got in trouble.  Each teacher said something along the lines of, "He just wasn't himself today."  Well, after four days I think we can officially call it a pattern.  Therefore we're stepping up our discipline game and not letting anything slide.  Hopefully we'll be back on track soon.  He's also in a big "I do it myself" phase.  So that's fun.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's learning to be independent and there are certainly lots of things he can do by himself even if he struggles some.  However, there are also lots of things that at two and a half he cannot do by himself and he doesn't like that one bit.

Even though spending my days with a two year old offers many moments of frustration, I wouldn't trade it for anything.  His contagious laugh or one sweet cuddle from him can turn my day around in an instant.  Love that boy.

Catching Up

In order to catch you up with what we've been up to, I'm going to have to jump all over the place.  Hope you can hang with me :)

1.  Last week Miller woke up from his nap to find a present waiting for him outside of his door.  It is his very own potty and he has been all about trying to use it.

I wasn't even going to attempt potty training until after baby #2 arrives, but he has been so interested lately that we're going to give it a try.  Since he has the desire, but can't quite figure out how it all "works" we're going to try the 3-day potty training method.  Basically we'll stay home for three days straight, drink LOTS of fluids, and hang out in underwear {him, not me} until he makes the connection to when he has to go and getting to the potty on time.  Wish us luck!  Our three days start on Friday morning.  I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing, but I know it's like many things in parenting.  I cannot let him smell my fear  ;)

2.  Our sweet adult Sunday School class threw a Girls Night Out/Baby Shower for Jenny Jones and me.  It was so much fun to hang out with girls, finish a whole meal without feeding anyone else, and open many precious gifts.  We were so busy having fun that we only remembered to take one picture as we were about to walk out the door.

3.  This weekend we got to celebrate this pretty girl's first birthday.

{The pretty girl on the right, not the left.  Just in case you were confused.}  You can see all of the precious party details here.  Miller could not wait to get his hands on a cupcake.  He may or may not have gotten his hands on two or three, but only one was allowed in his mouth.

 We tried to get a picture of the smallest party guests.  As you can see, it went really well.

4.  I have been busy "nesting" these days.  We moved Miller into his big boy room {he is still in his crib though} last night and I'm trying to reorganize some of his toys since his new room is the former playroom.  I'll be sure to snap some pics of the new room soon.  As part of the toy reorganization, I've been wanting to come up with some fun, creative activities that will keep Miller's little hands and brain busy.  He has a gazillion million toys, but honestly he walks right by most of them and acts bored after playing with them for about two minutes.  I found this great website with some terrific ideas for toddlers.  We've only done a few of them, but so far they have all been a hit!  Miller LOVES these little pom-poms {or cotton balls as he calls them} and has found so many ways to play with them.  I'll be sure to let you know if any of the activities flop.  I'm steering clear of anything involving rice or paint :)

5.  Last, but definitely not least we have been fervently praying for "Aunt Amy".  

Amy is married to my step-brother, Jay, and was just diagnosed with breast cancer.  Amy and Jay have precious twins, Ty and Mia, that are almost two and a half.  Tomorrow she will undergo a double mastectomy and your prayers would be greatly appreciated!!  You can read about her progress and leave an encouraging message if you wish here.

Sorry for all of the randomness!  Hopefully I won't be gone so long again and get so far behind :)

Stir Crazy

We were getting a little stir crazy around here the past two weeks.  Thank goodness for a little bit of pretty weather yesterday and a gorgeous day today!  Miller was sick with a cold or something about a week ago, so that kept us locked up for a few days.  It's especially hard with a sick baby because we didn't go to any of our normal activities for fear of getting other kids sick.   After he was better we had a cold, rainy stretch which kept us inside also, but at least we could get back into our routine.  Anyone with a toddler knows how crucial outside time is.  Here's a peek at how me managed...

Miller learned to play Memory {kind of}

 Miller played Daddy's "cowboy" {That's "gameboy" if you're not familiar with toddlerese.}

 Mommy and Daddy took advantage of snuggles when he was sick.

 

I tried to give Miller a few free passes since he didn't feel good.  Meltdowns were quite frequent regardless.  The poor kid couldn't figure out what he wanted.

I realized I wasn't the only stir-crazy one when I found him in the recycling bin.

We broke out the blocks Miller got for Christmas.  He was so proud when he built this train track and "tunnel" all by himself.  He came running to get me and left it up all day so that he could show daddy.

And lastly, we watched a little too much tv.  We watched Robots for the first time {a Christmas gift from Poppy} and Miller thinks it's hysterical.  The first time we watched it he laughed through the entire thing.  That is all he wants to watch now.

Sorry for the blurry phone pics.

Thursday I got a really fun email from our architectural designer telling me our preliminary plans would be ready Friday.  We have been scouring the plans for minor detail changes, but overall we love them!  So exciting!

Family Pictures

A couple of months ago we had some family pictures taken.  I just realized the other day that I never posted them on my blog so here are a few of our favorites.  April Stanley took the pictures and did a wonderful job.  If you're a local, I'd definitely recommend her!

A Shopping We Will Go

Hello friends!  I hope I didn't sound too depressed in my last post about the house deal falling through.  I was a little bummed of course, but I realize that whatever the Lord's purposes may have been in all of that, He is good.  I trust that He will provide a buyer for us when the time is right, and guess what - even if He doesn't, He is still good.  

I've just returned from a day of shopping in Huntsville.  Well, I guess you can call it shopping.  I didn't actually buy anything, but I picked out a whole lot.  I had a list of several stores to visit to begin choosing materials for the home we'll build.  Once our plans are complete and we have a list of materials, we plan to let a few builders bid it out for us before settling on one.  To say this is a little overwhelming would be an understatement.  Choosing every single thing that will go in your house takes a lot of thought and time.  While I'm loving it and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to build, I'm a little nervous that everything I pick out will look ridiculous together and I'll botch the whole thing.  I had to give myself a reality check today and remember the verse, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy..."  The truth of the matter is even if everything I pick out is hideous it will still be a nice, warm home for our family and that's all that really matters.  Still, it wouldn't hurt if it looked good too ;)

So dear bloggers, I'm hoping you can help me with this process a bit.  The biggest difficulty I ran into today was choosing lighting.  I have decided to use brushed nickel on my hardware inside (I'm using black iron on the outside I think).  However, I'm not crazy about most brushed nickel lighting.  So, I'm trying to figure out how much variation will look good and when I cross the line of looking like the items in my house were chosen by seven different people who never met.  So, here is what I'm thinking for the kitchen.  I like these kitchens and I'm choosing similar colors/materials...

Today I found this pendent light for over the island that I like.  It was actually just about the only satin light that I really, really liked.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  They have a larger version as well depending on how large our island ends up being (the plans aren't finished so I'm not sure).

So I'm pretty happy with that one.  Next, I was thinking I would do a light with a big drum shade in the dining room.  The place I looked today could order this one...

 with a different shade.  Probably one of these fabrics... (it would be solid fabric without those lines all over it)

I like that one ok, but it's a pretty pricey and I don't absolutely love it.  Maybe because I couldn't see it in person.  The light I had most trouble with was one for the foyer.  I picked this one out for the front porch in front of the door...

 I couldn't find a nickel light that I loved for the foyer.  Seriously, this was the best I could find.

The metal is actually kind of cool because it's kind of hammered (or something), but I'm really not a fan of the glass.  What do y'all think?  Since I have the black lantern just before you walk through the door, could I get away with a darker metal in the foyer?

As for bathroom lighting and fans, I need to pay more attention to what I like.  I've never really noticed these lights.  I guess that's a good sign that it won't matter too much if I don't pick the perfect one :)

Thanks for your help, friends!

Healthy Baby & Bum House Deal

That's basically the two headlines from our week.  Yesterday, we had our ultrasound and found at that we are having a healthy {as far as they can tell} baby BOY!  We are so excited for Miller to have a little buddy and feel blessed to have received a good report from the doctor.  When I told Miller he was having a baby brother he obviously didn't get it.  Then I asked him what we should name his little brother and he responded, "Abraham".  Hysterical.  Now, don't get me wrong we've talked about Abraham from the Bible so it's not completely out of the blue.  However, we've also talked about Joseph, Noah, Jesus, Elijah, Moses, and Jacob so it's kind of funny to me that he zeroed in on Abraham.  While there are certainly worse names he could choose, I think we'll bypass that suggestion.  At least Miller has an idea though.  That's more than we have at this point.  We. are. clueless.  The good news is we still have several months to decide on a name.

I had Bryant snap a picture of me with his phone before we went to the appointment since I can never remember to get a baby bump picture when I look halfway decent.  So, here I am at twenty-one weeks.

Not a great picture, but you can see a bit of a bump.  I am pretty much past all of the nausea I had, but it still sneaks up on me every now and then.  I have started having a good deal of pressure in my lower abdomen and pain on my tailbone.  This could be explained by how low baby boy is.  The ultrasound tech could barely get a picture of his head because he is so low.  Hopefully, he'll head north a bit so that he won't fall out before May :)  This could also explain why I need a restroom every five minutes.  I had my first bout with Braxton Hicks contractions on Christmas night.  I've had them almost everyday since then, so I'm trying to hydrate and rest more to ward those off a bit.  While the busyness of Christmas might have brought those on, the food of the season helped me head the right direction on the scales.  I've gained four pounds since my last appointment five weeks ago so that's good.  So far, I've gained five pounds total.  It is so crazy to think that I am past the halfway mark in my pregnancy.  Baby boy will be here before we know it.

Now for the other big news of the week, you may recall that we were supposed to be moving this weekend.  Supposed to being the keywords.  The last few weeks have been a bit of a roller-coaster as we've tried to work towards closing.  Our buyer's loan fell through, she got another one.  The new loan required a home inspection, it went fine.  Our buyer's house got water/moisture under it last week, her buyer was unsure if they still wanted to buy it, today our buyer's buyer officially backed out.  So, we are not moving anytime soon since our buyer can't pay for our house without selling hers first.  She does still want our house and we have a contingency contract with her for now.  Hopefully, someone will come along and buy her house, but I'm not holding my breath.  So for now, I need to get my house back into order since there were many things I kept putting off until we moved.  Wish me luck in hooking up our wireless printer : /

Birthday Fun

Saturday we celebrated Hays and Hunter's 2nd birthday.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and we took full advantage letting the kids play outside on all of the twins fun riding toys.  It really helped that there were two of every toy since there were so many kids.  Miller must have ridden a hundred miles that day!

Will broke out their miniature horse, Prince, for a few rides.

 After the kids had worked up a good appetite it was time for grub!

And of course cupcakes!

Happy birthday, Hunter and Hays!  We love you very much and we hope to share many more birthdays with each of you!