On the way

We are so excited to be going to SC for Thanksgiving this year. We haven't seen my brother and his family since last Thanksgiving and the girls have been dying to see their cousins for a LONG time. We will be seeing my brother and his family, my mom and my other brother, Aaron. We are really looking forward to it. Other than seeing family, I asked Ainsley what she was looking forward to most. And I quote, "the things you roll up with cinnamon." I was perplexed and couldn't for the life of my figure out what she was talking about so she went on to explain that they are the things you roll up and eat. And then it hit me...she's looking forward to Aunt Janice making roll-ups. Hopefully Aunt Janice knows this since mommy doesn't make them! Mommy is pretty much a dismal Moody failure when it comes to many things I am sure my mom thought she would pass on to me when I grew up. I can't sew-my mom made lots of my clothes. I can't knit, crotchet or anything else remotely domestic other than clean. AND I can't cook Norwegian pancakes (or roll ups as some affectionately call them). However I have taken one step forward on the roll ups front. I have purchased a griddle! I now have the capacity to make the roll ups though probably not the skill. Alas! However, I will attempt to get the recipe from either my mom or Janice even though I am not sure if it is formally written down. Maybe at some point in Ainsley's lifetime I will be able to make roll ups. I wouldn't hold out for them till maybe High School or even college but maybe just maybe I will acquire at least one skill that she hoped to pass on to me. I am pretty sure my mom gave up the dream of me ever being a domestic queen long long ago. But maybe there is still hope for me yet! Here are some recent pictures of the girls.

The girls sitting for Christmas pictures

Ellie with her speech therapist, Lori

More Christmas picture sitting

Random nature shot

Ainsley

Bike riding

I know that I have already posted video of Ainsley riding her bike.  But she is now riding down the driveway and wanted me to post new video of her doing that, so here it is!:)

Ellie Year One

I can't believe that it has already been one year with Ellie.  How time flies by when you are busy! Ellie's technical "gotcha day" was on Halloween but that isn't really a good day to celebrate since we are so busy with other stuff.  So we chose Sunday to celebrate and we went out for Chinese after church.  We went to Memories of China and had a great time.  The food was great and the girls had fun and Ellie polished off an insane amount of noodles!  She seemed to have a lot of fun.

In a year's time, Ellie has made vast improvements in her language acquisition and expression. Though she is still very much delayed, her improvements are very noticeable.  Her gross motor is very close to being age appropriate which is huge.  Her fine motor skills have improved though they weren't as severely delayed.  Her ability to interact with other kids her age has improved tremendously.  She is in preschool and doing well.  She is able to identify 10-15 letters, count to 10 and identify numbers 1-10.  I am still blown away by how God has done such amazing things in her life and in ours.  She is a beautiful and amazing little girl and we are so blessed to have her in our family.  While she still has temper tantrums on occasion, she has made vast strides in this area...moving from maybe 15/day to 1-2/day and some days none. Thanks to everyone who has offered us encouragement and prayed for us over the last year.  I look forward to what the next year holds and the ways that God will continue to use us and Ellie to further His plans for our lives.

Halloween

So I am finally getting around to updating the blog again!  The girls had so much fun on Halloween this year and Ellie seemed to really enjoy it too!  She had a halloween party at school and loved it and then seemed suprised that she got to dress up in her costume again halloween night:)  We went trick-or-treating with the neighbors as we usually do but the older girls took off like a wildfire and I could barely see them let alone catch up!!  I had Ellie, the single stroller and Ainsley while Jeff stayed out in the culs-de-sac and passed out candy with all the other men.  Ainsley was a bit grumpy at first and we almost came home but she did eventually perk up and have fun and catch up with the older girls.  I took Ellie to only a few houses as keeping up with Mackenzie required a much faster pace than Ellie! But she had a blast anyway and was pretty content to stay in the stroller after about 6-7 houses which was great.  My neighbor Erin stayed with the older girls so they weren't alone in their pursuit of the most candy any child could ever need!!  Here are some pictures of the girls and Ellie at her party:

Sick!

Sorry it has been a while since I have updated the blog.  Between being busy and sick it just seems that time escapes me and it doesn't get done.  I have been sick the last week and half just generally feeling blah with allergies and not sleeping well.  I finally went to the Dr on Monday and saw the nurse practitioner.  She looked at my eye, which was infected, and then barely looked at my throat.  Pretty much did nothing and said there was nothing she could do accept prescribe eye drops.  I filled the prescription and they made my eye worse.  And I felt worse so I went back again on Thursday and saw the Dr I usually see.  She did a thorough evaluation and gave me antibiotics for a sinus infection and changed my eye drops.  Though I am not completely better, I am feeling MUCH improved!  Maybe I will get a good night's sleep tonight!!  This has been my first week of work too so I am glad that I was feeling better today.  I started working part-time at our church and am enjoying it so far.  The role I have it right up my alley so I think I will enjoy it a lot.  

The girls have had a good week.  I had Ellie's first home visit today.  Her teachers came and visited our house and that was fun.  They make home visits two times a year.  Once before Christmas and once after Christmas.  Ellie is doing well and we are excited to see her progress.  Mackenzie and Ainsley both had good weeks at school as well.  We are planning on going to the local Jack-o-Lantern walk tomorrow night but if the weather continues to be rainy we may not go.  We have gone the last four years so that would be a bummer...hopefully it clears up enough to do it though!

Face painting and burger king

My butterfly ...... some of it got washed off:(

Ellie at Burger King....only a remnant of her butterfly remains...

Ainsley at Burger King...

Mackenzie, Ainsley and our friend Ashley

Ellie at our friend's house...cool kitchen, huh?

Ainsley riding her bike with no training wheels!

Ainsley has just recently learned to ride her bike without training wheels and has done very well. We are excited that she has finally reached this milestone and so is she so I thought I would share what little video I got of her riding her bike:)

Soccer and playground pics!

Mackenzie with her coaches

Mackenzie with her trophy

Mackenzie on the playground afterwards

Ainsley on the playground afterwards:)

Elliana on the playground afterwards

Long weekend

With daddy home on friday night we had a long weekend to enjoy each other as a family again. Jeff took Monday off from work and we ended up going to our favorite park again.  The girls love the outdoors and exploring the stream and and the surrounding woods.  And of course most importantly, they got to search for and find new rocks and shells.  They all had lots of fun.  I didn't take my camera this time so I didn't get any pictures but Ellie did get pretty wet.  We have taught her to lay on her tummy instead of sitting and bending over to try to touch the water as she seems very close to falling in.  So she did what we asked but she ended up getting pretty wet!  The front of her pants and shirt were pretty wet as were her shoes as she walked through water multiple times...hmmm.....that might have been my fault:)  Daddy tried to build a dam and water took over the dry parts....can the engineer in him never stop?:)  For the life of me I can't remember what we did on Saturday and Sunday which seems crazy!  Oh yes..we went out to dinner Saturday night and then made it home in time to watch the Red Sox get creamed. And then Sunday we watched the Patriots get destroyed...and and then again on Monday with the Red Sox.  Can you sense my frustration with my sports teams this weekend???  I sure hope they pull themselves together or Thursday night will be out last game of the season!  Oh well, apart from sports, it was a pretty good weekend.  

Daddy's Home!!!

The girls and I are excited that Jeff is finally home from his business trip.  He was able to come home a day early and we were so glad to see him.  He stayed home last night with the girls while I went to a friend's wedding.  I had a lot of fun and so did he with the girls.  Ellie even seemed to miss him and ran to give him a hug when he drove in.  She is a bit of a mommy's girl right now.  I don't know if that is attachment or just preference.  Ainsley was the same way at her age.  Ellie does just fine when I am not home and Jeff is watching her but usually if given the preference she would rather have me.  But as soon as I said "Daddy's Home", she ran for the door so that was cool.  Jeff also brought home an extensive array of chocolate that we will be partaking of in the next few weeks.  Very yummy:)  The girls go their own box of one of their favorite chocolates.  Ironically it wasn't daddy that got them addicted to it but my friend, Jill. She sent us some from Germany one time and now every time Jeff goes to Europe, he brings more home. But their very own box..how exciting!:) 

The rest of the weekend we will be hanging out and relaxing and of course watching the Red Sox play:)  Jeff is taking Monday off as the girls had this past Friday and this coming Monday off for teacher inservice days.  I am sure we will find something fun to do!

I love face painting

I know this may seem funny to some of you but I LOVE Kentucky Kid's Day at Burlington Elementary.  I have helped out with the event since Mackenzie started school there and have had so much fun every year!  Today was KY Kid's Day at school and the girls were very excited.  Even Ellie got to participate in the day and go on some of the rides and get her face painted.  I did face painting and I had a lot of fun doing it.   I get to interact with the kids and see lots of different faces and just in general have fun.  If I could have taken pictures of all my masterpieces I would, but I am pretty sure posting pictures of people's kids that I don't even know wouldn't be a good option:)  I did face paint my own kids but the paint has started to wear off..alas!  Our week has just flown by and Jeff is coming home a day early so he will be home tomorrow so I only had to make it 10 days without him so not too bad!  We are all very excited for him to come back from his trip to Europe where he lived the high life or did business so he says:)  The girls have done great except for 1-2 really rough days.  And now they have tomorrow and the following Monday off from school.  We will be finding some fun to do Monday as a family since Jeff is going to take the day off from work.  I have a few old pictures to post that I forgot to post so here they are...

Pictures take of the girls and lots of friends from church on a friend's hammock..who knew it could hold so many kids!

Where oh where has the firetruck gone?

I was supposed to go on Ainsley's first Kindergarten field trip today to the Burlington fire dept. But her teacher called me at about 10:30 to let me know that their field trip was cancelled because they had to go out on an emergency call.  I was quite sad as I was very excited to go:(  Oh well hopefully I will still be able to go on the next one.  

This week has literally flown by.  I can't even remember what all we have done but we have been busy:)  I do know that I played in a parents vs kids' soccer game last night and that was a lot of fun.  The parents won 2-0.  I unfortunately didn't get any pics since I was playing and I am not good enough to play and take pictures.  And can you believe that 6-7 year olds trash talk?? Crazy:)!

Wednesday night was the girls' first Awana and they seemed to have fun and like it.  Ainsley was excited to move from cubbies to sparks as she is now a big girl.  She is excited that kindergarten seems to get you everywhere in life:)

Tomorrow is Mackenzie's last soccer game with a barbecue afterwards.  I am missing my 10 year reunion from college to go to her game which is a bit sad but she really wanted to be there so I thought that was more important.  Hopefully they play well and beat the red team (who beat them by quite a bit the first time they played).

Picture update

I am finally posting some pics of past activities since I downloaded from the camera.  One would think that this would be a difficult activity based on how often I do it.  It isn't...I am just lazy!

King's Island pics:

Ainsley and Ellie on the swings

Mackenzie on the bumper cars

The girls with scooby doo..seriously the best picture...sad I know!

The girls on the mystery machine

Daddy with Mackenzie and Ainsley coming down the log ride..mommy's too scared:)

Ellie watching them come down the log ride..with her scared mommy:)

Daddy and Ainsley on a ride that made daddy very sick

Ainsley and Ellie with...I have no idea!

Ainsley on the merry-go-round

Ellie on the merry-go-round

Mackenzie

Mackenzie having fun on the cars

Van update and other fun stuff

So I did finally get my van back on Saturday, only to find out that they didn't actually paint it! I, of course, didn't realize this while I was still at the dealership. I should have but I didn't. So when Jeff noticed that the paint had not been taken care of he called and left a message. I will be bringing it in next week again for another 2-3 days. Now they will be repainting several other scratches for free and filling up the gas tank. I am thinking that we just request they give us a brand new van for free. I mean aim for the sky right?
We had planned on going out to eat Saturday night but the kid's really wanted to go to the Gunpowder Creek Nature Park at the back of our subdivision. We decided to pack a picnic dinner and go there instead. We had a lot of fun together as a family and the kids of course loved it. The creek was pretty low so they were able to easily get around on all the rocks without any issues and founds lots of cool things. Ainsley found a litttle toad and Mackenzie and Daddy found crayfish..or at least I think that's what they are called. Ellie had to go to the bathroom and of course there is not one down in the actual park itself. I tried to get her to just squat on the ground and go but like all other Miller girls before her...that didn't happen! Apparently, she was able to hold it until we got back home, even though she told me about every 2 minutes or so that she had to go! So we all had great fun and we will probably go at least 1 more time before it gets really cool. The hike down the hill is lengthy and the hike back up ever more so. But the girls did great. I challenged Ainsley when she said she was "SOOO TIRED" to see if she could run to the tree that fallen down in less than a minute and then on the top after that...that seemed to spur her on and she is pretty fast when she wants to be. Ellie on the other hand...slower than cold molasses running up hill. Her little legs even when running just don't go that fast so her and I walked VERY slow. She was happy to walk slowly and take everything in around her..which is course makes her walk even slower!:)
Here are some cute pics of the evening

Mackenzie, Ainsley and daddy at the creek

Mackenzie and Ainsley

Mackenzie and Ellie

Ainsley holding the toad

the crawfish..is that really what they are called...I think mini-lobster is more appropriate

Sunday night we had a cookout with our church and had a good time.  Our worship leader is a Kenton County firefighter and I think he orchestrated a fire truck to come.  Who doesn't love a fire truck??  The girls and mom got to hold the hose while they sprayed water..cool:)  And of course I got a few pics of the girls in the sand volleyball court.  They weren't playing sand volleyball though...:)

Ainsley and some of her compadres holding the hose

Mommy and Ainsley holding the hose

Our pastor pretending he's cool..oh sorry..he really is cool..:)