Miller Times 5

Sissy's Dedication

2011-04-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was Mackenzie's dedication at church. Here are a few pictures...unfortunately I don't have one with Clark all the way in it at the dedication...he was busy chasing the "monkeys" as he referred to them during the service! As he introduced everyone, the boys were sitting nicely behind us on the steps and as soon as the introductions were finished they started to run free :)

This was later that day at Jake Holden's birthday party You can see Clark headed back to us on the right, with the boys!

The Stages

2011-02-27T19:31:00.001-08:00

I have wondered why I've been a little overwhelmed lately...and then I realized all that stages that we are in. Number 1, potty-training Mark. He's doing really well but its a constant teaching process of course. He's very proud of himself of course and runs to us to tell us he's pottied each time. Then C.J...he's learning to ride his bike without training wheels and he is doing really well too. Mark is also learning to ride his bike with training wheels and that's also been a work in progress but he's doing great!

I am trying to teach C.J. to read and I found another set of books that we like called Critter Pals. They are small books that when he reads each to me without me having to correct him he gets to put a sticker on the inside of the book. He's also learning how to tell time. This week we are devoting to reading and telling time...I found a curriculum for teaching time on the Internet so that's what we are going to try along with a few art projects that go along with the clock. All in all, we are PRACTICING something all the time!

Peyton is still waking up early but I have decided that he has to stay in his room until I get finished feeding Mackenzie at 7:00. I just need that quite time! He is such a toot...with a sweet side of course but a toot no less. He is constantly messing with his brothers for no reason. He's just a little pistol! He understands pretty much everything we say to him and he minds pretty well. He's also learning how to talk and I am afraid once he gets better at it he will give me an earful all day long:)

All three of the boys are thinning out and getting some pretty distinct muscles...I think I'm going to be running all the time to practices soon. They're constantly hungry and I have to remember that just because I am not hungry 3o minutes after lunch that they really just might be...I've told myself that as long as they are not getting too pudgy then they must be burning through everything that I give them to eat and if I say, "nothing sugary" and they still go for a snack it must not be because they just want SUGAR! Its quite a change of mindset from being a girl Clark keeps reminding me.

We're also working on some major character building and manners along with the normal school work. Since CJ is with me all the time, I see certain things that need to be worked on and thankfully he's catching on. Simple things like not interrupting, not begging other mommies for snacks:) etc. Just to name a few. This past week we went to a gym playdate, Heritage Farm playdate, a trunk show for My Vintage Baby had the carpets cleaned and the treadmill fixed and went to the Y several times for exercise classes. CJ was with me for everything. He questioned the carpet guys about how to clean the carpet and he was right in the middle of the the two guys fixing the treadmill. I once heard him ask what language they speak (because one of the guys wasn't answering his questions) and one of the guys said "Spanish". They asked him if he knows Spanish and he said, "I know a lot of people who speak Spanish but I don't know Spanish." I think its good for him to interact with adults like this...he's certainly not shy, neither is Mark or Peyton. At Heritage Farm they were all supposed to be sitting and waiting for the man to open his ice chest and pull out his frogs...as soon as he pulled out the first frog, Mark and Peyton both jumped up and ran to the front (of like 30 kids). The man was like whoa, wait a minute. Assertive, non-timid little boys, I guess that's good.

Sissy is doing well...I just moved her feedings up to 7 ounces and I have been trying to hold her off at night which she does pretty well at and then eats 8 ounces in the morning. I feed her at 7,10,1,4 and 7. She eats and stays awake for about an hour then once I barely start hearing her fuss I wrap her up in her miracle blanket, lay her in her bed (and I try not to look at her because she just grins at me and wants to play). She easily goes to sleep if I've followed my routine. As of today, she is now turning over. I think this is really early but she managed to do it several times today. I have mixed emotions about this of course...I just don't want her stages to move too fast! She's so sweet, she really is!

Sometimes I think I can't keep up with all the various stages and then I realize they all need to learn things at various stages and hopefully I won't forget to teach them too much!

Bye-bye trash truck!

Its quite evident who the biggest toot is!

I am going to have sooo much help when they get older...I just might not have to do much at all but make sure I have enough food and fresh baked goods!

Sissy

2011-02-06T18:50:00.000-08:00

Miss Mackenzie (Sissy), is 2 and half months old. I don't get time to blog often so I missed posting after we had her last doctor trip at 2 months. She was a little over 12 pounds and 24 inches long-75% percentile in height and weight. Her first trip for the 2 month appointment landed us at the hospital drawing blood because she had a fever that we could not pinpoint the cause of. Grammy and Pop happened to be driving back in to town when I ended up at the hospital they stopped to assist...Sissy had to have an IV blood draw and had to be catheterized. They poked her three time and missed veins. Grammy and I were about to blow up and did a few times at the lack of experience with the lab nurses as they poked and prodded our little girl. Pop was in the car and when he hadn't heard back from us via text he made his way into the hospital and had to put the "smack down"! Needless to say, all her tests came back normal!

Here are a few pictures of our sweet baby girl!

C.J.'s 5th Birthday

2011-02-06T18:20:00.000-08:00

These are just a few pics from CJ's birthday. I know that there were many more taken that I haven't seen in order to post! He enjoyed his birthday so much after being housebound for several days! I think his friends and parents enjoyed it too! We missed 3 of our cousins...Addison, Reagan and Baylee. It was just too snowy for them to drive from Waco.

We've also moved CJ into a new room and he has loved his own space away from the "babies"! He's just such a big boy and momma's helper most of the time! We're proud of him:)

Been a few months

2011-01-22T21:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, its been a few months since I have had time to blog and many blog-worthy occurrences have taken place! Today though, I've just posted some fun pictures. I can't promise I'll get better at blogging any time soon but I will try to update pictures...CJ is about to be 5 years old and sissy just turned 2 months-Mark and Peyton get to wait a few months before their big days!

CJ is in LOVE with his sissy!

Sissy knows he loves her and enjoys sitting with him several times a day!

Silly Peyton in the Spiderman hat...he's one cute turkey most of the time!

Marky bear with those sweet little eyes!

They all want to sit in the chair when CJ is holding sissy...this was after bath one night last week.

Before MDO one day last week.

With their cute bags from Grammy!

Lots of pictures!!!

2010-10-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Homeschool Camp outAt the camp out learning out to start a fire 3 different ways...boyscout type learning!Mackenzie's finished room!

Her Maddie!

Yes, she already has a stocking!

Finished towels that Grammy made and we had monogrammed!

Daddy's Birthday!

They couldn't wait to get in to the cake Grammy made:)

Some school things...

Building a tabernacle and the Wall of Jericho, the gummy worm was the rope. CJ said, "This is delicious" and Mark mimicked him!

Pumpkin Patch!

Thank you Grandma for helping me take everyone!

Cowboys Stadium Homeschool Tour

2010-09-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took the boys on their first field trip...to Cowboys Stadium! Yes, it was quite educational and fun too!

CJ and Mark were so excited to go see what was behind that glass!

Cotton Bowl area with actual "plays" on the windows.

Marky just playing with Daddy's sunglasses!

As soon as we got out on the field, they immediately started tackling eachother! People just laughed and laughed at them!

Football helmet on the endzone

Touchdown!

Peyter loved being free on the field!

Football stance!

The star at the entrance to the locker rooms...Marky was telling us that was a "star" and CJ was just acting silly!

Trying on the uniforms!

Locker Room

Press conference area

The TUNNEL

Marky's turn running out of the tunnel

Peyton's turn

My BROOD!

Picture on the star!

What a fun time full of memories!

Last week and today

2010-09-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Boys making their "burning bush" sculptures out of salt dough. All our projects pertained to the story of Moses last week.
Best little burning bushes I have ever seen! They did so well making these!

The little activity was to make sort of a re-inaction of the story when God turned all the water into blood...we were supposed to do it in the bathtub but anything we can do outside these days we do! At first we were to put soapy bubbles in the pool and let the boys use ladles and measuring cups to explore the soapy bubbles and then we put red food coloring in the water. With the blue pool, it looked more like purple water but they had a blast!

"Cannnnon Balllllll"

By next year Peyton may not have these big dimples so I figure I better capture them now!

This week we're studying the letter G. Today we made our G's outside and decided to use "g"rass to cover them on "g"reen paper!

This lesson was a little tougher...we're talking about math positions, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th....I asked CJ to pick 5 things from the yard and line them up. Then I had him change positions of the items by asking him to switch the places based on 1st, 2nd, 3rd... Getting the corresponding numbers and positions seemed a little confusing. When you think about it, First doesn't sound anything like One and Second doesn't sound like Two so its easy to see where this could get confusing!

We also repeated the reading lesson from last Friday. On Friday I realized that CJ may be more of an auditory learner...after he would sound out the words, he had a hard time telling me what the actual word was after sounding it out. Then if I sounded it out, just as choppy as he had sounded it out first, many times he could tell me what the word was. I'm thinking we may need to use a little tape recorder for him to sound out the words then play back to hear the words in his own voice.

We have alot planned this week. Tuesday, CJ will go to his science class at the Heard Museum while I take Mark and Peyton with me to my Bible study at the church then we have practice that evening, Thursday we will be going on our first homeschool field trip to the Cowboys Stadium, Friday and Saturday we'll be participating in a family campout with the homeschool group and then over the weekend we have 4 birthdays to celebrate! Wonder how we'll get our school work done??? Its already planned out! We'll fit a little more in to Wednesday and Friday and still try to be flexible because you know there will be mess after mess that might require us to detour from our original schedule! Of course those already started this morning with tee tee on the sheets and comforter of Mark's bed-Thursday we'll get the comforter back from the dry cleaner! The comforter on our bed was just there last week when Mark decided to potty on our bed! You'd think this place should smell like cat litter...and it may, we may just be used to it but I certainly hope it doesn't! Then of course there are the mountains of clothes that need to be folded for the second time since Mark likes to throw every item of clothing out of his and CJ's drawers during naptime. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't mixed sizes...its the sorting thats going to take me another hour to do. This is all to be expected and I remember that shortly after I think I'm going to pull my hair out!

Sweet words last night

2010-09-14T21:23:00.001-07:00

Its not everyday that I get to sit down and blog and sometimes its a week before I can re-cap. I just put down one of the books that I was reading because I kept thinking about what CJ said last night. At 3 a.m. I heard CJ on the monitor saying, "Come on Marky, I'll help you down." Mark has figured out how to climb up to CJ's bunk despite the fact that there is no ladder because we took it down in an effort to keep Mark off the top bunk. Mark had gotten up in CJ's bed before we all went to sleep so we decided to let him stay since it was bothering CJ. At 3, Mark was sort of whimpering and just disoriented. CJ woke up and was going to head downstairs to our bed and he was trying to help Mark down so that he could come too. Nowadays its not every night that CJ comes down to our bed so when he does in the middle of the night we have started to not object! I got up real fast and went up there to help. I got Mark settled in his bed, he was so tired that he waited to be tucked in while I located his Maddy and his pacie. CJ headed downstairs and I didn't mind since Mark seemed to be fine and ready to go back to sleep. When I got back downstairs CJ was waiting for me and asked for some water. We went to the kitchen, got the water and then I tucked him in the middle of the bed. Before I got in he rose up with his hands in the air, long sleeve batman top on of his choice, with just undies and said, "Mommy, can you please take this shirt off so I can be 'extra' cozy?" Some words are simply sweet sounding in the middle of the night:) I took it off and got in bed, he snuggled up to me with his arm around my neck and simply started snoring again. Its still nice to cuddle even as he gets older and I know once Mark and Peyton get to where they can sleep in a bed other than their own, they probably all join us from time to time and that's just ok with us as long as they have at least gone to sleep first in their own beds! Time just goes by way too fast:)

Cookies etc.

2010-09-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

Monday I decided that I would take the boys to the library reading time. Its the only day where I can take CJ to the "On My Own" reading time while they have the "Lapsit" story time for Mark and Peyton. We left with 10 books and we have already read all of them! Before we left, I went to exercise class and got home with 30 minutes to shower and get everyone in the car to go. After a 5 minute rushed shower, I got out to go check on things. During my shower time, Mark and Peyton had moved a chair over to the counter and tore open the homemade peanut butter cookies. I walked in to see cookies spread all over the counter and both of them with fistfuls stuffing their faces. Even more, they had tried to fill a cup with water and the water was puddled on the floor with soggy cookies swimming in it. I didn't have time to grab the camera:(

Later, I went in to get Mark from his nap. It was after 5 so I thought it was time to get up! I went upstairs and this time I had to go back downstairs to get the camera. Little toot had taken his diaper off during nap and decided to nap with his Maddy in the cozy bean bag instead of the bed. No tee tee ANYWHERE!! Yay. I took him to the potty and stayed in there trying to get him to go potty. He wouldn't:( We went downstairs and weren't down there for 5 minutes before he pottied on the kitchen floor. I still don't think he really knows when he needs to go. I'm not going to push the training, some things he does tells me that he's ready and some make me believe he needs a little more time!

I have found that this is the best way to play with play-dough. Oh well if the dogs get ahold of it...its better than the carpet! If I can keep Peyton off the table then everything works out well. Poor CJ, he tried to diligently play or make things and his brothers are always trying to tear up his creations:(

School, Hunting, Baseball and Messes

2010-09-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

SCHOOL

This will be our 7th week of school! WOW! We are seeing some very cool things coming from these boys! Keep in mind, Mark does not sit for more than 5 minutes at a time-ever. He's still learning. I started to do their Bible reading at breakfast since I have a more captive audience! Two weeks ago Mark couldn't say any of his shapes, as of yesterday he now knows, circle, square, triangle and star! This make me feel good for several reasons-I still do question if I can teach starting from the very basics...because CJ learned a lot of the basic things in preschool. He even learned to potty train in preschool and part of all this makes me feel bad since I don't know how to repeat some of this for Mark. We're all learning together! CJ on the other hand is starting to read better each day...he's sounding out the words as we are working in his reading book and he's remembering sounds that we have just introduced. One of my favorite parts of our day is lying on my bed with him cuddling next to me for our reading work. We do this once Mark and Peyton are down for naps. We need it quiet! I told him the other day that reading with him was one of the best times of the day for me...he hugged me and at the end of our reading and writing, he picked out a crown sticker for me and told me I was the "queen mommy"! He is supposed to pick out stickers for himself after he does his writing work but he always picks them out for me instead :) He is not only learning his basics but he is showing real hearts for the Lord and applying the biblical principles from our reading to real life situations! This homeschooling has been one of the greatest sacrifices for all of us but as long I see the fruitful blessings I know we're making huge impacts on these precious boys!

HUNTING

Clark took CJ on the church dove hunt this past weekend. CJ really enjoyed it, he loves to be out with his dad getting dirty and shooting his little BB gun. Poppy went too and they got to fish in between hunts. At lunch they took a break and CJ had a 2 hour nap in the truck.

BASEBALL

Little, big boy had his first coach-pitch baseball game on Friday. He never had to use the T and hit on the third pitch every time! He was real proud and so were we!

We had someone else who wanted to get dressed up for the game!Here's CJ waving at Grammy and me.

Getting ready to hit for the first time. Looking at his daddy after he had hit his first ball!

Running home!

The hardest part about these games is keeping Mark and Peyton contained and happy. Thankfully Pop held Marky and rationed his skittles for as long as he could while Peyton sat in the stroller at times being loud but for the most part he did pretty good.

Mark and Peyton's Mess
Saturday while Clark and CJ were gone, we cleaned the upstairs and played outside. It was pretty peaceful until Mark woke up from his nap. I went in to his room because he was crying and he typically wakes up pretty groggy but not crying. I walked in and found that he had pulled his poopy diaper off during nap-it must have been during the first part of his nap because he had smeared poop on the floor and the walls and it was caked and dried on him. The amazing thing is that I was sitting right by the monitor reading for most of his nap and I never heard him up to anything...! He had fallen asleep on the floor not on the freshly cleaned sheets thankfully. I put him in the bathtub to soak. He had to soak and I had to scrub him, the walls and the carpet. After I got him cleaned up I went and got the Bissell to clean the carpet but I had to close the doors so that he and Peyton would not come in. While I was cleaning, they figured out how to pull the stuffing out of the upstairs coach and this is what I saw as I was headed back upstairs with the vacuum cleaner...Mark stood at the top and said, "Oh cool" and the proceeded to slide down saying, "This is fun". Maybe he's ready for snow, but I certainly didn't want it on my vacuumed stairs.

I am really wondering if this little girl we are going to have will be any less active than all these boys. It's absolutely always something...I wonder why I even take time to exercise!

Triplet Nieces' First Birthday Party

2010-09-07T12:13:00.001-07:00

A year ago our whole family was blessed with 3 sweet little baby girls! They are healthy and growing wonderfully! These pictures are from their "Cat in the Hat" celebration last weekend! In no particular order!

Reagan with her Mommy (my sister Michelle)

Our C.J. enjoying some of Grammy's cake!

Baylee Brynn!

The CAKES that Grammy (my mother) made.

Addison and Pop (my dad)

Our silly boys with their great grandparents Mamaw and Papaw (my grandparents)

C.J. and Mark in the rocks!

The party favors...white chocolate suckers made by mom and Michelle! SO YUMMY:)

Peyton eating his cake!

Reagan and Mark playing on the girls' new swingset!

Baylee, Mamaw and me...Mamaw loves her great-grandbabies!

Grammy (my mom) and Addison ( I think!)

Reagan and Peyton playing!

After the party, we stayed in Waco and took the boys on a little Waco tour. We took a picture in front of Crickets where Clark and I first met almost 9 years ago!

After dinner at Ninfa's

Great Party and Weekend!

P.E.

2010-09-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

Monday we ended up doing school a little late because we were at the doctor with Peyton all morning and then lunch and naps of course. Things started to get a little unruly so we called in our coach for a P.E. class. Here are my strong boys learning from their tough daddy!

Sit-ups

Push-ups

Rolls of Coordination

Jumping Jacks

The horribly difficult WALL SITS!!

On our reading today, CJ did beautifully! I was so proud of him. Tomorrow, we start the "Th" sound and he saw it on the next page today and got these big eyes and then acted really excited. I have to say I had to read ahead to make sure I would be teaching the next lesson correctly. We also talked about "money" as we read about how Joseph's brothers sold him for money because they were jealous of his "coat of many colors". CJ sorted coins in muffin tins and cut out money to put on his #5 page. And our "many colors" art projects this week have been wonderful!

Everyone's latest!

2010-08-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

This is a blog of the many things that have happened over the course of the last week. Night time is the only time I have to sit and upload pictures etc so my blog posts seem to be piling up. This one catches us up to today although we have more from today that I will share tomorrow...hopefully!

Starving boys right after they all woke up the other morning. They pulled a chair up to the island and climbed up to see what was coming. We had to start off with milk and Ovultene since I couldn't get breakfast done fast enough!

C.J.

He continues to do well in our school lessons. We are getting through the struggles of him thinking he has to do everything perfect and getting down on himself. I don't ever pressure him to do things perfectly but I do get frustrated when he can't sit still so I am learning to find ways for him to get his wiggles out! This past week we started to make some real strides in our reading. He is starting to sound out the following words: am, at, eat, me, met, mat, ram, rat, sat, see, seed, set, and seat. We read our first sentence today: See me eat. We're getting to the "big boy" pages as he calls them so he gets excited at that.

Learning to set the table from one of our school lessons.

Writing their letter "B"s in cooking oil.

At the splash pad with Grandma

Making his brothers laugh at dinner...an every night occasion!

Mark
Last week he had his first day of gym class. This was his first time to be in any sort of organized class or sport and he did wonderful. He was the only boy with two other girls in the class so the teacher spent some time re-directing him but for the most part he followed directions and he certainly had fun!

Hop, hop, hop!

So excited as he saw the room with all the equipment.

Just playing with all the outdoor gear. These overalls were CJ's last year and now we're passing them down to Mark.

Splash pad and park with Grandma

Peyton

Tuesday we noticed that he had red bumps on his rear end, feet, hands, mouth and tongue. We knew it was hand, foot and mouth so we kept him home until today. He actually passed it to Mark so they both have been confined to the house until Peyton's doctor appointment today.

We had his 15 month check up today and he is still at the 95th percentile (33 and 1/4 inches) in height and his weight has gone to the 90th (28 pounds)! Still a big boy...doctor says he's leaning out a bit but still far from average! He also got two shots today. I had CJ and Mark with me and when Peyton got his shots, CJ held his hand and I kept looking down at CJ and he looked so sad. When the nurse left the room CJ said, "I almost cried with Peyton." He was such a good big brother. While I rounded up Mark I asked CJ to help me get Peyton dressed. He put his pants on him and pulled his shirt down and when I sat Peyton up, CJ gave him a big hug!

Mr.Goofy is learning to use a spoon and a fork!

Mackenzie Faith Miller

We have not formally announced our baby girl's name until now. Since I am starting to include her updates on the blog I figured I better start calling her by her name!

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday and she is measuring right on target. On the sonogram her head was up by my belly button and legs too...her bottom was down on my left side. She should turn around 30 weeks if not before. I go back in 3 weeks and I will be 28 weeks, then I will go every 2 weeks. I can't believe its gone by this fast.

This is a canvas picture that my sister Mandy gave me! Its so pretty!

Bathroom valance and towel that mom finished. Once she has the hand towel finished we will monogram!

Comforter is finished! It all turned out so pretty. I love the vintage fabrics mixed with the animal print! Thanks Mom!

Recap of our week!

2010-08-14T19:26:00.000-07:00

A few more additions to the nursery!

I have been told to curtail my decorating until the shower so this is the first and last thing that will go on the walls so that I can place each new item in the best spot! Ladies, I am minding! Mom finished another sewing project...the bedskirt! The bedskirt matches the curtains and the comforter will have some of the same fabrics with a few other additions! I love the ruffles!

School this week

We talked about Noah's Ark, the letter "B", number "2" (animals went 2 by 2 onto Noah's Ark), things that float (the Ark and that it saved Noah's family and the animals that were on it) and things that sink by picking out items around the house to test in a dishpan.

I also attended my first Great Starts meeting for Frisco HIS on Thursday and learned a lot about scheduling and how to get school done with toddlers and babies. It can be done...I knew that since we had been successful so far but I learned ways to make it better. It was nice to meet some other moms who were beginning to homeschool their children-some at the kindergarten level and some who had just taken their children out of public school to homeschool. Some sweet ladies with the same goals as our family! Above all, I learned from some veterans to stay relaxed and understand that they will learn and to not become overly concerned with every single task as they will learn at their own pace. The woman who spoke to us has three boys in middle school and high school and she has a 4 year old daughter. Her sons are in the competitive football league with the homeschool league HSAA. They had 13 practices this week and I learned that they play some of the top private schools in the area. Clark was happy to hear all of this since he is familiar with the level of competitiveness in the private school setting. One of her boys' coaches played for the Cowboys and she said they are really tough on the boys to get all their home school work done in order to play. The sports leagues will continue to get better and grow as our boys reach that age if she decide to homeschool through high school. Many highschoolers end up taking college credit courses as part of their homeschool so thankfully we won't be teaching things like calculus and other subjects that this!!!

The boys' letter "B" artwork.

CJ and Mark working on their rainbows. The rainbow was to teach the boys about how God sent the rainbow after the flood so that the people would know he loved them and saved them. They turned out so pretty! I love abstract art so much that I hope they continue to use their own creativity when we do our projects. You would think that in order to make a rainbow they they would need to put each color in a nice line across the rainbow but they didn't see it that way. Some things are too pretty to ever get rid of...what will I do with all this art!

Making their letter "B" on the floor following the outline of the tape and tracing it with blocks (for "B") and with other things!

Peyton trying to help and steel the blocks off the "B"!

Yeah!! All finished!

Me with my first, sweet nephew Luke Slater Payne! He has long eyelashes, pretty plump lips and of course loves to cuddle! I love him!

Nursery News!!!

2010-08-08T20:03:00.001-07:00

We've made some strides in the new nursery! I have literally been waking up planning this room in my mind for months now! Finally we are seeing it come alive!

So far what you see when you walk in.Chandelier with satin cheetah cover!!
Mom finished the curtains! They are just beautiful and exactly what I had pictured against the pink walls! Mom, thank you so much! Curtains upclose...

First little hat from Christie!

Top of dresser with cute little high heel jewelry/hair accessorie holder!

Front of window.

Little infant camo hat from Bass Pro...just perfect with it's camo butterfly!

Chandelier and cheetah cover! I love it!

Plaque made into a bow clip holder!

Finished antiqued crib, bedding to come!!!

Its all coming together as dreamed!

Successful First Week

2010-08-06T18:07:00.001-07:00

We really did have an amazing week with our homeschooling venture. I feel like CJ is listening more to us and trying to mind much better than last week and I am attributing it to the time we have spent together learning. The attention that he has gotten was probably missing and instead of just trying to get by throughout the day, we are doing meaningful things. Its like we have a whole new purpose. One of the most memorable things that occurred was on Wednesday morning. I told CJ he could watch his show after breakfast and before we started our school. At 9:00 without me saying a word to him, I saw him go to the TV, turn it off and head upstairs. As he made his way upstairs he said, "Come on Mommy, lets do school!" That was incredibly surprising. Each day he asked to do more after we were finished.

We received our math and reading workbook and this will definitely add a challenge. What I have to keep in mind is that I have to help him have fun or he will get discouraged. I saw him hold his pencil correctly and he was looking at me to see if I saw him and of course I did and after I praised him he was ready to work. One other challenge has been that when he writes his name it ends up, upside down. That concerned me so I decided I would make a name badge and tape it to the table. Once he saw it, he copied it the correct way. Its these hurdles that I am trying to use creativity to work around. Without being in this position before, I know I have be on top of the issues so I can tailor the teaching the best way that helps him learn! Overall, it has been a wonderful start.

Thursday night he decided he was going to clean. He took all the things out of the pantry and swept out the pantry...I did not ask him to do this! He asked if he could have a "ticket" (he calls dollar bills tickets) after he was finished. I said "Of course, you earned it buddy!"

CJ and Mark's artwork from the first day

Artwork from today! I thought they both did really well! Notice the "J" in CJ at the bottom of the page is written facing the right direction.

Artwork from Wednesday. Notice the upside down "J". This was before the name badge.

Studying the number one and working on hand coordination with cutting...we were supposed to find a tree in a magazine but we only had daddy's deer hunting magazines so CJ asked if he could cut out a deer and then Mark saw the coyote so we cut that out for him.

Task was to find all the "A"s on the page and circle them.

Math Practice

Tonight watching a movie on their pallets...poor Peyton was already in bed. He's had some diarrhea today:(

We are so proud of our little students!!!

Last Weekend at Grandma's!

2010-08-05T13:55:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we decided to go to Grandma's farm and we all enjoyed it! As soon as we got there the boys jumped out of the car and they spent from sun up to sun down outside. If they weren't sleeping they were outside! They love to be free outdoors! They played in the water, sand pile, jumped on the trampoline, took golf cart rides in the woods and ate fresh vegetables from the garden. They chowed down Saturday night on fresh corn on the cob! We also got to see deer every time we left the house or went outside close to evening time. The boys loved pointing them out when they saw them!

The car ride there. They slept...some!

We're going to have to get something to make Mark's head stay still when we take our next road trip for the triplet's birthday in September!

Sunday we tried out a new church and we really enjoyed it.

Grandpa fixing CJ's buttons before we walked in! When we went to get the boys from the kids area we saw Mark dancing to music with a slinky! It was so cute!

So sunny but at least we were able to get everyone sitting down for a quick pic!

Grandma jumping on the trampoline with Peyton:)

FUN weekend! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Homeschooling has begun!

2010-08-03T18:29:00.000-07:00

Our school year has begun! We decided to start in August because we will take most of December off (if CJ will let me!) with baby girl arriving then! We have really enjoyed the past two days. First, we decided that we would do a kick-off breakfast at IHOP. Clark said that they used to go to McDonalds for breakfast the morning of the first day of school. We decided that since the boys love pancakes so much that they would enjoy IHOP and they did! Hopefully we can make this a tradition.

These first pictures are of some of the books and materials that we are using. We decided to start with "Little Hands to Heaven" for this first year (www.heartofdakota.com). To take it a step further, I felt like CJ was ready for some reading practice and math. He is always coming to us adding numbers up and asking if he is right so I thought we could start to expand on his interest in math with a kindergarten program. The reading workbook has been suggested by every homeschool mom I have talked with.

Daily, I go through the curriculum workbook and get the materials ready for the next day by putting them into the white bins you see here. It makes the teaching portion go very smoothly. The prep time takes about 5 minutes to simply make two copies of certain pages, get art materials and the correct books to use put in their bins.

CJ has been very engaged in our first few days! He is a good listener when he sits down ready to read. I know they have active personalities-they're boys, so I just go into it knowing that everything might not always be calm and I try to stay flexible and move things around to times when I know I will have their attention. CJ can tell the whole story of Adam and Eve, from the beginning...the first week is studying the letter "A". "A" for Adam. The first day was studying how God created the world from nothing. They made drawings on white paper with white crayon and then painted over it with watered down black paint to see the drawings appear-key point-God created all things from nothing. The paint I used wasn't watered down enough but CJ still understood.

Today we had a playdate at Christie's house and when we got home it was time for naps. Our typical schedule will be doing our school at around 9:00 a.m. but Tuesdays are going to be days where we have extracurricular activities. Science class for CJ at the Heard Museum and Mark's gym class are going to be on Tuesdays. Plus we'll have T-ball practice that day most likely and possibly library programs and field trips with our homeschool group through Frisco HIS, depending on the start time. We might have to move library time to Thursdays. We'll also try to fit in play time with friends knowing that not all our friends homeschool, we'll be able to be flexible and play when they are available. The neat thing about homeschool, is that we can do it anytime. After naps and before dinner, we did school today. Yesterday we went to visit baby Luke because the boys and Clark had not met him yet. We got started later than expected but we got to do something that was important to our whole family, see our newest baby! We didn't have to worry about sticking to a strict schedule. After we were finished tonight CJ said, "Mommy, can we do more school." That made me smile! I had been told that many times homeschooled kids love the idea of "school" versus what I remember-not ever wanting to go! Clark was in his men's group last week and one of the guys asked him, "Why would you want to homeschool?" Clark told him several reasons but its hard to describe. Today, as CJ snuggled up to me in our reading chair to read, I thought to myself, "This is why I want to homeschool." It might be crazy busy around here, full of messes and screaming kids but to spend as much time as I can seeing them learn is truly the reason that I want to teach them.

Our math and reading workbooks haven't come in yet but we plan to do the math and reading portion as soon as I put Mark and Peyton down for naps each day. These are items that we need more quite time to learn and we need about 20 minutes for the reading and 10 for one on one math.

IHOP Breakfast

Painting project

Mark entertaining himself with some new learning toys that were in his bin.

The puzzle that CJ got for a "first day of school" prize since he did so well. It took him an hour to put it together the first time all by himself. I told him he needed to find a place to do it alone so that the other boys wouldn't bother him so he locked himself in our room and would come out to give updates every 15 minutes or so. He started with each separate dinosaur and then pieced them all together-I didn't even tell him to try to figure it out this way. He spent probably a total of 4 hours yesterday taking it apart and putting it together again. He LOVES puzzles.

School tonight, Mark had his baby Bible and CJ had his older version recommeneded by Heart of Dakota. This is where we begin our daily school.

CJ and Mark slithering on the floor like "Anacondas". Studing the letter "A" with a rhyme that I was reading.

Intently drawing objects of different colors in each shape.

Tracing the large letter "A" with animals...hince, animals make sounds just like letters do. The workbook recommended masking tape but I felt like blue painters tape would get more attention and it did. As soon as Mark saw what I was doing with the tape he said, "Oh, cooooooooool."

When I first started thinking that I wanted to homeschool I thought I was nuts. I'm not a teacher, never had a desire to teach what so ever. However, I have a completely different feeling when it comes to the teaching of my own kids. I have questioned from the beginning if I will really be able to do this. I know it will be one of the hardest things that I will do as a mom and thankfully, after beginning the journey, I do feel like I can do it. Many moms have sent me the same verse to remind me that I do have the capabilities to make this work..."I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Phil 4:13

I've also been told to never forget the reason that I decided to teach our boys in this way.

Deut 6: 5-7.

So far so good and I have high hopes for the rest of the year!

Visit to Poppy's Fire Station

2010-08-01T18:36:00.000-07:00

I am way behind on my blogs! These cute pictures are from our visit to Poppy's fire station, Fire station #8! The boys had a blast.

Snacks in the kitchen
Trying on jackets

Looking in the ambulance

Peyton found him a comfy chair! Peyton in the fire truck

Next several pictures are of Marky in the driver's seat as CJ plays with the seat controls!

Playing in the weight room

Trying on hats

CJ in the driver's seat

Marky in the back seat of the fire truck

Peyton in the driver's seat

Such precious smiles!

Its a miracle...ready early for church!

2010-07-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

We're always rushing to get in the car for church but today, since we began our morning with a poop mess that took an hour to clean up, we decided we would go ahead and get a jump start on our showers! The result...we were 3o minutes early for church. Good thing is we got to take some pictures where everyone was actually dressed...not with naked bobos! Laughing at Daddy dancing in the background!

Marky getting tickled!

My silly big boy!

Fishing with Daddy

2010-07-23T19:12:00.001-07:00

CJ and Mark have sure loved going fishing lately. CJ asks Clark constantly when they get to go again and its been a good way to get him to eat his dinner! "If you don't eat your dinner, you won't get to go fishing and you won't get sugar either." Ouch!!!

Here was Mark's first fish!

He's starting to get to where he can go and do the big boy stuff...not completely but almost! You can tell he just loves it!

CJ can now bait his own hook and unhook the fish once he gets one. He's pretty proud of that!

Come see our ART project!!!!

2010-07-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

CJ ran downstairs covered in marker (looks like poop but its marker, don't worry!), "Daddy, come see Marky's art project." Clark decided from what CJ looked like, that he better grab the camera and run upstairs. This is what he found...I doubt it was just Mark's art project, he must of had some help!

This is how the boys were found when Clark first got upstairs.

It wasn't found on the walls but I was glad that we had the walls painted in a satin so that we could wash off the messes that I am sure we will have at some point.

Bass Pro

2010-07-21T18:55:00.000-07:00

Like father, like sons...they all love a trip to Bass Pro Shop!

Looking at all the big fish!

Our ATV man

The camping tents...this is Peyton's smile when you ask him to smile or he sees the camera!

Looking at the ducks

Driving the Boats

20 week appointment

2010-07-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

Today was my 20 week appointment and follow up sono. This particular sono was to look more in depth at her organs etc. She is measuring right on target! During the sono she was sitting up with her legs crossed! Then we got to see her very sweet little profile :) I've been able to really feel her moving much more lately. Her crib came in today and her room will be painted this weekend! We'll be good and ready for her this Fall!

Bad Veins

2010-07-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

Although its all very worth it, lately I have been mesmerized by the effect of successive pregnancies on my legs of all places. I asked my doctor if it was something I was just going to have to deal with and he said well, "For the time being you could wear the lunch lady tights"...and of course I said I would pass on wearing anything binding in this heat and chances are, I probably couldn't make myself wear them in cooler weather simply because it just doesn't feel right to be constricted while "growing"! I stopped crossing my legs years ago because I was afraid of these bad veins but it looks like I didn't stop soon enough!

This is the inside of my right leg...it started out small and is now growing towards the top of my leg to date. Its just gross. If I sit down the blood pooling stops, but as soon as I get up I feel the burning and there they are again.

It starts up much higher than where the pooling can be seen.

The next few pictures are of the outside and back of my right leg.

Although not the best for wearing shorts, I would certainly choose spider and varicose veins over other things brought on by having babies!!! They haven't stopped me from dressing for summer and they won't :) Maybe I'm learning to embrace my bad veins!

We like nude picnics!

2010-07-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

Its a whole lot easier to clean everyone up outside than it is when we do lunch inside!

Good boy taking his plate to daddy...

...decided he wasn't quite finished! Peyton cleaning up leftovers in the background-this is a regular occurrence, evidence being those chunky legs and bobo!

Sweet Shadow

2010-07-15T20:36:00.001-07:00

Not a very good quality phone picture but this is Peyton wearing my crumpled up sun hat before we went on a walk this evening. His brothers are at Grandma's and therefore Peyton has been enjoying his time with me alone. He follows me around everywhere...we eat together, play together, cuddle together and even shower together. I get in the shower and he comes running like its his turn too (Mark does the same thing to Clark and mimics his every move in the shower)! We've enjoyed our playtime but we miss the big boys, they'll be back tomorrow but I think they're having so much fun they probably would rather stay on the farm!

Successful Surprise...

2010-07-12T20:39:00.000-07:00

...for a very special DAD!

Last Saturday was the very first time any of us have ever made a big fuss over one of our dad's birthdays. As he says, he never wants the attention and we know he would much rather be the giver than the receiver. He never asks for gifts, never makes requests for special occasions and therefore it was time to "treat" him well! Dad is the ultimate dad, he has always taken care of each of us and I will admit, I never overly worried about much of anything because I knew my dad would assist in anything that he could physically, mentally or emotionally fix!

We held our special occasion at Bob's Steak and Chop House in Plano. We had several guests of which many traveled in from out of town to be at our party! These first few pictures are when dad walked into the back room where he thought he was going to dinner with Tom, Pam and Cindy-that party of 5 turned in to 25 very special people waiting on him! The smiles you see here are the best...ear to ear and you can just see the happiness on his face!

The CAKE! Mandy ordered the cake from a bakery close to the restaurant and it was soooo good, the icing was awesome! Everyone went home with a party favor...carmel popcorn with chocolate drizzle and M&M's. Dad loves popcorn like this so we thought it would be a nice favor for everyone to take home-not that anyone could eat anything after that dinner! The trendy black, white and red are colors on the cake and favors are near and dear to dad's heart...both Texas Tech colors and the colors of his company Two Sate Oil Field!!

Mom and Dad, Pete Sandel and Julie...and the sweet picture that Michelle gave Pop of the girls!

Thank you to all who attended this special night!

We love you dad!

Nursery

2010-07-12T07:03:00.001-07:00

I've decided that our nursery will be somewhat of a vintage/Victorian theme with pieces of modern cheetah print as well. It will be a rose pink color! Mom is making the bedding and curtains. The fabrics that we have picked out are soooo pretty!! I can't wait to see it all put together. Mom always does a wonderful job!

Of course, I thought of so many projects that I wanted to do and surprisingly, they're already almost finished.

A few of the decorative items...see caption below.

This was a lamp I found at Hobby Lobby but the base was black. I wanted sort of a pink undertone with antique white so here we go...just sanded it a bit, painted it pink, then white and sanded again. Love how it turned out with the shade put back on! Same thing with the FAITH sign, it was black. The picture frame above was just black so that was easy, painted it white and sanded in a few places to make it look more antique.

More decorative items.

The top picture is a few of items I found, the only one I modified was the lamp the rest came from Hobby Lobby-so many cute things in that store! The bookcase was all brown made of inexpensive material (was in Mark's room but we didn't need it in there anymore)...its sturdy but not real wood. I decided that I would try to paint and stain it and it worked. Then I added the wood appliques at the top and I like how it turned out! The picture of the crib is the one I am ordered and then I will put an antique stain on it too.

Can't wait to see the finished product!!

Thinking about PINK butterflies

2010-06-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

This is how it all started!

Back in January of this year, I started really getting the inkling for a 4th baby. I kept thinking that we should wait until Peyton was a year old. From this blog post (follow link) http://themiller-5.blogspot.com/2010/04/butterflies/html , you can see that my plans were moving faster than we thought. Some of you don't know a few parts of this story because quite frankly, I was afraid to mention for fear my prayers wouldn't be answered so soon. I guess I should have not been relying on my own strength and instead, simply had faith that God has his own plans regardless of what I hoped for. In February, we were standing in church during worship and Pastor Kenny went up to the podium and simply said, "I know there are people here today that have desires of their heart and they're simply afraid to ask. God simply says, 'ask me'."

"For I know the plans I have for you..." Jeremiah 29:11
"Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desire of your heart." Psalms 37:4

So what did I do, "I prayed for a little girl." I knew that if this was also God's plan, he would grant our desire and if it wasn't then it simply wasn't part of our plan right now. I was told last night that the chances of having a girl after 3 boys was like less than 30%. Throughout the first part of this pregnancy, I had so many people say-even my doctor-"You know this will be another boy." Our boys are simply wonderful and having another would have been just fine with me. Deep down though, I knew that no one else knew God's plans for us despite all scientific ways of thinking.

Fast forward to last week...Clark and I took CJ with us to the sonogram. We sat in the waiting room for quite awhile, just long enough for me to start getting really nervous. I was looking at my phone and started to feel the anxiety rising. I put the phone down and looked outside the window. From the fourth floor, right outside the window was one lonely butterfly flying right in my clear view. Even after all the signs before, this is when I knew we were about to learn some very exciting news for our family. I took a deep breath and just said, "Okay."

Fifteen minutes later we learned that our boys would have a baby sister! We asked CJ what we should name her and he said, "Well, I'll probably call her sissy." He is very excited. Even today he asked me if his sissy would have make-up in her room. Clark had joked with him that his sister would have different things in her room like dolls, dresses, make-up and she would have panties not undies in her room. CJ thought that was pretty funny!

These are a few of the first gifts that I have received for our little girl...thank you Amy and Christie. I'll be posting more about our nursery plans and official name soon!

It's Finished!

2010-06-28T16:51:00.000-07:00

Our school room is finally finished! We're pleased with how it turned out...its just like I pictured it!

This is the play area we set up for the babies...Clark's idea and it worked great.

Paintings that I bought custom made from Etsy...notice the 4 butterflies...the artist was going to put the butterflies on a different number but when she started painting it just didn't seem right to her to put them anywhere but on the number 4. When I received the paintings I sent her my blog post about the butterflies and she couldn't believe it!

Reading Nook Just missing the book rack for the floor. We may end up snuggled here more than anywhere so we wanted this area to be cozy. Working on a few other cozy pillows and blanket.

Ranger's Game with Pop

2010-06-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

Friday night Pop took us to the Ranger's game. We just took CJ and Mark while Grammy stayed home with Peyton and fixed CJ and Mark's maddies (lovies that all the grandbabies have) that desperately needed new paws! The boys did great and we stayed until the 6th inning which was more than we thought we would have been able to stay...not to mention we had those really good baseball hot dogs, nachos, ice cream, candy and cotton candy to keep us all sane! When we sat down with our hot dogs, I asked Mark if he wanted me to help him (he said, "no, no") and as you can see in the bottom picture, he wanted to eat without any help and he did just fine! Fun time, thanks Pop!

Horses, Swim lessons, Father's Day Morning

2010-06-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

CJ riding horses with Pop last Wednesday!Father's Day morning breakfast...Peyton is a real toot!
No short of kisses around here:)

Swim lessons that went really well for CJ and Mark.

Mr. Whiney

2010-06-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

We're not sure if our Peyton is just spoiled or if he's just getting his molars...

He's been whining day and night-if he has stopped and he sees me, he throws himself on the floor and starts crying. I guess because he wants me to pick him up-I just can't carry this 26 pounder around with me all day. When I sit him down, he whines again. After I have fed him what I think is a sufficient meal, he'll throw his head toward the table, often times hurting himself and just whine for more. If I get him down instead of feed him more, he just throws himself on the floor-hurting himself. I'm convinced he's never full-but he's picky, he won't eat just anything I put in front of him but he'll still get real mad if I don't keep offering food that fits his palette at the time.

Lately, at night he'll wake up at least 1 time, sometimes 3 or 4. We thought that all he wanted was his pacie. So each night, I would traipse upstairs to a child that would stop whining and smile/giggle when he saw me walk in, find his pacie and go back to bed. But, many times as soon as I would get back in bed and almost to sleep, he'd start whining again and I would start the process over again until 6:30/7:00 a.m. Lucky if we get to 7 a.m. Clark and I decided to take the pacie away to see if that solved our problems. The first night it probably took him 2 hours to fall asleep but we didn't have to go upstairs to give him his lost pacie in the middle of the night. We thought we'd hit the jackpot the first few nights. However, at about 5 this morning I hear Peyton wake up so I went upstairs and tried to soothe him. I thought he was back to sleep until 5:30 he starts whining again. This time, I let him whine for quite a bit longer but I always worry he's going to wake Mark up in the room next to him. Until early this morning, I don't think Mark has ever been bothered by the incessant whining. After laying in bed listening to him whine I knew it was getting to be TOO much. Then over Mark's monitor I hear, "Sort, sort, sort my shapes, sort them nice and square...". That was it. Peyton's whining woke Mark up and now Mark was in bed playing with his Shape Sorter. Clark and I both got up and tended to Mark first. While I was getting Mark all settled, Clark went into Peyton's room. He decided he'd just try the pacie since it seemed to not really be source of the whining. Clark said as he gave Peyton the pacie, it was like Peyton had been hit with a tranquilizer dart. The pacie hit his mouth and he went down head first into his maddie! So we still don't know what the answer is to our problem but I am thinking that it must be his molars. The only thing we could think of was to give him some Ibuprofen, Orajel and the pacie. We'll see how he does tonight!

Just Trying to Keep Up!

2010-06-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

CJ's T-ball End of Season Party

First Trophy!

Playing Drums on Uncle Jonathan's drum set at his Graduation Party

Hawaiian Falls...this is the only picture that I was able to get. Its just too hard to take pics while trying to enjoy the water and watch everyone!

Last Week

2010-05-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

We had a super busy week! First, on Tuesday we had Mark and Peyton's 2 year and 1 year well visits. Mark had to get his finger pricked to check his iron and Peyton received 4 shots...CJ was very upset that his "babies" were having to get shots and he promptly told me that he wanted to "take his babies home now" before they were to get shots. He was very loving when his brothers got their shots and after the prick. We made it through! Mark had some bad eczema on his feet of all places but we got a Rx and his feet are doing MUCH better!

Here are the stats of our healthy big boys.

Mark:

31 pounds

34 1/2 inches

Peyton:

26 pounds

32 1/2 inches

Tuesday and Wednesday night we had CJ's last T-ball games for the season. He has been such a little hustler all season. He runs super fast to get the balls and hits the ball with all his might! We have his end of season party this next Tuesday. Here is our T-ball player.

Thursday, CJ and I had our teeth cleaned and we are happy to report that we don't have any cavities and very little plaque...I guess we're doing our best keeping our sweet teeth cleaned!

Friday we had a playdate with some friends. You would think by the picture below that this was Halloween but really, the boys all loved CJ's array costumes in his closet so at one point they all came down dressed up!

Friday night CJ spent the night with Grammy and Pop. They found a bird's nest and CJ counted 5 eggs...they look so pretty. Grammy said the momma bird was chirping at them the whole time! This is CJ and Pop playing the bag toss game...CJ was aiming for the win!

Re"w"axing on the bed!

Saturday night we had a movie night and CJ shared his pallet with Mark!

Biggest Brother

2010-05-27T17:13:00.001-07:00

We were cleaning the other day and CJ kept telling me that he was hungry and that his brothers were hungry too. I told him to go downstairs and get a snack. I didn't tell him to get snacks for everyone but I walked back downstairs and he had gotten two baggies out for he and Mark and filled them with yogurt raisins and animal crackers and he had grabbed the baby rice snacks for Peyton. This was pretty impressive! He not only was sweet to think of everyone, but he put together a pretty good little treat. They enjoyed their snacks at their table upstairs!

Shoo-Shoo

2010-05-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

This is from a few days ago...
Marky came to me saying "Shoo-Shoo". See pics below...no, that's not playdough but he sure was playing with it like it was-until it started to smell!

Marky is 2, Peyton is 1...

2010-05-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

...we celebrated with some fun in the sun!

This one needs a trim too....

2010-05-20T18:32:00.001-07:00

This is definitely a stage I am going through...I just don't want to cut all this pretty hair. I'm sure it will pass but for now, I'll be trimming only the necessary areas like around the ears.

Yay Marky!

2010-05-17T15:39:00.000-07:00

Marky just might be potty-training himself. He's been taking his diaper off regularly and wanting to go to the potty. This morning I went up to his room-since he's sleeping in his big-boy bed I wanted to check on him to see if he was really still asleep. I opened up the room and saw a naked boy laying on his sheets just sound asleep. I saw his diaper and shorts on the floor. I closed the door to let him sleep more but then I decided that he had probably been peeing all night and was probably soaked. I was right. He never once woke up. Then after I got him up, bathed and dressed he took his diaper off again and climbed up on the big potty. For the first time today he peed in the potty (he's been just sitting on the potty but could never actually go)! Once he started going of course I said "Oh yay Marky!" but it was too loud and he froze up and didn't finish until I settled down! This afternoon for naps I decided to put underwear over his diaper and that worked for keeping it on, we'll see how tonight goes! Here are a few pics of him with his big-boy undies on:)

Peyter Tot is 1!

2010-05-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

Peyton was born a year ago today! Its been a very quick year. As we've gotten to know our baby boy Peyton, we've about decided that he just might be the ringleader in several scuffles that the boys have daily! He's not shy at all and when he wants something, he'll do whatever it takes to get it! He has an infectious smile!

Here are some other sweet things about our Peyton:
He giggles constantly at his brothers and almost snorts most of the time.
He is walking all over the house. He has such long legs and is still a little wobbly!
He just started sleeping in the crib last night (Mark just moved into his own big-boy bed!).
He loves kisses and loves face to face contact. If we get just a little close to his face, he leans in the rest of the way to be as close as possible.
I think he's a real mamma's boy...he will let me snuggle with him when he gets upset but he has to be wrapped up in a cozy blanket.
He still loves his bottle-I warm milk up like they do for cats, silly I know (we stopped with the formula a week ago but he loves warm milk)!
He has 8 teeth and loves to eat...sweets of course like the rest of us.
His hair really does need a trim but I just don't want to do a full trim yet!
So far, he's daddy's little mini-me!
He loves to be outside playing with his brothers and already climbs all the way up the slide!

We started our day with chocolate chip pancakes and a pitiful little hat I made last night :(

This little face is hard to not constantly kiss on!

We're going to...

2010-05-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

GREAT WOLF LODGE...well, actually we "went" to Great Wolf Lodge but that's the jingle that we've been hearing on the radio and wondering what the lodge was all about. Thursday we found out! The boys had a great time...we had a few fiascoes but nothing you wouldn't expect with a 4 year old, an almost 2 year old and an almost 1 year old.

Here are a few things that created the fiascoes:

1. Mark has never slept in a bed by himself or with us-or anything other than his crib.

2. Naps are super important...even on vacation!

3. Sound machines should never be forgotten.

4. Mommy does not need to be in the bathtub with shampoo in her hair at the time of a fire alarm.

5. We should spend every waking moment outside of the room...or else, everyone suffers!

6. We should have packed child-proofing devices for the doors!

One thing we did do right...we brought along a stash of the yummiest snacks that we usually don't buy all at once (Oreo's, gummy worms, M&M's, Little Debbies smores and brownies, Twix, peanut butter cookies). Yay for the snacks, they saved us from many more fiascoes!

We really did enjoy our family outing!

C.J. thoroughly enjoyed himself but as we were getting ready to leave he said, "Oh sweet home"...and let me tell you, we were all thinking the same thing (thankfully we only had a 30 minute drive home)!! At these ages, one night away is plenty of fun!

As we pulled up to the lodge, the excitement was bubbling! Mark was just in awe!

Cabin-themed kid sleeping area!

Walking into the water park! Dinner which we all enjoyed! ...and the SWEET SHOP. Everything from donuts at 7pm to ice cream, candy and HUGE cookiesMarky driving the ice cream truck!We didn't even tell CJ to do the bear claw, can you tell he loved this place!

Before breakfast this morning. I was too hungry to get everyone completely dressed so we were all mismatched but we were FULL by the time we left the Loose Moose Buffet.

My Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful Mother's Day!

A few of my favorite things!

My favorite envelope I have ever received! Clark asked CJ to write an "M" and then write and "o" and then another "m". This is what CJ wrote and I love it...abstract thinking! The boys new climber, an early birthday present from Grammy and Pop...they all love it!

First Dr Visit

2010-05-05T07:13:00.001-07:00

Clark and I attended our first doctor visit for the new baby yesterday. Because Dr. Turner moved to Tyler, we are seeing Dr. Richard Kaye at Plano Presby who Dr. Turner recommended. We really like him! We spent about 2 hours at the office doing all the preliminary work-visiting with the dr. to get a picture of my history, sonogram, bloodwork etc. The baby looked great, we could see the head and body and heartbeat of course. The room where they do the sonograms has a flat screen TV on the wall. They had a comfy chair in there that Clark got to sit in and watch the sonogram on the TV. It was a nice change of pace. Baby had a good strong heartbeat. They went ahead and calculated me at 8 weeks with a due date of December 14th. I'll be doing Internet Christmas shopping this year for sure! Dr. Kaye is in private practice so my chances of having him deliver our baby are high. This is what I was used to with Dr. Turner and I like knowing that most likely he's on call unless he's out of town.

After the sonogram, Clark and I went into another room where Dr. Kaye was going to do some more tests...but when we got into the office by ourselves, we both looked up at the same time and the picture below is what we saw. 4 butterflies hanging by wire from the ceiling. We just laughed in awe! Sometimes (most of the time) its hard to fathom how blessed we are :)

In my next blog I will put our new family pictures up...I haven't done that since we got them taken a month ago but have been meaning to!

This week...

2010-04-16T05:36:00.001-07:00

...we've yet to have anymore poop messes, we've focused on pretty things.

The boys flowers that we planted last Friday...so far!

CJ and I picked flowers from our garden, these are all flowers/bushes that have bloomed again...nothing new this year.
Clark and all his helpers while fixing the bed.
In talking about animals and their homes, I found these wooden crafts to paint at Michael's for $3.00...CJ painted his alligator and loved it! Mark sat next to us, for about a minute and painted on his cross.

Butterflies...

2010-04-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

...in my tummy!

So you're probably wondering what that means. I decided that I really couldn't wait any longer to share this with my family and friends. So, here we go!

Many of you know that after Peyton was born, Clark and I both felt deep down that we weren't completely finished having our babies. I actually questioned myself..."Is it just the room service menu at Presbyterian Plano that I am addicted to?" (seriously, its that good and there are no limits!)

A few weeks ago, the thoughts and desires of having this last, (what we think is the last) baby, were very strong. I have learned to understand this verse to be true in many areas of my life: "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4. However, trusting and believing in His timing of these desires is something that I constantly have to practice. When the desire was getting pretty strong, I was having a hard time separating what the Lord really wanted, verses my worldly thoughts of "Is this the best timing?" I remember the night that this was the heaviest on my heart. Finally I decided that sometimes we have to specifically ask for what we think we desire. On this night, with wavering faith, I asked the Lord to show me BUTTERFLIES if we were to have another baby. To our amazement and I bet to yours too...here is a small glimpse of the days and weeks that followed that prayer.

I sat down to read to Mark and this is what I saw just a few minutes from saying that prayer. See the lonely butterfly above the elephants...then I turned the page and saw the next picture.

The next day we were at Bass Pro Shop and the butterflies started popping up right in front of my face (didn't have my camera). I still wasn't convinced...was this coincidence? But then I answered my own question because I really don't believe in coincidence.

The next day, I went to check the mail, face down was this magazine, it was the first thing I pulled out of the mailbox (magazines are on the bottom most of the time, not the top!). The next day I was at the alteration shop and that same magazine was face down on a pile of junk on the alteration lady's desk.

The next day, I am looking at a magazine and it was like I was being told to turn the page...this is what I saw.

Later that day I was doing number cards with CJ and this pops up...4 butterflies, interesting huh!

A few days later I was downtown McKinney and I arrived to my destination a little early so I was sitting in my car thinking and praying about the desire the have another baby. I looked straight up and to my amazement this is what I saw...I even said to myself, no way-that's a dragonfly not a butterfly-I was wrong.

Then this was the last one that I recorded although I kept seeing them in the most random of places. As we were reading this book, I kept hearing "look for the butterfly". I looked, saw nothing and then I thought, no that's not real that was just my mind. As I was turning the page, so strong I heard, "LOOK IN THE CRACK!". (little blue one in the crack and only butterfly in the whole book, I checked!)

(see the words on this page, "It is NOISY round here, and it's busy all hours!" Pretty true for our home)
As I kept seeing these butterflies I wasn't convinced until it was made the most real-God had already answered my prayers and he gave me more than butterflies! Here's to our 4th little blessing!

CJ loves his Daddy!

2010-04-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight, C.J. went to Clark and told him that he wanted to "just spend time with him" tonight. I've been watching him snuggling for about an hour now, first he gave him a few sweet kisses on his cheek. As he stroked Clark's cheek he said, "Did you clean off your beard?" A few more kisses were given. So just a few seconds ago, I looked over and CJ is still snuggling with Clark and I hear, "Daddy is it Sunday tomorrow?" Clark told him no. CJ then asked "on Sundays you don't have to go to work?" Clark told him on Saturdays and Sundays, no, he doesn't have to go to work. Then CJ said, "Well, can you sleep in my bed with me tonight?" I guess this is versus him coming down to our bed to sleep with us...tonight, it sounds like he just wants his Daddy and that's just fine, I love to see their love!

Let's not...

2010-04-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

...Make Mountains out of a Poophill. Just what Joel Olsteen was preaching about as I walked upstairs and saw this...

The Culprit...Mark. Apparently he didn't want to poop in his diaper, so he took it off and pooped on the floor while Peyton watched and then played...sounds yummy, huh. This wasn't our first "sh*t storm", I vividly remember the storm we had with CJ and Mark last year about this time although it didn't look like Peyton had actually feasted on it like Mark. My Little Green Bissel worked wonders while Clark and Grandma cleaned up the boys and the furniture!

Learning Sillies

2010-04-09T08:31:00.000-07:00

CJ at Breakfast

(Mark still asleep and Peyton crawling around under the table eating CJ's leftovers)
We read, "Jacob's Gift" by Max Lucado

Planting our plants in our "handpainted pots" after we learned,

"plants are living and they need water, food and sunlight to grow"

We'll post our flowers once they grow-hopefully they will grow!

Updated: FAITH, Faith is being sure of what we hope for ... Greeting Card from Zazzle.com

2010-04-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

Updated-postage stamps can also be made, pictures below.

FAITH, Faith is being sure of what we hope for ... Greeting Card from Zazzle.com

A new greeting card made with my FAITH painting! Other items can be made with the same design. This is just the beginning but the inspiration behind the painting seemed to be a good place to start!

I hear YOU, music to our ears!

2010-04-06T20:07:00.001-07:00

Becoming tuned-in has not been an easy process. I've slowly learned how to discern who is SPEAKING to me! You know when you feel like your patience is being tested and the things you wish, dream and pray for aren't coming true on your timing? Well, tonight I jumped in the shower with some heavy thoughts on my mind. My main thought concerned deliverance from certain situations...but I wasn't feeling discouraged, I could still feel the joy in my heart. As clear as day I heard, "I hear your prayer". I jumped out of the shower, still sopping wet to deliver HIS message to Clark...it was and is, music to our ears!

Wonderful 3 days!

2010-04-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful Easter weekend! The service on Sunday was amazing!

We got to spend 3 full days with Clark, when he is home, that's where we want to be! Some may say, he's home every night...well, that's just not enough time when it comes to little boys spending time with their daddy! Friday night we had professional pictures taken and although I haven't included them here, I will soon! We were all worn out, Clark and I sat in our chairs, ate our ice cream and we both passed out in the living room until midnight. I'm telling you, we were pooped. Coordinating, packing, dressing, feeding etc...we love it, but we realize it wears us thin a lot of the time and we need our rest!

Saturday, Clark put my bike carrier/jogger stroller together (Tom and Melissa had given it me for Christmas but we had to move some things out of the garage in order to make it fit before we put it together). This thing is wonderful! Its amazingly light with over 50 pounds full of boys in it. CJ just wishes he could ride too, he's starting to complain a little when he's riding his bike in order for me to let him ride in the "big wheels" but its just not going to happen! If he had a seat it would work out-the weight limit is 100 pounds so we'd still be in range with all three in it.

Easter morning at our house...Peyton even searched for eggs!

Mark decided he would open the first egg he saw and stuffed his mouth full...due to the candy in the morning, he didn't nap at all that afternoon and pooped three times during the time he was supposed to be sleeping. The candy really did him in!

The boys have thoroughly enjoyed all their Easter treats! We have replaced the snack bin in the pantry with all sorts of pastel goodies surely to last for a LONG time and ready for those times when everybody wants some "sugar"! Grandma and Grandpa sent their treats last week so that the boys could wear their new tan Crocs with their Easter outfits! Thanks Dorothy! Mimi and Poppy came over Friday night to make their delivery and we read their little books and the boys started on the candy first thing! I had made some REAL good chocolate cupcakes and I wanted so badly to give some to Tom since he's a real chocolate lover like Clark, although I felt bad later that I might of ruined his diet that he was proud of...sorry Tom, I hope you enjoyed them and that you're back on track!

Grammy's baskets are below. I'm just glad that I inherited a tad bit of her creativity! Today, we have watched every Veggietales movie and BuzzyBee movie at least two times, we listened the whole Kiss your Brain CD and CJ and Mark both painted in their paint books-Mark drank more paint-water than painted but he did paint nevertheless! We had a fun day with lots of activities plus we even fit in a little bit of school! Some letters, math and science (learning about living things) for a wiggly, smart 4 year old!

Just The Beginning

2010-03-28T18:38:00.001-07:00

Saturday was CJ's first T-ball game! We found out late that his registration didn't go through the online system so he ended up on the team right in time for their first game. He'll have a jersey and hat to match the rest of the team next game. Clark took him to Academy on Friday evening to get all of his gear after we found out that his first game was that next morning at 9:00 a.m.

He did great, hit the ball well and followed directions great. Clark helped get the batters ready and it looked like a full time job for an hour-he was running around the whole time managing all these 4 year olds. I have a feeling this is just the beginning of the sporting fun we will have as a family!

Before the game, pep talks and kisses!

Practicing before the game.

Fun Inside

2010-03-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful weekend inside...and simply celebrated our family!

Haircuts-everyone!

Daddy making lunch and boys helping me

with caramel apples (inspired by Chloe's bday party favors)
After eating caramel apples!!

Movie time! Robin Hood and Pinochio

Jumpin' Around!

Toot Update

2010-03-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures that we have taken lately as well as some of the happenings around here!

CJ's news:
~As he admired the picture of his classmates he said, "Mommy, look at all my girls. They have such pretty shirts on."

~Clark called the other night on his way home from a late meeting and I told CJ that we needed to say a prayer for Daddy to get home safely. He told me he wanted to pray by himself so he walked into my bedroom and this is what I heard, word for word. "Dear Jesus, please help Daddy get home fast and good because I love him and I want to play cars with him. I love you God, Amen."

~Yesterday as I was getting him ready for the hockey game..."Mommy, that man in my tummy... Jesus, he just burped."

~At Cowboy day at school-"Mommy, I told Laurel that I really liked her 'cowgirl' dress."

~Practicing manners-I have been trying to get him to quit saying, "Huh?, Huh?, Huh?" Instead, he's learning to say, "Excuse me, what did you say?" Also I have been telling him that if he will start his sentences with "Please..." then people will be much more likely to listen and want to help him. As he woke up from his nap, still sleepy he said, "Mommy, can..I mean, please can you get me my fruit snacks? I almost forgot to say please!"

~In our attempt to get him to go to sleep in his room, we failed the other night from the beginning. He came down several times and then I finally remembered how it felt to be alone while trying to go to sleep. So I told him that I understood what it was like to be alone and that when daddy is gone I feel alone. He quickly said, "When daddy is gone, I sleep with you so you don't have to be alone." [Hugs and Kisses] He slept on a pallet by my side of the bed.

Marky update:
~He loved the petting zoo party that we went to (just the two of us) on Saturday.
~He's really starting to learn more words and he brings books to me often while saying, "Wead, wead.."
~He's still so mischievous. He and CJ both got in trouble this morning before I took them to meet Grandma. I was trying to get dressed and get Peyton out of the bathtub. Mark had already crawled out of the tub and was running wild with no diaper. I told myself that I would just pick up whatever mess he made after I finished getting dressed...and then I decided that I would go check to see what he was doing (only 5 minutes after being out of the tub). CJ had gotten up late and he left his leftover bowl of Lucky Charms on the table. I found Mark with Lucky Charms, leftover milk and marshmallows ingrained in the chair...milk all over the place, cereal stuck to his belly. Then I wondered where CJ was...he was in the bathroom pooping and had used an entire roll of toilet paper to wipe. I quickly reminded them that they were going to Grandmas!

PICTURES

Cowboy Day at school, decked out from head to boots

Marky trying to escape

Marky at the petting zoo bday party

Listening to TJ Bearytales

CJ woke up super grumpy so Marky thought he needed a hug

Peyton enjoying being the only child for a few days

Falls x's 4

2010-02-26T16:17:00.000-08:00

WOW! Its been an exciting few days around here. Let me start with the craziest of all 4 first.

Fall 1 &2
Thursday night, I turned my shower water on and then decided I wasn't ready to take a shower. As I walked back into the living room, I heard some commotion upstairs. I thought it was Peyton on the monitor but as I walked a few steps into the living room and headed upstairs I realized it was Clark. I heard, "Misssssssssy, Missssssssy." Of course I automatically thought, "Why is he yelling when the babies are asleep?" So I'm going upstairs whispering (in a louder whispering voice), "Hush, hush..." About half way up the stairs I started to hear him more and that's when it got scary. I walked into CJ's bathroom and saw CJ sitting on his bathroom counter, blood pouring from him nose, Clark on his knees, bloody Kleenex in hand. He said, "I think CJ just broke his nose and I'm about to pass out." I started taking care of CJ and told Clark to sit on the potty. CJ is still crying and saying, "There's blood all over me." Clark started to sit down on the potty and then for some crazy reason stood right back up. As he stood up, I thought he was just fine. Then he started to raise his arms like Frankenstein, although he was headed backwards. All of a sudden he passed out taking the shower curtain down with him, landed in the bathtub wrapped up in the shower curtain. CJ yelling, "Oh my daddy..." I unwrapped his head from the shower curtain to survey the damage...still passed out. He laid there for about 30 seconds, and then opened his eyes but was completely blank. I was talking to him but he didn't move a muscle. Finally he came completely to after the water from the faucet started dripping on his face. The bathtub in that bathroom is a regular size bathtub, he was wedged in there and I was jerking on his legs but I soon realized there was no way I could help him at all. I do have to say that when he finally woke up, I had to hold back my laughing and I wanted to say "Could you just stay like that so I can get my camera?" but I didn't! Sorry everyone, I wish you could have seen it too! When he finally got up he went into CJ's room and plopped on the floor just a giggling away as I finished cleaning up the bloody mess-cracking up!

Later, CJ said "My daddy fell and he should have been looking where he was going." Of course that's what Clark had been lecturing him on while he was cleaning up the blood after CJ had fallen and started all this commotion! CJ is fine, no broken nose!

Fall #3

Peyton is now crawling upstairs. We decided that we wouldn't keep a gate up because all the boys learned to crawl up the stairs and they need to be able to go up there and not have me lift them all day. We go up and down so much that it would be more cumbersome. I still feel that way even after today.

Mark was having a little bit of a hard day. Just cranky. He followed Peyton up the stairs and about half way up, as I turned the corner from the bedroom to watch them up the stairs Mark pushed Peyton down...boom, boom, bang, boom...whaaaaaaaaaaaa. He banged up his head pretty good but he didn't cry long. I think it just scared him more than anything.

I was hoping that was all the action for a few days.

Fall #4

Last night, right after Clark got home, Mark crawled on the table. I kept telling him to get down but of course that didn't work long. I got up to get Peyton something and that's when I heard Mark fall onto the tile floor. I did what I always do when they fall, inspect them, make sure nothing is broken. I opened up his mouth and it was full of blood. This time I got to yell for Clark. He came running in, picked Marky up and took him to the sink. No one passed out but it was close.

I'm hoping the weekend is quite!

Where did we get these names...

2010-02-20T20:04:00.000-08:00

We're often asked, "How did you pick your boy's names?"

I started putting this post together and as we ALL searched for photos, I realized just how special this post was going to be. To have three boys, all namesakes, brought tears to my eyes.

C.J. Miller

Clark Thomas Miller, Jr. (C.J.)

We always knew that if we had a boy we would follow suit and name him after Clark because his side of the family has a tradition of naming their sons, Clark Thomas or Thomas Clark. I believe that every generation, the names would flip-flop (Thomas Clark is Poppy and then Clark Thomas is C.J.'s daddy's name). We decided to keep the order the same as Clark's but added "Jr." at the end. The name "Thomas" is also the name of my grandfather, Papaw, my dad's father! A win-win! My younger sister Michelle, actually pointed out to us that we could call him C.J. and that stuck!

Thomas Clark Miller (Poppy)

Clark Thomas Miller (Daddy)

Thomas Chambers (Great Papaw)

Mark Robert Miller

So, we had a second son and boy were we happy to be able to use two of the most important names of people on my side of the family. Mark was the name of my uncle (my mother's younger brother). Uncle Mark passed away shortly after his 23rd birthday (I was 4 years old), in a tragic boating accident. He was the only blood related uncle that we had. He was just a cool guy, an uncle that was always missed terribly. The memory I have of him the most was how much he loved his "Tiddies" sandals, those rubber sandals that were popular with those who loved boating. Also, his nickname was "Gator". We still have the light blue towels that have "Gator" embroidered on them, probably given to him from my Mimi.

Robert is my dad's first name however he goes by Steve. What an honor to be able to name one of our son's after my dad...I have all sisters so no namesakes there!

Mark Wayne Slater (1962-1985)

Robert Stephen Chambers (Pop)

Peyton Daniel Miller

Then, we had a third boy! We decided that we wanted to use a "current" name so we chose Peyton and kept the spelling the same as Peyton Manning. You wouldn't think that there would be many girl's names with the same spelling but apparently there are. Oh well, I'm sure with Peyton's size, no one will want to poke fun at his name! Then we thought it would be a perfect opportunity to use a name from Clark's mother's side of the family so we chose Daniel. Sounded perfect! Daniel is the name of Clark's mother's dad, Daniel Hartnett!

Daniel Hartnett (1921-2006)

I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing about how special each of our boys' names are to us and to those that they are named after!

Odds and Ends

2010-02-20T16:57:00.001-08:00

Marky and Peyton playing on Thursday after we got home from taking CJ to school.

SHOES

CJ complains every time I start to put on his tennis shoes. He tells me that his shoes don't feel good and his socks have to be just right. If there was such a thing as a seamless sock, that's what CJ would want! I am telling you, everything has to be just right for him to stop griping. I finally decided that generic shoes weren't going to suffice anymore. Early last week I had been planning a little trip to get CJ some new shoes, some that were really padded and ultra comfy. Today, we brought these new babies home. We also bought some new socks, some real soft ones that fit real snug. I guess I really can't blame him, its just hard sometimes when your kids are complaining and you can't feel what it is that they are complaining about. I just figured he was being picky. He put them on tonight after we got home and I think these are going to work!

Let me tell you the new eyeglasses story...

I knew I needed a new rx in my glasses but my frames had really been through a beating too. I started looking at all the "fast" eye glass places like Pearl Vision, Lenscrafters, Eyemasters etc. I had forgotten how expensive glasses were. Even after looking at several places, I still couldn't find exactly what I was looking for. I knew I wanted some with lighter brown frames around the eyes, but I also wanted some with a little bit of black...and of course, I wanted some glitz too. Well, what I wanted was going to cost around $400 and I just thought that was insane for a pair of glasses that I wouldn't be wearing everyday all day. I typically wear contacts. Framesdirect.com (based out of Houston) ended up being the answer. I found the coolest pair of glasses, exactly what I wanted for about $15o less than what I would have paid retail. Give Framesdirect.com a try next time you need new glasses! I even have a little coupon that I'd give anyone who needs it:)

Precious Peyton

2010-02-19T19:36:00.000-08:00

Our big, precious Peyton turned 9 months old this week! We had his well visit on Thursday. The doctor checked him out, ooohhh and awed over how big he is and how happy his disposition was during the visit. She looked in his right ear and said, "Has he been fussy at lately?" He had not been fussy at all...he's been napping great and eating well and never felt like he had a fever. She said that his right eardrum was about to bust. She let me see...I could see, it was completely white and bulging when its supposed to be bright red. The left ear also had an infection but was not near as bad. He's one tough, big, happy baby! He's on antibiotics now so of course, the diarrhea started today. I've been pumping him full of yogurt which he loves so maybe this will help the diarrhea.

Stats and Milestones:

Weight: 24 pounds (85 percentile)

Height: 30.5 inches (off the charts, the average length of a 16 month old)

Head Circumference: 18 inches

*At 9 months old Peyton is very mobile, pulls up, walks holding on, and climbs up the stairs (just started this week).

*He's starting to eat table food, including PB&J (even though its a little early for PB). He'll eat most things I give him but still gags at some textures, unlike Mark, who would shove anything in his mouth and NEVER gagged. Peyton loves dessert and he knows what it looks like and sounds like when its being opened! The sound of wrappers opening, now means I have three little toots making their way to the kitchen to see what's next to eat.

*He still loves his bottle, but he likes to be cozied up under a blanket, toes covered and snuggled real close to me. His eyes get really heavy and I know he's comfy and ready to go to sleep although most times he's just woken up!

*He naps most mornings for about an hour since I've started to cut the morning nap down. In the afternoon he sleeps for 2-3 hours on a good day!

*He's wearing size 18 months on most things because of the length. He can wear 12 months in pants but they're too short many times. He's wearing a size 4 shoe (he just started wearing shoes) and his diapers are a size 5. Diapers only go to size 6...what am I going to do in a year, buy adult diapers? His hiney is super bubbly, he proudly gets that from his daddy.

*He just started getting his two top teeth in the last week, he has three on the bottom.

*He loves his big brothers and when I say, "Lets go see your bubbas!" He just grins and grins.

Peyton, you are so precious to us all!!!

Ups and Downs of our V-day

2010-02-15T20:05:00.001-08:00

We thoroughly enjoyed our Valentine's Day, for several reasons as you will see...
I woke up early as I usually do on Sunday mornings to watch my Joel Olsteen on Channel 4 at 7:30. I like to have my coffee and sit and listen, BY MYSELF! Sometimes I hear one or more of these toots wake up but I just tell myself that they can wait until 8:00 when I'm good and ready to feed everyone! Usually I can count on Clark staying in bed since he likes to sleep until 8 or so on Sunday and if he's in bed then I know CJ will usually snuggle with him until he's ready to get up...that is, if CJ has already made it down to our bed! This Sunday was no different other than no one woke up early so I had some extra time to finish off their cinnamon rolls with some Valentine's sprinkles and arrange their little "sugar" presents.

The photo below: all my Valentines about to enjoy their breakfast...and yes, Peyton is a real fan of cinnamon rolls. Who's not, really! CJ kindly told me that he would have much rather of had his daddy's extra large Hershey kiss instead of his heart full of M&M's. Oh, I really hope he will start to learn to be grateful for what he is given. We are trying so hard to teach him this.

Not long after we finished breakfast, we were all about to get dressed for church and Marky escaped out of the room. Clark found him eating EVERY one of CJ's M&M's on the kitchen floor. He had his own heart full but I guess he heard that CJ didn't really want his so Mark decided he'd eat them for him!

We'd had a little bit of a crazy morning, we decided to do haircuts and therefore every one had at least two baths. Marky had absolutely no reason to be upset, he'd had a great morning but he just simply didn't want to sit still for pictures. Look at that frown!

...and then, after church it was our plan for Chelsea to come stay with the boys while they napped and we were going to do a late lunch and then go have our massages! We were going to go to Salt Grass but the wait was way too long so we ended up at Christina's. They had this Valentine's Day special that was really great. To top off the meal, the waiter brought us this little shot glass. He explained that since Clark had a margarita and I had a Corona that its the bartender's special to send a shot out to end the meal. Well awesome...if we had known what it was and if it hadn't been in the middle of the day with a teenage couple sitting next to us. So, since we were feeling a little loony from the morning, we decided to make a little fun out of it. Neither one of us actually drank it but after I saw Clark making fun of the situation, I decided that he and I both would make some goofy pictures. By the way, the massage was GREAT afterward. A great Valentine's Day!

New outfit, New Digs, New trim

2010-02-13T18:48:00.000-08:00

CJ before school in his new camo outfit from Mimi and Poppy!

Peyton in his new size 4 shoes since I couldn't find any in the hammy down closet. Peyton after his mini trim!

Grab ahold of your heart...

2010-02-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

...because if you don't, Marky is liable to steel it!

Brotherly LOVE

2010-02-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

Big Boy Birthday Party

2010-02-05T19:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday to my Big Boy CJ!

We celebrated CJ's 4th birthday, Star Wars style on Saturday! There are so many pictures that I am having a real hard time going through them to see which ones I could post so I decided to just put some in a collage. I need to work on my collage making for sure!

Happy Birthday my BIG BOY! He's been so sweet ever since he figured out that now he is 4 years old. We had a rough week last week, his moods were terrible but I am telling you, things have been quite peaceful in his 4 year old world since last Friday!

CJ at his birthday breakfast. When he is real hungry in the mornings, he tells me he wants a "birthday breakfast" and that normally includes pancakes, chocolate milk...it really includes sausage or bacon and eggs, fruit etc but for CJ, well he'll only eat the pancakes so on Friday that's all I made, along with his chocolate milk of course!

A few of these pics include, CJ and his friends at the table eating pizza and Darth Vader cake made by Grammy, Mimi sliding down the bounce house with Chubaca Marky Bear, Grandma and Grandpa with Gracie, CJ and Mark & Peyton dressed in costume, the fun pinata scene :), the triplets with Michelle, Brent and Grammy, Poppy who took the duty of writing down who gave what gifts to CJ (which was a crazy scene to keep up with so thank you Poppy), EXCITED CJ as he was opening gifts with Pop and Aunt Mandy in the background cracking up at the chaos, and sweet Chloe clapping at the fun! We enjoyed having everyone and the party turned out great! I think we're still recovering! For some reason I forgot to get a picture of Clark with the boys since he had the camera around his neck most of the party time so below is a picture of he and the boys after the party had ended and when we were all relaxing in our diapers (won't be able to say that for too much longer) although I was tired that I wished I could of had one on!

Two Peas in a Pod

2010-02-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

When I picked up CJ today from school I noticed that he and his best little friend, Luke had on the same outfit. His mother and I did not plan this...each had on a long sleeve shirt, with a Star Wars T-shirt over it, pants and tennis shoes. They looked so sweet that I asked his teacher to take a picture of them!

Yogurt

2010-02-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been noticing Peyton crawling up to Mark when he is eating. Peyton will pull up to Mark and just stand there. I learned why yesterday!

I walked into the kitchen and saw Mark feeding Peyton yogurt...here are the pics!

Wedding Album Obsession

2010-02-01T17:47:00.000-08:00

Several times lately I've thought that maybe I need to put our wedding album away to keep all the fingerprints down to a minimum...Marky makes his every day jaunt to the album and he will thumb through it for the longest time. Most of the time he looks for pictures of his daddy and he just carries on conversations starting with, "Daddadddddaaaa."

I snapped these pictures the other day when I walked in and Marky was saying, "Pop, Pop, Pop." I just can't wait for him to really start talking!

Past week

2010-01-31T20:00:00.000-08:00

CJ going to school in his batman jammies for PJ Day!

Peyton in his hat from Ray and Megan Eckenrode:)

Before I took CJ and Mark to a birthday party on Saturday! They had a blast!
...and thats my new bday necklace from Mom and Dad!
Blowing out candles at my bday party.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to wish me happy birthday! This is going to be one of the best years EVER!
CJ came to get me the other day and said, "Mommy, look at this sweet, sweet animal family!"
He has an imagination that we are amazed at daily.

The lamp shade project

2010-01-25T13:16:00.000-08:00

Tuesday night I decided I was going to paint the plain 'ole lamp shade in the dining room. It had been awhile since I had taken some time to do any projects so I was looking forward to it. Mark took a very long nap that afternoon so we decided to let him stay up a little later. Of course, he was all in to my project and wanted to help! He played with the extra cups of water I had and all of the paintbrushes-all of them! He loved it!

Uh-oh!

"If I give you a kiss, can I really help?"

Marky and Mommy's finished lamp!

Pop, Poop and Helmets

2010-01-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

Pop came to stay with Mark and Peyton while I went to a lunch meeting last Tuesday. I left him spoon feeding Peyton his lunch and Mark eating his PB & J at the table. He ended up changing 3 poopie diapers in a matter of 2 hours...when I came home from picking CJ up, he had Mark up on the bed, legs up in the air, just a cleanin' away! Mark was lying there so sweetly! Pop deserves 3 stars for all that poop!!!

RSV Babies

2010-01-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

Marky and Peyton had a miserable day. Peyton slept 8 hours today and Mark around 4. They just looked completely worn out even after the all the rest. We couldn't plunge noses enough! I kept putting them in the bath to let their noses clear out but the fever has been the worst. Mark was around 101 and Peyton at around 7:30 pm was 103.7. I checked it again around 8:00 after Motrin and it was 103.3. I hate to put him in his bed until his fever comes down so I have him sitting in his chair relaxing after a little snooze with CJ.

The two babies fell asleep in the chair with me at around 12:30...they never fall asleep without being in their beds and Marky rarely ever sits in the chair with me for longer than 5 minutes! I hated that they were sick but I was sure glad that I was able to sit and hold them!

Marky having a bath after lunch to cool him off. Absolutely no smiles, he was miserable.

Tonight after bath and after taking Peyton's temp of 103.7.

I held Peyton for awhile and then I needed to get Marky taken care of and in bed so I asked CJ to hold him while he watched his show. When I came back in the room CJ kept reminding me that I needed to be quiet because "Peyton Bears" was asleep.

Dr. Dreamy

2010-01-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

This is my precious, Dr. Dreamy (Miller)! Handsome little doctor, I just wanted to squeeze him. He doctored his Maddie and today, it was time to doctor his brothers...they both have RSV, poor Peyton and Marky. Good thing Dr. Dreamy is napping now-he's been a real toot since he got home from school!

Getting Caught Up

2010-01-14T18:38:00.000-08:00

The latest around our house starting with King Toot!

CJ continues to be a pretty good boy most days! We are still having issues with him eating much except for PB & J and we are really sticking to our guns when we tell him no dessert unless he eats his dinner. He's starting to realize we are serious. The other day at lunch he ate everything-which was probably PB & J but he did get some dessert...I gave him his piece of chocolate and he held it up with both hands and said, "Ahhh...Chocolate, the spirit within." Isn't that what we all think, where did he get this? I have no idea.

Then today, he came home with a car that was supposed to stay at school. He pulled it out of his pocket and I told him that we do not take things that aren't ours and that he needed to put it in his bag so we could take it back next week. He said, "Well that orange car I took from church a long time ago is still here." Wow, this child has his father's memory because that incident had to be a year ago and yes, we both forgot to take it back to church. He has a ton of cars, how could he remember that darn orange car.

Also, Mr. Toot has been doing well cleaning up his toys but today was a different story. I kept asking him to pick his things up and he ended up at the top of the stairs laying down with his hands on his eyes and said, "Mommy, what are you doing to me?" I just laughed..."I'm trying to get you to listen to me as I ask you clean up all these cars before they go in the T-R-A-S-H!"

Also, he has started to really color in the lines well. He sat right down at school on Tuesday and started to trace the letter "N". See below.

Ready for battle!

The big kisser!

King toot and baby toot, CJ loves to hug his brothers. They are his "precious brothers".

My Middle Toot...

continues to keep me on my toes all day long (today it was the lotion)-thank goodness he takes long afternoon naps. I swear when I go get him from his bed after nap it seems like he's grown and inch every time and not gained a pound. He's starting to thin out a bit but after nap, he eats his dinner like a champ! Anything I give him he'll eat, unless he sees dessert. If Mark sees anything sweet laying out on the counter, he will immediately start panting and then he'll spit out what's in his mouth right away. We've been working on finishing his dinner and his current bite before he has dessert. I am seeing a pattern here...too bad these boys parents have such a sweet tooth.

Mark loves to try and put on anything that is not his, like CJ's pants, his underwear my shoes etc. I'll catch him upstairs in CJ's jammie drawer just having a heyday!

He's doing so much better eating with his spoon-but I have learned to NEVER take the utensil away until he is officially finished! When he comes down from his nap, if he sees a bowl with his dinner in it, he goes nuts. I've started making him a bowl of dinner instead of just putting it on his place mat. We don't hear a word from him until the bowl is empty!

He still tries to test the waters...if I tell him to stop touching something, the minute I turn back around he'll deliberately touch what I don't want him to, with just one finger or just one toe. Just to test me. He was in my lap tonight while I was trying to upload pics on the blog and every time I would move my hand away from the keyboard I would see Mark's big toe creeping up on the keyboard. Little toot!

He's starting to say more words and although its real hard to understand, I am proud of him for trying. He sat with me for a long time today while CJ was at school and we read the book, "I'm a Big Brother" and looked at the word book. I think he liked being alone rocking in the chair with just me.

Side of his head all lotioned up.

Second time around, lotion everywhere. His hair was silky clean after bath tonight.

He came downstairs with his pacie, CJ's hat and CJ's batman jammie pants. It was quite a sight!

He found my boots.

Finally eating his dessert...he was super happy as you can see.

The Baby Toot...

Peyton is doing well after his ear infection. He's happy most of time unless he just doesn't feel well. He's started to really move around, wrestle with his brothers and today he started to push the chairs around in the kitchen. I think he'll be walking soon. I found some good eczema cream that has seemed to helped his uncomfortably rosy cheeks. He's starting to really appreciate his Maddie dog. When he lays his head down on her like CJ and Mark do, he just slowly starts to fall asleep. They are all suckers for softness!

He still loves face to face contact. He'll stay cheek to cheek for as long as I let him.

My little chunky legs talking to the dogs!

All piled up tonight with their daddy!

"Mommy, I don't want Christmas to end!"

2010-01-04T17:36:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we decided to take down all our Christmas decorations. Clark and I had talked about how this Christmas came and went soooo fast and that we weren't really wanting it to be over yet. I didn't realize that CJ was thinking the same thing until he saw me barely starting to take down decorations and said, "Wait Mommy, I don't want Christmas to end!" Well, none of us wanted Christmas to end I guess!

Here are a few pictures of our holiday. We really enjoyed having Clark home quite a bit! Today, we all seemed to miss him a bit more since it was back to the normal routine:(

YAY!! A white Christmas!

Clark reading the new Christmas cookie book from Mimi and Poppy to the boys on Christmas Eve. Santa ate-ALL of his goodies that they left him and I mean, that plate was full! Our Santa doesn't just act like Santa ate all of the cookies, he really does, no matter how full he was from dinner and dessert!

Boys playing the new Wii that Grandma and Grandpa gave us. They have had a great time, mostly with the boxing game where CJ's claim to fame is that he "knocked the fire and the snot out of Daddy!"

Markie with his new Super Markie cape on from Grammy and Pop.

All the boys with their great grandparents, Mamaw and Papaw!

Peyton with his "baby's first Christmas" hat on!

The triplets with Mom, Michelle and me.

The very reason why we do not decorate and are always throwing something in the trash! We have 3 monkeys on our hands!

CJ getting his first BB gun lesson from his Daddy. He loved it!

Mimi holding Mr. Chunky at Nana and Granddaddy's.

Boys and Grandpa...Grandma did not feel well, but she still enjoyed her Christmas with the whole family!

Pop and Peyton...he loves very close up attention!

A great end to 2009 and we are looking forward to 2010!

REPOST...Fast Five Years

2009-12-17T20:08:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow, December 18th, Clark and I will celebrate our 5th anniversary. Its been a real quick 5 years and only after I started to look for pictures of us before our babies, did I realize how it has zoomed by...I also realized how terrible I was at taking pictures before we had our first toot! Here is a quick recap...

2004

Honeymoon in Durango, this picture was taken on Dec 21, 2004...3 days after we were married. FYI, if you have never been skiing, don't go on your honeymoon!

2005

Thanks to mom, she sent me one of the only pics that she could find of us in 2005!

2006

San Antonio with baby CJ. This was taken on December 8, 2006. It was our tradition to visit San Antonio and the Riverwalk at Christmas and so we must have not wanted to leave CJ even for our anniversary but who could really blame us! We haven't been back due to too much garb to take while flying with more than one baby.

2007

Again, no pictures of me and Clark but a ton of CJ. So here is CJ at Christmas at Nana's standing by me, pregnant with Mark.

2008

We added our sweet Marky in 2008 and when this picture was taken, we were expecting Peyton too...

2009

...and here is us in 2009. We have been so blessed with these three sweet little boys! We never knew what blessings God had in store for us when we married in 2004!

Marky and Peyton

2009-12-10T14:03:00.000-08:00

We had Mark's 18 month visit and Peyton's 6 month (really 6 1/2 months) visit on Tuesday.

They are growing boys that's for sure.

Mark gained two pounds and grew 1 1/2 inches for a big 28 pounds (75th %) and 34 inches (90th %). Dr. Eley asked if he was saying around 20 words and I couldn't count that many...needless to say she gave me some paperwork on early childhood intervention but I am not jumping to conclusions yet. He does mostly the jibber jabber thing versus actually talking. I told Clark about this when he got home and he said, "I don't think he'll ever say much. He'll be the guy that walks around not saying much and everybody thinks he's mean but really he's the gentle giant." Who was he really talking about, humm? I am really trying to read to Mark more but he just does not sit for long at all, I guess I just need to keep trying!

The doctor also asked if he was using a utensil to eat with. He is trying to use spoons and forks but not real successful at yet. We tried to let him eat his oatmeal with a spoon this morning but every time we would help him he would throw a huge fit and start pulling the oatmeal out of his mouth in protest. I guess he thinks if he throws it on the floor it will make me mad but really it just leaves him less to fill his belly with. So I guess I am just going to try not to help him as much and let him learn on his own...this must be the middle child syndrome, I seem to think I was the exact SAME way.

This is Mark all cozied up on his daddy's side of the bed. He has never slept with us, unlike CJ so to find him all cozied in our bed was pretty cute!

Peyton gained a whopping 4 pounds and grew two inches for 21 pounds (95th %) and 29 inches (97th %). Dr. Eley was beside herself when I said that Peyton is crawling (has been for several weeks) and pulling up on things. This morning I saw him pull up on Marky and try to wrestle with him, I couldn't get the camera fast enough. Maybe he thinks he is missing out on all the playing the other boys do.

Peyton pulling up on the massive elephant that Ben and Jeni gave to him when he was born!

Marky and Peyton are both starting to enjoy their bonding time while CJ is at preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I think I am going to keep Mark home with me for at least another semester so that the two of them have some alone time to play and also to give Mark some "rule the house" time!

So the boys are certainly not average in the way of their physical stature by any means, and I guess it makes sense considering their parents were never average either!

Decorating Dance Party and seeing Santa

2009-12-09T18:13:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday we decorated the inside of the house but before the decorating began, the boys and Clark had a little dance party...it was Clark's wish that I not post the photo of him dancing so I guess I should describe it...arms above his head, flailing side to side, shirt tugged up showing his midriff, quite a sight I must say but fun. We were told while in a restaurant once, that we have a bunch of comedians, this was before we added Peyton, now for sure we have a house full!

Also Sunday we took the boys to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa...terrible day to go, we waited in line for an hour, no child can be happy to see Santa after waiting in line forever. Nevertheless, we got

our 2009 photo for our collection.

CJ's dance moves...

Marky's dance moves...

Photo I took from the side. The boys had on their Christmas shirts that Grammy gave them with their plaid shirts underneath. They looked VERY handsome.

They were happy to be in the car headed home!

Sweet Peyton was happy most of the time!

Elf on the Shelf, etc.

2009-11-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

The story of the Elf on the Shelf....
Aunt Susan brought the boys a new Christmas tradition this year when we saw her for Thanksgiving!

Last night after attempting the decorating, we decided to gather in the living room to read the book that comes with the Elf. CJ sat quietly, Marky crawled all over us wanting to hit the book and trying to tear the pages while Clark held Peyton who cooed so loud that CJ was hardly able to hear me read. Nevertheless, we finished the book and this is going to be FUN!

Basically, the book comes with this elf that watches over the boys and reports to Santa if they've been bad or good. We had to name him and after CJ went through a few names he decided that his name would be "Noodle Smoodle". Every night until Christmas he flies to a different spot in the house and in the morning the boys find him-although they cannot touch him or he loses his "magical" powers. This morning he was found sitting on top of the blinds on the back door so that he could see the living room...CJ found him soon after he woke up.

All day I reminded him that the elf was watching...he told me after we got back from Little Sluggers that he had been really good and that he's had a lot of "good" days lately. True, he's been pretty good although not long after we had been home, he decided to not be so good. I quickly reminded him that I was sure he wanted presents from Santa and that elf would be reporting to Santa tonight on his first days' work at the Miller house. CJ didn't like that too much...he quietly walked into the living room not knowing that I was watching from the kitchen. He got where he could see the elf and pointed his finger at him and with this voice full of grrrrrr he said, "ELF, I DON'T CARE IF YOU"RE WATCHING ME, GRRRRRR!" This is going to be a lot of fun!

A few more pics that I didn't post the other day...

CJ after he got home from his deer hunt. His Poppy carried him in asleep and I was finally able to get him to wake up for his bath. After his bath, he wanted to be wrapped up in my "cozy" robe. He quickly fell asleep...he was pooped!

This is Marky in the potting soil again...we have kept this plant alive for almost a whole year. Mandy and Tim got it for us for Christmas last year although I don't know how much longer its going to last with Marky pulling off the leave, breaking the limbs and eating the potting soil!

Finally all three can sit in the bathtub and play together. I threw away the seat we had for Peyton this weekend...he loves to play with the bath toys but now Mark is at the age where he takes everything away from Peyton. You would think that he would not even notice but Peyton gets his little feelings hurt and just cries and cries when his toys get swiped away!

Oh how I love these little boys!

CJ Deer Hunter 2009

2009-11-28T18:52:00.001-08:00

Just a few pictures to show why CJ loves to go with his Daddy hunting...boys would live outside if we'd let them!

Not sure why he had such a puzzling look on his face!

Being Silly!

Big Boy on the Four-Wheeler!

Fishing (and not sure what he's doing with that other hand, maybe his bobo was itching...humm!)

Better things about Yesterday

2009-11-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

Fresh clean Maddy's...right out of the dryer, CJ was at school so Marky got both of them!

Marky and Peyton time alone!

When we got to CJ's school to see him for his Thanksgiving Feast! He was quite happy to see us!

This verse was on a card in front of his placemat, I can't turn the picture around but the verse was, "I will praise God's name in song and glorify Him with Thanksgiving."

Protecting Peyton although he was sure enjoying the attention but no one enjoyed the attention like Marky...

Marky sitting with CJ's friends circled around him, he as telling them a story in jibber jabber!

Trials of the past week

2009-11-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

This past week Clark went on his Iowa deer hunt and let's just say things didn't all go as planned. First, while driving up to Iowa, he and Reed had a blow out on the trailer. No one was hurt. They changed the tire and were on their way but made sure to get another spare in case it happened again on their way home.

A few days into the trip, Reed tore his ACL while getting into his stand. They nursed it that night and he laid off hunting that next morning but thought he felt good enough to go out that afternoon. He ended up injuring it again that evening :(

At around 2:30 Thursday afternoon, they were on their way back and by this time they were in Oklahoma but still about 4 hours from home. Clark called to tell me they were on the side of the road and that he was pretty sure that his transmission had just gone out. This meant several things...he wouldn't see the baby boys that night like planned, he and Reed would have to sit there for 4 hours waiting on a tow truck driver to come get them and bring them back to McKinney and of course, the cost of the repairs and towing such a long distance. At around 3:00 Friday morning, I heard Clark come in. He was finally home. Since he wasn't home when we went to bed, CJ wanted to sleep with me so he was able to give his daddy a hug when he came in. He packed up after we all woke up this morning to take CJ on another hunt for work which at this point he wished he didn't have to leave again.

Maybe I'll learn to appreciate it again, but at this point, I pretty much wish hunting didn't exist! This has been a costly season, monetarily and time spent away. Wishing Clark had double the vacation time since this year is our 5 year anniversary! Above all, I can pretty much take anything as long as no one is hurt or sick! I'm pretty sure God knows that, at least I hope He does!

2009-11-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

Weekend at Grandma's, Peyton's 6 month milestones, CJ's silly sayings & Community Helpers Day at School and Marky's Jibber Jabber

Its been a busy few weeks and I haven't had much time to post the latest so this is an all-in-one blog!

Last weekend we went to see Grandma and the boys loved it! They were outside for almost the entire trip. Its so good for them to be able to explore with little boundaries! We had fun watching their venturous little bodies play, play, play!

Last week was Community Helper's Day at school and it was hat day. The Prosper Fire Dept was coming to visit so I wanted to find CJ and hat from his Poppy's Dallas fire station but Clark didn't have one so he wore a hat from one of the fire stations that Clark built. So we rehearsed before school..." The hat that I am wearing is from a fire station that my daddy built but my Poppy is a fireman for Dallas." He was sooo proud!

On our way home from Grandma's last weekend, CJ said, "Daddy is my favorite because he is just like me." I said, "Do you mean because he is a boy like you?" CJ, "Yeah, I don't really like girls, ooooohhh, but I do love my mommy."

Marky continues to be the little monkey that he has always been! He is into EVERYTHING. I was just thinking that we might have to put less Christmas decorations out this year so that I don't spend the entire day picking up broken pieces! He is starting to really jibber jabber as his way of telling us what he wants. He just goes on and on. He actually found my phone the other day, pressed the call button and called his daddy. He was walking around just talking and talking, I thought he was playing but Clark was actually on the phone talking back to him!

Peyton turned 6 months old this weekend. He is sitting up pretty well, scooting everywhere and starting to get his first bottom tooth! He is such a great JOY!