All Aboard!

We waited until the Sunday after Christmas to go to my mom and dad's with the kids. We didn't get everyone there, but most of us made it. Grandpa gave all the kids wooden puzzles to do (Carson still hasn't quite figured his out... and I broke mine right out of the box.)

Ella, got the granddaddy of all presents! They had bought this for her for her birthday/Christmas, but waited until Christmas to give it to her so she would be old enough to 'get it'. And did she ever! She's so tiny, though, that she would have to put her foot in the window of the engine, and pull herself over the top to climb aboard. This train is seriously about 10 feet long and quite an accomplishment to get all the pieces around a corner without losing one or having a serious derailment!

What a Funny Baby

Ella came to play one evening just before Christmas and I decided to put her in some Christmas jammies I had bought earlier in the year. Amber had once wanted some red flannel drop-drawer jammies for her, these aren't quite the same, but cute anyways.




We were watching Ever After and she was mesmerized by the big musical number in the park.



This is Ella's "on top of the world' look - and my current screen saver at work. It makes me smile everytime I look at it.




Playing with grandpa (see Amber's blog for the John Deere hat picture from that night)





She has now discovered the play room built under our stairs in the kitchen/great room. Yesterday she zipped in there as soon as her mom put her down and she was busy playing with all the food toys in the kitchen. Ken used to think I was nutso for keeping all the Little Tykes kitchen toys along with all the Fisher Price food that the girls used to play with when they were little. He doesn't think that now - and the memories we all have of the FP food whenver she (or the Miller neices and nephews) plays with it are worth storing them for about 20 years!

Christmas 2009

With school just ending, a fast trip to Vegas for the NFR's and Christmas was right around the corner, it seems like the holiday's just fly by. Good thing I took some time to put up most of my Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving, or they would never make it.

Bob and David came to Utah for their second annual 'Check on the parents after Christmas' visit. Wouldn't you know, Ken was in Florida again this time, so he has missed it both years. But, we were able to gather some of the kids and my cousin Joyce joined us for a fun-filled Sunday afternoon dinner with lots of noise and laughing. The down side of all of this is that it gets my mom extremely tired and even more confused than usual. I was able to get a few pictures of us all though -



Here's mom trying to enjoy the chaos.



How dang cute is he?




Chase, Brynn, Carson, Brooke
Me, David, Bob, Dad, Mom and Joyce
(Jason's behind the camera)

I love the weekend when the boys come to visit! The years seem to dissapear and who would guess we weren't kids anymore?

I Love Fall!

My favorite time of the year is fall - pumpkins, beautiful trees, cooler weather and footballElla picking out her pumpkins - she was a little startled by the rooster and hen that were protecting the pumpkins, but got over enough to start picking out a few that she liked.



Ella loved painting her pumpkin, her mom, her chair but especially herself! It's my favorite pumpkin of all! It even has glitter to give it a touch of class.

!


We went home to Champaign for the Illinois-Penn State football game over conference weekend. It's the first time I've been home since Brooke was 18 months, so, 20 years. We didnt' have a lot of time to drive around, but I did enjoy seeing how things have changed since we were there last. The game was miserable - cold (38), rainy, and the wind was howling. Thankfully we were sitting under the upper deck so we were dry, but it turns into wind alley under there. To top it off, we were sitting in the Penn State section. How did that happen?




The highlight of the trip was a trip to Moline for a tour of the John Deere seeding factory. If we hadn't had to hustle to Chicago to catch our plane, we might still be there while he asked a gazillion questions.



Ken's dream tractor - he should be sitting in it and driving it away instead of me standing in front of it.

Off and Running

Today Brynn and I ran the Top of Utah half marathon. I was more than a little bit nervous since I haven't trained at all for the last year - just spent some time on the bike instead (thanks to those lovely tumors in my feet). We spent the night at Brynn's apartment - one night there made me appreciate living in the country with no noise at night that much more. Not a lot of sleeping going on for me.

There were almost 2100 runners today - a new record for the race and it seemed like the starting line-up went on forever. We probably walked 3 or 4 minutes before we even got to the timing chips at the start line. Brynn was off in a flash, I plodded along behind her. My goal was to run the first 6-7 miles, at least getting out of the canyon. Even though my feet were bugging me, I just kept on plodding along and made it to almost mile 11! I was thrilled. The only reason I stopped to walk then was because it's uphill and that was a bit harder on my feet. Brynn came back and met me at the 12 mile marker and ran along with me to the finish line.

There is something about that adreneline rush that you get when you accomplish a goal like that - prepared or not ( I believe I fell in the 'not' category this year). Carson came and saw Brynn running at the mile 11 aid station and his brother in law came in third in his very competitive age group - way to go Jason! I probably came in about 2000 out of 2100, but the goal was to finish - which I did, and run as many miles as possible - which I exceeded. Next year - new age group, but those women had some amazing times too!

A Great Early Birthday Present

On Sunday, the kids were asking me what I wanted for my birthday this year. I gave them a short list, but the present tht would be the biggest help would be if they all came and helped put up my picture wall with me. I've been on a buying spree to get a bunch of black frames so the color would all be the same.

Brynn was the hammer queen, Jessica the laser line queen and Amber was the art director of the project. I keep telling her she needs to learn to be a stager - she has great ideas that the rest of us can't see. We just followed her directions with a little input from the side. Ella just wanted to show everyone all of her talents in climbing up and down the stairs along with giving us all heart attacks with her antics (and staying as underfoot as humanly possible). I am so excited about how it turned out. We have a couple more frames to buy and maybe a couple of doodads to add to the wall too - but it looks fabulous!

My birthday may not be for a few weeks - but the early present is awesome! Thanks ladies!!!!

Me and My Grandpa

I get to play at grandpa's house one Saturday a month. Needless to say, grandpa doesn't get much done but play with me. We have this great game where we crawl around together. Too bad I move so fast that grandma can't get any pictures of us that aren't fuzzy. This one's not bad though :o)





I love to be outside and look for the horses as soon as I get by the big windows. Someone takes me out every time I come so I can get used to them. Grandma can't wait for me to be a big girl and ride Izzy. The other thing I get to do is ride with grandpa on the tractor - if you look at my mom's blog, you'll see I've already tried out grandpa's little tractor that my dad used to put in the lawn. I try to laugh louder than the tractor, and sometimes it really echo's where we are. That makes me laugh more!