Cody's almost 4 months!

So I have some pictures to post of our next step in eating in this household. Keep in mind we just trained Kaitlynn to eat like a normal human being...






















Apparently it's time for round two.

Keep in mind, the rice cereal tickles your nose which then causes you to sneeze this crap all over the place.
















This is the baby we are wanting to see. A nice clean one. Or even better. A sleeping one - even with the finger in his mouth. (not sure what that was all about).

And even best...the BSU fan all-geared-up-smiling-baby! Go broncos!















Also, I've been tagged. So I have some dirt to dish out on my family members:
Kaitlynn
1. She has had a scratchy throat lately and the other day I was tending to her and she says to me, "Mom, I have a frog in my face."
2. She still can't get out of her crib. (I actually like that.)
3. She loves to cook me dinner in her kitchen. (her toy one in her room)
4. She and her daddy are the best hide and seek players. The other day Jeremy hid her in a plastic 6 inch high bin - with the lid on it. She lies flat in there all bunched up funny and you can actually put the lid on it.
5. She still weighs less than 25 pounds.

Jer...I mean, my husband. (He refused to let me use his name)
1. He is a holiday nut. He loves to have the house decorated and ready to go for the holidays.
2. He took Kaitlynn on a daddy-daughter camping trip this fall. It was raining and they still went.
3. He loves motorcycles and Fox brand clothes. He only wears 3 colors of shirts - white, gray, and navy blue. (you should see our closet)
4. He is a great dad and husband. He'd do anything for his family - including everything in his power to please a crabby wife. (Who, me?)
5. He is the handiest man you could ever have. Something breaks and he is on top of fixing it. It is awesome. Or if you need something high up somewhere (tree, cupboard, etc) - he is equivalent to a monkey. (I believe part of that is because he is an adrenaline junkie and likes the riskiness.)
Oh, I am looking at her blog. I guess I am supposed to answer these questions:
1. How long have you been married? 8 years
2. How long did you date? 6 months January to July 2000
3. How old is he? Just turned 28
4. Who is taller? He is, definitely.
5. Who sings better? I do!
6. Who is smarter? Ummm, he is. Logic and street smarts. But I have social skillz. :)
7. Who pays the bills? I do.
8. Who does the laundry? I do.
9. Who sleeps on the right side? I do.
10. Who mows the lawn? He does! (Whew. This was starting to feel like a one-sided conversation.)
11. Who cooks dinner? I do.
12. Who is the first to admit that they are wrong? Probably me. Is he ever wrong?
13. Who kissed who first? I don't know. Does it matter? Shoot. He probably remembers.
14. Who wears the pants? I do and they are tight and uncomfortable!


Now I will tag Charise, Melinda, and Carrie. 5 things. 2 family members. 7 days.

My next blog should have some of our family pictures that we just had taken. Yea! (Please remember that I am still learning how to format this stupid thing, so bear with me. I anticipate that by my 15th post, I will have the pictures the right direction and centered. I was just happy to get the writing where I wanted it. Silly blog.)

The Real Halloween Blog

I realized that the last blog was just a bunch of random pictures and didn't even have Kaitlynn in her costume, so here are more pictures and our Halloween summary.

We had a Miller family Birthday Party on Thursday October 28. We sent out cute invitations and asked everyone to bring a "scary" pizza. The picture below was Jenny's entry. We thought they were so cute. She won. Jeremy made a good one too, but I am a terrible picture taker and the picture is blurry. The other sisters brought cute pumpkin shaped ones from Papa Murphys and Jeremy's mom brought an upgraded one from Pap Murphys. (She added cute stuff to it, but we were hungry and ate it before I thought to take a picture.) It was a fun night.
Kaitlynn naturally has crazy hair, so Jeremy wanted to play on that and have her be a "Mad scientist" for Halloween. When we tried to mess her hair up (because it was laying flat that day) all that happened was the Mousse and hairspray weighed it down. Her "lab coat" looked a little too big and the picture-taker forgot to have her hold her "brain in a jar" and goggles. So right here she looks like a drug addict. Just know that we had good intentions.

Here's a happy Cody. A rare sight, but welcome anytime.

Here is Kaitlynn before we go trick-or-treating. She looked super cute in her Nemo costume and people loved seeing her at the door. One lady even took her picture because she thought she was so cute. (We don't know that lady). You could ask her to wiggle her tail and she would put her hands out in front like she was swimming and shake her booty. It was super cute!
We went with some good friends who have three little girls (one is Kaitlynn's age) and scored a bunch of candy. It was a low-key Halloween and we had a great time. We came home, ate popcorn, and watched Harry Potter afterwards. I have heard of people having the Great Pumpkin come (where you throw out all the candy and give the kids a gift the next day) but I can't fathom throwing out expensive candy. I usually don't eat it and I would love to start that tradition. I guess I would need to start a new tradition of being less cheap first.

Halloween 2008

The first picture is Kaitlynn's pumpkin "with a smile" (see previous blog). These are just some pictures from when we went to the pumpkin patch and afterwards in Kaitlynn's and Cody's matching pajamas. She thinks it is so fun to have matching PJs like Cody. Cody crying in his car seat is his state prior to the pumpkin patch trip. (Hooray. This should be fun!) Again, just some random stuff.

Bad hair week

So I decided I needed a change of hair color. I was at the store and debated between two hair colors, thinking the whole time that I never wanted to dye my hair one color again. (I prefer highlighting) Monday I dyed it an orangish red. Tuesday decided I didn't like it. Thursday I called Melinda and got it re-dyed. Thursday night (when I got home) Kaitlynn says "Montana" (meaning Hannah Montana) and Jeremy said "Why did you change it?" which helped me decide I didn't like it. Friday I went back to Melinda's and had low lights put in and I like it better. Probably damaged it quite a bit, but I got the change I was looking for.
Enough about me, we took Kaitlynn and Cody to the Pumpkin Patch this evening. Kaitlynn found a pumpkin that has "a smile". (It had an indention that swoops like a smile.) So we had to get it. It weighed over 30 pounds.
The other event of the day - I have been holding out on getting gas and haven't gone anywhere all week because prices have been dropping and I wanted to buy it at less than $3 a gallon. So all week it has been 3.11 and today it dropped to 2.99. So I filled up at 11:15 and was excited to have gotten such a good deal. ONE HOUR later it was at 2.92 and at 3:30 it was at $2.82 and this evening $2.76. Seriously! I want my money back. All $3.75 of it.

Life in general

These pictures have nothing to do with my story.
So I decided to dye my hair "light natural blonde" because my roots were getting long and dark. Well, this, of course, was not the change I was looking for so now I am more like light-unnatural-orangish-red. Perfect for Halloween if you ask me. Luckily I have a good friend who has squeezed me into her schedule today to take care of this much needed change. On the other hand I am dealing with 3 sick people. Kaitlynn, who threw up all over her bed Tuesday night and Cody, who is in a constant state of ill-feeling and Jeremy, who is downing Aireborn like candy. Can I move out? I wondered. Instead, I put the two kids to bed and pulled out the chocolate peanut butter ice cream and ate it straight out of the container. There goes my whole week of exercising. :) Oh well, I feel better.

Oh Cody!

I am not sure why I get the fussy babies who can't tolerate food, but that is my lot in life - fighting food. Whether it be eating less for myself or trying to keep it down for my kids. It must have designated itself my eternal nemesis. So my little Cody has had a difficult time keeping food down. So much so, that we had a procedure done at the hospital where he drank Barium and they X-rayed his little tummy. To make a long story short, he basically has acid reflux, a little bit of colic, and possibly pyloric stenosis. (Which means that the spot where his tummy drains into the small intestine might be a little too tight. This requires surgery.) However, we are working on the acid reflux and trying to avoid surgery. He started meds for acid reflux yesterday and there have been a lot more minutes than normal of smiles. Yea! We will shoot for that everyday - just a few more minutes than the day before.
As for Kaitlynn, She and I went for a little drive yesterday to get Cody's medicine and as usual, she talked my ear off, but we were having fun. I had some issues at the pharmacy and had to make a few phone calls on my cell. Then I called Aunt Jenny for something, and then Grandma, and on the last phone call Kaitlynn says "Are you on 'da phone again, Mommy?"
"Yes, I am."
"You're a bad mommy."
I am not sure what the correlation is between being on the phone and being a bad mom. She can't possibly know that it is considered unsafe (while driving in the car), nonetheless, I had to laugh at this judgement. She must have just wanted more of my time. Either way, I found it pretty humorous. Gotta love these kids!

Sprinkle me with patience-My first blog

I had an experience today that I felt was significant enough to warrant starting a blog of my own. I happily agreed to watch my friends 2 year old little girl today while she had some things to do thinking that Kaitlynn and her friend would play and I would get some things done and all would be great. My first mistake is believing that 2 year-olds play together. They seem to just play near each other and want the toy the other one has. Either way, they want to see what the other is up to so they stick together. As I am trying to put Cody to bed, the girls keep running in my room and wanting to see what I am doing. I shoo them out of the room with promises of a snack as soon as Cody falls asleep. They finally go downstairs and I hear arguing and Kaitlynn comes to tell me that her friend pushed her and etc etc. But then there are happy noises. Even - (can it be?) - giggling and laughing! They are finally having a good time and they are downstairs where I asked them to be. So take a few extra minutes to tidy up after Cody goes down and then head downstairs. I turn the corner to enter the lower living room and discover the most obnoxious mess. The girls have gotten the sprinkles out of the pantry and are shaking them out over my new rug. These tiny nighmares are all over the floor and everywhere. Her friend had a puddle of them in her dress, the girls' hands are colored, and then I see the colored dots in their hair. You have got to be kidding me. I just vaccuumed, of course, but that issue pales in comparison to what it takes to fix this mess. I scoop as many as I can from Kaitlynn's friend's dress and get them in the kitchen to wash up, give them a snack and send them outside. Then I pull out the vacuum and begin a futile attempt to clean the mess up. Those stupid dots are too light for the vacuum to really suck up and once I turn off the vacuum, I hear them all shuffle down the hose. Not-to-mention the fact that when you run the beater bar over them it shoots each sprinkle like a sling shot, so there are more further away in the rug than just ground zero. So I roll the rug up and take it outside. I look around and decide that the best place to shake it out is the trampoline. But that doesn't get all of them out so I flip onto the grass and kick it and bang it, but there are still beads flying everywhere. So I take it back inside. Now I get to vacuum grass up off of it as well and I am certain there are colorful sprinkles still embedded in the strings of the rug, and under the couches. Of course, there is a colorful array of sprinkles all over the trampoline and the back patio, so even if I got most of it out, they will be back. All of this made me realize that what my friends who have 2 year-olds say is true. I seriously don't know how they keep up with these kids. I completely understand now what they mean when they say they clean up one mess after the other. Kaitlynn is no angel, but she lacks the curiosity that other kids seem to have, so I can humbly say to those poor mothers at their whits end: "I finally get it."