Workin' Hard!

I like to help Mom & Dad around the house. Whenever I can, I try to grab ahold of a white sheet like they use to clean the house. (editor's note: Mom uses Clorox wipes, I use dryer sheets, butt wipes, kleenex, napkins, etc.) So, yesterday those fools of mine...I mean...folks of mine left the butt wipes where I can reach them & I went to town cleaning this house of ours!!! Sheesh...someone has to do it.

Cleaning the china cabinent.

Cleaning my rocking chair.

These wooden shoes have some grime! On to my toy chest!

Finally the floors. This will be a while. Isn't this why they invented mops?
See. I am a big helper! If you need help cleaning your house, I can be rented out at a rate of $15/hour, plus I require cheesy puff/milk breaks! :)

Who me? Couldn't be!

Look at how adorable I am! Wouldn't you say I was the cutest thing ever? Well, then how can my own mother blame me for making her and dad sick. Both of the folks got a milder version of the stomach bug this week & I also managed to pass my cold on to mom. She was feeling pretty miserable the past few days (yesterday being the worse). It looks as though she is getting better. Good news is that I am getting better. My raspy voice is cleared up and my stomach ickyness is 99.46% through! That is great news to all involved! ;-)

Chilling, pushing, and "bum"ming

Chilling: Bethany loves chilling in her rocking chair. This is her Saturday morning watching Elmo on tv. She LOVES Elmo or as she calls him "La, La, La." If you have a child under the age of 5 you'll recognize that as the beginning song of his little show.

Pushing: Perhaps there is a reason there is a minimum age limit on the Jack-in-the-box. Poor Bethany really struggles getting that silly clown back in his box. Once he is out, is he is pretty adamant about staying out!

"Bum"ming- Bethany's poor bum had another attack this weekend. She must have eatten something Saturday that, eehhhh, you know, didn't agree with her. We had the worst BM's since her milk allergy last summer. This "disagreement" between her intestines & supposedly-infected food not only resulted in the MND award (most nasty diaper) but also resulted in a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad diaper rash!!! I stayed home from work today in order to completely assess the stinky situation. If she still had bad poops, then I was going to take her to the dr. The good news is that the poops are gone & the rash is getting better. It has officially been down-graded from a Category Red Bum to a Category Pink!!! That is good news! We will keep on lathering on the $20/a tube bum cream until it is just a faint memory!!!!

Back to School!

So this has been a long week for the Milles family as we readjust to life as working folks. Look how BIG Bethany has gotten. Click here to see Bethany on the first day of school last year!!!! She was a wee little thing back then!

Monday we started teacher meetings & Thursday we start school with the kiddos. Cory and I handled things well. We were able to transition smoothly to the new schedule. I'll give you 3 guess for who didn't adjust smoothly to our new schedule. Give up???? Well...I'll just have to tell you! BETHANY!!! Surprised, huh?

Well, our little stinker (err....) daughter decided to boycot this whole back to school thing by NOT eating at the sitters! AT ALL. That is 2 meals that she is refusing to eat as the sitter feeds her breakfast & lunch. So we had a little monster in the evenings as she was famished & we had half-an-hour car ride to endure before we were able to feed the lil' monster some dinner.

But finally she waved her little white flag on Friday and finally ate a few bites at breakfast & ate a substantial lunch. I was very thankful. But we will still say our prayers for the little stinker as we go to work on Monday that she maintains this progress. But our sitter did "cheat" while trying to entice Bethany to eat breakfast. She gave Bethany some Fruit Loops instead of the Cheerios that the other kids eat. Apparently, we are bad parents and allow Bethany to eat sweet cereal & none of the other parents allow their kids to eat sweet cereal. We just feed her what's in our house. But she is still living...so I don't think a dozen or so pieces of sweet cereal killed anyone (that I know of anyway!)

Wish us luck as we continue on with the school year. So far, Cory & I are off to a pretty good start with planning our curriculum & getting to know our students. It is great that this is the 1st year out of my 6 years teaching that I haven't switched classrooms & I haven't switched curriculum. Both of those have switched EVERY OTHER YEAR of my short career! It is such a blessing to have some consistency in our lives in terms of our jobs!

This is "Normal"

Life is amazing! I hope that each of you are fully aware of this by now. But sometimes I sit back and reflect on our lives & I am usually left completely awestruck. You might be wondering where this is coming from. Allow me to backtrack a little. So, the other day Bethany was reading a book to herself. Upon finishing the book, she kisses the back cover. This is a part of our "normal" routine when we read books. Whenever I read her a night time story we kiss the character on the book "night-night." I think she now thinks it is normal behavior to kiss your books when you are done with them. You will often find her kissing her books upon completion. Then I realized that I lost track of just how impressionable Bethany really is. Everything we do with her is going to help establish the "norm" in her world. If we decide to start licking our walls as we enter the house...she'll think that everyone in the world licks their walls as they enter the house. It makes me realize now more than ever that I need to be the model of everything I want Bethany to be in her life. If I want her to grow up to be Christ-like, respectable, responsible, moral, honest...then I need to be Christ-like, respectable, responsible, moral and honest. If you really sit back and think about it....child-rearing is a pretty awesome but daunting task. There are a thousands What-if's & Should've's that are always buzzing around my head.

But I guess in the end you just have to have faith that you are doing the best you know how & just pray that your "normal" is going to be good enough.

Reunited & it feels so good!

Saturday was Bethany's first family Reunion. It was actually more of a family Union for Bethany. I don't think it can be qualified as a REunion unless, it is actually REuniting people. This was the first time Bethany has meet many of her aunts, uncles & cousins. Good times was had by all!

Last Day of Summer!

Today is officially the last day of summer for the Milles-clan. It is sad! :-(


We are going to miss the 7 am Sesame Street. What will our mornings be without ELMO??? But we do recognize how lucky we are that we get to have 2 months off with our baby girl. Most people have to take vacation and they still don't get the everyday-hum-drum aspects of life. It was great spending the summer with Bethany! Only 10 more months 'till the next summer! :)

5 long (err...enjoyable) years!

5 years already! It is hard to believe it, I know. I am very blessed to have found the perfect man & some how convience him that I am the one for him! A lot has changed for us in the past 5 years & I am glad to have Cory by my side for every triumph and challenge we have gone through!

***FYI...the picture is a do-it-yourself in front of our wedding picture! We don't look to shabby, if I do say so myself! Perhaps the next five years will bring us even more snazzy and skinny-ness!***

Zany Zoo Fun!

We had a great time at the zoo on Thursday. Here are a few pictures of some of the highlights of our visit. Although, we did decide NOT to take pictures of the 50-something-year-old couple that was completely making out in front of Lakeside Cafe!

No Hippos....just fishes! She thought they were the coolest! Perhaps the fishes ate the hippos!

Penguin Time! The penguin house was totally AWESOME!

Bethany enjoyed petting the hampsters...gerbels or guinea pigs...whatever these are! :)

Forget about the Leaping Lizards...it's time to worry about the Bouncy Blue Frogs!
Bethany loved petting the "dogs". We tried to explain they were goats...but she insisted they were dogs!!!

I "otter" know better! (The rest of the otter body is cut off...sorry!)

Other than being hotter than the dickens, it was a FANTASTIC TRIP! I great start for Cory's birthday! :) We really enjoyed ourselves! The penguin house was perhaps the coolest part of all! It was just so neat to see them upclose!

Happy 30th Birthday Daddy!

Today is Daddy's 30th birthday!

That seems ancient to me! ;-) Since he is getting "elderly", he is already requiring a form of assisted living. As you notice in the picture, he needed MY help with every aspect of his birthday celebrations this weekend! Poor ole' Man!

Here I am helping him open presents!

I gotta help blow out these 3 candles on the delicious ice cream cake Mommy made from scratch!
1 candle represents 10 years for all you mathmatically challenged folks.

Another cake...another candle. Seriously, what would he do without me?
I think I will extinguish this one by hand!

Simponsized Bethany!

Swept Away!

I love to sweep! Whenever Mommy wants to sweep the kitchen floor, I always end up taking the broom away! It is tons o' fun to "help" clean the house! I have so much fun...that I like to dance with the broom...as seen above!

A Great Uncle!

I got to meet up with my Great Uncle Chris Friday! It was great seeing him! Especially since he let me hold his car keys and make his truck honk like crazy!!!!

Getting away from Daddy!

Getting squished by Daddy. I must get escape before things get worse!

Free at last...Free at last!
YIKES! He caught up! My poor fingers!!!!!

What do you want...I'm busy reading!

Bethany loves reading her books. She takes them out of her basket and spread them all about. She picks one out & flips through the pages. As she flips she will babble a nice tale to go along with the pictures she points to. I am sure it is quite a lovely story if we only understood the words she was saying.

Workin' the Spoon!

Two spoons are better than one!

Getting it in my mouth is harder than it looks!
Ah Dah! (notice the sign, too! ;o) )

Nose!

Build & Destroy!

Today I helped Daddy build a tower with all of my blocks! Neat, huh?

And then I knocked it down! Ha ha ha! Daddy was watching the X-Files on DVD when we were building it. I heard the theme song and tried to whistle it myself!

I Cry More Now

I have noticed that since I have become a mama that ordinary things touch me differently & I look at everything through a different lens. This results in everyday-things bringing tears to my eyes. At first these occurrences could've been attributed to postpartum hormones. But I doubt I can use that excuse any longer.


Here are a couple things that touch me differently that B.B. (Before Bethany) really wouldn't have affected me in a greatly emotional way.

One: the birth of Jesus. A little bit ago I was reading Bethany’s bible to her and I read this story. Not only did it put tears in my eyes…but I was choking on the words. For the first time I understood what Mary felt; but I also know the fate of Jesus. I couldn’t fathom that for my own child. How could she?

Two: TV shows. Sometimes things happen on tv shows that wouldn’t have affected me before. But NOW when a kid gets kidnapped on a tv show I am feeling so much pain for their mom as she cries out for his safe return.

Three: Country & Christian songs are the worst at activating my tear ducts!

• One I heard in church & then on the radio was called "I Saw God Today" by George Strait. (video is here.) I made me reminisce about being pregnant & the birth of Bethany....how I wanted it all to be over with. But why? What was the rush? Each second of it was a second to be cherished.

• Another song is. I mentioned a previous song by Steven Curtis Chapman, “Cinderella”. (video is here.) (FYI which, was written about his 2 youngest daughters…one of which recently died in a horrible accident…how heartbreaking.) This reminds me of how fast Bethany is going to grow up & how I may want her to get to the next milestone fast. But what's the rush. I only get 18 years with her. Why wish for it to go any fast than it already is.

• A song came on the radio the other day. It was called “Stealing Cinderella” by Chuck Wicks (video is here.). This song takes the same premise from a new perspective. It reminded me that Bethany is growing up really fast and that some day someone one is going to come along and “steal” her away from us. But after reflecting on that fact for a while; I realized that is exactly what we should want. We should feel really blessed if we raise her well enough so that someone else loves her unconditionally. That is when we know we have been successful parents.

Overall, all the tears are worth it.

After all they are tears of joy, pride and love. There is nothing wrong with that.

Grapes & Eggs!

Bethany hasn't been the most adventurous when it comes to challenging her taste-buds. She has a few foods I know to be pretty reliable that will make it in her tummy & not in the crevices of the highchair & floor. Today, she had a good ole’ egg for breakfast. This is one of her staple breakfast items. However…she signed for some more. But once you eat all the egg of the plate…you actually have to get up & scramble/cook more eggs before you get more. So, I, feeling adventurous enoughfor the both of us, cut a grape into ¼ths & gave those to her. They passed the test. She actually ate some grapes. This is officially the first “big girl” fruit that she will eat! I think I will live on the edge and try some more new fruits for lunch!