The Cutest Garden Gnome Ever

We decided that this time of year was a good one to do a little landscaping and add some yard art. What do you think?

We think the garden gnome adds some major cuteness to our yard. 

I seriously have been planning this costume since I was pregnant.  I debated about doing it last year but I really wanted him to be able to stand in it. 

The beard is supposed to go on his chin but in previous attempts, he screamed and cried when it was like this. Hopefully he will keep it on while we go trick or treating.

Our friends are coming over tonight to have chili (family tradition) and take our kids around our neighborhood, which I am so glad we have now. I will have to post pictures of all of them together because their costumes coordinate.

Halloween Sensory Bath

This weeks activity was a sensory bath. The advantage of this is that Miller likes baths, so he is contained and so is  the mess. It is easier to hold his attention if he is happy. I used some foam cutouts on the walls along with his foam bath letters he already had. Then I made little shaving cream "islands" to put some toys on (these were supposed to be ghosts but I could not get the shape right). I threw in some orange foam cubes  and toy bones as well.

 

I also made some colored ice cubes in a pumpkin ice cube mold. Again, he just wanted to eat them. 

 

He really enjoyed it and played in it twice as long as a normal bath. 

We will definitely be doing these for other occasions.

Halloween Jello Sensory Bin

If you are keeping up, you might have thought I slacked on our weekly activity last week. You would be wrong! I actually did it, I just did not have time to post it with the preparations for his birthday party this past weekend.

 This one was super easy that I really do not think I need to narrate it.

Refrigerate. 

I hate jello because of the texture but I figured Miller might like playing with it. He did actually dig in it a bit but then just wanted to carry around the bin. I kept it in the fridge all week and kept bringing it out to the same results. Finally, this Wednesday I got it out with the intention of throwing it away. Miller started playing with it and got a kick out of pulling all of the jello up (and onto my kitchen floor). After about 30 minutes his was done so I got out a spoon and started scraping it all up so I could put it into the trash. Oh no! He got that spoon and started scooping all of the jello out (again, onto my floor). I was so proud that he was starting to get the hang of using a spoon. It provided about an hour and a half of total fun so we will try it again in the future.

I will try to get on posting this weeks activity this weekend or early next week, along with Miller's party here in Georgia.

Miller: Month Twelve

 

*At his party this weekend I realized that from 7 months to now, he is wearing the same 6-9 month size onesie. It is looser now than it was at 7 months. My child is shrinking!

Weight: 21 lbs 5oz (+13 lbs 3oz)

Height: 30" (+ 8.5")

Head: 19.5" (+ 4.5")

Sleep: I wish I could say that he was sleeping through the night, alas, not the case. Most nights he wakes up once to eat but some nights he wakes up early so I feed him, and then he wakes up a few hours later for the same. He tricks me! We are wanting to start working on eliminating those feedings but honestly, we are not super enthusiastic about it. We tried this weekend to let him cry some and all it did was work him up so much that he was crying so hard he couldn't his breath. Then it took hours to calm him down and ended with Ben taking him on a walk at 3:30 and me vacuuming, then family playtime in the living room until 4:15am. Not cool! I am just going to let him fuss and cry a bit when he wakes up to see if he will just go back to sleep. We will see how it goes.

Eating: He is still nursing 4-6 times a day. I am not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, I am so happy we have made it this far because sometimes I worried he would lose interest. On the other hand, I worry that he is only comfort nursing and needs to be able to be a little more independent than that. I am taking it one month at a time. As for solids, he has slowed down a bit but our pediatrician said that is normal. The great thing is that he has gotten better at feeding himself so that is less mess for me to clean up. I am working on giving him utensils to use and he is actually, albeit slowly, getting the hang of it.

Best Moment: I LOVED walking in his room and singing happy birthday to a smiling boy. My mom used to wake me up singing (although I found it annoying at the time). I am so glad that I get to do that now.

Milestones: He has kind of got a lot of the developmental milestones down (rolling, crawling, walking, etc) so I am going to say that turning one year old is it for this month. We actually survived one year! Only, well, a lot more to go.

Monthly Wisdom: I realized the other day that there is actually a simplicity in our life now. For so long, everything was crazy and overwhelming and we have this calm right now. There are plenty of moments where I am overwhelmed and I am always busy but we have kind of hit our stride. Of course now comes the holidays and who knows what next year holds.

Goals for the Upcoming Month:
- Get Miller consistently down to one nigh waking or none.
- We are going to start getting up earlier so we have more of a routine.


Things Miller is doing:
- He makes all sort of babbling sounds. Like he is trying to say something to us but we just do not know what it is.
- He loves playing chase. He is so funny whenever I got get him in his crib. He plays coy and tries to run away from me while he giggles. Oh geez, I love that kid!
- We taught him one sign that I thought would help him communicate and that was "more". It backfired on me. I knew it was a possibility if we taught lots of signs so I thought we would be fine with one. Nope! He points to things and signs "more" meaning he wants that item. It is cute but annoying!  It is like he has forgotten to talk sometimes.
- He gets into EVERYTHING! It makes it a pain for me to clean up but I don't was to squash his curiosity.

Lastly,we decided to document Miller's birthdays with pictures with his ruler. This is one that we took last year right after he was born.

Here is this years pic. (BTW, trying to get him standing still, next to the ruler about drove me to a nervous breakdown.)

I am not sure if I am going to continue with monthly updates at this point. Maybe monthly pictures but only quarterly updates.

1st Birthday Party- Tennessee

This past weekend was Miller's 1st birthday party in Knoxville. When I found out that I was having a boy, I wanted to do a little man theme for his first birthday party so I have been planning for a while.

Outside decorations

The dessert table. I made the silhouettes of us and I am so excited to frame them and put them up in our house. 

Miller's first year picture banner. 

I made bowties for everyone to wear. Some people huffed about it but everyone ended up laughing when they saw everyone else in their formal ware.

My little man in his skinny pants that my mom made.

I love my little family!

 

Best friends!!!

My two handsome guys. 

 

I made Ben handle opening the presents so I could take pictures. This was the only one that Miller actually sat through but he loves them all.

 

Time for the cake!!!

  

Miller has been feeding himself for almost 6 months so rather than digging into his cake, he just picked at it. It was a disappointing show but it was nice that Ben and I got to help him eat the cake. And doesn't he look sophisticated in his top hat.

  

I am so glad that we had so many people come to help us celebrate our little man. It was so fun to plan and I am already working on his second birthday party but first we have his party here in Georgia with our friends this weekend.

*By the way, if we are friends on facebook, you have probably already seen these pictures. I post on both to make sure that all of our family can see them.

Miller's Birth Day

Last week was sooooo busy but I did not want to ignore celebrating our big events.

Thursday during the day, Ben went out to get coffee and was gone for an hour. He came home with flowers for our anniversary. We were supposed to go on a picnic at the place where Ben proposed but Miller decided to be difficult and not nap. We did however go out that night. We went to our favorite restaurant for dinner, and then to a play on campus. After that, we walked through the architecture building where we first met. We drove around campus and stopped in a coffee shop where my friend worked and had dessert. Here is our official anniversary picture (not the greatest because mom was trying to take it, while wrangling Miller).

I was not going to ignore the little mans birthday just because his party was not that day. At 11:45 the night before, I snuck in my room, sat by his bed and cried for my last few minutes with my baby. Then at midnight I whispered him happy birthday. The next morning I was so excited for him to wake up. Mom heard him and came to wake us up. We all three went in the room and sang happy birthday to him. He just grinned and watched us. Then we took him out to the living room where we had got him balloons the night before. He loved them!

We all got dressed and went downtown to the Worlds Fair Park. Miller had a blast on the playground.

I so wish that it was warmer and we could have let him play in the water. He kept running towards them giggling. I promise I will take him next year when it is warm.

We went up to the sunsphere where Ben and I had our reception 4 years and 1 day prior. At first I was freaked out letting him run around but I reminded myself it was safe. Thankfully since it was a weekday, no one was up there and he loved running around and looking at the different views.

We then drove over to the Ag campus and went to the gardens. I just think this is the cutest thing, him holding his daddy's hand. 

Another crappy family picture but that is what you get with a wiggling toddler. 

We went back to my moms so Miller could take a nap. After that, we headed over to my parents house so I could make cupcakes and decorate for the party. I thought it would take a couple of hours but it took all evening. It did not help that the kid was difficult.

I waited to put him down for a nap (which never ended up happening) so that at 6:08PM, I could take a picture exactly one year to the minute of his birth. I thought it would be sweet and sentimental but instead it turned into another wrestling match with a toddler. 

I can not believe that my baby is a whole year old but boy do I love him and our adventures together!

Miller Week 51

Yep, this is not terribly current but last week was so jam packed with events, that I decided to wait and post these when I had some down time on here.

I love Kathie Lee and Hoda! I watch them every morning that I am home and have for years. In fact, I was watching them when I found out I was pregnant. They were my saving grace distracting me while I waited for the positive sign to pop up on the test.

When they had a competition to find a college campus to go to, I thought no way would UT win. I saw fellow UT fans tweets and pictures on the show and would always yell, "Go Vols". I was amazed that we made it to the final 6 and shocked that we won. It was super exciting to watch out favorite morning show, in our favorite place. Miller and I sang Rocky Top and danced the whole time.

See that shaggy hair. It had to be cut but before we left for Knoxville, I wanted to play with it. 

We stuck some gel in it before bedtime to see what we could get it  to do. It was actually lackluster because it was so long, it would not do too much.