Miller Update: 2.5 Years

I figured that the boy needed an update on here since he is at his half birthday. This has been a month delayed because I kept forgetting to get his height.

Weight: 30.5 lbs (+22 lbs 6oz)

Height: 36" (+ 14.5")

Head: I keep forgetting to get his measurement but it is normal(-ish).

Sleep: Except for two nights a month ago, he sleeps through the night every night. I think he had bad dreams those nights. Naps are a different story. He only takes them about half the time. The other half, I make him stay in his room in hopes that he will pass out or at least rest while I get a break. However, he has started to take off his diaper and I have to rush upstairs to fix that. It is not restful at all since I have to watch him on the camera like a hawk.

Eating: He is still a snacker and I still hate it but I am letting it go. I just try to give him healthy(ish) snacks. He also has a smoothie most days that has fruits and vegetables, that is really for my peace of mind.

Best Moment: There is really no way to pinpoint one best moment over the past 6 months. He can be such a handful but when things are good with him, my heart bursts with love for him. One great moment that was recent was when we closed on the new house, we picked up Miller from a friend's house and then went to the new house. It made my heart so happy to see Miller run around the house and the yard with such excitement. It makes all the stress and exhaustion from the buying process and moving worth it to see him love this house that he will grow up in. 


Milestones: We started working on potty training. For now, we just sit him on the potty a few times a day and he goes. If only he would tell us when he needs to go, then we would be in good shape, I am just proud of how quickly he has taken to sitting on the potty.

Monthly Wisdom: I have really had to be careful with losing my temper with him lately. Some days I just reach a breaking point but I have to remind myself that a lot of times he is still learning.

Goals for the Upcoming Month:
- I have been meaning to do some structured preschool activities with him for months but with Scarlett being born and now moving, I have not gotten around to it. I really hope to get on it now that we are in the house. I have all the materials for it but just have not printed them yet.
- Keep encouraging him with potty training. I am not pushing this but we will keep talking about it.
- I think I have said this every update but I really want to get on a better schedule. We are such late risers but we need to start getting up a tad earlier. We had to get up early a few days in a row and he slept so much better for naps and bed.
- We have kind of hit a bad patch lately. We have had so many major changes lately with Scarlett being born, the holidays, house shopping, buying a house and now moving and I think they are all getting to  him. He has been acting out a lot lately and poor Scarlett is getting the brunt of it because she can not defend herself. I really want to get him through this phase with as little frustration as possible and give him some one on one time.


Things Miller is doing:

- We got him a couple of floor puzzles and I thought they were beyond his skill set to be able to figure them out. Apparently not because he just kept at it and is so quick with them.
- He has started attaching lots of objects and people's names to letters, which I find adorable.
- He has known these for a while but he knows all his letters, colors, a bunch of shapes and numbers (although double digits kind of stump him).
- He is starting to sing songs with me. Normally he just likes me to sing but now he is joining in and learning them too.
- While the boy is still majorly into cars, planes, trains, etc, he has been into animals lately. He gets quite excited about zoo animals since we have been going so much but he is starting to pick up on sea animals.
- He pretends he is "baby Mer" (Mer is what is sounds like he calls himself) and wants to lay in my lap. It is so sweet and it is just his way of telling me that he needs some attention. My favorite is when I have Scarlett on my lap and he comes to lay between us and says, "Skarky hold baby Mer". She normally bends down and gives him a big slobbery kiss and he thinks that his hilarious. 

Scarlett Monthly Update: Month Five

I remember Miller's 5 month being so emotional for me. It was one month before he was a half of a year old and I could not believe how fast time was going. Well I feel the same this time around but with less tears. I know there is so many more fun things coming up but how the heck did we already get to this point. I still feel like I am struggling to get into a routine like I have a newborn yet she has been here for all of this year. We all love her so much and can not imagine what our family was like without her.

Weight: 17lbs 5oz (+8lbs 10oz) (Miller was 17lbs 12oz)

Height: 26.5in (+6in) (Miller was 27in)

Head: 16.75in (+3in) (Miller was 18.5in)

Sleep: She was doing so good and then we went out of town. Even there she did alright. She would only take 4-5 catnaps a day because we would be out doing stuff but she kept her normal routine at night. We came home and the first night she slept 9 hours before she woke up for her first feeding. It was so weird to go get her when the sun was out. The next night it started. She would wake up within an hour of going down and cry inconsolably. It would normally be an hour or two ordeal and once we finally got her to sleep, it would not be long before she was up again. There were 4 possibly causes. 1) Our AC upstairs was messed up so it could have been from the heat and lack of swaddling because we figured she was too hot. 2) Adjusting from being back home. 3) I started eating a bit differently but I find it hard to believe that she would not show signs of discomfort during the day. 4) It was just a phase.

Eating:  She is so normal and predictable with this one. If she goes through growth spurts, she never shows it in nursing more frequently.

Best Moment: There have been some really sweet moments where Miller is talking to her and being sweet and she just smiles at him. I love to see them interact and hope they can grow up and be best friends.

Milestones: She can roll from her belly to back but she does not get enough floor time to practice. She can sit up pretty well except she keeps leaning forward and can not sit herself back up.

Monthly Wisdom: I am so overwhelmed with trying to unpack this house while dealing with day to day tasks with the kids, on top of seeing all the things around here that I know we want to do eventually. I feel like I should be able to do this and it is my responsibility to make this house a home so I need to step on it, but I am just struggling so much. I keep getting reminders that I need to just focus on my kids and work on the house when I have time. The babies come first and foremost. They will only get older and I do not want to miss this time with them.

Goals for the Upcoming Month: My mom is coming next week so I am going to try to get a few major unpacking tasks taken care of then so that I am not as stressed. I am also going to try her napping in her crib. If it does not work out, no biggie, but I am going to try.

Here is the baby comparison. Everyone says that she is so much chunkier than Miller but here they look pretty similar at least to me. Looking back at Miller's old monthly pictures and seeing Scarlett's make me want to have a hundred more of these cute faces.

Trip to Memphis: Part 2

We really had no idea what to do with the kids in Memphis. Normally we hang out with family and friends and go out to eat but that was not an option this time, so we visited a bunch of museums instead. The kids often fell asleep on our way to places so we took the opportunity to drive around and see things. On this day, we said screw it and decided we would head to the Pink Palace museum anyways but Miller transitioned to the stroller still asleep.

I did not know that this dinosaur moves until I was right in front of it. It scared the crap out of me! I was traumatized by "Jurassic Park" and this just preyed on my fears. We later took Miller back when he was awake and it scared him too. 

Still asleep for the polar bear. We took him back and he was not impressed since he saw a live one the day before.

Friday was a nice day so we planned to go downtown and explore (and maybe, stalk Prince William and Prince Harry). We actually had made these plans well before we knew they were in town because we wanted  to take Miller to the Peabody to see the ducks. It was the hotel that the Princes' were staying in so we were in the same building as their clothes.

We were trying to warm him up to the idea of riding the trolley.

We had to drag him on but he loved it so much we stayed on longer than we had planned.

She is quite the momma's girl. If she was with someone else and then would see me, she would get so excited. Ben's dad was in the other room with her and said when she heard my voice she got so excited and started looking for me. Ben was wearing her here and he turned to show Miller something. She finally saw that I was across the aisle.......

.....and she was so happy to see mommy. I hope she is always this excited to see me.

He is so handsome!

He is not sure he wants to get off.

It was such a good trip but went by way to quickly. I wish we could get back to Memphis more often.

Trip to Memphis: Part 1

We decided it was due time that we go to Memphis. We had not been in a year and a half and Ben had the vacation time this year. Of course the best time for us to go, was right after we moved. So we were home for a week and a half, drove to Knoxville for 2 days while Ben went on a work retreat in Chattanooga, and then drove to Memphis for a week.

(Before I start, I realize that I have no pictures of people besides my own kids and Ben. Whenever we were hanging out with people, I was too busy wrangling kids or getting ready, that I forgot to take pictures).

On Sunday it rained so we were stuck inside, after spending all day Saturday in the car. We ended up going to the mall with some friends to walk around and then over to Ben's sister Liz's house to visit and see their animals. They got a new  bunny recently and Miller loved it and actually, so did Scarlett. 

Miller was playing the piano at Ben's parents house with Sully.

Ah, one picture with someone else in it. Three generations of Trusty's watching TV. 

On Tuesday we took the kids out to Ben's brother-in-law's parent's farm to ride the horses. Miller was all excited until he saw how big they were and he would not ride it. The funny thing is that Dave's mom was just saying that most boys are not into horses but that girls are......

I know she has no idea what is going on but it was just funny after our conversation that she got so excited when she got up there.

Prepare yourself for more zoo pictures. I know we have a lot of those lately. We found out that we get a discount at other zoos with our membership here so we were taking advantage of it. Plus, he is majorly into animals and they have some in Memphis that we do not have in Atlanta.

Here he was watching the seals (maybe they were sea lions) swim around. This was exciting because he had just gotten a seal/sea lion toy the previous week.

The polar bear was quite exciting.

Of course we go on the day that it was 57 degrees. I did not bring a hat for the poor girl so this is how we kept her warm.

Miller wanted  to switch hats with daddy.

This carrier was a lifesaver.

To be continued.....

April Randomness

I am not even sure that April happened. It was so crazy and flew by in the blink of an eye.

This poor thing get so tired and just can not keep it together when she is playing.

 She is an undercover baby. 

While my mom was here after we moved, she insisted on taking Miller for a haircut. He definitely needed one but I just did not want to deal with the stress of the whole ordeal. There is a kids cutting place right down the road from us and they had an opening when we walked in the door. We tried to sit him in the car chair (not that pink one in the back ground, a dump truck) and he screamed. We tried a bunch of different things to calm him down but finally we had to settle with him sitting on my lap. Even then he cried the whole time but the hair dresser was awesome and quick. The second she was done, he stopped crying, wiped away the crocodile tears (that had hair stuck in them) and turned and said, "Thank you". Someone please tell me that this gets easier.

A few days after we moved in, we watched Isla and Ruby for 3 days while their school was on spring break. It was chaos but Miller loved having people to play with. Right before I took this picture, they were all cooing over her and she was smiling. I turned to get my camera and when I came back, she apparently was over it.

I was nursing Scarlett at one point and Isla came running in, "Auntie Whitney, Miller is climbing the stairs". There was a gate at the bottom to keep the kids contained downstairs but Miller did not let that stop him. I reprimanded him and he sat in time out but that did not do the trick. Later that afternoon he did it again and this time he was at the top of the stairs. It scared the crap out of me!

This hairstyle is courtesy of her brother licking her. I mean, her whole head was dripping wet. It was gross.

2 seconds before this picture, she was screaming her head off in her carseat.

I loved how her little hands are folded on her belly.

Her brother will not leave her alone.

New House Tour

This is a lot of pictures so I apologize in advance. A lot of our family and friends said they wanted to see pictures of the new house so I figured this would be the easiest way to give a little tour. I was wanting to get some pictures of the outside but maybe I will do a separate tour of the outside.

Starting upstairs, this is Miller's room. It was pink (which you would think we would just leave it and make this Scarlett's room) but it has already been painted to more boyish colors.

This is the full bathroom upstairs. It is pretty clean and neutral but definitely needs to be updated some.

This is Scarlett's room which has already been painted as well.

This is the guest room (sorry the pic is a bit blurry).

Here is the foyer from the upstairs, walking across to our room.

Our bedroom.

Our bedroom, looking at the closet (on the left) and the bathroom (opened door on the right).

Our bathroom. It was updated recently which I love. It just needs some window treatments, some paint and some art.

Looking up in the foyer.

The dining room.

The kitchen. I really want to tackle getting this fixed up over the next few months. I plan on painting/staining the cabinets, painting the trim white and painting the walls, as well as a  few other tweaks.

All of this parquet flooring and the carpets on this floor have been removed and hardwood has been put down. The hardwood in the dining room and foyer are refinished so that they all match.

This is the hall looking down the hall to the living room. The half bath is on the left. You can see the bi-fold doors to the laundry right there. I have plans to make that bigger and more of a laundry room down the road.

The living room. This room has been painted as well.

The door way on the left is to going back to the foyer and you can see the door to the basement there. Then there is the coat closet (from left to right), wet bar and hallway back to the kitchen. I totally thought that the wet bar was unnecessary but it is serving us well as a closet to store our cloth diapers.

This is the playroom. It is a formal living room but it is a perfect playroom. Eventually when the kids are older and we move the playroom downstairs, we will put up some French doors it will be the office/ craft room.

This is the garage looking from the doors.

Here is  the other view (yeah it is a garage so not too impressive).

The basement.

The full bathroom in the basement.

I am pretty overwhelmed with all of the things that I want to do but I know we need to move in and live there a while before I start tackling huge projects. I plan on taking care of the kids rooms first and getting the living room and play room set up. I want to do the kitchen soon and eventually get to the rest of the main floor before we get to fixing up the rest of the rooms upstairs and the basement.