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Friday, February 29, 2008

Finally an Update! A Very Long Update!

Finally, I have gotten caught up! I freed up enough space on my computer to add our new pictures. The problem was not the pictures from our new camera, it is all the video clips we have on the computer! I did think about just starting from today and continuing the blog. But I decided to catch everyone up on this past, almost pictureless, month. Because Blogger is so stinking slow, this took almost two days! Definitely a labor of love. Enjoy!

Miller at one month old. I don't think this picture really looks like him, but it is so cute!



Ella loves for me to Miller in the bed with her when I get her up from her nap. Most of the time she is pretty loving toward him, but sometimes she just does not understand how little he is and how big she is. In these pictures you can see Ella getting closer and closer and then she lays on top of him! Miller is going to be tough!





Everyone who has seen Miller awake says the same thing, "it is amazing how much he looks like Murray!" Well here is a picture to prove it! Miller is a little Minnie Me.


Miller had his six weeks pictures made. They were all sooooo good!!! I still have not narrowed down the ones I am going to get, but this is one of my favorites!


Step Sing weekend:

Mrs. Annette reading to the children


All the girls

Miller had his first real smiles 2/16 (almost seven weeks old). When he smiles his entire face lights up!



When Miller came home freom the hospital, he "gave" Ella a baby doll stroller. We were given wonderful advice that it really helped the older sibling adjust when the baby gave a great gift. Ella loves her baby stroller and always wants to put Miller in it. Now that he is a little more sturdy, I thought it would be a great picture. Miller is going to kill me for this later! But in the progression of the pictures you can see what we deal with all day long. Things start off good and then Ella goes in for the strike. This picture, the "strike" happens to be grabbing Miller's face. This is something we are really working on. The two things that Ella really struggles with are face grabbing (see last picture) and kiss biting This is where she goes in to kiss Miller and opens her mouth and presses her teeth on Miller's (or any baby, sooo sorry Ann Tatum) head or face. You might think, oh she is just trying to kiss her little brother. But, it is not innocent at all! She knows what she is doing is very wrong!





These two pictures are hilarious if you look closely. Every morning Ella puts on her makeup while Mommy puts on her makeup. So, now she loves makeup. Granna gave Ella a stickerbook for Valentine's Day which has provided much entertainment. One of the stories was about getting ready and had makeup stickers to go along with the story. So instead of putting the makeup stickers in the book, Ella put the makeup on her face.



Anytime Murray or I am holding Miller, Ella runs up saying "two babies, two babies." Ella loves for us to hold both of our babies!

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

My Pick

Murray and I are very big American Idol fans! From the beginning we have both loved David Archuleta, but after last night we were blown away! I think that something huge will have to happen for him not to win. I am saying this before seeing the girls tonight, but I just don't think there is a girl who has a fraction of his talent. And I do love Michael Johns, he is very cool, but David is just awesome! In case you missed last night, here is his performance.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

What a Week!

Quick recap of Ella's week. Last Sunday Ella was fine when she came home from church. She woke up from her nap with a fever feeling awful. Her fever spiked at 102.1. About 6:30 Ella had a few throw up "episodes" and I will not go into the gross details of that. We went to the doctor on Tues for our well visit appointments where both children had fevers. They were both very low grade and the doctor said Ella and Miller fine and gave both children their shots. Tues afternoon or Wednesday morning we realized Ella had Hand, Foot and Mouth! It was not bad at all and I probably never would have noticed it, but Ann Tatum had so I knew the signs to look for. Ella is now completely over Hand, Foot and Mouth. But the drama does not end there, at church this morning Ella fell and chipped her front tooth! Poor Ella. What a rough week. Hopefully next week will be better. I am sure I will have some good stories from the denist!



Here you can see the difference in the length of her teeth now.



It is hard to get Ella still enough to get a good picture of the chip, but you can sort of see it in these

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Adding Some More Variety

We can all thank Wellon Bridgers (Murray's sister) for this easy, scrumptious new side dish to add to our repitoire. After my post of the Acorn Squash, Wellon told me about Sauteed Fennel. I had never cooked or had fennel before and I was a little afraid. But no need to worry... it is very good and very different. Murray and I came to the conclusion that it kind of tastes like fried ocra. When you are looking for fennel at the grocery store, it kind of looks like an onion but has long green sprouts on top. You will probably want one fennel per person.

To prepare: Cut the top off and cut the core off of the bottom of the bulb. Quarter the bulb. We used an iron skillet to sautee, but you could use any sautee pan. Cover the bottom of the skillet with olive oil and heat on low/medium low. Let pan warm up before adding fennel. Add fennel, salt and pepper. Cover and cook for about 15 to 20 just depending on how much you like your vegetables cooked. Stirr occasionally so it does not burn. Then it is ready to serve. Yummy and easy!!!

Friday, February 22, 2008

3 In a Row



I have been told not to get your hopes up about babies sleeping through the night until they do it three nights in a row. After three nights, you can begin to feel confident. Last night marked Miller's third night of sleeping through the night! He did not wake up this morning until 7:15!!!! We are very proud of Miller and loving sleeping the whole night! This morning getting out of bed was so much easier! We went to the doctor on Tuesday and Miller weighed 12 lb and 11 ounces! This is 2 pounds bigger than Ella was at 7 weeks. No wonder he is sleeping good!

(I just noticed that I ended almost every sentence with and exclamation point. Can you tell how excited I am?)

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Adding Some Variety

Most people who know us know that Murray and I love to cook. Lately Murray has been doing much more of the cooking than me, but I have been starting to contribute a little more every day. I will say that I usually do come up with the menu and more recently even start dinner, but Murray has been the one to finish everything off, if not cook the entire meal. Thank you Murray, you are a wonderful husband and daddy!!!

I tend to get frustrated when planning meals because I feel like we get stuck in a rut, especially with side dishes. It seems like we always have brocolli, carrots or sweet potatoes. I am always looking for new, interesting, quick side dishes. The other day in the grocery store I saw acorn squash and thought I would give it a try. It was awesome!!! And so easy! So for all of you out there who are looking for something different and easy I thought I would share my dish.

**Disclaimer: I will say this is not an exact recipe. Any of you who need exact measurements, I am sorry. I just sort of mixed things together. Sorry Mom. But it is hard to mess this one up. Also, I made this for just Murray and me. One acorn squash feeds two.

Ingredients:
Acorn Squash
Butter
Brown Sugar (I used dark) - about 1 tbsp
Cinnamon - oh maybe 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp
Pinch of Nutmeg
Pinch of All Spice
Pinch of Ground Cloves
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. Fill dish with about one inch of water. Bake squash, skin side up, for 30 min. Melt about 1/4 stick of butter (you can never use too much butter!). It works a little bit better if butter is not quite melted all the way. Mix in rest of ingredients with butter. It would be hard to mess this up, just remember a little bit of nutmeg goes a long ways. After the squash has baked for 30 min, drain water and flip over. Fill the squash with butter mixture and spread over all the squash. Bake for 30 more minutes. The squash should be very tender. If not, just cook a little longer. Delicious!!!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Excuses, Excuses

I know that I have not been a very good blogger lately, but I do have a great/frustrating excuse. As you might remember from several posts ago, Murray gave me an awesome new camera for Christmas. I LOVE everything about except that since the pictures are such good quality, they take up so much room on my computer. Right now my computer storage is absolutely full. There is NO room left on my hard drive. I have never come anywhere close to taking up that much space on my computer.

I do have lots of great pictures and even videos, I just cannot download them onto my computer right now. Murray brought home some cd's to put the pictures on last night, but it ended up being a dvd so we have to wait just a little longer. But don't give up on us, there are great pictures to come!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Like Father Like Son

I will let the pictures speak for themselves...





Miller loves having a good cigar with Tom.