A Post Only a Grandparent Would Like

All videos!

Merry Christmas so far!

We have yet to go to Pops & Nana's house today, but the girls had a blast opening all of their gifts this morning. Noa was in a terrible mood due to keeping her out late just about every night this week, but as soon as we started with the presents, her mood turned around a little bit. Thankfully. All in all, it was wonderful but so much work! Russ and I are already exhausted and it is only noon.

Here's some pictures of the Christmas Eve service last night. Unfortunately, these were the best we could get. Noa was in the worst mood and just kind of whined around. Ruthie is getting too fast to sit still for a good picture...

After the service we let them open one present (which was their jammies for the next morning, which was still very exciting for them).

And here we are this morning in our new jammies!

Ruthie needed help at first, but quickly got the hang of opening the presents (and wanting more) and was actually a little speedier than Noa. Noa kept getting side-tracked, wanting to examine each gift before moving on.

Noa wanted to hold all of her presents at once the whole morning...

Grammy sent Noa these things for her hair, but because there was two of them, she thought they were earrings. So she walked around with these on for a while... her Avatar look. Weird.

We have some videos and more pictures to come, but thought this would hold all the grandparents off for a while. Much love as you celebrate Jesus' birth today!

Snowmen!

While everyone else in the US is building real snowmen, our neighbors gave us their light up snowmen when they found out Noa was in love with all of the snowmen in the neighborhood. How sweet! So now we are the proud owners of, "a Mommy one, a Daddy one, and a Baby one snowman," according to Noa. :) We have one out front and two in the backyard. Here's some pictures of her as soon as we put them up. She was giddy! She kept wanting to feed them dirt out of the garden and kept hugging and kissing them.

She kept saying, "Mom, take a picture of me with the snowmen," and then just stood right next to them with her hands clasped like it was something formal. So funny! Unfortunately, right after this picture, they kept blowing over because it was so windy, but I think she liked feeding them dirt and nursing them back to health - so she didn't care!

Ruthie wanted to play outside too, but she didn't care too much for the snowmen and opted to stay on the porch.

It is soooooo nice having everyone back up to speed. Ruthie took her last dose of meds the other day and it seems like we're finally well around here, just in time for Christmas!

Healin' in the House!

That's what we need! Here's what we've been dealing with lately...

Poor Babers looks terrible! This picture makes me want to cry!! It was taken yesterday morning. We had to take her back to the doctor on Friday because her sinus infection just wasn't going away, so they put her on stronger antibiotics, which seem to be helping thus far. Unfortunately she's reacting to it and has spots all over her body. She seems to be getting better, but yesterday morning she looked and felt awful! Poor baby.

Chicks was diagnosed with bronchitis earlier in the week and has been on antibiotics as well. Thankfully, they seem to be working and she's acting like a different person. It was getting bad for a while! I couldn't handle one more moment of her attitude! Here's our little fashionista wearing Daddy's socks and Mommy's glasses. Actually, she's not calling us "Mommy" and "Daddy" anymore. She's much too cool for that! Now its just "Mom" and "Dad." She's entered the stage where she constantly asks us (or kind of demands) to watch her do things - "Hey Mom. Watch this." "Hey Dad. Watch this" - followed by absolutely nothing worth watching. Oh well. We still enjoy it. :)

So, it has been a long road, but hopefully we are on the mend. Russ and I still have not gotten sick (Thank you, Father!) but are worn out from taking care of everyone else's sickness and not getting much sleep. We would appreciate your prayers as we head into the busy Christmas season! We hope to be done with all of this by the time Christmas arrives, giving us one month of "freedom" before the new baby comes and adds her spin on our days and nights. :)

Catching Up

Now that it is December 1st, I think I can smile again! November was a difficult month at the Miller house!! We started the month off with Noa throwing up for a few days (thankfully Ruthie never caught it). She managed to hit every room in the house, so me and my big pregnant belly were scrubbing down carpets, stripping beds, dismantling the sofa, giving bath after bath after bath. It was quite the week. From there we moved right into some crazy cough that has been here for 3 weeks now! Adults having a cough is one thing, but kids don't know how to deal with it. At night, the girls (especially Noa) would just cough and cough and cough as soon as they laid down, which obviously prevented them from sleeping well - and in turn prevented us from sleeping well. Ruthie's eventually turned into a sinus infection, which she's on meds for. I took Noa in today and they think she now has bronchitis, so we're now on meds for that too! I am thankful though, that Russ and I haven't felt sick the whole time. God's grace is very evident, even when we're pulling our hair out sometimes!

So, needless-to-say, this hasn't been the best month for pictures. I don't have any to post because pictures of sick, whiney kids are no fun at all. We love them though, and there have been so many joyous moments even in the midst of crank-fest-2010. Noa has been saying some really funny things! It is so interesting to see how their mind processes things. For example:

One night, we let Noa try a green olive for the first time. As soon as she took a bite she spit it out and said, "That's a bad one grape!" So now, at our house, olives are referred to as "bad one grapes." :)

Ruthie is still not walking. We are anxiously awaiting it. She could totally do it, she's just extra cautious. Hopefully by Christmas she'll be up and moving around. There is no lack of excitement with her though - she is definitely a funny kid with a huge personality. I would classify her as a tad more feisty than Noa, but I suppose we'll have to wait until her personality fills in a little more to see if that's true.

Anyway... as we move in to December, seems like there's so much to do! Russ' birthday is coming up in a few weeks and of course there are parties, Christmas shopping, baking, a TON of doctors appointments for me and the new baby... Lots to do. One thing you could all be praying for is that the pregnancy continues to go well, that the baby doesn't get gigantic (they keep talking about a C-section, which is not the end of the world, but I really don't want it), and that everyone stays healthy (and gets healthy) around here. Hopefully we'll have some cute pictures to post soon, but until then - much love!!

Some Fall Pics

First things first... Here's Kate at 28 weeks (I think). Tummy is definitely getting gigantic. I think I might be ready to be done being pregnant - maybe forever. :)

And here's the best buds!

Noa Jane with one of her favorite outfits. She's definitely getting very interested in girly things. She always wants to show Daddy her outfits after she gets ready in the mornings. So sweet. :)

Pumpkin time!

Toddler bed time! Here's Russ & Vance after they finished building the second bed. They are still in our garage waiting to be painted. I really want my garage back, but I'm so so so not motivated to paint right now! All I want to do is sit on the couch!

Garden gone wild!! Obviously, we have not kept up with, nor uprooted anything in our garden. It started going bad when the squash and zucchini were taken over by worms and I was so grossed out I didn't want to go out there anymore. This was actually really early on. We did get some tomatoes, peppers, strawberries, and herbs, but nothing beyond that...

Amazingly enough, Noa still finds little tomatoes and peppers that are hanging on for dear life. Today she found 5 tomatoes. None of them were in great condition, but she thought she hit the jackpot. Here's our little gardener digging in the dirt and letting the "windy" blow her hair. :)

Not the best picture to leave you with, but had to post it just because I'm so amazed at the size of those glasses on Russ' head! Nerd Alert! And don't even look at me - not worth it!

Mother's Morning In

Today I took Noa in to the church, but Ruthie stayed with me because she has some kind of strange cough that amounts to nothing, but won't go away. I don't even think she's sick, but oh well, we're hanging out today. So, instead of having four glorious hours to get out and have time to myself, I have four hours at home, as usual. :) BUT, for each of my 7 readers this is good news! I am actually uploading a few videos for your enjoyment! Pictures of the last month to follow - but for now, here's the girls in action...

Two steps forward...

One step back... (Ruthie's preferred method)

Noa and her pumpkin.

Pumpkin Patch Day!

Play area

Hayride and Feeding the cows

Picking out pumpkins

Cheerleaders!

Here's Baby Kate at 23 weeks. Unfortunately we didn't have a Lions outfit for her. Maybe next year!

This picture was SO hard to get! And it isn't even that great! I think the Lord should've equipped kids with a slow motion button for both picture taking and when parents are about to go nuts. Our kids don't have one.

Here's one tired little Lions fan. Both of the girls were totally wiped out about 2 hours before we even left for the game.

How in the world did I capture this picture?! Noa looks like she's posing, but let me assure you, that was not the case! Doesn't she look old here?

And last but not least, here's Pops with his girls!

Cereals

Noa wanted me to take a picture of her "cereals" to show everyone. Grandma & Grandpa Roberts sent this shirt down and she loves it! She keeps saying, "I wanna eat 'em!" Me too!! The main thing about this picture that I want everyone to notice though is that we are wearing long sleeves!!!!!! Finally!

On Friday nights we've been having Pizza night. We may have to change it since we're finding out that Noa doesn't really care for pizza (weird!), but she sure enjoys helping Daddy make the pizza (just like Caillou)!

We asked her to put the turkey pepperonis on and after a while we noticed that the pizza was still blank. She ate one and decided she would rather eat the whole bag than put them on the pizza. I don't blame her! :)

We love our yogurt around here! Especially Ruthie!

We do clean up pretty well too! What a sweet girlie! That bow stayed in her hair for about 3 minutes... oh well.

And Noa has a little message for everyone...

That's right. We decided on a name for girlie #3! Her full name is Katherine Rae Miller, but we'll call her 'Kate.' Katherine means 'pure,' and Rae is my Mom's middle name, a derivative of Rachel, meaning 'lamb.' Can't wait to meet you Baby Kate!