Yes, I know it's been awhile . . .

Sorry everyone. I sure hope that by now you know not to hold your breath to see an update from us. We do the best we can. Life has been busy and tiring lately, and most days I'm not too sure why. I can get thru a day (and right now I am just "getting thru") and wonder what I did and if I really accomplished anything. I know that is the norm with kids, but still, I wonder . . .
We had a nice thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving Day with Brian's family and ate ourselves into oblivion and Trivial Pursuited (can I make that a verb?) also into oblivion. The next day Brian had to work a partial day, and then we left for Indiana to see my family and spend the weekend at my parents' house. There we also ate our selves into oblivion, and just RELAXED for awhile. It was good to see our families and be able to just spend time with them. We love you guys!
Now, we are gearing up for the Christmas season. For us that means tons of cookies (Mabri and I are leaving tonight to stay with Renee's family in Indiana to make 3 million doz. Christmas cookies and candy for a day), we just had an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party (i will post our family portrait from that later) caroling with our church, and two Christmases, one here in OH and one in IN, and lots of family time. I love this time of year simply because once we get to where we are going, we can just hang out. Everything else can turn into a blur because the pace of life is so crazy or feels mundane, but just having down time with the fam is awesome. I know that the pressure of the economy and life can put a damper on things and believe me, we are feelin' it, but I am so thankful for all our family and friends. You guys are a large part of what makes our life. We are thankful for each and everyone of you.
So, now that I have gotten the sappy stuff out of the way, how about some pictures?

Yes, the hair keeps getting bigger and more out of control. It will eventually act like hair, right?


















Mabri is really into "watching" and "helping" these days. She is constantly pushing a chair to the sink or the stove to watch what Mommy is up to. You'll notice the wet spot on her shirt . . . that extended down to her knees.























My sweet husband doing dishes for me and his big helper. Dishes make me gag alot these days. Maybe I'll keep that up for awhile if it gets me out of dishes . . .


















Teaching George to use the potty like a big . . . monkey?


















Just in case you were thinking Mabri is perfectly behaved all the time, let me squash those rumors now. This is what timeouts look like these days. Nose to the wall.


















First time out in the snow this year. She LOVES snow, and was pretty mad when it was time to come in and eat dinner.























This may be the reason it took so long for me to update this blog. On most nights, if it's after 9pm, this is where you will find me and probably in the the state of unconsciousness.


















Well, that's it from me. We hope you all have a fantastic and blessed Christmas season. If we don't get back here 'til then, Merry Christmas and we'll see you in the New Year!
Brooke for the Miller's

Big news, Big news

hey all, and welcome to the latest edition of the life and times of the Millers. I can't believe it's November already. Mabri is starting to really emulate us more and more, which is somewhat scary. She's amazingly smart. She is really developing her own personality, to the good and the bad. She's learning new words every day, some that we teach her, and some she just picks up from somewhere, and all of sudden she says it, and we're like, where the heck did that come from????? Makes for some great entertainment. As for Mommy and Daddy, we're doing well, gearing up for winter, UGH. Not my favorite season of the year, to be perfectly honest. I'm a summer dude. And speaking of next summer, late June to be exact, we will be welcoming Miller Munchkin #2!!!! No, your eyes are not deceiving you. We are pregnant!!! We're trying to explain it to Mabri, and she'll point to Brooke's tummy when we ask where Mommy's baby is. She loves playing with her baby dolls, pushing them around in a little stroller and putting them to bed. So we're positive she'll be a great big sister. So that's about it, thanks for checking out our part of the world wide web, and until next time, enjoy some pics.

Brian

This is the aftermath of trying to drink a bowl of yogurt with cherrios in it. Try it you might like it!


















This is Mabri with Aaliyah, the baby Brooke watches on Mondays and Tuesdays.


















Mabri likes to "help" daddy . . . lookin' a little scary here.











































































Mabri wiping her baby's bottom. She sees Brooke do this alot during the day. She makes you realize how much she is watching everything we do. She actually started emulating Brooke the other day by gagging (the first trimester gag reflex is out of this world).


















Have a fantastic Thursday. Blessings!

THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO HMMMMM . . .

Let me just start by saying I LOVE LOVE LOVE toddlerhood. So far, it has been nothing short of FUN. Yes, there are those days when I am so sick of giving my precious disobedient child time-outs and saying no-no, but as anyone knows kids just have a way of frustrating you and melting your heart simultaneously (so much power!) if they so choose. I wanted to share of few of those melty moments that no matter how much I just want Mabri to stop emptying the kleenex box and shredding it all over the living room while I am in the shower(that really happened this morning), I just want to kiss her sweet little face.

This little girl absolutely loves playing in water.


















We went to the zoo last Saturday, and let's just say Mabri was not impressed with the goats and sheep. She cried when we put her down to pet them.


















She had an opportunity to touch a snake, and she reached out and really tried to squeeze it. That snake may have digestive problems now. Poor snake.


















Look at that face. That's actually the "mom, I'm watching cartoons" face.


















I got Mabri a recorder today because I guess I am voluntarily giving up my sanity. She hasn't totally figured it out yet, as you can see her using the wrong end in her mouth, and rather than blowing to make noise, she just uses her voice. The fact that this is a wind instrument is lost on her for the time being.



Big belly laughs. Really not sure what was so funny about me that day, but we were on our way home from the zoo, and she may have been delirious from exhaustion.



Well, my bed is calling. Hope you all have a lovely Friday tomorrow!
Over and out . . .
Brooke for the Miller's

A few new things to share . . .

Ok. Not alot of exciting things to share, but a few. We have finally started to decorate our house. There are actually things on the walls! It's amazing how much that changes the appearance of the place.
Next, I (Brooke) have started babysitting a little boy named Junah, who is two years old. He is here 5 days a week, about 10 hours a day, while his parents teach. He is a sweet kid and it's really good for Mabri to learn to share her toys and me. She is often not impressed with that and she is in a stage where there are ALOT of fits thrown (yes, she has an angry dance) and many time outs on the couch. We are full on into toddlerhood. Can the terrible two's start at 18 months old? One day a a time. Mabri is picking up on things here and there, learning new words all the time, and still is afraid of dogs, for some reason, but loves to say "woof woof woof". She is really getting into reading books with us, and making animal sounds. She is beginning to put some short sentences together, but you would probably need an interpreter to understand! For example she says "I want that please" it sounds like "iwundabeeet!" and she says it with great desperation. This is probably the most fun but frustrating stage yet. She begs to be "oudide" (outside) constantly. She is also learning to have manners. She says "beeeet" (please) and "dit do"(thank you) and "naa beeeet" (snack please) and "biiidep" (big step).
Last Saturday we added and new a very furry member to our family. Yes, we got a kitty. Her name is Beasley. If anyone can guess where that name came from, I will send you a pack of skittles. She is between 6-8 months old and very shy yet. We got her at an animal shelter. She is not too sure about the kids and mostly will not come out during the day because they are so loud. When Mabri sees her, she just screeches "ditty!" and runs full steam at her. As soon as the kids go down for a nap or Mabri goes to bed for the night, Beasley will come and hang out with us. She's probably the most laid back kitten I have ever seen.
Enough about the kitty. On to pictures!

This is the aftermath of pigtails!


















A shiny new hat!


















I like me some ribs!


















Beasley!


















As you can see, Mabri doesn't always go with the flow of things. Apparently, I am a glutton for punishment. And I don't know if you noticed the mess that is our house in the background, yes it's like that everyday until naptime!


One of my favorite things about this age is that they want to dance and move their bodies, so they just move what they feel. It's as if they can't control themselves. It's so flippin' cute!



Ok. I think that's all for now. Hope you all are well.
Much love,
Brooke for the Millers'

The tour you've been waiting for

Hey everyone.... well, let me start by saying the obligatory apology for how long it's been since our last post. I can justifiably say that we've been busy, but there really are no excuses for our complete and total abandonment of our precious blog. So here we are, 2 months later, and so much has changed and happened. First things first, we are in our house, it's wonderful, we're so happy with how it turned out. We worked on it for about 5 weeks straight, and I must say a huge thanks to all of our ridiculously cool friends who helped us so much. This is your house as much as ours. We moved in the weekend of June 28 and 29. Mabri didnt have any trouble making the transition, she did great. Wow, that kid..... She is growing up right before our very eyes. She's learning words all the time, but we're realizing that she learns so much quicker by watching Brooke and I, rather than us telling her something. She has learned to man a fork and spoon on her own, and her hair, as you will see, just continues to afro itself in to the stratosphere, and we love it. She loves playing with her best friend Addi. We took the kids to the zoo yesterday, and had a great time. So I'll start w/ a few "before" pictures of the house, and then the video tour, Cribs style. well....not quite. I dont say anything about magic happening in the bedroom, but you'll get the idea. Also, we're still working on the outside of the house, getting our flower beds and things in order, and we still need to do some mulching, so we'll get picures of that up on our next post.

ENJOY!!


























and some pictures and video of the kiddo






































man, we love popcorn

So much to report!

First of all the news that everyone has been waiting for . . . WE ARE HOMEOWNERS! We FINALLY closed on our house on Thursday the 15th of May. Just a short 104 days since our initial offer. Whew. It feels good. We made it thru and now to the fixing of the house. The day after we closed (Friday), Brian and I went over and tore out all the nasty carpet and linoleum, and trim. Let me just say that it seems Bigfoot may have lived in this house before us. It was stinky, stained and just in need of some serious TLC. But it's all ours! Then at 2am Saturday we left for a week of vacation at lovely Myrtle Beach! We had hoped to get the house worked on and moved in by the time our vacation rolled around, but it didn't work out that way. Myrtle was wonderful. We are starting a tradition with Brian's family , every other year we are gonna rent a condo and go away for a week together. It was so nice to spend time all of us and swim until we were pruney. We had a condo right on the beach and a pool and hot tub in the back. We spent a lot of time in the pool! The ocean was still a little chilly. Our weather was fantastic and we had a great time.
We got home and the marathon begins. Brian has been over at the house everyday in the evenings after work doing stuff, and we had a work day on Thursday with our small group and got a ton done to the place. Oh, I forgot to mention, while we were in Myrtle, we had some wonderful friends doing some work to our little house to surprise us! You guys are such a blessing! Thank you and we love you! Anyway, we have a good bit of work to go, and we are living in a continual state of exhaustion, but it will all be worth it when we can move in this month. Hopefully, 2 1/2 weeks from now, we will be loading the trucks! We'll see.
Renee Byler and I had a garage sale this past weekend and try and unload a few things we didn't want to pack, and the rest is going to be a process to pack. I have started, and I feel like I am living in a blast zone. Ugh.
Now to the little girl . . . she is sooooo much fun! She is really trying to talk, and singing, and laughing and just being silly. She still has to learn more about sharing, but we'll see. Everyday you can see her learning something new. She is learning to clean up her tray on her high chair, and wiping her mouth and hands after meals, throwing things in the trash, ( and then of course getting them back out) she tries to feed herself with a spoon, but likes to dump it on her tray or fling it thru the air. That's fun. We are just really enjoying this stage. When Brian comes thru the door at night, she just lights and and says: "Daddy!" I think I love Brian's reaction to that as much as I love the fact that she is doing that now. She's just getting too big too fast. I better wrap this up before I get too weepy. Here are a ton of pictures and a couple of videos for you to enjoy!






























As you can see, she just didn't know what to do, so running in circles was the best option!


My very own doughnut!














Passing time at the garage sale . . .































This video was done just this morning. As you can see she is becoming quite a talker!

I think that's all for us for now. God Bless you all.
Much Love,
The Millers

Don't ask . . .

Before I launch into this update, I want to say Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband, Brian, who is 29 today (I'm sure i'll pay for that come September). I am so thankful to God for blessing me with such an amazing soul mate and daddy for Mabri. Happy birthday, babe! We love you!

So, we are gonna update this depite the fact that I still can't tell you that we have closed, because we haven't. More stupid hold-ups, and to be honest I don't want to talk about it. Believe me, when we close on this house, you will know! We are hoping for next week . . . don't hold your breath.
Basically, we wanted to share the photos and what not that we have for the kid. She is learning new things everyday. She does pat-a-cake, she plays peek-a-boo (basically this means she's hiding her eyes and waiting for you to ask "where's Mabri?") she is dancing more and more, as you will see in the video, and she likes to spin in circles. She has a little toy vacuum that she likes to use and I am looking forward to the day she graduates from the toy one to the real thing. She is trying to talk all the time, most of it just sounds very intense, but sadly there have been no real words involved most of the time. There is, however one word she has learned beyond a shadow of a doubt: CRACKER. Day or night, she talks about crackers. Try and get her to say mommy or daddy, and she says "cracker" though she totally applies the word to the object, she just likes to say it randomly. She now has 14, yes 14 teeth. Her top eye teeth have come in and she is now working on the bottom ones. I, for one, am SICK OF TEETHING! Poor little girl has been poppin' em thru and I think we are ready for a break from it. She is just the smallest bit obsessed with cell phones. If you leave it within reach, watch out. She has her own, but would rather have ours. She tries to hold it up to her ear to "talk" but it sort of ends up on the back of her neck, and she just pushes all the buttons like mad, so if you have had a random call from one of us lately, it may have been her. All in all, we are really enjoying this stage of life. Mabri is so much fun, so full of energy, sass, emotions, and sometimes poo. Enjoy the pictures!











































Well, I think that may be all for now. God bless. See ya later.
Brooke for the Miller's

Sunny and 75 anyone?

hello everyone, man, this weather is just freakin amazing! We've been playing outside, and we had our first skinned knees of the year today. Mabri loves playing outside, and usually throws a fit whenever we come inside. She is learning lots of new words, like "nana" for banana, night night, uh oh, and love you. She is comprehending more of what we say to her, like "go get your cup" or "where is your blankie?" and she launches an all out search for them. She's getting more and more feisty, and sometimes throws a fit when something that she shouldn't have is taken from her. Yes, I know, it's hard to imagine, our perfect child, throwing a fit about anything, but it's true.
Ok, now Brooke here. Brian got it started for me. Well, update on the house. We are in contract, but are still waiting to have several documents signed by the same bank dude so that we can get on with it and set a closing date. We have extended our closing date to no later than May 6th, Lord willing, but that is not set, that is a hope. Let me just say that no matter who you buy a house from, it is not simple, but we certainly were not expecting to have to jump thru as many hoops as we have, but knowing it is worth it, we continue to act like the trained monkeys we are and jump. It's so long and complicated, there is no way we will ever publish the saga here, but if you really want to hear all about it, give one of us a call. Sorry for the news. We had really hoped to be able to tell you all that we have the keys, etc. on this update, but maybe on the next one.
Alright, time for pictures.































Reading a book to herself . . .













Learning to eat a "nana" like a big girl . . . and taking HUGE bites!













Hollywood!













This is Brooke for the miller's signing off. God bless and good night.

holy cow, we have a house.......

Yes, ladies and gents, it's true, 6 and a half weeks after sending our initial offer in, we are in contract to purchase 201 Prospect Ave. Mechanicsburg, Ohio, 43044. We don't have a closing date yet, but we're really hoping to close by the end of the month. It's a foreclosure, it was built in 1995, about 1100 sqare feet, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. It also has a full unfinished basement (man-cave, anyone?) The house is built on a hill, so the basement has a walkout in the back, which we love. We have a ton of work to do, but we are blessed with many wonderful skilled friends who are more than willing to help us. Basically, we'll need to tear out all the carpet and all the vinyl in the kitchen and bathrooms. So new flooring through-out, tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. Also, we're going to paint the whole inside, after we get the walls patched up. We have tons of things we'd like to do to the place eventually, but the flooring and paint is priority before we move. Also getting the roof patched up. We are really excited to be home-owners, and we feel very blessed to find this new of a house for a very reasonable price, and also we were able to get a really good interest rate. So here's a few pics of the place. We have some cleaning up to do on the outside too, but just think "potential" So if anyone is interested in getting your hands dirty that I havn't talked to yet, just let me know, and I'm sure we can put you to work.












































Mabri is doing great, walking and climbing over everything, and jabbering like crazy. She loves playing with her friend Addy, they don't always share the best, but we'll work on that. She's excited about the new house, might not know it yet, but she is. So that's what's happening in the Miller family, more pics will appear of the house as it's worked on. Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.






The Millers

It's been a long winter so far . . .

Well, here we are on March 8th, we are stuck inside due to a level 3 snow emergency rating, and b/c we don't want to be arrested, we will stay inside. Thankfully, we are all well, which has not been the case since before Christmas. Mabri is over all her snottiness, and Brian and I are not sick either. A miracle has occurred.
We are still waiting ever so paitiently on word about a house we have put an offer on, and as of yesterday is was FIVE weeks ago we faxed in the first offer. It's a long ridiculous story, but we are gonna make it. We will let you all know when we know something.
Mabri is talking like crazy, trying so hard to communicate her thoughts with us, sadly we don't speak the same language yet. She is growing so fast, and walks really well now (yes, her arms have lowered considerably). She also has come to that lovely place where she can now choose to be naughty. We can tell her NO NO and she will stop to think about it, maybe try to touch the forbidden object really fast, and look back at us to see if we mean it. It's hard not to laugh at times.
Here are some pictures of the last few weeks:

First pigtails, or as close as I can get right now. This is the face we make when Mommy is pulling on my hair.














First time out in the snow. Let's just say she wasn't all that impressed. This was the best picture. The rest of them she looks really annoyed or about to cry.














This was hilarious. She had a very runny nose, and was eating cherrios, and for some odd reason decided to pick one up with her mouth, rather than her fingers. The rest is history. We had a good laugh about that one.














It's amazing how long her hair is when it's wet frim her bath. She looks so different.














This one is just my favorite one from the other day when she was looking out the window.













Ok. That's enough from me. I have sooo much vegging out to do during this lovely snow emergency. Hope you have less snow than we do!
Much Love,
Brooke for the Millers