Finally some smiles!!!

My brother bought me a new camera with his rewards points from his job, downside was that it could take 4-6 weeks to get to me, SAD FACE! So imagine my surprise when 2 days after he orders it, it arrives!!! YEAH!!!! I was so excited! I bought Gage a bumbo chair a and a new floor time play mat and he's been smilling so much all the time that it was so frusterating to miss out on these moments because I didn't have a camera. I guess I wasn't the one missing out so much, but Eric is so that's why I try to take all the pictures I can. How can you not love that face! I finally understand why women choose to be stay at home mom's! The suggestion was almost horrifying to me when I had Jeremiah and Cody. I was so young and stupid then, I did a lot of things I'm not very proud of, but I think that's one of the reasons I had Gage was to try and do the baby thing RIGHT this time and I couldn't be more happy staying home with him if I tried! I raced back to work after just 2 weeks home after I had each of them and this time around I just don't want it to end! Lucky for us, my job went out of business while I was on maternity leave so I'm eligible for unemployment until January so, although I am searching for a job, it's nothing that is an emergency and I have to find something right away.
This is his new little toy, it has a mirror on it and whenever I lay him down on it I move the mirror to where he's looking and he just stares at the baby in the mirror it's too cute!!
Jeremiah was very excited to see that mommy had a new camera so he had to "bust a move" right away and chant, "take my picture, take my picture" HE LOVES it~~~it cracks me up man!
Oh yea, there's the money shot! Gangsta Gage Grins caught on tape!! FINALLY!!!!

Other good news in my world, I took my Cost Accounting final last night and I think it went pretty well!! I won't get my grade back for up to a week, but by then I'll have already started my Advanced Project management and Operations strategy classes. I'm still planning on jumping straight into my master's degree but I'm really thinking I'm going to have to change schools which I didn't want to do, but I'm really screwing my own GPA if I stay because they have too many classes that I can ONLY take online because there aren't enough students onsite to take the class, and I just don't do well in online classes...I'm too much of a procrastinator!

My brothers are both in new relationships and so far, they're going well...I'm so happy for them. I think it's always nice to see someone you care about happy about love! Well, Walmart is calling, groceries unfortunately don't buy themselves around here, so I guess more for another day....

WE WON THE GOLD!!! GO USA!! WE ROCK!!!

Ok, so you probably know how much I've been looking forward to watching the Gold medal game usa vs brazil. Here's what happened. First off, I thought the game was on fri (nope that's the mens final!) so I got on the computer thursday morning, then I was on facebook and realized that I wrote "can't wait to see the final on thursday" so of course I look on the DVR and yeah, it's being recorded, ok. So I had invited Carrie and her mom over to watch the game, and I invited our friend Rudy. Then I invited my brother and Corrie. Well, I get home with the kids from school to find out Eric is coming home from work early and that Carrie and Rudy aren't coming, Guido may come back later and Corrie hadn't responded. SO this means we can watch the game right away when we get home, YES!!! So, I get home and turn on the block of recording time where the game is supposed to be (on the DVR the olympics record in 12 hour blocks with several differnet sports all there and then you have to fast forward to what you want to watch.) So I'm fast forwarding and fast forwarding and then there's only 15 minutes left in the time block and the came starts....i only recorded 15 minutes of the game OMIGAUD!!! what am I going to do?!?!?!

Keep in mind that I was so excited to see this game that when I was on the phone with anyone that day and they said, "guess what?" I would rip the phone away from my ear and yell if it has anything to do with the game, don't tell me, I don't want to know!! Which was pretty extreme considering that most of the people that I know don't give a crap about soccer, but I didn't want to know who won, I wanted to watch the game and find out. Well, my consolation was that I knew for SURE they would have the game available to watch on NBColympics.com. Only problem....I knew that if we got on the website to find the game that we would undoubtedly come accross the results of the game and that would spoil everything!! So we called my brother chris who lives accross the street and asked him to come over, log into my laptop and find the game and get it started so we could watch it without seeing the score on accident. Well he was down town so he said he'd come by soon and help us out.

Right then, my aunt peany calls and is in town and wants to hang out, well, we're gonna watch soccer but that's fine! Eric and I speed clean the house then watch the beginng of the game which we recorded. okay first 15 minutes, we're looking pretty good, no goals scored...SO EXCITING!! Now Chris gets here and starts looking for it, not finding it. He can't find the game on the website....keep looking, you can do it! I think I even told Eric I'd make him do it if Chris couldn't find it because I had to watch the game and see! So while he's looking Aunt Peany shows up. Well, it was nice to have that distraction because that gave Chris some time to work. Well he found the game and I had him get it all ready. Then because I haven't seen Aunt Peany since last October we hung out and talked. Well Corrie called back because she couldn't understand my message, I told her we planned a party then everyone cancelled then we didn't even have the game to watch so now it was pretty much going to be Eric and I huddled together on the couch watching the game on the laptop, but she could join us! She said no thanks and that was cool. So Aunt Peany and I were hangin out and Eric went to get Pizza and booze to have during the game.

When he got back I had decided to start the game then....Eric's parents showed up because they wanted to know if I could look up something online, I was like, um, sorry but NO WAY!! I'm finally watching THE game!! Well they hung out for a bit and were laughing at me intently watchign the game on the computer and they left after a while. Well Corrie changed her mind and ended up coming over so she sits down next to me and starts laughing at my intensity while watching the game, oh and the computer speaker only worked when she held it a certain way so that gave her something else to deal with! Well, Guido calls and said that he's watching the 49ers game so he can't come over until it's done. Then he calls back adn says wait, you're watching soccer on the laptop so can I turn on the football game on the TV? SURE! So I'm screaming and yelling at the computer screen yelling GO GO GO!!! SHOOT!! GET IT OUTTA THERE!!!! stuff like that and Guido shows up and turns on football on the TV and half the people in the room are screaming for the 49ers yelling TOUCHDOWN!! INTERCEPTION!!! It was two intense games going on at the same time and two very loud audiences, it was a blast! And fairly confusing for anyone who happened to walk by at the time I'm sure!!

Well, USA won 1-0 against for brazil in the 96th minute (that's right in OVERTIME!!) it was such a great game and I loved how we were able to watch it with friends and family, it was great!

We all ended up going up in my bedroom and watching big brother that I had recorded and the comedy central roast of bob saget! Guido and COrrie took off, and Aunt Peany spent the night on the couch. It was a great night and a ton of fun!!!

Thanks guys!

my cat has a bathroom fetish!!

So I have cats. 3 cats. Well 2 1/2 cats because I'm only supposed to have one of them half the time, like kitty daycare or something, but that's another story for another day. My oldest kitty is a heifer that goes by the name of Satan. She was given to us as a kitten and she turned into evil kitty demon spawn....hence the name. Since then we've gotten her fixed, she's gotten older, gotten fatter, and gotten nicer....however she has the weird obsession with eating while you're going to the bathroom, like she get's excited when she sees you stand up because maybe, just maybe you're going to be running to the bathroom to pee and she can get the priviledge of eating while you're sitting there doing your business. She likes to wait at the top of the stairs every morning as soon as the alarm goes off, I think she waits there to see which bathroom my husband is going to use when he gets out of bed first....upstairs or down. If he uses the upstairs one, she'll resume her post at the top of the stairs, but if he makes the turn to go downstairs, she RUNS under his feet (I swear she gets stepped on 10 times a day!) and then races to the bathroom.

Needless to say, she's rather stupid, and it drives Eric crazy!! She does it to me all day and all night. If I'm watching TV in the living room adn I get up to go to the bathroom she's up, even if she was sleeping dead to the world! She's up as fast as she can and racing to the bathroom. She looks dissapointed when you turn into the kitchen instead. And if by some miracle you make it into the bathroom without her noticing she'll sit in front of the door scratching at it and meowing or even pushing it open and coming in if you don't shut it completely.....UGH!!!

lifetime achievement

I forgot to mention that I achieved something last night that I never thought I would. I successfully made RICE!!! Okay, sounds stupid, I know, but whenever I make rice on the stove it always comes out still wet or not cooked all the way through or something....it's just never good! So, I was super excited a year or so ago when I got a rice cooker/vegetable steamer thingy. I thought, finally, I can make good rice!! ALAS, it was not to be :-( I made rice with it a couple of weeks ago and it was GROSS!! So, I made stir fry for dinner last night, chicken w/snow peas and onions, super good and I was like I'm going to try to make rice again. So I got out the manual for the steamer and read through the whole thing and realized that I left a part of the cooker still in there that you only use when steaming veggies, not cooking rice. So, Ifigured it out and when the timer beeped I was so worried that it wasn't going to be good AGAIN, but it was AWESOME!!! I was so excited and proud that I had finally been able to do this!!

ahhhh, Sunday....

Well, first let me start off by saying my Camera is officially dead :( what a horrible time for this to happen!! Gage is smiling a lot now and he's absolutely adorable and I'm missing all these cute moment's I should be catching on film (or digital file I guess!) I'm working on getting a new one, someone was selling a used one on craigslist for like $25 so I'm probably going to check that out because a new one is just not in the cards right now.



To follow that with good news though...the paper that I rushed to write last week after the concert...I got a 105 out of a possible 110 points, Oh yeah!! His only comment was that sub-headings would have added to the impact of my paper......um, right...okay..WHATEVER!!



Well, this was a good weekend starting off with that nice friday home w/my hubby, gotta love that! That night was Duffy's birthday party at Joe's Bar...good times man! Except for me having to sing Karaoke (no idea how to actually spell that) ABBA's Dancing Queen...UGH! We had to do it, Carrie and Corrie did too! Because we had all gone to see Mama Mia a couple of weeks ago and Corrie had wanted to sing at her b-day but we didn't get to it that night, so I owed her one for sure! There was a bunch of old guys there recovering from a golf tournament that morning and they bought our whole party a drink, COOL!! Thanks old guy!! Eric of course sang Vanilla Ice for everyone and both my brothers made it out, I was stoked! I love getting the chance to hang with them. Chris sang walking in memphis, he's so good at singing, I love it!

Saturday we kind of hung out....we cleaned a bit in the evening because well, it needed it..(it always freakin needs it!) and my Dad and step mom stopped by with some school uniform shirts they got for the kids, they're awesome! Then Shannon called and asked if Nicholas could come over and play with the boys so they could go to a party for one of James' friends from work. He was a pleasure but wasn't too sure about sleeping over so mom and dad dragged themselves from the party and came over and hung out for a bit then took their little guy home. Miah and Cody were dissapointed their friend wasn't sleeping over, but I think they got over it....hopefully next time they can have a friend spend the night. Oh yeah, and while the boys played Eric and I screamed watching our Colorado Rapids beat the wizard's 2-1, Thank goodness, we need all the points we can get right now if we want to make the playoffs!!

Today we went shopping I LOVE COSTCO!! and did LAUNDRY. We just have too many clothes! The boys had like 30 non-school T-shirts.....way too many! So we went through everything and they each picked like 5 to keep just to get the amount of clothes down. My mom is planning on making a quilt for them out of their favorite t-shirts between now and when they graduate highschool, i think it should be neat. They already have some that are special, like their miller family reunion t-shirt, their I'm the big brother t-shirt and their t-shirt they got when they went to "mountain rushmore" as Cody calls it, with their grammy.

Oh well, gotta go, baby calling!!

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

Things are going well right now. I've loved having the opportunity to watch almost all the the summer olympics (at least what is available to watch). There are so many moments that bring a tear to the eyes from amazing defeat or horrifying problems. Like the weight lifter whose elbow dislocated or that Japanese male gymnast who fell while doing a flip on the rings...he flipped all the way down and when he hit, he looked like a rag doll, it was awful. Then there were the amazing moments, when the guy from tonga (sp?) won the first olympic medal for his country in any olympics, in any event, ever! How cool! SO far our US Women's soccer team **MY FAVORITE TEAM OF COURSE!! are doing well, after that last game agains New Zealand that put us to play Canada in the quarterfinals. We beat Canada 2-1 in the final seconds of the game....I was very dissapointed that this game didn't air here :( I always love to watch those girls play! Okay, enough about sports!

Today started off so nicely, Eric didn't have to work today so he got up with the kids and took them to school (I made sure to pack lunches, snacks and backpacks last night to make it easier for daddy this morning!) then I held Gage while he got the boys dressed and helped them make their beds and then he took Gage with him to drive the boys to school and I got to go back to sleep. I expected to see them shortly so I was surprised when I woke up and it was almost 10! Eric let me sleep in, he's awesome man! I came downstairs and we ate and talked for a little bit and then we decided because it's kinda rainy and cloudy to all three of us go climb back in bed and snuggle under the covers. Gage was making the cutest faces and Eric and I were joking around and laughing so much I actually cried a little bit and he said his face hurt from smiling so much! Those are the moments that I just cherish, that complete joy in the moment!

Yesterday, was such a hard day I think that's part of the reason that just hanging out this morning was so nice. The day started out pretty good. I took the boys to school, then Gage and I had a bacon and leek omlet at la baguette (my absolute favorite!!) and then we went to walmart to check out their home furnishings because Pat told me they were having a lot of mark downs on those things. I got some picture frames to finally frame my wedding pictures and then I started looking at bedding and after much debate, I decided to re-do the kids bedroom with speed racer stuff. They've been so good with their little brother and helping with the baby and then they've never really had nice comforter sets before so I was excited. I also got eric and I some new sheets and a new comfortor (and like 6 pillow cases for all our pillows...I didn't get enough cases though!). Oh yeah and I got Pat Benetars greatest hits album.....I couldn't resist!!

So I get home and I start cleaning and cleaning and cleaning I get the kids room spotless and their beds re-done and made up with the new bedding, then I get the upstairs bathroom super clean! These are the things that have been neglegted with baby Gage being so demanding of attention! So I'm all excited to be getting a huge amount of deep cleaning done. So I start cleaning my bedroom which is where the TV is upstairs and is where the kids play their PS2. so I start cleaning and I'm finding game after game after game all over the floor out of the cases, some brand new, some borrowed from a friend and then I find wrappers from granola bars and half eaten granola bars and OMG bugs!!! I haven't been able to see the floor in my room for a little while now (SCARY I know) but I spend all day and most of the night downstairs with the baby so when I'm in my room sleeping that's all I'm doing and so I was shocked and so freakin' pissed to find all that stuff on the floor. I came up with about 15 differnt punishments for them all getting progressively worse and harsher. Finally I called Eric for his opinion and we decided that they would loose their playstation 1 day per game that was on the floor, same with all their movies, 1 day per movie that was out....it ended up being 18 days of no video games and 2 of no movies. I just hope that this gets the point accross to them!! I have more to say but Eric is going to go get cheesey bread for lunch, yeah louies!! And so I have to get the baby! TTFN!

Olympic Soccer

OMG!!! We kicked New Zeland's BUTT 4-0! The game aired around 5 am on tues morning and we recorded it, then I waited....very patiently I might add, to watch the game, I'm so glad that I waited to watch it with Eric because it was SO FREAKIN AWESOME!!!! We scored their first goal at 43 seconds in...an olympic record for women's soccer for the fastest goal ever scored! Then in the 43rd minute we did it again!!! And all this without Abby Wombach who broke her leg in an exhibition match against brazil back in July..... To add to the intensity of the game, at the same time the US vs New Zeland game was going on, Japan was playing Norway. Because of points standings in group G (which is made up of the afformentioned 4 teams) we were hoping that the US was going to pull out somethign amazing and that Japan would beat Norway! Well because of the 4-0 score we ended up with and then Japan BEAT norway 5-1 putting US in first place for this bracket!! I would have loved to have been there and I really really am proud that our team came back after last years world cup loss and the loss of abby just a month before the olympics, I hope we can keep it up!! I would have loved to have been in on this huddle!!

Pictures!!

We got pictures taken at Sears on friday and here's some of the best ones!! I think this is Gage's thoughtful pose! I think he looks so handsome in this picture.
Look at these boys! And Daddy was able to sneak his fancy new shoes in the picture too!
I saw this little hat on his little head and I knew that we had to go get his picture taken right away, it's so freakin' CUTE!!
Look at my sons....they're so cute...I love Cody's face right here too!!

Okay, okay, I know I'm biased.....just a little bit!!! BUT aren't those some handsome men that I surround myself with?

Hello

Well, I'm sitting here and it's Jeremiah and Cody's first day of school, and my first day home alone with my new little Gage. So many things are going through my head right now, some Mommy-type feelings and some OMG that party on Saturday night was WICKED and I SAW PAT BENETAR last night feelings!!! SHE ROCKS!! And I'm watching the olympics which, have the power to make me cry...pathetic right?!? So if this blog is a little ADD you at least have a little bit of notice!!

First day of Kindergarten for Cody and 1st grade for Jeremiah. They looked so handsome in their new school clothes and it was so cute to see Cody finally joining his big brother.

The scary thing is when I look at Gage and I just know that before I have time to catch my breath it's going to be his first day of school. You always hear how the time flys by, but me, like many people before me still don't realize when it's happening until it's already done. I can remember trying comfort a newborn Cody while my scandalous Jeremiah was sneaking into the other room coloring on my senior pictures! I remember him saying HIIIIIIIII-IIIIIII so long and so loud to every single person at walmart and saying it over and over and over until they responded to him! My boys are all so precious and although I adore them and I definitely feel happy that I can't have any more kids....I'm a little sad that Gage is going to be the last little baby I'll hold for a long time.

I think that it's why people love being grandparents!! You get to see, hold and play with a new little baby but don't have to go through being pregnant! But I don't want to think about that, the thought of my little boys becoming parents is just way too much to comprehend for me at this point in time!!!

I got to go see Pat Benetar in concert with my Mom last night! We were both kind of nervous even though we were so excited because the thing that we both LOVE about Pat Benetar is the the amazing power in her voice. When she sings and you hear her music (heart breaker, shadows of the night, hell is for children) you just feel like you could take on the world! Mom and I were nervous that maybe her voice wasn't as good as it used to be or something. Well, we had NO REASON for concern, she absolutely brought it man, it was AWESOME!! At the end of Hell is for Children she just NAILED it.....so cool! I took a picture with my phone and it came out OK but I can't figure out how to get it off my phone (I'm technically challenged) so there it shall sit for now. I also got some video, but as it's on a cell phone the sound sucks! Oh well, I guess it's better than nothing, I didn't think to bring my camera with me :~( maybe I'll remember next time. Oh yeah, and mental note for next time, when going to a concert where I may end up standing for a few hours, avoid the 3 1/2 inch heels....I was hurting from that one for a while. Oh yeah, and do my homework BEFORE I go! I had to race home and write a 4 page paper for my cost accounting class because we got home at 10:30 and the paper was due by midnight...not that I'm a procrastinator or anything, but going from awesome concert to accounting paper is kind of crappy, so next time I think I'll do my homework first!

Now, the reason I didn't do my homework earlier that day was due to the fact that I was recovering from a wicked fun birthday party on saturday night! My girl corrie turned 29 and she looked beautiful in our "sisterhood of the traveling birthday girl bag" of stuff!! It has an awesome tiara that's silver and pink and purple and says b-day girl, a magic wand, a pink sash, and clip on earings....oh yeah, I think the intended user of the product is like a 3 year old girl, but hey, you're never to old to wear a pink tiara and wave a magic wand on your birthday right? I don't have any pictures to stick on here from that becauase they're all on Corries camera (if you're reading this, you need to email me them!! and figure out when we're gonna have a game night to try out your present). That was one hell of a party girl.....Jell-o shots fell from the sky and good times were had by all! Enjoy the last year of your twenties and I'm looking forward to the middle of september when it's Duffy's turn to be the birthday princess! Oh yeah!

I'm totally going backwords here, but it was a crazy busy weekend! Saturday started out with a mad dash through wal-mart to get the rest of the school supplies for the kids.....$30 worth of freakin paper, are you kidding me!?!? I hate that we have to get things like 5 reams of paper and 5 boxes of kleenex and wipe and hand sanitizer for EACH kid, but I guess I'd rather spend the money so the school can spend their money on more important things like books and such...hopefully that's the reason for it, that's what I tell myself anywyas. I'm so lucky to have grandparents in town that help out with that kind of thing because buying school supplies, and uniforms, and new shoes, and and and and.....it just get so expensive! They're worth it though, for sure!

After our mad dash through wal-mart we went to Jeremiah and Cody's school, STAR academy. They just opened their new building this year (they were in a double wide trailor last year) and we got to take a tour, meet the teacher, eat snow cones and drop off school supplies (like freakin 10 reams of paper!!) they even set up a bounce house for the kids. Then it was off to Arvada for the Miller Family reunion. This would be my husbands, grandfathers family. His siblings and their kids, grandkids and great-grandkids. It was a beautiful after noon, not too hot not too cold and they had a bounce house there too (I think miah and cody bounced for like 6 hours that day!). Once we left there we drove back to the springs leaving baby gage with his grandparents and great-grandparents so he could have a sleepover. Eric and I took the older boys with us to Sears to look at our pictures from the day before...supposedly you can look at them online but I can't get it to load the session, it says to wait at least 48 hours but we had pictures taken on friday, but I guess I'll just check again tomorrow and we'll see then. But we did get some ordered and they came out super cute, if nothing else I'll scan 'em in when we get them and then I can post them on here! Jeremiah and Cody then got dropped of at my Mom's so they could spend the night there so Eric and I could go to the aformentioned wicked awesome birthday party and SLEEP all night long, OH YEAH!!

I just saw the recording of the olympics yesterday where the US (with Michaelf Phelps) won the 4x100 meter freestyle relay, WE'RE SO AWESOME! The look in their faces when the realized they won was priceless...really!! Loved it!!

Oh well, time to clean my house...that's one thing that did not survive the weekend! And if I get it done now while Gage is sleeping it might not take as long. I guess I should figure out something for dinner too...apparently feeding my kids is a requirement, not an optional thing!