Wednesday, April 29, 2009

fun videos

Thought these were really fun videos I wanted to share with everyone! enjoy!






Sunday, April 12, 2009

My baby is moving out!

Spencer , Isabell and the famous cardboard couch!!

With each child there has to come a time to cut the apron string so to speak. This tends to be a freeing, liberating experience for your child and as a mom anyway, a heart wrenching experience. Dads tend to be in the middle somewhere. At least Doug is. You know it's good and right. But some how that doesn't always make you feel better. And my baby is taking her baby..who we've become a little attached to! The first night they were gone, every little noise I heard, I kept thinking that must be Isabell.
This is Melia and Spencer's new apt.

The kitchen
Isabell checking out the cupboards Isabell seems to be happy about new apt.
The good news is, well for me at least, Melia and Isabell will be living here till the middle of May. That is when Spencer is done with school. Melia needs a sitter for Isabell. So me and Spencer dad will keep up our weekly routine of watching her till Melia is out of school. On Friday's Melia will go up to Lacey to spend the weekend with Spencer, then come back on Mondays and start all over again. I'm sure this will be very hard on the two of them. But, having their own space will make up for part of it.

Nice TV stand!!!! Aahh ..first apts!
Spencer and the cardboard couch. Even has places to sit his food!

For me and Doug it gives us alittle bit more precious time with our granddaughter and with Melia. I will really miss her when she makes the final move. Being the baby and a little bit of age between her and the twins and Tressa, gave her a different perspective on things and gave me and her a different kind of relationship then I had with the other girls( at least before they left home)( Jolene is you read this you may know what I mean). Of them all she is a spiritual rock and got me more than the other girls at times. I will miss all the talks that we have. Guess there still is the phone. And I do work up north alot. My trips home from work my take longer than they use too!

Tressa is 24





















Tressa- 7 months old and ............. 5 yrs old


Tressa my oldest turned 24 last month! It is so hard to believe I have a child that old. She's wonderful and we love her. We ( her dad and I ) are very proud of her and the life she leads, the wife and mother that she is. We had a modest party for her a couple days late because of my work schedule. But, there was MUD PIE, so nothing else really matters.




The MUD PIE. Not sure what the two candles is about.

"24"

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Spring Break Part 2

Spring break meant spending lots of time with Alesha!! She was home for 5 days. We aren't sure when we will see her again so everyone wanted some Alesha time. She loved spending time with the babies and Peyton. They had all changed alot since she had last seen them.
Alesha couldn't wait to play a little Rock Band with Tressa and Jesse.



We had a Madison birthday party, all the girls got pedicures, her and Erica spent some quality twin time. The sisters went to dinner and movie Friday night. Doug and I went to Costco. Then on Sat. we head back to Cannon Beach/seaside for the 3rd time in two months. This was the one thing Alesha really wanted to do when she came one. Guess all that desert had her missing water and waves! Erica and Madison came also. We shopped, then hit the shops and carousel at Seaside. Madison didn't seem to have a real opinion about going up and down and around on a horse.

Alesha and Erica having fun at a candy store in Seaside. They are in front of the chocolate etc, dipped Twinkies. Doug and I tried one they were actually really good. The Chocolate bacon was going just a bit to far for us.
We then headed to Cannon Beach. Alesha just had to get in the water. Doug decided to get alittle wet too.It was low tide..though not as low as when Doug and I were there earlier in the week.








Doug and Alesha playing in the waves
It was sunny day, with some cool wind. Madison didn't handle that to well. She got pretty cold.

Madison all bundled up trying to stay warm.
She did play in the sand a bit and seemed to like it.

It was another nice day at the beach. And Alesha seemed pretty happy. Sunday we watched General conference then had a huge brunch and an Easter egg hunt (see Tressa's blog).
Had a nice afternoon just enjoying each other til it was time for Alesha to fly back to Provo.

Friday, April 10, 2009

spring break part 1

Doug and I started off spring break by working Friday and Sat. at the WIAA state dance & drill. This one of my favorite WIAA events. Though I don't think this years crop of talent was as good as last year it was still fun. Melia joined Doug and I over in Yakima. She worked as a "chip runner". At Dance and drill they have very little time from the end of one performace to the start of the next. So she grabs the photogs chips ( from camera's) and runs them to the computer guys for uploading to onsite computers. Then she blots back to her seat on the floor before the next dance. She confessed this was easier a couple years ago than it is now for her.
We all left Yakima around 11pm Sat night and headed home .We had to go Snoqualime because of snow on White. Got home around 2am. Then Doug and I got up and left for a couple relaxing days at the beach.

We were on the road by 1pm . Headed to our favorite beach spot...Cannon beach. We had an Ocean front view room. I was looking forward to putting my feet up, reading , and listening to the ocean's soothing sounds relax me. ( side note Yearbook had been in final deadline..so I was due for a little relaxation)
The beach did not disappoint. Doug and I had a great time!!! The weather was clouds and even some sun till tues when we left.
There was even a pretty low tide on Monday which gave us a chance to explore the rocks around Haystack rock. We saw alot of star fish. they were pretty cool. There are some new rules which limited some of the rock climbing right by Haystack.



I still had a little work to do on the yearbook...but doing it with the sight and sound of the ocean is definitely the best
Doug watched some movies while I worked. We did the usual Seaside shopping and ate at "Pig N Pancake". It was so nice, I really didn't want it to end.
We got up Tues morning and headed east towards Portland. Weather was very overcast not any real rain in Portland. We had decided to try the scenic HWY that led to about 6 waterfalls.
We started up at a very unique building sat up on a hill over looking the Columbia river. I always wondered what it was. Turns out it's a view point and rest over place. Built, so that back at the turn of the century, they would have a rest stop for the women going down the river , looking at falls etc. The view is really something.

We then headed to the first waterfall on the road. It was really powerful. We both got pretty soak.

We followed the road to 4 or 5 more really big waterfalls. They all had a lot of volume. It was just really cool. Doug had fun climbing as close and he could. I was not quite so adventurous.

Our last stop before heading to the airport to pick up Alesha was Multnomah Falls. Kind of the granddaddy of them all.
































Thursday, April 9, 2009

little cowboys


Most evening Jesse gets Peyton ready for bed. He get to pick out his jammies and then his dad sings to him. Some times his mom joins in. It's one of my favorite times of the evening and I love nothing more than hearing Jesse singing "little cowboys" to his son. It is my favorite! When they move out some day it will be one of the things I will really miss. It's such a sweet tender moment between father and son. Guess I'll have to have Jesse record it and I'll play it each night!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Madison is ONE


Madison 1 day old. She really was this yellow/orange. she had Jaundice really bad. March 29, 2008... the day Madison Lee Miller enter our lives. She came a few weeks early and her mom(Erica) had to push for two long hrs to bring her into this world.
Madison 3 weeks old

Madison 3.5 months old She is a blonde hair, blue eyed cutie!!! She has had a bit of a roller coast 1st year with some minor health problems.
Madsion 8 months old
She turned One yrs old on March 29, 2009. Due to her grandparents taking a little vacation and her aunt not arriving till Tues March 31st, we celebrated her big day on Wed. April 1st.

Tressa made an Elmo cake for her. She loves Elmo!


She's not quite sure about everything

Looking at her mom ..kind of what am I suppose to do?
She loved playing with her cake never really got the concept of eating it!
She started squishing it and had fun with that. We even got alittle bit of a smile. and with Madison that can be hard to do.
Much to every ones delight Madison did start crawling on Friday March 27th. Just in time to really be moving around by her birthday party. She has 4 teeth and a very healthy appetite.
She is a joy to our family. We Love you Madison!!!