Christmas Eve...

I am still finding tiny stray pieces of wrapping paper around the house! It's a joyful reminder that we celebrated our first Christmas with our precious son! And, what an extra special Christmas we had!! For over ten years we prayed and dreamed of the day we would be celebrating Christmas with our child and this year all our prayers/dreams were realized. Praise The Lord!!

Our Christmas celebration starts on Christmas Eve. The day we celebrate with Matt's father, Poppi. Since we were all dressed up we took a few pictures in front of our Christmas tree. We took about 20 pictures of this and similar poses because Mommy has to look good (or the picture will never be printed) & Zachary moves around so much it can be hard to get a picture of him looking at the camara. Not to mention Matt tends to have a "not another *@#*$* photo" look on his face, LOL.
After our family picture we set Zachary in front of the tree for some portrait pictures. He was mesmerized by a few of the ornaments. And, we used them to our benfit of getting him to sit still for even more pictures (among his favorites: Mr. Potato head, Fire truck & his hand print ornament).
One too many pictures and Zachary let us know he was done & ready for opening a gift...which, was not his so we had to distract him fast before he tore it open (causing even more tears).
Once Poppi arrived the fun began!
Poppi brought most of Zachary's gifts in a HUGE red stocking. Zachary was curious as to what was inside! After all the fun with Poppi, Zachary put on his Santa PJ's and came down stairs to say "nite-nite" to the Christmas tree & put out cookies for Santa.

Once Zachary was in bed Matt and I began a multitude of up and down up and down the stairs to bring down all the Christmas presents. By the time we were finished we were out of breath and exhausted. Santa's helpers took a BIG bite of the cookie Zachary left out and went to bed with the spirit of Christmas in our home, The precious gift of the birth of our Lord & Savior in our hearts & the thrill & anticipation of tomorrow in our minds.
..to be continued...

Christmas Eve

May you have a blessed Christmas surrounded by family & those you love!

From our home to yours, Merry Christmas!

We are in the full swing of the holiday season! It looks a lot like Christmas at the Miller house! Just this morning we were putting the final touch to our front door. My very creative sister made us a garland. It is absolutely beautiful! Thank you, Camille!! As you can see Zachary likes it too...
This last weekend was a very scary one for Matt and me. Being first time parents we were not prepared for the scare of our life that started around 5pm Friday night. Zachary quickly developed a fever that reached 102.7. He was absolutely pitiful & we felt helpless to his continuing whimpering cries. We called our insurance 800 hotline and spoke with a nurse for an hour! She gave us a lot of information on fevers. By the end of the conversation, all 3 of our home phone batteries were dead & recharging. Zachary went to sleep in his bed, we thought all would be okay. However, an hour after we laid him down, Zachary woke up SCREAMING and shaking. We went in to him & he was in what appeared to Matt to be a post seizure state. We went to call 911 but all of our phones were dead!! We ended up calling 911 from our cell phone. And, we rushed to get ourselves together because we fully expected to be jumping in the ambulance to rush to the hospital.

EMS arrived in a few minutes. By the time they arrived Zachary was sitting up, watching his favorite show (Oswald). And, he was largely back to normal. The medics checked him over and took vitals. All was normal. They offered to transport him to the hospital but suggested that he would be fine to wait until morning and visit our pediatrician.

Early in the morning we were able to make an appointment with our pediatrician, who keeps limited Saturday hours. Zachary's temperature was still 102. But, the doctor checked him over and said he was likely suffering from some sort of viral infection. She advised us to keep doing what we were doing, focus on reducing the fever. And, if he wasn't feeling better by Monday to come back. Luckily, Zachary's fever broke that afternoon. And, he continues to have a normal temperature to this point. As a result of this experience, we purchased new cordless phones!! In the process we learned that it is very common for children under 5 to have seizures as a result of a high fever.

Also, Zachary has not taken off his beloved Elmos Croc shoes since Friday night! The red rubber shoes seemed to be the only thing that gave him comfort! He has slept in them, walks around the house in them clothed and naked. We drew the line at bath time! We are very blessed to have made it through this ordeal intact! And, we now have a notebook full of details on how to handle any fever that may arise in the years to come.

Saturday we had another wonderful Thanksgiving celebration this time with Matt's Father (Zachary's) Poppi. Zachary had a blast swinging in Poppi's swing, running around the front yard kicking the soccer ball, greeting neighbors, playing inside with one of his favorite toys at Poppi's (the play phone)...
We had to postpone the celebration one day because Zachary came down with a brief cold (runny nose, slight fever). However, I am happy to share that Zachary is feeling much better. And, his appetite is back with a vengeance. Almost every meal Zachary requests to "pray" periodically throughout the meal. I managed to snap a quick photo of one of our prayer breaks with Zachary reaching out for everyone's hands.
I was pleased that Poppi was game to take a family portrait wearing the festive paper hats! You KNOW I saved the hats to have a Miller Family Paper Hat Photo! :)And, we took the opportunity to snap pictures around the house in front of Poppi's beautiful Christmas decorations...On another note, Matt worked very hard to get up all our Christmas lights outside. It is looking a lot like Christmas!! Sometime with in the next few days I will be posting our "handmade" ornaments on my www.craftyjulia.blogspot.com site. I hope you will "come by" to see what craftiness we've been up to!

We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Every year we rotate our parents for Thanksgiving Day & this year we spent it with Julia's family. And, it was a beautiful 1st Thanksgiving celebration for Zachary. He spent most of the afternoon chasing his beloved yellow ball around Nonnie & Bop-Bop's yard. Towards the end of the day he started suffering with a wet runny nose. And, he lacked an appetite during the Thanksgiving meal. By the time we got home he had a slight fever and he was very warm. We suspect he is having a reaction to the Flu nasal mist he received earlier in the week. We are taking Black Friday easy and look forward to celebrating Thanksgiving with Poppi as soon as Zachary is feeling better, hopefully tomorrow!

My cousin's wife Meghan made Zachary these adorable embroidered applique shirts.Check her out on her FB pgae: http://www.facebook.com/MeghansMonograms He was dressed very festive and we switched out his turkey shirt for his Christmas shirt for Nonnie & Bop-bop's grandchildren photo shoot.

Cousins...

Grandchildren photo...You know I prefer the out take pictures! This is right before Zachary askewed Bop-Bop & Caroline's hair. I'm tickled I captured his mischievous deed on film! It was hilarious. The act caught both of them off guard. Priceless!
Thank you pinterest for this thanksgiving fun!! We made Pilgrim hats & Indian feathers for a silly Thanksgiving Portrait. Zachary colored the band of the Indian feather headdress. And, for more pictures of the creation of the hats check out my crafty blog: http://www.craftyjulia.blogspot.com


The cousins created & colored turkeys from their hand prints. Then, they taped them to the refrigerator. Zachary was so over having his picture taken but I couldn't resist.


Happy Holidays! Time to decorate the Christmas Tree

I know this is kinda old news, but I wanted to share some of my father's pictures of our recent activities. He got some GREAT pictures of Zachary the day of his Baptism.

Also, these are some of the pictures my father took at our niece's 16th Birthday party. It is so hard to believe Caroline is 16. Wow! how the time flies by! Just a few days ago she got her drivers license & took her sister solo to Taco Bell & Starbucks. And, I think I heard her say she even paid! Hmmm...I wonder if I could get her to take me too one day ;)

Nonnie (Julia's Mother, Caroline, Zachary & Maggie (Zach's cousins)

I think I am addicted to wanting to post pictures on our blog! Maybe I should find some kind of rehab because I am finding things to take pictures of just so I can post them! LOL. As soon as I get any all I can think about is when will I get time to sit down to put them on the blog! :)) Sounds like an addiction to me!

More Gatlinburg Photos

I am still reminiscing of our vacation to Gatlinburg, TN! I finally got all our pictures downloaded from our camera.

We were pleasantly surprised that most of the trees still had fall foliage on them. However, on top of the Smoky Mountains the trees were bare of leaves. But, the closer to the bottom of the mountain Mother Nature displayed her beauty in full glory!

We took a walk around our cabin to get some fall leaves pictures. It was very cold, a little damp but it was a beautiful walk!

We had a fabulous time & we can't wait to go back and explore the area even more.

Zachary meets Santa

I was looking forward to Zachary meeting Santa for the first time. And, Santa did not disappoint! We went to our local mall and we were first in line. Zachary's grand father Poppi went with us too. We took two poses...one with Poppi, Zachary & Santa and another with Zachary and Santa.

The pictures in this blog post are the blooper out takes. I was looking forward to pictures with tears and screams, because aren't those the classic pictures?? LOL



I have yet to scan in the pictures that we purchased. But, I will do that soon and share them with you at another time. Meeting Santa was an exciting way to start this Holiday season. I'm still in shock that it is already the beginning of the Holiday season! It's time to shop for gifts, make our Christmas cards & plan recipes for cookie swaps. Ho, Ho, Ho!!

Here is Zach's first encounter with Santa:

Weekend of Celebrations

This past weekend was a very special weekend for our family. Saturday we celebrated our niece Caroline's 16th Birthday (where did the time go?). Sunday we celebrated Zachary's Baptism. And, Monday Matt and I celebrated our 13th Wedding Anniversary.

Zachary's Baptism was a beautiful ceremony. And, as usual, Zachary was well behaved! Our pastor greeted Zachary before the service & they shook hands. The children's church had a preview of their Christmas program and we had a front row seat to all the excitement! Zachary loved to watch all the children sing!

We were all excited to watch Zachary during the Baptism. When the cover of the Holy Water was removed Zachary remarked that it was "Waaater!!" After the Baptism Zachary happily went into the Pastors arms and went around the congregation with the Pastor. Once they got to the other end of the congregation Zachary looked back at us with a panicked look on his face and I just smiled real BIG and it seemed to put him at ease. They made it all around the congregation with everyone awwing and ooohhing over Zachary. He just loved the attention!
Zachary with his God Parents (also his Aunt, Uncle & cousins)
Zachary with his honorary Aunt Connie (My best friend)
the Grandparents

Here is a quick video of Zach and his daddy going down the big slide at Monkey Joe's.

Several weeks ago Zachary and I went to "The Country Living Fair" at Stone Mountain with a friend of mine. It was my first time attending the festival. And, I was quite impressed with the quality of product the booths offered. It was quite different from St. Mtns famed "Yellow Daisy Festival" which has a more hand made, crafty feel. In comparison the CLF vendors sold items that you would find in a brick & mortar design store. One of my favorite finds was in a booth that sold re-purposed quilt photo mats. I had a hard time choosing between all the options! Ultimately I loved the sentiment on this blue quilt piece. It reads "You smiled and that's all I've seen of my heart" Aww, so very true!! This morning, I couldn't resist the pre-Christmas sale at Khols department store! I was excited to find excellent deals on plenty of things that I couldn't resist ;)) (I hope Matt isn't reading this post) One of them being the frame for this very special photo quilt....now, where to hang it?!?

This past weekend we went to Gatlingburg, TN for our first family (of just us) long weekend mini vacation. We had a wonderful time exploring Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. There is so much to do. And, we didn't even do a quarter of what we had hoped to do. We can't wait to go back!

It seems there was an Old Time Photography Studio on every corner! Lucky for me, taking those type of pictures has always been on my bucket list. It surprises me that neither Matt nor I had ever made them. Well, I can proudly mark it off my bucket list because we wasted little time to take our own Old Timey style photograph!

Zachary LOVED playing dress up! He and Matt were cowboys and I was a Southern Belle. In the first picture Zachary is pointing his pistol right at the camera, I am amazed that he held it correctly first try...but, the toy pistol disappears in the picture because he was holding it directly at the camera, I'm rambling :) ...




Doesn't Zachary make a cute cowboy?! Such a handsome little boy!!

I have yet to download the pictures that are on my camera. But, once I get them on my computer I have a few more pictures of our trip to share.

Halloween 2011
Zachary's first Halloween was experienced with his Grandparents! We all had a wonderful evening celebrating our little Yellow Jacket! And, Zachary seemed to enjoy being in costume.

Matt & I agreed before hand that this year Matt, Poppi & Bop-Bop would walk Zachary trick-or-treating while Nonnie and I staid back at the house to pass out candy (next year we will switch roles). So, when Zachary walked away I couldn't help but tear up with joy! For approximately 10 years I dreamed of the day we would have our child home to go trick-or-treating! And, I was finally blessed to experience it's reality! The evening started with a short walk to the tennis courts to witness the neighborhood parade!

A little while later, Nonnie and I spotted our little Yellow Jacket walking towards out house and trick-or-treating at the houses nearest us. (We both hugged and had another joyful moment.) Once back home, Zachary (still in costume) helped us pass out candy to all the children. He was tickled to be able to answer the door, greet the little goblins & put candy into their bags. He eagerly jumped up to get his duties in motion!

Maybe because this year's Halloween was on a Monday, but we did not have near the trick-or-treaters as in years past. We ended up only passing out 1/2 of the candy we purchased to pass out.

It was a FUN night!