Maiden Voyage

Spencer says we should name her the Jolly Roger.  We got an awesome deal on this beauty and I have a feeling many hours of fun will be had thanks to her.  After a long cold winter I am so looking forward to summer in our house.  Along with that comes yard projects (photo brag coming soon) playing in the yard and spending time down at the lake.  Now we just need to invest in some life jackets so the neighbors don't judge us as negligent parents.

This girl knows how to work the camera!

I have way too many cute pictures of this girl. She is such a happy baby and gives out smiles so freely I just can't get enough.  

 Even after her first attempt at solid foods with her face covered in goo she is still adorable.

She is our family model.  Here is her photo shoot with our new living room furniture.

Great Grandpa makes these cute little jewelry boxes for all of the baby girls.  Since she lived under the same roof as Grandpa Egan for the first couple weeks of her life I think she ended up with a special place in his heart.  They seem to like each other.

Its happening way too fast.  6 months old already.

Shut the front door...he's already four?!

Yep, still as cute as when he was three and still exploding with personality.  You never have to wonder how Owen is feeling because he wears his mood on his face.  He loves to tease his older brother and snuggle his little sister. He loves doing school with Mom and has surprised me how quickly he is catching on.  He loves music like his dad although he rarely sings out loud, instead he is a master lip syncer and rocks his dance moves.  I love having him as my little buddy all day long and am trying to make the most of this last year with him before he starts preschool.

This years cereal of choice

Cake anyone?  Heaven knows there was plenty.

 

 I guess I will allow him to keep having birthdays and growing up as long as he promises to never get too old to give us his awesome hugs.  Man I love this little Bubba

Boot Hockey

This has been a very long and cold winter and honestly kind of a rude welcome back to Utah but on the bright side we live in a pretty cool place where when it gets really cold this becomes an option.

Ice hockey on the lake.

The boys were good little goalies and took their job very seriously.

After almost 9 years of marriage Scott is still able to surprise me with another random skill.  Who knew he was good at hockey?  Apparently street hockey was a big part of his childhood and he had a blast bustin out the old skills. 

When the game was over we headed home taking the shortcut across the lake.  

Christmas 2012

We had an amazing 2012.  I don't say this intending to be braggy at all because along with being great it was really hard too, but this Christmas time as I thought back over all that happened in our family this year I couldn't help but feel so grateful for all we experienced.  It's crazy that last year at this time we were in Kansas for Christmas missing family.  Since then we have:

Gotten a new job in Utah.

Lived in separate states for 8 weeks while pregnant.

Had a wonderful early surprise baby girl.

Bought our first home. 

Moved 2 weeks after having a C-section

Spencer started 1st grade and is gone all day...Owen misses him terribly.

There were many other wonderful things that happened this last year but those are some of the biggies.  We are sure happy to feel settled down and enjoying this Christmas surrounded by family and our Utah friends and we sure do miss our Kansas ones (visitors welcome Ü)

 Babies first Christmas

 Good call Dad.  I think he likes it.

 This year Santa turned my house into a war zone.

 Nothing beats Christmas with little kids.  Everything is so fun and exciting.

Life at The Miller House

We try to have a good time around these parts.

We play.

How is it that we have no trees in our yard but we still ended up with all these leafs?  If you ask me we just got lucky.  If you ask Scott he thinks it's super annoying. Ü

If you end up bored on a cold winter day stuck inside.  Try shaving cream.  Owen had a blast and the house smelled amazing.

 We smile.

 

 We pose.

 We Jam!

 We talk baby talk.

You gotta problem with that?

November (Movember) Fun

Family night hike up Ensign Peak

Mama's little helper.  He came up with the apron on his own.

Spencer idolizes our cute neighbor boy who plays on a "real football team"  He is nice enough to walk with Spencer to the bus and play football with him for hours.  I couldn't have hoped for a better role model.  Owen just tries his best to be involved.

Cheese!

Hours of fun in the snow.

I dislike Movember but tried to be supportive.  Gross.

We're a little bit country

I guess this is what we get for going rural...

 The wind was blowing these bad boys into our front yard all day.  I went out three different times to throw the tumble weeds over our back fence into the field behind us.  By the time Scott got home I had given up so he went to throw some over and found this mound had collected in the back and he joined me in giving up.  The next morning the wind stopped but the snow had come in.  Scott said there we over 50 of them when he stopped counting.

Halloween 2012

We hope everyone had a Happy Halloween.  This is what ours looked like.

What are you going be on Halloween night? 

A Pirate

or a chicken

or a dog?

 What are you going to be?  Don't tell me.  Wait til Halloween and let me guess.

It was such a treat to spend Halloween in our new neighborhood.  Scott took the boys out while Anna and I handed out candy.  Owen was done after about an hour and then Spencer and Scott really pounded the pavement and brought home way too much candy.  Now what do I do with it all?

The Pumpkin Patch and Fish Pond

Now when we "come into town" we usually end up packing as much into a day as we can. On this particular Saturday we started by hitting the pumpkin patch.  How cool is it to live in a place where you pick your pumpkins with the temple in the background.  

Score!

Next we were off to the annual Miller Family fish pond party.  Since Anna needed to be fed right when the kids were in costume and doing the fish pond it went unphotographed...shame.  These beauties happened a little later.  What a fun tradition.

Then we finished the day at Ikea where we spent way too much money and it was time to head for home.