Stressing and slacking...

For some reason, I have been so much more stressed over preparing for Christmas this year than ever before. I am not quite sure why. I think it's probably a combination of things, but whatever. I am working through it. Some of my coping mechanisms have been listening to Christmas carols non-stop (and thus annoying the heck out of my husband) and completely slacking when it comes to this blog!! I am sure the masses that hang on my every written word have barely been able to get through their days without their daily weekly bi-weekly dose of Stinker stories and pictures. I am so sorry to have left you in the lurch. To make up for it, I thought I'd share a little bit of what we've been up to. Of course the pictures are from my phone because I have been too busy and lazy to pull out my fancy camera. I'm a brat. I know. Again, sorry...

We made Christmas cookies the other day for our firemen around the corner. We used this new recipe for soft and fluffy sugar cookies and they were amazing. My extra wide bum can back me up on that statement.

 Luke ate 3 of them before they had even cooled enough to ice and decorate. Once I iced them, I let him decorate them with sprinkles. He referred to them as sparkles instead of sprinkles, and whenever he says words that start with "sm" or "sp", they come out with the "f" sound on the front instead. So he was in charge of putting on the "farkles". I may have coaxed him into saying that word 100 times that day...

Once the cookies were all decorated, we took them to the firemen and they let Luke play in the fire truck for a while. His favorite part was getting to wear the "talker phones" to listen and talk to fireman Dan (whom he calls "Fireman Dance").

 Wearing women's high heeled boots and clomping around the house saying, "Howdy, folks! I'm a cowboy!" has been a favorite activity as of late.

We've spent quite a bit of time looking for Elfie too.

 That guy comes up with the silliest places to hide.

 Another favorite activity has been playing with his "tiv-a-tee" set that Flipper gave him last Christmas. So far he has called the sheepdog a skunk, said that the wisemen took baby Jesus a treasure chest and a Coke, claimed the angel looks like a helicopter, and set up his train tracks around the whole thing so that he could give everyone a ride to "Mary's house".

 When he gets bored he likes to reenact scenes from movies. 

If you've ever seen Cars, then you know about tractor tipping.

Possibly the most exciting thing we've been doing around here is going peepee and poopie in the potty!!!  It all started when Luke was taking a bath and started going #2. Phil yanked him out and put him on the potty, while he scrambled to clean up the mess. Luke kept saying, "I went poopie, Daddy!", and Phil just thought Luke was narrating the unfolding scene. When Phil got things under control and turned his attention back to Luke, he saw that Luke did indeed go poopie in the potty and then watched in amazement as the Stinker finished everything off with a healthy dose of peepee in the potty too. We were ecstatic because it helped to extinguish Luke's fear of going potty, and he has been on a roll ever since. We aren't pushing him into potty training hardcore yet, but he is going in the potty a time or two every day...and of course his motivation is based solely on CHOCOLATE. Here he is making a monocle out of his mini Reese's cup. After all... there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's.


And the rest of the time, we have just been busy being cool dudes. 

It's a full time job.

What???

Just before Thanksgiving, Luke was playing with his best pal/elephant blanket, Eddie. I was on the phone in the next room, and he was running in and out of my view in the kitchen. He started draping Eddie over his head and face, and found it hilarious that he couldn't see anything and had to feel his way around. It wasn't long before he bonked his head on the edge of the counter. He came running and whimpering to me for a hug and kiss. I told him to please stop putting Eddie on his head because he was just going to keep hurting himself if he continued. Of course he completely disregarded my warning and once out of my view, threw Eddie back over his head and began his ghost/zombie looking game once more. Within one minute, he RAN face-first into that same counter edge. I could see this out of my peripheral vision and thought for sure that he had broken his nose. He hit SO hard! I dropped the phone and he ran to me, crying a little for the 2 seconds it took to get to me. I immediately checked out his nose, expecting gushing blood and crooked cartilage. He was completely done crying at this point and was trying to get out of my arms. I was surprised, to say the least, since even the partial view I had had of his collision made me cringe in sympathy pain and fear. His nose looked fine and I couldn't find any signs of injury, only sweat-soaked hair from having run around in footie pj.s with a fleece blanket over his head for several minutes. I thought to myself that maybe he hit his forehead rather than his nose and was just being a tough guy. I released him and to my horror, he put Eddie back on his head and headed back to the kitchen to resume his kamikaze game. I yanked him back to me and removed Eddie, telling him that by no means was he allowed to play that game anymore. This time he chose to throw himself on the floor and act as if he had just run nose-first into an immovable object. He was SO upset that I wouldn't let him play his dumb game. He screamed and cried for a minute or two and then hopped up to go do something else. It was at this point that I saw the bloody nose.




Thankfully it wasn't too bad, but it was proof that he had indeed head-butted the counter. I also found, at that point, a small cut and an already purple bruise on the side of his cheek from his first collision with the counter. What is wrong with him? How can he absolutely bang the crap out of his nose and barely even whimper, only to become hysterical when I tell him he's not allowed to hurt himself anymore?

"What? You don't want me to blindly slam my face into the furniture? I'm confused."

"Are you sure, Mom?"

(you can kind of see the cut and bruise on his upper cheek in this photo)

"Well how 'bout if I look cute and show off my dimples that you love so much??

Would that change your mind?"

The only answer I can come up with for this (and so much more) bizarre behavior is this:

He is a BOY.

Boys are so weird.

The end and Amen.

Miss Macy!!!!

Yay!! My sweet niece is finally here! My brother, Ben, and sister-in-law, Abbi, welcomed Baby Girl Miller into the world on her due date, November 7th, at 3:30 pm in Fort Worth, Texas. She weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces and was perfect in every way...except she had no name! We were obnoxiously and anxiously waiting for what seemed liked forever to learn the name of our adorable little addition to the family.

Finally on November 8th in the evening, she was given the precious little name of 

Macy Michael Miller

She has a perfectly heart shaped mouth just like her mommy and the cutest little nose!

Here she is snug as a bug with her proud daddy.

Sweet baby girl passed out after all that hard work.

Don't you just love how they stay all curled up like that in the beginning?

I mean, how yummy is that button nose?

Now you tell me...

Do you think she looks a bit like her daddy?

And speaking of her daddy, here is a video her daddy took of her. She is the most content little baby who is just happy to be held and take everything in. It kills me to be so far away and not be able to snuggle her and kiss those chubby cheeks!

Miss Macy, I love and adore you already and am counting down the days until I get to meet you and tell you that face to face!

Oh boy!

Luke is officially two and a half and more "boy" than ever these days. Seriously. Every day I either chuckle to myself or get totally grossed out by his ever-rising testosterone levels. Let me give you some examples and you can see for yourself what I am talking about. I don't have a lot of good recent pictures, so I am just going to throw in some random recent pictures from my phone...

1. Luke's most favorite thing to say/talk about right now is none other than poop. Yes, poop. Poopie, poop, doo-doo, or any other name for it that he can come up with. It is not cute. Not at all. He laughs hysterically every time he says it and thinks he is being so funny. I can't tell you how many times a day I remind him that we only talk about poop when he has a poopie diaper or needs to go poopie in the potty (yeah, right. more on that later...). Many times I finish said little speech only to see him turn away, put his hand up to his mouth, and whisper "poopie! poopie!" to himself. He can't help himself. It's just hilarious to him.

One thing's for sure. He gets his sense of humor from his father.

(Pictured: Luke and Daddy sharing Daddy's birthday cupcake at his office)

2. Along those same lines, he also thinks passing gas (which he calls "tooting") is totally awesome and just as hilarious. He figured out how to toot on command while we were in Tampa. I was helping him brush his teeth before bed and right as I touched him with the toothbrush, he tooted. I kind of laughed because the timing was funny and then said rhetorically, "What's gonna happen when I touch your mouth again? Are you going to toot again?" I didn't think for a second that he would, but sure enough, he did. Once he realized that he could do it on purpose, he couldn't stop. He kept on and on, absolutely guffawing until he couldn't do it anymore. Then he got upset and alarmed and said, almost crying, "Mommy, I can't find my toots! Where'd my toots go??" Let me just tell you that one whiff of him told me where they went--from gas form to solid form, right into his diaper. These days he prefers to do this tooting-on-command thing whenever I am in the middle of changing his diaper and he is bare bottomed. You can guess how much fun that is...

Although making his "cheese" face for the camera while listening to Mumford & Sons in this particular picture, this is pretty much what he looks like when stinking it up for Mommy.

3. Aaaaannndddd...wrapping up this lovely topic....Despite his recent interest in smelly bodily functions, Luke is proving the theory to be true that boys take longer to be potty trained. He has ZERO interest in doing his business on the potty. Months ago he kind of piddled a little bit into the potty at my friend Carli's house. He was highly motivated after seeing his friend Anthony be rewarded with an M&M for going potty. Ever since, though, I could promise him a dump truck full of M&M's and the most I could hope to get out of him would be an occasional 2 second squat on the pot. I am praying that he will at least be potty trained by the time he gets married. Otherwise, I can hear the vows now..."For richer or for poopier, in sickness or in diapers." Won't that be sweet.

Unfortunately he gets much more use out of the time out seat than he does the toilet seat. This is usually what he looks like when I go to get him out. I know it's hard to see him because he's hiding, but I promise you he's there.

4. This kid is soooo loud. Seriously. He talks loudly. He plays loudly. He laughs loudly. He is just loud. I think it's just fun for him. I really don't think it's his hearing (although I will mention it to the doctor) because he can hear whispers perfectly fine and he hears noises that we don't even notice, like dull motorcycle or airplane sounds in the distance or my parents' grandfather clock from upstairs. The other day we were at the grocery store standing in the loooongest line right behind another mom with her little 2.5 year old girl. We stood there waiting forever and a day and the whole time Luke was talking loudly, making sound effects, growling at the little girl (trying to be funny, not trying to be mean), laughing at himself, grabbing things off the shelves and asking to have them or just throwing them in the cart, and just wiggling all over the place. The little girl sat there staring at Luke like he was a freak. She never moved. She never made a peep. I'd love to know what she was thinking...

He has started singing shouting his own songs to the tune of his battery-less guitar. Let me tell you, they are hilarious. Loud, but hilarious.


5. Speaking of sound effects... Luke can and does make a million different noises and sounds. My mom has always said the ability to imitate sounds like car and truck sounds is hard-written on the Y chromosome. It is so true. Have you ever known a little girl who can make all the appropriate sounds for all the different types of transportation? Luke can. My brother could when he was little. Most little boys I have known could. Phil could practically make a living imitating sounds to this day. It's a boy thing, for sure.

While packing for our trip to Tampa, Luke insisted on putting his bathing suit on over his pajamas. Then he started golfing his way around the upstairs. He makes a "thhhhwaaack!" sound almost every time he swings.

6. Luke loves to run. He constantly asks us to "race" with him around the house. We all must push things that either are or are pretending to be mowers, and we race each other around the loop in our house. Thankfully, he doesn't really get the whole competition part of it yet. He just wants us all to run together. Let me just say that this wears Phil and me out. Luke, not so much.

The other day Luke said he needed to go "running" like Mommy and Daddy, so he was adamant that he listen to our iPod, just like we do when we exercise. He then proceeded to run laps around the loop in our house. In this picture, he was taking a short break to check out an especially enrapturing scene on Dora.

7. He has discovered guns. How do boys always discover guns? And swords. He is capable of turning practically anything into a sword or a gun. And he always wants me to shoot or swat at something, too. Not my idea of fun.

After finding a huge fallen branch in the backyard, Luke decided to help Daddy out and go throw it in the stick pile in our back woods. For some reason he then thought better of it and decided to use the stick to "catch butterflies" by scraping the stick on the nearby vine-covered tree.

Does the usage of a big dirty tree branch cancel out the girly-ness of catching butterflies? Luke thinks so.

8. He continues to be totally OBSESSED with cars/trucks/tractors/diggers/motorcycles/anything with a motor and wheels. Other than tools and books, his toy vehicles are what he plays with 99% of the day. And most of the time when we are going somewhere in the car, he is either pointing out the different vehicles that he sees, asking to drive them ("Sorry, buddy, but you can't drive that excavator. Mommy doesn't have the keys," is my typical answer), or asking to see another one before that one is even out of sight. Lately he has been sooooo interested in the gas and brake pedals in our car. Yesterday he spent an ENTIRE car ride asking me how the pedals work. I must have told him 500 times that pushing the gas pedal makes the car go and pushing the brake pedal makes it slow down and stop. Several times I even narrated these actions as I did them, hoping that would help him understand. Every time he'd listen and ask me, "but how it works, Mom?". I was feeling equally exasperated and inadequate in my ability to explain the inner workings of an automobile to my two and a half year old and subsequently started planning a trip for Luke to Camp PopPop. I'm sure Phil's dad (a.k.a. Jack of All Trades) could teach Luke everything there is to know and more about cars. I, on the other hand, can't handle more than "gas means go, brake means stop."

Leave it to Luke to find the Harley Davidson store at the airport. The clerk was just thrilled to have a 2.5 year old with a full diaper and an attitude riding his motorcycle.

Luke has always loved to help Mommy and Daddy pull the car into the garage. Usually he is happy to just put his hands on the wheel and let us steer, but this day he would NOT let me put my hands on the wheel. I thought it would be interesting to see what he would do, so we drove in at a comatose caterpillar's pace and this is how we ended up. He was so confused and concerned as to why we weren't in Mommy's usual spot.

9. And that reminds me of another new development...Luke is calling me "Mom" these days. Ummm, WHAT???? I mean, I know it's normal for boys to kind of pull away from their moms and begin to establish themselves as boys/men and not their mama's little babies, but TWO AND A HALF??? Seriously. I thought "mommy" would last a little longer. I am not down with this change. I try not to make a big deal about it, knowing that that would just make him all the more set on calling me "mom", but come on, man. Even when he forgets to say please or thank you and I remind him, saying "Luke, you need to say 'thank you, Mommy', " he will respond with "thank you, Mom!" Ugh. I just wince and bite my tongue, and secretly cry a little bit inside. I'm not ready for my baby to be such a big guy!!

Jumping in his very first bounce house. Even though he is literally the size of many 4 year olds, he looks so little to me here for some reason...which is probably why I like this picture so much.

And speaking of big, this is what it looks like when Luke "cooks" in the kitchen--a darn big mess!

And for the GRAND FINALE:

No amount of testosterone can save you when Mommy forces you to go on a play date with a 4 year old girly girl.

And yes, that Dora suitcase is part of Luke's ensemble, not Morgan's.

We're Back!

Luke and I recently went to Tampa for 10 days while Phil was traveling for work. We had a FABULOUS time. We did so many fun things and the weather was absolutely heavenly. Much nicer than the constant rainy, dreary fall weather we've been having here in the Midwest (ugh!). Being at Flipper and Pops' house was kind of like being at an all-inclusive resort for the Stinker. He was free to play outside almost any time he wanted, he had tons of people to play with, lots of outings to go on, hundreds of special treats to eat, several missed naps, and too many late bedtimes. Perhaps his most favorite activity of all, though, was playing in the sprinkler with Pops... and judging by these pictures, it might have been Pops' favorite too!

Go Lukie go!

Pops was such a good sport.

Even though this is a little blurry, I love this shot of them jumping together...

...and the following shot cracks me up every time.

No worries. He got right back up and kept going.

The only time he stood still was to take lessons from Pops.

Who knew Pops had ups?

So stinkin' cute...

Seriously. I adore this little roly poly boy.

Soaking wet and soaking up the fun.

Ha ha ha! Love those chins!

Calendar pose.

He's my Mr. October, hands down.

This sweet boy had the time of his life.

Too bad Pops didn't have any fun, huh?

Oh, how I love these boys.

And these buns!

And like every other boy in the world, Luke thinks he's got some pretty cool parts too!