Miles Is Almost Crawling

Yeah, hold on to your hats.  This kid already has his hands in/on everything, and he just recently figured out how to kind of scoot around on his stomach.  He'll be crawling really soon.  Then things are going to get real crazy.  Elly never crawled, so this is uncharted territory for us.

Elly Quotes

Elly is pretty chatty with me in the morning on the way to school.  It's awesome.  Today we were talking about how much we love Mommy.

Elly:  "I love Mommy so much!"

Brandon:  "Me too."

Elly:  "When I grow up, I'm gonna be a mommy too."

Brandon:  "That's right.  You're gonna be such a good, smart, loving, beautiful mommy."

Elly:  "But first I need to find a man and get married."  (Yeah, she actually said 'find a man'.)

Brandon:  "That's true."

Elly:  "Then you and mom will be the grandma and grandpa."

Brandon:  "Yeah."

Elly:  "But how are you going to change your face and your voice?"

Brandon:  "What do you mean?  Grandmas and grandpas have different faces and voices?"

Elly:  "Yeah, they're all...like...different."

Boy is 6 months old!

And this is what his cute little face looks like most of the time:



He is so super smiley! We sure gave him the right name and Elly often calls him "sMiles"


Here he his showing off his new trick: He is ALMOST completely crawling.


...and back to smiling.


Miles is the best thing ever. We are so happy that he came into our family. He makes all of us laugh and we love playing with him everyday. He and Elly have a special thing going. When one of them is sleeping (or at school), the other one looks all over and waits. They crack each other up and love to cuddle together and watch "a show" together. Elly is super helpful when it comes to Miles. She always "babysits" him while I take a shower. She gets his toys and loves to feed him baby food. She checks on him when he's sleeping (on the monitor or in person). She reads him books and lets him lie right next to her. She is the best big sister and he LOVES her. Elly can make Miles smile or laugh when no one else can.

Miles loves to give kisses. He leans in close to your mouth and just waits there with it open for you to give him a kiss. It's the sweetest thing. Warning: Miles' kisses are extremely wet...but worth it.

Miles likes to "wrestle" with his dad. That usually means that Brandon rolls around with Miles in his arms and Miles- correction: both of them just laugh and laugh. They also like to watch Nightly News together, play the piano, look at screens (iPod screen, computer screen, cell phone screen, TV screen, etc.) and eat mashed potatoes.

Miles and I also have a little thing going. We mostly hang out late at night or early in the morning and mostly one of us is half asleep and wants to be completely asleep. But, we also love to cuddle during waking hours and one of us is VERY squirmy and doesn't like to cuddle as long as the other. But, we make it work and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this boy!

Elly Quotes

Again, on the way to school this morning...stuck in traffic due to an accident on the freeway.

Elly: "Dad, all these cars are called traffic."

Brandon: "That's right.  We're in the traffic."

Elly: "Yeah.  Mom hates traffic."

Elly Quotes

I was taking Elly to school this morning, and she was looking out the window.

Elly: "Dad, have you ever seen a rainbow?"

Brandon: "Yeah, lots of times.  Have you?"

Elly: "On Sesame Street."

Brandon: "Have you ever seen one for real, in the sky?"

Elly: "No."

Brandon: "I'll find one and show it to you.  OK?"

Elly: "OK.  But will it stay forever?"

Brandon: "No.  Rainbows go away after a while."

Elly: "Well, I want Mom to see it too."

Brandon: "OK.  We'll be sure Mom sees it too.  It will stay long enough for everyone to see it.  Sound good?"

Elly: "Sounds good."

Elly Quotes

A little while back Elly and I were eating Doritos.  She hardly ever has chips.

Brandon: "Elly, what do you think of the chips?"

Elly: "Best.Chips.Ever."

Elly Quotes

Talking to Boy:

Elly: You're such a little chicken munk.

Me: You mean Chipmunk?

Elly: Yeah.

Elly Quotes

Brandon (talking to Lacy while we both watch Elly paint): She's going to be an artist or a musician or a dancer or something.

Elly (very matter of factly): I'm going to be all of it. I'm going to be all three.

Elly Quotes

Elly is in the Sunbeam class at church right now, but she is really looking forward to graduating into the class just above hers called:

"See-tiara 4"

Family

These two can't get enough of each other. I don't think you could find happier smiles:



This is Elly's latest Family Portrait drawn on the whiteboard (look at Boy, he's so tiny and Brandon's hair is awesome. Notice the girls have dresses on):




These two absolutely L-O-V-E each other!

4th of July

(Just catching up...)

On the 5th of July, we had an amazing block party with ALL the neighbors in our cul du sac hosted by our next door neighbors, the McDougals. It was such a great "welcome to the neighborhood" for us and we got to meet lots of people. Elly LOVED the sparklers:





The next day, Aunt Madelyn came for her vacation from her vacation. She stayed at our house for a couple of days and helped me make this awesome headboard:









We also went to the pool. Doesn't my mom look AMAZING?

Elly Quotes

...after I told her she couldn't do something...

Elly: My mom said I could.

Me: (with a surprised/confused face) I'm your mom.

Elly: I mean my REAL mom.

Me: (even more surprise) Oh. Who is your real mom?

Elly: Carly (my cousin, mother of "Baby Sadie", Elly's favorite 2nd cousin).

Me: Oh. And who is your real dad?

Elly: Brandon...wait...I mean Daniel (Carly's husband that Elly adores).


So, you guys, we'll be bringing her home in a couple hours. Hope you're ready for TWO kids!

Elly Quotes

During a conversation about the fact that Brothee needs to grow up so that she can play with him, Elly was a little worried about "Grown-up Brothee's" behavior.

Elly: What if he sticks his tongue out at me and doesn't want to play with me?

Mommy: We will teach him to be nice and not to stick out his tongue.

Elly: Well, of course, Daddy will teach him to be silly, because Daddy is soooo silly.

I guess all the "serious learning" is up to me...of course

Little Faker

Miles does this little fake cough thing.  It's pretty funny.

Laugh Attack

Elly can do the most random things and make Miles laugh...and me too.

Creative Dance...With Pots

Elly made up this awesome creative dance the other day.  It involves pots from her little play kitchen.  How does she come up with this stuff?

Wild Ride

Miles likes this totally random little ride we made up for him.

Tongue Twister

This is how Miles talks lately.  It's pretty awesome.

Family of Four

Since Boy was born, we haven't taken even one little picture of all four of us...until last week. Thanks, Ker!

Look at that sweet little fake smile:


Family of Four:


This one is hilarious; everyone is getting ready for the pic except Elly, she's 100% ready for action: