First Trip to the Cabin

We had our first weekend at the cabin about a month ago. It was mainly a lot of cleaning and fixing things. Even though we were busy cleaning and repairing the place it was still a very restful and enjoyable time. We have plans to visit again here real soon and this time we will be focusing on just hanging out and also shopping (fun!) for some furniture. Hoping we have good luck - we plan to get a futon and some tables and chairs etc. Here are a few pictures from our very first visit. This picture is of us replacing the chimney (which was full of holes big enough to fit a finger in.... yikes!). 

 Sleeping was a bit chilly the first night because we weren't very experienced with using a wood burning stove and the wind that night was crazy and just whipping through the mountains. I have never heard anything like it, very loud! The second night was super cozy, no wind, and we all slept much better.

 Making coffee....

 Eli got ahold of the camera and took these next two pictures.

 Playing in the creek - there are two creeks on the property.

 These are everywhere! Crystals are just coming out of the ground all over the place.

 Our new home away from home. :)

New Things

Here are a couple pictures of some new things we have been anticipating for a while. The first is the BUNKBEDS! As some of you know this is a very big thing for the boys and was quite a journey just to get them home! They had been on order for about a month. Well, here they are! The boys are doing very well with them and sleep great, as usual.

Here is the cabinet I have been looking for for a while to hold all my homeschooling things. I have so many homeschooling materials I like to keep handy, but do to lack of room they end up in bins in the basement or in a shelf in another room. Now I can put them all in here. YAY! The cabinet was super reasonable too - we found it in the rough room at Crazy Daisy antique store. It just needed some deep cleaning (which Brian did) and looks great now!

Dedicating Oak

We dedicated Oak to the Lord publicly with our church community a couple weeks ago. Kay was visiting so she was able to take a couple pictures and a video! The video is of Pastor Trent reading what we wrote to share about Oak with our church family. 

In this picture below, Pastor Todd is praying for all the families here who dedicated their kids this day.

Book Writing

During our homeschooling time today Eli dictated and illustrated a book about a funnel web spider who gets caught in a tornado. I will have to keep this one. :)

2011 Family Pictures!

We got our proofs for our family pictures!!! For family: go ahead and look through (there are about 100). Email me the picture number (each picture is numbered) and the sizes you want. Kay, feel free to give me the order for everyone on your side. I will need the orders by next week - Thursday.

If you don't have time to look though I will just choose my favorites for everyone who hasn't responded by next week. One of each of the kids and one of the family and size will be 4x6.
Enjoy!!!

http://web3.sendtoprint.net/proofbook/themillers/index.php/cover

Painting with Papa

The boys and Brian made these creatures from clay. Here they are painting them. Fun times!

The Special Room...

Well, over the past three days or so I have been going through the toys and putting them in bins in the "special room" Brian made years ago. The boys have been having fun playing in their tent like room and today they decided to put their mattresses in there and make it their sleeping room too. We will see how long it lasts. Some of you may remember we tried this a couple years ago with just Eli, but since the roof was right above his head he could hear every squirrel and airplane. We will see if they make it through the night tonight. :)

Sunergos Morning

Sooo I found an iPhone app! Here are some pictures from this am. The last picture is of Eli and Kristyn walking back to the roastery.

Broken Computer...

Hey friends and family! Just wanted to let you all know that my computer is broken in a major way I am afraid. Soooo unless I can get really tech savvy with this smart phone my updates will be on hold for a couple weeks. We sent our computer in and they sent it back to us and told us to get it backed up then we have to send it off and they still might not be able to fix it after all that (because the price to fix it just wouldn't be worth it). We just might end up having to get a new one. So what happened... well, it got dropped (knocked over) by one of the kiddos. Yep, it's a bummer.

Homeschooling Begins!

So far homeschooling Eli is going well. I have a couple videos here of him first learning to read. He is a great student and picks up on things quickly. There are two videos. One is of a usual day where we go over sounds and a couple pages in our reading book.... theeennn there are days where Eli just gets plain old silly and can't seem to snap out of it. Thankfully those days are about once every couple weeks, but I wanted to share one of those times too.

Making Oak Giggle

A Basket O'Toys for Oak

Oh my, this little guy is so sweet. When I am working in the kitchen he likes to hang out with me and play with his basket o'toys. There is a short little video at the end... just love those baby giggles.

A Day Lately

I kept the camera on me for a couple days to get a few updated pictures. Here they are:

Eli got a morning picture. Otto loves to snuggle and Oak is all about toys these days!

Breakfast! Eating cantaloupe with cocktail swords from Grandma Kay!

Apple snack. Oak even joined in on this one.

Stopping to watch the construction while on our way to Sunergos.

ABC (already been chewed) stroller straps. They all love em.

What's this?? Acorns. hummm. What could it mean? An oak tree of course. :) Some homeschooling worked into every walk. You know me.

Oak isn't so sure how he likes the Oak tree leaf, but I thought I would show him one.

OoooOOOoOo. MORE construction vehicles!

coco

Visiting the guys working. Tim is showing Eli how to make silly faces using a rubber band. These guys are priceless.

A board game. Sum Swamp is our favorite these days. This game teaches adding and subtracting skills. Homeschooling can be fun.

 I love him!

Monster shoes! Oh yes, and fighting with cocktail swords.

After dinner I was cleaning dishes here and had to snap a picture of what I saw... Brian and the boys are making a fire. This is something they have been doing lately a couple nights a week. The boys love it!

Brian fanning the flame.

Hanging out around the fire.

Plumbing and Festivals

As most of you know we had some MAJOR plumbing issues last weekend. It was pretty bad. Thankfully it all started on Friday night while we were watching all the kids for babysitting co-op -hahahahaha - and we also had Tim and Stephanie over for dinner. Oh man, so many people and so much water letting loose in the basement.... Tim and Stephanie were really a big help for us while Brian had to pull away for a while and deal with MSD on some details. Well, the nice thing was that Brian had the whole weekend to fix it all. He is so gifted and handy in just about everything, so thankfully we didn't have to call a plumber. The issue started in our main drain to the sewer (tree roots). Brian had to rent an auger to clean it out and after he did he decided to go ahead and clean out our sink pipe that has been plugged on and off since we moved in.... well the pipe was old and just fell apart as he augered it. Soooo he had to dig up the kitchen sink pipe and replace it. 

Well, day 2 (Saturday) Me, Danielle and Marla decided to spend some time at a festival while our guys dug a hole. 

Pony rides!

Eli and Otto both painted pumpkins.

Oak's First Foods!

Oak is now eating and he loves it! I am so glad he is an eager eater. As you can see in some of the pictures he will just grab the spoon and put it right in his mouth and eat. So far he has enjoyed sweet potatoes and apple chunks put in the mesh bag - there is a video of this here. Listen for his little squeal when he eats his apples on the video. sooo funny.

Oak in the bumbo. He likes this thing now and it is really coming in handy for an extra booster seat.

Oak Eats from capture box on Vimeo.