Thanksgiving Flashback

Good times with Mom and Dad as well as a day visit from Aunt Maura and Uncle Steve! There is a video at the end. :)

 Not sure what happened here....

Carving the turkey... it's magic.

 Oak is ready! Where is everyone else?

 Taking a stroll to the coffee shop. 

The Anticipated Hexbug Show

Today it is about the hexbug inchworm.

Talking with Grandma

With us living so far from all the Grandmas and Grandpas phone conversations are a special way to help develop our relationships! Here is a short segment of Eli and Otto talking with Grandma Kay. :)

Birthday Gift Giggles

We picked this bear up for a gift for someone and Oak is just crazy over it. Sooo funny!

Eli titled this for me: Do you want to see the cutest baby of all???

Winter Cabin Trip

We had a need to escape the city. So we did! Here are some pictures of the cabin in the winter. We weren't expecting so much snow and ice, but thankfully we had brought all our warmest clothes. We didn't make it out to shop for furniture, but I think that was for the best because we weren't sure we would make it back due to the ice on the gravel roads. We enjoyed being tucked away from it all for the weekend together.

I found out that Mama makes the best snowball target.

Paper airplanes!

All suited up for a hike. Glad I brought so many extra socks, leg warmers etc. 

Brian is a natural mountain man. Chop chop!

Eli gave us quite a few "hexbug" shows. I video taped one -  I will have to upload it for you!

These are pretty neat. The water is seeping out of the ground here and there and in some places it creates these beautiful ice flowers; commonly called frost flowers.

Brian gave us all piggy back rides over the streams on our hikes. He was the only one with waterproof boots. Can you see Oak on my back...? heeheee We had to get a picture of this!

Look what Papa picked for Otto from the stream! He really wanted to take it home to KY and put it in the freezer. 

The Trust General Store Cafe' is the BEST! (Only open on the weekends though.) Here is their bread pudding. So yummy! and we all split it.

Christmas Tree Decorating

This is becoming a family tradition each year. I put up the tree one day then on the next full day we can all be together we decorate the tree. It is such a great time to look at all the ornaments - each one holds a little history. Many were made by hand and given to us from friends, near and far, and some from relatives - Grandmas, Great-Grandmas, Aunts and Great Aunts. We think about them all! It is a really sweet time and the kids love it! and mid-day Brian and I break out some wine. :)

 Trying on their stockings???

 Eli this year was soooo excited to decorate the tree! It was really fun to share in it with him.

 This year I got the kids their own manger scene to have out during the holiday season. Instead of a Jesse tree I have decided (for this year anyway) to just read different parts of the story of Christ's birth each day. I just want to make sure they know what the season is all about. In the past I have followed a different set of scheduled readings and it just seemed to confuse them. I think once they are a bit older that a more in-depth look at scripture and Christ's coming and the anticipation of his arrival throughout scripture will be appropriate. Right now though, it is all I can do to make sure they understand how and why he came through the story of his birth. So here it is - a manger scene - OH MY who's that??? a pirate! Yes, one of this kids put him in the scene and I just couldn't take him out. 

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.