5 years!

I can't believe it, but we have been married for five years today. Where has the time gone? 

This year has been a big one for us. We made this.....

...and survived it so far :) It's fun being a family now and all the new great (and exhausting) things that come along with it.

Happy anniversary Nick!

Good To Have Friends

In June my good friend from high school, Katherine, got married. It was a beautiful wedding and a lot of fun. Since I was honored enough to be in the wedding, it also marked my first close to full day and night away from Miles. It was a little rough juggling all the schedules and making sure I had EVERYTHING that he needed to be away from me for so long, but I have to say it was a nice little break.

Because of Katherine's wedding, my other good friend Jenny and her son James came in from El Paso and we got to spend a few days with them. One of the days we met up with our friend Kristin and her son Charlie for a little play date. It was so wonderful to see them and to have the boys play together.

Smiley Charlie

"Look over here Char"

Not an easy picture to get! James, Charlie and Miles

7 & 8 months

Since I was a slacker for his 7 month update, you'll be getting 7 AND 8 month updates together.

At 7 months Miles became a crawling champ as well as a wonderful eater. He can get from one place to the next with out any problems and we already forget what it was like before he started crawling.

He can eat so many different yummy things. There really hasn't been anything we've put in front of him that he absolutely hated which has been really fun. His all time favorite food right now would have to be blueberries.

At 8 months he has learned to wave and has developed a fake cough that he busts out when he's being silly. He seems to be making more and more funny sounds that not only make us laugh, but get him going too. He never was a kid that laughed too much unless you really tried, but it's getting easier now and I just love it. With a good tickle you can really get him going.

He's getting so good at eating solid foods that we have ended the pureed baby food all together. Hooray!

When he's sitting in a high chair he does a little dance when eating or when I am singing to him. It cracks me up everytime.

Miles is also a pro at going up the stairs. We have two long stairs separating our living room from our kitchen and I no longer have to worry about him climbing up them without me right behind him. Going down is a different story. We're practicing :) He can also go up an entire flight of stairs with no help. I let him do this when we are going up to bed because I think it tires him out.

I did an unofficial weigh in the other day and he's about 19 lbs. these days and is growing out of his 6 and even some of his 9 month clothing length wise so I'm guessing he's still pretty long. I feel a little better about him growing out of his cloths so quickly because now we have so many friends to pass our clothes off to for borrowing.


These days his hair is looking more and more like it has a redish tint to it... sigh. Maybe it will pass.
 :)

Miles has sprung 2 more teeth so our grand total is up to eight. Let's just say it really hurts when he bites you now.

Each month I feel like I have a better handle on things and we just have more fun together. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work and mommy needs a break sometimes, but it's so much better. Love you little man!

Summer Fun

This summer Miles was old enough to go to a class offered at the library. It meets once a week and we made it about 25% of the time. It was at a rough time for us because it was right in the middle of nap time but I really wanted him to be exposed to other kids so we tried to go as much as possible. He seemed to have a good time. We signed up again for the next session so I hope we can make it to a few more classes and that he will interact a little more with the other kiddos. Now that he is crawling, I think it will be easier for him to "meet and greet".

On good days we are able to meet up with Daddy and have lunch with him since the library is right by his work. We like those days :)

There is a park about a block away that hosted a "concert in the park" night. We headed over, laid out our blanket and spent time with some neighbors and listened to some fun music.

We weren't able to go to the movie in the park which was Toy Story 3 because of someone's bedtime. As we were walking past it on our way him Nick said "Don't worry, we'll get to go next year" and I said "Ok, I guess I'll just have to wait", but I think he wasn't talking to me :) I just love going to those types of things, I can't help it.

Happy Birthday Maddie Girl!

Maddie turned 8 this July and because I love her like a child, I made her a puppy friendly birthday cake and invited some of her friends over to share it with her :) It was chaos but I think they enjoyed themselves.

Everyone waiting patiently for their cake

Minnesota

Earlier this summer we took a road trip to Detroit Lakes Minnesota to visit Nick's great aunt Bernice. I was trying to find a fun way around driving 12 or so hours in a car with a six month old (at the time) without having to fly. Since there were a decent amount of people that were interested in making the trip up to see Aunt Bernice and Uncle Bernie (who was there visiting), I thought it would be fun to rent an RV. But....those things are stinkin' expensive to rent!

Just when I thought my RV dreams were shattered, I remembered Grandma and Grandpa have two really nice friends who own a giant RV. After some bribing and pure kindness out of their hearts, they agreed to truck us all up to Minnesota. So one Thursday morning Marvin and Gladys graciously picked up Aunt Monica, cousin Joe, Grandma, Grandpa, Great Gram Joanne, and of course the three of us, and we were off.

Now, I've heard myths about how big this RV was but I had never seen it in person. Boy was I shocked when this rolled up....

 

We were able to play games, lounge, read, eat, sleep and let a baby roam around and nap all we wanted. There was even a ham in a crock pot cooking when they pulled up. SO much better than driving the tiny Corolla :)

Once we got there it was great to spend some time with family and to have Aunt Bernice meet our little guy. On this trip Miles discovered the camera and would just cheese it up when ever the red light came on for the red eye reduction. It was so funny. Needless to say we have many pictures with this silly face. 

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Here are just a few more pictures from our little trip.

 

 

Sippy Cup Challenge

"They" say you should start to introduce a sippy cup between 7 and 9 months. So Mr. Murdock, I dare you to take the sippy cup challenge!

Ok, maybe we'll try again another day.