Jan 21, 2007

Happy New Year!  We had a wonderful holiday season.  Grandma and Grandpa Cornell and Cole came out for Thanksgiving.  We had fun playing Cole’s Wii, going to the Denver Aquarium, and of course, eating lots of pie!  Grandpa brought his mini DVD player, and Halle loved to set it up and have her very own little theater experience.  Grandma was brave and ventured into Halle’s very small playhouse so Halle could cook a meal for her.

The kids and I went home for Christmas on Dec 19^th.  Rusty had to stay and finish out the work week.  I was a little nervous to travel alone with two kids, but it turned out just fine.  Halle is such the little flying expert.  She knows just what to do.  When we get to the security screening she takes off her shoes, puts her blankets on the conveyer belt, goes through the screening and asks for a sticker.  Then she hops right on the train, takes her seat and off we go.  It’s pretty cute to watch her.  Joshua was a little angel, and slept most of the time, only waking for a few min to eat.

Then on Dec 20^th Denver got hit with a HUGE snowstorm.  There was over 3 feet of snow.  It shut the state down for two days.  All stores were closed, the airport shut down.  Rusty said that it was a crazy mess.  He was lucky to make it home from work that day. With the airport closures we weren’t sure when Rusty was going to be able to join us in Utah, but luckily the airport opened back up the day of his flight and he was able to get out only a few hours later than we had planned.

Christmas was a blur of family and friends.  Halle had so much fun playing with her cousins, and building a gingerbread house with Grandma Cornell.  I was able to spend an evening showing off Joshua to all my friends, and after Christmas we got to spend some time with Rusty’s friends as well.  It is always so good to see everyone and catch up on life.

Christmas Eve was on a Sunday, and it is so fun to go to church and celebrate the birth of Christ.  We had the annual steak dinner at the Banks and then Grandma Banks had a special surprise for the kids.  Each family got their own plush nativity set, and as she told the kids the Christmas story they took out each piece and set it up.  It was so darling to watch them.  Then it was off to the Cornells to sleep on the floor.  This year we pulled mattresses out into the family room downstairs so it wasn’t quite so bad.  Halle still didn’t get to sleep with us…maybe next year.

This year is the first time she has really understood Santa, so it was so fun to see her anticipate Christmas morning.  But, when the big day finally arrived and we went in to wake her up at 8am, she pointed her little finger at me and said, “Go away mom!”  I think she is the first kid in the history of all time to not want to get up on Christmas morning.  We finally coaxed her out of bed and she was so excited to see what Santa brought her.   One side story—We went to see Santa at the Vista Ridge community center and Halle had been saying all week that she was going to ask him for a movie.  So when her turn came, she ran up to his lap and asked for a movie.  When we got outside she was sooo disappointed and said, “Mom, Santa forgot to give me my movie!”

But, Santa did not let her down, and she got 2 Veggie Tales Movies, Charlottes Web, and a Living Scripture movie.  Santa also brought her the Disney Princess book, with storybook CD, a mickey mouse computer game and a bath toy.  She got dress ups from Grandma and Grandpa Cornell and a fun playdough set from Grandma and Grandpa Banks.  Joshua got a hooded towel from Cornells and his Blessing suit from the Banks.  We got to go see Grandma Nene later in the day.  It was so good to get to visit with her.  She just kept telling us how special we were and how lucky Rusty, Mike and Danny were to have married her beautiful, smart grandkids.

The next day was the annual Miller family Christmas party, but the Yogurt Parlor shut down earlier this year, so there were no meat pies!  We had meat trays with rolls, and the party was at Mark and Nancy’s this year.

On Dec 30^th we blessed Joshua at the Cornell’s.  We just had our families there with us and it was such a fun, special experience.  Rusty gave him such a beautiful blessing.  He blessed him that he would be healthy, have confidence and integrity, that he would do the right thing not because his parents asked him, but because he knew within himself that it was right.  He blessed him, when the time comes to be a good father, find true happiness by serving others, that he would draw close to his mother and follow her example.  He blessed him that he would serve an honorable mission and be a great missionary.  I truly have never heard such a beautiful blessing.  Joshua is a luck boy to have such a great Dad!

We are doing GREAT!  Joshua has been a little dream baby and is so much fun to have around.  Even though he is not quite 3 months yet he totally fits into our family.  It is pretty amazing–I just know he was meant to be with us.  So the adjustment has been surprisingly easy.  He can now give the greatest little smiles and is just on the verge of laughing.

Halle is going to start Preschool next week and I am so excited and sad at the same time.  I am thrilled to send her off so I can have some time with Joshua alone, and also to get her little self away from the TV–she loves it way to much.  But she’s just always been with me so it’s a little sad and scary to trust her to someone else. She has two other adventures that are pretty funny.  First, yesterday I was tending her best friend Kennedy.  The girls said they had to go to the bathroom so they went upstairs, did their business and were washing their hands.  It is not unusual for them to take 10 min washing b/c they love to play in the water.  But, they were taking a really, really long time.  I called for them to come downstairs, but they didn’t so I went up after them.  Well….they had gotten into the medicine cabinet and somehow pryed the lid off the cough syrup and proceeded to drink the WHOLE bottle.  Did I mention the bottle was almost brand new?  GOOD GRIEF.  I called poison control and the first woman I talked to told me I would have to take them to the ER, but then I talked with someone else who did a whole bunch of calculations and said they were probably just fine.  Halle actually really had no reaction whatsoever–not hyper, not tired, so that was good.  But I talked to Debe and she said last night Kennedy kept waking up and saying that someone was trying to scare her (hallucinations were one of the side effects that could happen)  KIDS.

Second story–On New Year’s Eve Rusty’s brother got the game Guitar Hero for the Playstation.  If you’ve never played it, it’s actually pretty fun.  Anyway, all the adults were playing the game and the cousins had gone upstairs.  All of the sudden Brynn, our neice, comes running down the stairs and says, “Bridger (who is almost 4) cut Halle’s hair.  He asked if he could cut my hair and I said no, so he asked Halle and she said, “Sure!””  He totally chopped off the back of her hair almost to the scalp.  Luckily she has really thick hair so he only got 4 or 5 big chunks, but STILL, it’s pretty bad.  We cut her hair off to her ears and now it sort of looks like she just has a really bad stacking cut in the back.

I am loving not being pregnant anymore–oh the energy!  I started teaching aerobics again for Erie City and got a membership to the YMCA for Christmas.  That is keeping me pretty busy along with MOPS.  I am on the road to starting work back up on my thesis.  I really want to get it done, so hopefully by next May I can be all finished up. For Christmas Rusty got me a dipolma holder with a note inside that said he would hire a babysitter to watch the kids one day a week all summer so I could get a lot of work done.  I thought that was very thoughtful of him.

Rusty is still enjoying his job, but is starting to scheme his next adventure.  He wants to start his own company by the time he is 30ish, so he thinks he might want to try out another company in the next year or two so he can get some more experience.  But, we’ll see what happens.  He got to go skiing the other day with his scouts, and I was very jealous.  While he was on the slopes I was home with two sick kids.  (they both have colds).