Miller Happenings

Here's a little update on what's going on with us lately:

BRYCEN

This little guy surprises us everyday. I was cleaning up the office today when Brycen came walking in with his pack of Twist Up crayons Aunt Amy gave him for Christmas. (He loves them! Thanks again, Amy!) He handed them to me and said, "Color?" Apparently he says "color" now! It was so fun hearing him say that. We walked into the living room, picked out his Clifford coloring book, and colored on the living room floor. Every time he picked out a new crayon he said, "Color."

I made him up a plate of leftover shepherd's pie for lunch today (which he loves). You can find the recipe here by the way. :) The mashed potatoes can get a little messy so I went to feed it to him like we did last night for dinner. He got mad and said, "No!" Then he took the fork away from me and ate the entire thing all by himself. My baby is turning into an independent little boy!


On Friday night we went to Burger King for a little family outing. I was craving a chicken sandwich after seeing the advertisements on TV that they are buy one, get one free right now. Tyson and I each got one and then we got an order of fries for all of us to share. We got Brycen his own hamburger. I had torn it into pieces for him to eat with a few fries and he just wasn't eating them. So I decided to give the hamburger to him to try eating on his own. I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before, considering he eats a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch once or twice a week with no help. After I gave him the hamburger he was in heaven.

After dinner we gave him a Burger King crown to wear and he loved it. He wore it the whole way home and didn't want to take it off. I had the point-and-shoot camera with me so I was able to snap a quick picture of him on the way home in the dark. That night I went to change him into his pj's, but he was mad because I needed to take his crown off to get his shirt off. I hurried and took it off, and while he was screaming for his crown I took his shirt off, put on his pajama shirt, then put the crown back on. I changed his diaper and put his pajama pants on, all with his crown on.


The next morning (Saturday) we went to take Tyson's truck in to get the windshield replaced. While we waited for it to get finished we decided to go to Zurcher's. I love that place! And so does Brycen. He loves the balloons and that he gets one every time we go there. He loved that balloon and wanted to play with it all day. And that's exactly what he did. He carried it around with him and sported his Burger King crown in the process. I took this picture after I got him in his jammies on Saturday night. He's a funny kid.


ALLI & BABY BOY
I am 18 weeks pregnant. How in the world did that happen? It's amazing how much quicker this pregnancy has gone. I'm not sure how I feel about that! The picture above was taken at 16 weeks. Lately my stomach has all of a sudden poked out even more. I started feeling our little boy moving around at about 15 weeks and I've felt him a lot more lately. On Thursday morning I started feeling SO much better out of nowhere. I haven't been nauseous or had to rely on my nausea medication at all. It's been wonderful! However, the fatigue has really set in. But some days are a lot worse than others. Most days I feel awesome, with that occasional tired day. It's funny how each pregnancy is so different. After 15 weeks with Brycen I felt awesome till I started feeling contractions at 33 weeks. This pregnancy has been all over the place. But I'll take it! I've been able to manage it just fine, and it helps that I have a busy toddler to follow around all day long.

This little baby boy is healthy and doing really well! As soon as I get better ultrasound pictures I will post one. I feel so grateful to be having a healthy pregnancy and that all is going well. That's always a worry.

My latest food cravings include:

• pickles
• sugar (candy of all kinds)
• Subway
• chicken sandwiches
• mint chocolate chip ice cream
• slushies
• diet pepsi (When do I NOT crave a diet pepsi?)

TYSON

Tyson is keeping busy with work and really enjoying it. It's a tough job, but somebody needs to do it! He's really good at what he does. To recap on that, Tyson is a therapist at the Behavioral Health Institute with McKay-Dee Hospital here in Ogden. He works with all kinds of people. We're talking "lie down on the couch and tell me about your problems" kind of therapy. It's pretty nice having someone like that around, especially during pregnancy! He was recently asked to present at the University of Utah's Neuropsychiatric Institute Conference on critical issues facing children and adolescents. I'm excited and proud and all of those other good words that he was asked to take part in an event like that. What a neat experience that will be! He's amazing.

And our most recent family event:

We said goodbye to Tyson's Dodge Dakota that he had for three years on Saturday. It was a great truck and we'll miss it! (Do I dare admit that I cried when we left it? I blame the baby.)

We took the truck to a dealership and traded it for a van! Yay for vans! It's a 2009 Dodge Caravan and we love it already. We had no intention of getting a van so soon (it has been a plan further down the road with more kids). We saw one at Ken Garff Nissan in Ogden and thought we'd go look at it and test drive it. The price was way too awesome to pass up. So we left Tyson's truck and came home with our van. We got our extra space, Brycen got his DVD player, and we're all happy. Traveling is going to be much easier with this van!