I know...a very rare double day post. But this is worth it:

Every child God creates is so very unique, but some just break every possible conceivable mold. Jamie is watching a loud, action movie with a friend tonight and it is well, loud. The girls were complaining about the volume as I put them to bed and I just told them to bury their heads in their pillow or wear some headphones. I just went in to check on them and this is how I found Isabelle....



Apparently, there were no headphones or earmuffs readily available so she made her own with two styrofoam cups and some post-it notes. You gotta love that kid!

Activity Advent Calendar: Day 5- Shopping for thoughtful gifts

A beautiful tradition of Christmas is sharing gifts with people we love. Our kids exchange names with their cousins in Ohio and Tori was expressing to me earlier in the season how she wanted to pick her OWN gifts for her cousin. Admittedly, I am a bit of a control freak and like to have a say in what they are choosing, but I am learning to (big breath)...let go. ;) This Saturday as part of our Activity Advent Calendar we embarked on a new adventure and visited the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis to shop for our cousins. They were having a Craft-O-Rama with all kinds of vendors selling homemade crafts and gifts. The first challenge in shopping with children, or maybe with shopping in general, is fighting the desire to look for one's self. As the girls and I shuffled through the very crowded fair, they were all too eager to choose trinkets for themselves and a little less eager to shop for cousins. Shopping for ourselves would not have communicated the message I was hoping to get across this day. :( But then, and I love when this happens, Tori spotted the perfect little treasure for her cousin Mikayla. She showed it to me waiting for my thumbs up or thumbs down on her find. Now, it is nothing spectacular, and I can't tell you what it is exactly, but Mikayla will like it. And in that instant, our time at the Craft-O-Rama became far more enjoyable and the much more valuable lesson was learned. Once the girls had tasted success in finding something thoughtful for another person, they became eager to find more things for the other people on their list. Truly it is far better to give than to receive. Merry Christmas!


p.s. Most of our Advent days we have been reading books or baking for someone....today we started building our own Nativity...stay tuned. :)

Advent (from the Latin word adventus meaning "coming") is a season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas.
Christians believe that the season of Advent serves a reminder both of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah as well as the waiting of Christians for the second coming of Christ.--from Wikipedia

I don't know about you, but I could use a little Advent spirit this year. I never grew up using an Advent calendar. (I would have been all about it because I love candy) But I never really had even heard the word until we moved to MN and our church recognized the 4 weeks of Advent with candles on the stage. Advent...expectant waiting as we celebrate that Christ has come and is coming. What is not to love about that?
So, last year my friend Tara told me she was going to do an activity advent calendar with her kids....hmmmm...this is good stuff I thought. I told her to blog about it so I could steal all her ideas, but she did not cooperate. :) So this year I am navigating it on my own. Christmas is one of Jamie and I's favorite times of the year. We love soaking in every moment of the season with decorations, christmas treats, festive music, sharing gifts and time with friends and family and this year I will be finding one small thing to do every day to celebrate this wonderful season with the girls. I pray you find your own ways this year to soak in the hope, joy, love and peace that the Advent of our Savior brings. Happy Advent!

Day 1: Miller Activity Advent Calendar- Gingerbread House--this is way harder than it looks. My mom normally does it with them and probably should in the future, since my roof totally cracked and caved in and I had to use paper to save it. :(




p.s. don't expect pictures of every day...that would be a Christmas miracle! :)

grandma and papa came to town this past weekend. i am pretty sure they played close to 100 games of quiddler, skip-bo and racko. we love when they come to visit. it means a lot of love for the girls, a lot of good conversations and laughter, and a lot of yummy food (we are talking about phil, here). thanks phil and sue for traveling out to see us. we love you so much!



macie just fell in love with this mickey mouse stool in an antique store in stillwater. she could have sat there forever reading old golden books.

Macie had a gift card to Target for her birthday. I wanted her to get some more wood food for her kitchen. She wanted to be like Daddy. Daddy wins. :(

Yes, Macie did eventually wake up and she did humor me with a little ballerina skirt to go with her ballerina shirt. She really perked up after our neighbor Joe gave her a Kool-Aid drink and she got to see Jasper, Shannah and Randy. What a booger..but awful cute. :) Can you see from that last picture what I am dealing with here????

Happy Halloween! I am manning my usual post in the entryway with my silver bowl of candy awaiting trick or treaters. But, alas, I have only had two, and they were friends who were coming to trick or treat with the girls so, they don't count. Bad news for me, but good news for you that I have time to post some halloween pics.




You may be wondering where Macie is in all these pictures. I, too, was eagerly anticipating how cute she was going to be in her costume this year. However, much to my chagrin and definitely not due to my lack of persuading, her official position on Halloween this year is she is NOT participating and she is NOT dressing up. She is upstairs sleeping right now. She did tell Isabelle, however, that she will let Isabelle share her candy with her and sad thing--sweet Isabelle agreed. Nice.


Happy Halloween.

(This is a long overdue post since Jamie said I would post it as a follow up to his blog and I never did...oopsie) :)

Family Friday night started as a ploy to divert the girls attention from something they were not going to get to do (I don't remember what, but I do remember we went for some ice cream special at Culvers for the first one) and it has become one of our favorite family occurrences. Admittedly, Jamie has come up with the most creative Family Friday nights and Chopped has to be one of his best. The girls and I love watching The Food Network together and we have managed to suck Jamie in for one of the shows. He explained Chopped on his blog, but basically chefs compete in an appetizer, entree and dessert round to create dishes from a mystery basket of ingredients. We decided to have our own version of the competition. Tori and Isabelle competed in a dessert round. Jamie and Macie were the designated judges and I was the kitchen helper (they are only 8 and 6). We all headed to the grocery store (always a fun excursion) and Jamie and I strategically picked some ingredients for the girls to use. At home we filled their "mystery baskets" (aka lunch bags) with the special ingredients for their desserts. Their ingredients were E.L. Fudge cookies, a roll of biscuits and marshmallows. I use biscuits to make monkey bread and homemade doughnuts, both of which they help me with, so I was hoping that would trigger some ideas in their minds. They had 20 minutes to complete their desserts. At the end of the time the girls threw up their hands, just like they do on t.v. :) Tori was laughing so hard as she did her presentation to Jamie she could not even get any words out.



Tori made a biscuit stuffed with melted marshmallow, chopped E.L. Fudge Cookie. She served it with a ball of peanut butter mixed with more E.L. Fudge cookies.






Isabelle made a deep fried doughnut stuffed with marshmallow, peanut butter, chopped E.L. Fudge cookies and jelly and topped with syrup.





Jamie got the pleasure of eating both desserts. He wimped out on a decision and made them co-winners-lame ;). He gave Isabelle the award for creativity and Tori the award for taste. We decided for future Chopped Championships we should not give them so many sweet ingredients, as eating their desserts completely would have made us very sick.