Look Who Can See!!!

Last school year, Alexa got a note home from school that she had not passed the routine eye exam they provide for all of the students. I actually kind of brushed it off thinking they must send one of those notes home with anyone who had missed a couple of letters. We had absolutely no clue that Lexi was having any problems with her eyes. We followed up with her regular doctor at her seven year check-up and sure enough she completely failed the standard, "what's the smallest line you can read" test. Guess we missed that....whoops!!!!

Since the problem was only with one of her eyes, we were really hoping there might be some steps we could take like patching before we had to move to glasses, but no such luck! We took her to a Pediatric Opthomologist and he confirmed she would need glasses (AND maybe patching too - yikes!). Alexa already knew glasses were a possibility so we had already been talking about it a bit. She seemed a little nervous about it at first - especially her friends thinking she looked funny. We really tried to use it as an opportunity to talk about how everyone has things that make them different then, that she was beautiful no matter what, as well as how to handle it if people did say things to her that weren't very nice.

It seemed to work because when we actually went to pick out glasses she was actually pretty excited and couldn't wait to get them back. I didn't want to spend a gazillion dollars, but I also really wanted her to have something she felt good about wearing every day. The good news is we found something that both of us were happy about - purple frames with just a little bit of bling!!! She looks adorable in them - oh yeah, and she can see a lot better :)

My Latest Project

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my digital scrapbooking software and just finished my latest project with it! Since I bought it a couple of years ago, I have mostly been using it to make invitations and single page prints, but this was the perfect project to make a book - an ABC album for Elyse. This is one of the pages out of it. I did one page for each letter after brainstorming all of Elyse's favorite things and making sure I had pictures of all of them! I meant to get it done for Elyse's third birthday, but clearly that came and went!!! So it was a fun, out-of-the-blue surprise for Elyse when it came in the mail last week. She was SO cute with it - it made me so happy how much she loved it. It is so great that all of her favorite things and people are all in one book AND it's a good learning tool! I couldn't help but smile when Elyse told me it was her best book :) The night we got it, Lexi got out the book I made for her a couple of years ago and Elyse got her new book and those were the two books we read for bedtime. Awwww...books all about and for them...makes me happy :)

Coupon Crazy

I learned about the crazy, incredible world of coupon shopping about 5 months ago, and I've been addicted ever since! A friend from the Mom's Club introduced me to her friend Laura, who does a coupon blog and teaches classes for new coupon shoppers. I hosted a class for her and some of my friends and off I went. I have cut our monthly grocery bill by a third and have enough food stockpiled to feed us for a good long while!!! Gone are the days of paying for toiletries, paper products, cleaning products and lots of our food! So I am fully aware that this sounds dorky, but I had to post the above picture anyways :) Laura did a contest on her blog where five of her followers got to see what they could buy with a $5 Target gift card. I was one of the lucky shoppers and the above picture was my shopping trip. In the end, I never even used the $5 gift card since Target ended up paying me $.30 to buy all that stuff!!! Now that makes shopping fun :) And it won me the contest and another gift card to Target. Can't wait to see how much more I can buy with it!

Precious Lexi!

I thought I would share a cute Lexi story. Lex has always been such a sweet, gentle little girl. She has a big heart and an even bigger conscience! It bothers her so much when she has done something wrong or made someone else upset. It even bothers her when other people aren't doing what they are supposed to do - so she is a rule follower to say the least! To top it off, she has totally stored away every lesson she has ever learned about how God would like us to behave! Gotta love her :)

So in our house there are certain words we call "yucky words". Not really swear words, but words that just don't need to be said by little girls who are too cute to say those things! One of them is "stupid". So one day I was talking on the phone to my friend Lori and the kids were playing in the next room. About 1/2 hour later, Lex joined me in the kitchen to help cook dinner. Here is the conversation that ensued:

Lex: So you know when you were talking on the phone you said a yucky word?
Me: I did? Oh Lex, I didn't realize that!
L: (very matter-of-factly) Yeah, It was the "s" word.
M: (already trying not to laugh) Oh bug, I didn't mean to do that.
L: Actually, you said it twice.
M: Lexi, I'm sorry honey, I really shouldn't have said that.
L: (with the straightest face a kid could possibly muster) Oh Mom, you don't have to be sorry to me - you should say sorry to God.

It was seriously all I could do not to bust out laughing. Thanks Lex for that little manners reminder!!!

Playhouse (part one)

WARNING: Letting your girls pick the color of their playhouse and paint it themselves can result in a startling pepto bismal color, lots of spills and two *very* happy little girls!!!

Over our staycation Kenny decided he wanted to do a project for the kiddos. We decided we couldn't do a new playset this year, but the kids had started asking for a tree house, which got Kenny to thinking. After looking at some plans we both agreed that instead of building something new, we'd make something we had even better! The people before us built a nice sized shed in the backyard, conveniently located near all the kids outdoor toys. Although at first Kenny was a little reluctant to give up his shed, he got on board pretty quickly and was very excited to make the shed into a playouse for the girls.

Kenny did a really great job drywalling the playhouse and mudding it. That left the walls all ready for the girls to paint!!! I really wanted them to pick out the color themselves and of course, it was pink! It is quite pink! And painting was a mess! But the girls are thrilled, and it was pretty cute to see them so happy. So this is the beginning of the "Pinkalicious Playhouse"...more updates to come soon!

To the Rescue in Columbus!

Kenny's sister Val lives in Columbus with her husband Paul and their two kids Robbie and Izzy. We found out during our staycation that their Nanny unexpectedly quit so at the first chance we could me and the girls packed up and headed down there to help out. We hadn't had a chance to hang out with them this summer so it was a great excuse! Me and the four kids had a few good adventures during the day (although the rain did NOT cooperate!). We mostly just let the kids play though and enjoy each other's company, with a little bit of the park and of course ice cream mixed in! I think the highlight for the kids was baking, decorating and (mostly) eating cupcakes for Val's birthday, which we were happy to celebrate while we were down there. I drove home after three days wiped out, but happy to have had a chance to see the Cooks!

Trip to the Waterpark!

As part of our week "staycation" we thought it would be fun to take the kids for a couple nights to a waterpark hotel. We've been wanting to take them to one for a while, and thought this would be a perfect opportunity. So the Zehnders hotel waterpark in Frankenmuth it was! It was a perfect little getaway. It was only a little over an hour away, only a little bit of packing and a BLAST for everyone! The hotel was really, really cute - the whole thing was decorated in a elf/fairy theme - which the girls thought was adorable. There were lots of mushrooms, flowers, frogs and little fairy houses - too cute!

Alexa loved the waterpark from the moment we stepped foot in it! There was plenty to do and she pretty much loved all of it. She was a little timid to try out the waterslides, but once she did she was hooked. There was one slide that you could go down on your bummy and she tried that one out first. She worked herself up to the blue slide that you needed an inner tube to ride down - which was really dark in parts and pretty fast, but she decided she liked it despite that! It took the most coercing to get her go down the green slide called the "perilous plunge" but Kenny convinced her and once she went down it we couldn't get her off of it! The picture above is hard to see, but it is of the two of them coming out of it and the end - their faces were too funny!

Soooo...Elyse talked a big game when we saw the waterpark through the windows, but it took her a little while to warm up once we got in there. She was all concerned about the loud noise, getting sprayed and really the whole thing in general! Gotta love her :) Luckily, by the next time we went back in she had decided it wasn't so bad, and soon enough she was really enjoying herself! Elyse's favorite part was the little swings in the toddler area. We eventually convinced her to try out the little slide for the smaller kiddos, and she was also hooked once she realized how much fun it was. Her excited little face coming down it never got old!

One of the coolest parts of the waterpark was this big huge bucket that dumped water out every so often. The bucket was at the very top of the waterpark and it slowly filled up. When it was getting close to filled, a bell would start ringing - which warned you to either get out of the way (or get in the way if you were feeling brave!!!). After much anticipation, it spilled over and drenched the whole area below it. Me and Lex thought it was pretty fun to stand under it every once in a while and get drenched - which you can see happening in this picture!

In addition to the waterpark, we fit in a little time for a trip to Bronner's where the kids picked out a Christmas ornament, some fun in the arcade, and of course, ice cream! Seeing as it was a Miller family rule when Kenny was growing up that ice cream be eaten every day on vacation, it only seemed right that we also adopt the rule! It really was a wonderful trip for us. The kids had a great time and we had a wonderful time watching them have so much fun! The kids already want to know when we will do it again, and hopefully it won't be too long before we do :)