Visit to Virginia/DC Part One!

We had way too much fun in DC to only do one post, so here is the first!!! My Mom moved to Virginia a year ago for work, and we were all SO sad to see her go. My whole family lives in Grand Rapids and I already feel so far away from them - Virginia seems forever away! The good news is she moved to a place that is GREAT for visiting though. Since it has been a year since she moved away, we decided we should get out there for a visit, and it was a blast.

Elyse was SO excited to ride on the plane (as you can see from the picture above!). She has been on a plane before but she was too little to remember, so it was fun to fly with her for the "first" time. The funniest part was when we were waiting to take off and she kept asking when we were going to "blast off"...love it! The plane wasn't very full so we sat in rows across from each other so they could each look out the window. They were VERY well behaved, and since it was only 1 1/2 flight, they were pretty well amused by the plane trip itself for most of the time. They gave the girls little kids packets with a coloring book and crayons and it also had a little tiny set of wings that were stickers. Elyse made Kenny put the wings on her back so it would look like she had wings on - that girl cracks me up!

When my Mom first moved to Virginia, she called to tell me about this fountain that is in the middle of an open air mall with shops and restaurants. The water shoots out of the ground sparadically and she called to tell me how many kids were running through it and squealing they were having so much fun - she couldn't wait for the kids to come visit so they could do it too! On the first night we were in Virginia we grabbed a bite to eat and let the kids run in the fountain. They loved it and my Mom was so excited to get to see them running in it. We actually went back on our last night there too because the kids wanted to go in it again so badly! It really wasn't that warm out by after dinner and the water was COLD, but the kids couldn't have cared less. Lexi was even brave enough by the second night to go stand in the middle of it where the water sprayed in a circle all around her and got her drenched! It was pretty cute :)

The first full day we were there, we made the trek into DC to do some "touristy" things. My mom only lives about 40 minutes outside of DC, so it is perfect for visiting there as well. We rode the Metro there, which the kids were pretty excited about. We spent most of our time at the National Museum of Natural History, since we heard it was the most exciting museum for the kiddos. They were in awe of the huge dinosaur skeletons, and I have to admit, I was too!!! Lexi loved the Terradactyl - the wing bones were unbelievable. Elyse liked the really small animal skeletons because they looked like baby animals (of course!). As you walked around that section in a circle, it led you through the phases of Evolution - which was a little difficult to explain to the kids, but at least they got a mini lesson :) There was also a pretty cool section all about bugs, and the kids got to watch a Tarantula feeding. Elyse's eyes were HUGE the whole time, but she wasn't nearly as big of a scaredy cat as I was expecting!

There was also a small room that was a hands on area for the kids. There were tons of things to look at through microscopes and lots of activity boxes about all different science topics. There was another section with clothes the kids could put on from around the world which Lysie really enjoyed! Overall, the kids and the rest of us loved the Museum. They are still talking about all the things they learned there!

Two New Millers!

The Millers have expanded! We welcomed into the family this summer two new Guinea Pigs - Vanilla and Stripey!

We haven't exactly had the best luck with pets, most recently with the desertion of our rescue dog Tyler, who ran away about 8 months ago. For the past couple of months we started fielding questions about when we were going to get a pet again. Me and Kenny were both dragging our feet, but the kids persisted! We had a family meeting, did some research and decided that Guinea Pigs were the way to go. Lexi took on some extra responsibilities around the house for a couple of weeks to show us that she could be responsible for a new pet, and she did very well.

We hadn't decided exactly when we would be getting the Guinea Pigs, until I got a call from Lexi one Saturday morning while grocery shopping saying they were in the pet store and could she "pretty please" bring the Guinea Pigs home! Kenny is a little bit of trouble!!! Definitely wasn't up for being the bad guy, so that was that!

So far the Guinea Pigs have been ideal pets. The girls love them (especially Lexi) and they are very low maintenance. They are still a little skiddish so we continue to get to know each other and slowly but surely they are getting more comfortable around us. Every morning, Lexi makes sure they have their food and water - and gets them a little treat, usually carrots. She has been a great pet owner, she even noticed when Vanilla had an eye infection all on her own! A couple of weekends ago, Kenny and Lexi even built them their own deluxe cage to give them a little more room. So the kids are happy and Mom is happy - works for me :)

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!