THE MILLER FAMILY

Having somewhere to go is a HOME

Having someone to love is a FAMILY

Having both is a BLESSING


Thursday, September 8, 2011

Two is Terrific!

Sydnee turned 2 on August 14!

We celebrated Sydnee's birthday a few weeks ago with a birthday party at our house.  I can hardly believe she is 2!!!!!!!!  Time has flown by so fast and I cannot imagine that in just 7 more weeks we will be adding another 2 little feet into our household.  Sydnee has been so sweet with all of the new babies she's been around recently.  She is very gentle and soft spoken with them, often saying to them, "It's okay baby. Don't cry."  I am praying that she will be a great big sister, helper, and friend to this little guy.  However, she might be in for a bit of a rude awakening when she realizes that this baby is here to stay!  I know that there will be an adjustment period for everyone and I just pray that she adjusts well and quickly to our new bundle of joy!

Sydnee had a fun party complete with a bounce house, swimming pools, pizza, Elmo cake (by Sydnee's request), presents, and tons of friends and family.  We rented the bounce house because Syd loves to jUmP...she jumps all the time and gets those two little feet pretty high off the ground!  However, she was terrified of this bounce house!  I think it might have been due to the fact that it was 100+ degrees and it was a little hot on her 2 year old feet when Daddy put her in there.  Oh well....at least the other kids enjoyed it. 

Now that we have had Sydnee bless our lives for the past 2 years, I can't even imagine what life would be like without her in it. She has such a sweet spirit, is so full of life, and sometimes says or does some of the funniest things that make us laugh out loud! We look forward to this adventure with her and can't wait 'till our little man gets here to share in it with us!



Sydnee's new "cheese" face...I seriously could not get her to smile with her eyes open!



She's all about Elmo these days so she immediately fell in love with anything Elmo!


Cousins!

Sydnee picked out this cake at the bakery.  She couldn't wait to eat a piece of her "Elmo cake!"

Monday, August 1, 2011

Summer in Pictures


May
In May we welcomed the newest addition to our family, HATTIE CLAIRE CHESSHER!  Sydnee loves her new cousin and I can't wait to watch them grow up together!
Haylie, Aunt Tina, Baby Hattie, and Sydnee
JUNE
Sydnee is now a BIG girl, sleeping in her own big girl bed!  She was so excited to get her new room all set up.  She has done great sleeping in it, she doesn't even try to get out and explore! 

She's so proud of her new bed! 
This is how she often sleeps...sideways and with all her animals!
We also had some playdates with our cousins!  Makayla, Sydnee, and Haylie loved playing at Funtastic Playland!  It was hard to get a picture of all of them together, they ran around that place like crazy!  

Haylie, Makayla, and Sydnee took a brief moment to sit while I tried to capture a picture.
 We still frequent Sea World for our favorite ride, the carousel (or as Sydnee says "ride horsey).

Daddy and Sydnee stop to take a quick pic with Abby Cadabby!

Sydnee and Daddy love to play guitar together!
Sydnee LOVES the water and has no fear of it (yikes!) so the puddle jumper is our best friend!  She is quite the little fish!
 
After a swim, there is nothing like stopping to smell the flowers on our walk home!
JULY
We spent Grammy's 61st birthday at the lake!  These cousins sure enjoy each other.  It was non-stop fun!

Haylie, Macee, and Sydnee in matching swimsuits from Grammy!

Cousin love!

We love to feel the wind in our hair while on the boat!
August
I can't believe my little girl is gonna be 2!  Where does time go?!?  I was trying to capture a cute pic to put on her birthday invitations and this is my sweet little girl being herself... too busy and silly to give me a good smile!
Add caption

Her typical face when I say "say cheese!" or "smile"

But I finally managed to get a sweet pic of this almost 2 year old!  I love you and your fun and energetic personality!

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Sea World!

Here are a few cute pics from our visits to Sea World so far this season.  Sydnee LOVES it there and since it is 5 minutes away, we find ourselves there frequently and sometimes just for an hour or so to let Syd burn off some energy before bedtime.  We've been a few times with Haylie too and she is so cute to run up and hug on all of the Sesame Street characters.  Sydnee, however, likes to just look at them...from afar!

Haylie and Sydnee at Bay of Play


Haylie loved Ernie and Bert.  Syd loved them from afar!

Watching the Shamu show.

Daddy and Sydnee...she kept saying "YEA, SHAMU!" as we got closer to enter.

Our favorite ride by far...not sure what this face is all about, but she always wants to "ride the horsey".

This was as close as she would go to Rosita to get a picture.

HOT Days + Cool Water = FUN!


Daddy & Syd at the splash park

Haylie LOVES these characters!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Happy Memorial Day

We were at the lake for the Memorial Day weekend. We enjoyed relaxing, visiting, swimming, and playing with our cousins. Here are a few cute pics. We also had an early birthday celebration for Max! Happy 2nd Birthday, little man!




Daddy and Sydnee out for a ride.

Bathing beauties: Macee & Sydnee

Sydnee, Macee, and Haylie relaxing outside

Swim time!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Max!

It's a party!

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Catch Up Blog=LONG Blog

It has been waaayyy too long since I've blogged. Things have been a little crazy the past few months and time has just flown by. However, things are beginning to settle down now and I feel that I now have time to sit and catch up a little. Here is a quick look at what has been happening the past few months...

December 2010
Steve accepted a new position within Synthes and was to begin working in San Antonio on Jan 1st! That meant we had to sell our house in Victoria and praise the Lord it sold in less than 2 months! We received and accepted an offer for it on December 22 .

We spent Christmas Eve in Nixon for the annual get-together and had a great time visiting with everyone. Sydnee was excited to see some of her cousins and she enjoyed playing with them and opening presents.  That night when we got home, we all opened up one present: Matching PJ's!

Christmas Day was very unusual. We woke up that morning in our matching PJ's and opened presents. Sydnee got a play kitchen with lots of food and fun accessories to go along with it. Steve and I agreed to keep it simple this year since there was so much going on, so we both spent $50 at the mall earlier in the week and got what we needed/wanted.  Then, we spent the remainder of Christmas Day packing the trailer with our stuff to move to SA.  (Half of our house was already packed in a POD...it was things that we could live without for a few months while we lived in an apartment.)
We moved to San Antonio on Dec 26th.  We rented an apartment for a few months to give us time to figure out whether to build or buy.  Callee and Isaiah came along to help us move in.  Sydnee enjoyed having the company of a friend to entertain her while Callee and I unpacked.  Lisa and Chad also came over to help and within a few hours, it was mostly complete!

We looked at a few houses that some builders had in inventory and were eager to get rid of by December 31st or they would take a loss on them for the year.  We fell in love with a house that was out of our price range, but decided to try and low-ball them to see if they would accept an offer in our price range since it was so close to the end of the year.  We sent in our offer on December 30th and they called us back and asked if we could sign an agreement on December 31 so we did.  We were shocked that they even entertained our offer!!!  It was truly a God thing and we praise HIM for this blessing!!!

January 2011
Our NEW House!
New Years weekend we had a late Christmas celebration with Michelle's side of the family since everyone was out of town on Christmas day.  We had good food and great fun with everyone!  We rang in the New Year at our apartment in SA with Scott & Tina.  It was quiet but we still enjoyed watching the fire works together from our patio.  I think by 12:30am we were all in bed...times have changed! 

We moved into our new house at the end of January and we were thrilled to be out of the apartment!  Sydnee loved running up and down the stairs and all around her new playroom!

February 2011
Part of our group at Prospect Bowl
Steve and I at top of Prospect Bowl
Steve and I left Sydnee for a few days to go skiing in Telluride, CO with the McDaniel family.  It was a nice break from the craziness of moving and unpacking!  Our trip was great, however we had a few minor problems...it was -18 degrees when we arrived, our heater in the house was broken, and the sewer line was frozen so no water could be run (that meant no showers & no toilets for 13 people!!!! YIKES!)  So, not only were we stinky but anytime a bathroom was needed, we would strap on our skis and ski down to the gondola area to use the public restrooms...a little inconvenient but definitely an adventure!)  Since the house was in the 20's because our heater was out, we took the mattresses off the beds and all piled into the living room next to the fire place for some warmth...it was quite cozy!  Finally after a day and a half of these conditions, the maintenance man came and fixed the heater and the plumbing so everything was GRAND after that!

March 2011
We are excited to announce to the world that Michelle is pregnant and due in late October!!!  We found out in February but waited to share the news with the rest of the world until we felt things were safe (given miscarriage history). 

Steve accepted a new job with a new company, Covidien!  This means NO MORE CALL!  Since he has been with Synthes for the past 4 years, he has been on call 24/7, which made it very hard for us to plan ANYTHING!  He now is home by 5 pm and doesn't have to work on weekends!  We love this new schedule and feel blessed that God brought us to SA and opened up doors for Steve in this new company!

April 2011
We enjoyed several days at Sea World now that we have season passes and Sydnee LOVES the new "Sesame Street Bay of Play".  Each time we pull into the parking lot, she get SO excited and claps her hands and shouts "YEA!!!  Shamu, Elmo!"  It's so cute to watch her get so excited over something!  Her favorite thing as of now is the "horse" (carousel) ride in the Bay of Play.  She usually wants to ride a purple one and has to pet it and say "neigh, neigh" as she's on it.  However, waiting in line is a little difficult for her, especially when we finally make it to the front of the line and they close the gate until the next ride.  She doesn't quite grasp "waiting for our turn" yet, but we are working on it!
Somewhere, somehow, I've misplaced our camera cable that allows me to download pics to our computer so I will hopefully post additional pics soon to this blog, but for now this is all I have.  Whew!!!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Happy Birthday Mema

On Saturday we had a surprise 60th birthday party for Steve's Mom in Corpus.  She knew her family was coming in to celebrate but had no idea that some of her friends were going to show up too.  We had lots of fun celebrating her and making memories together! 

Grandpa, Aunt Donna, and Uncle Jerome came in Friday afternoon and stayed with us then we all headed down to Corpus for the party on Saturday.   On the way down, we stopped at the wind farm and were able to pull right up to one of the HUGE windmills.  Grandpa had a lot of fun checking out the windmill.  It was really hard to get a shot of him and the whole windmill together since they are so HUGE!  What a neat experience for all of us!

Sydnee and Grand-Papa cookin up some breakfast!

Aunt Donna, Uncle Jerome, and Grand-Papa with Sydnee


The birthday girl!
(Papa, Mema, Grandpa, Aunt Donna, Uncle Jerome, & Makayla ran in to be in the pic too!)

Grand-Papa with the Grandkids and Great Grandkids
(Josh, Steph, and Makayla, Grandpa, Michelle, Steve, and Sydnee)

Grandpa with wind farm in background
Grandpa had to check it out
Looking up from the bottom
Panoramic shot of wind farm

Panoramic shot of birthday party

Lots of yummy food!