What's in a name?

We're getting ready for baby sister to get here! I started the weekly OB appointments today and next week we'll have the ultrasound to check her position. We'll have them double check "her" too - would hate to have all the girly stuff washed and ready only to be surprised by a he. Not to mention the turmoil of name selection that we'd endure. It's hard enough narrowing down the selection with only one gender to worry about! Speaking of, we've put our poll up! Vote to the right =====> and feel free to leave thoughts in the comments. [legal disclaimer: results of poll in no way determine the actual final name of the baby girl. so no need to stuff the ballot for or against any particular name. ahem. you know who you are.] Sorry to say, we found other options besides Dijionnaise.

Miles played hide and seek at The Little Gym on Monday and loved it. He was really into being quiet and still, waiting for Ms. Stephanie to find him. But we'll need to work on the concept of hiding. While at the Gym, he did get partly behind a mat; but tonight when hiding from daddy, well, he couldn't see daddy and that's what mattered!

Wide Open Space

Phase two-ish of the kitchen remodel has begun! While it has been a month since the first phase was in progress, we have had a functional kitchen and haven't been totally disrupted by mess. And even this won't be a total disruption, just a little messy with more drywall sanding, paint, etc going on. And look at the change with just one day! The wall is gone and the part that will become the banquette seat back is framed. The space looks huge!!!

When Wayne got home, the running joke for about half an hour was Miles shrugging his shoulders, saying "Where's the wall, daddy? Who took the wall?" And giggling. He was pretty amazed when he woke up from his nap and saw it done. Oh, the other thing to note is that the sink came in! (If you click on the photo it may enlarge enough for you to see.) It is set and the counter people came to make the template today. So fingers crossed for quick turnaround on that and then the actual "kitchen" part will be - dare I say? - done! We may beat baby sister here yet!

Speaking of baby sister, she's had a big week. Last Saturday several of my college friends came in town for a fun little shower. It was lots of fun catching up and reminiscing about life before we all had kids! Then at our Wednesday playgroup, the other moms threw a surprise shower. Miles has enjoyed seeing all of baby sister's new things, although I think he has wanted to confiscate a few items for himself.

a few odds & ends:

.: I almost don't want to say it for fear of a jinx, but my **ack-bay ain-pay** has generally gone away. I still have the waddle, no doubt there, but walking around is muuuuch easier.

.: Tuesday we had an ice-day from school. We played in our indoor fort and Miles texted all his buddies from school. Hee hee!

.: Miles just woke up in the middle of his nap and was so excited to tell me a story. It was about how his puppy dog picked and apple and shared it with black bear, and then brown bear put a piece in his (Miles') mouth. Oh, and one of the bears was riding on puppy dog's back. These are just some of the characters in his dreams, based on the stuffed animals he sleeps with. He also sleeps with an elephant, a fox and several construction trucks, so I can't wait to hear that story.

.: As I've been told by my friends, baby girl clothes mean trouble! I've needed to get Miles some bigger stuff, but just can't seem to walk out without cute stuff for her too. Help!! The only consolation is that it's deep discount after season sales.

.: and I promise, a name poll is coming very soon. We're whittling it down and have some good contenders. Maybe this week!!

Yippee!!!

After almost a full month, we finally have our new oven!! Of course we haven't cooked in it yet because we had to burn off the new oven smell, but it's here. Also, the sink is supposedly in town, so we can finally get our counters in process... hopefully that will take on the short end of the estimated 2-4 weeks. Although I have gotten used to our nice wood counters, maybe we should just seal them and move on. Would be a lot less expensive...

Today was the last day of Miles' Little Gym class, and he beat all those other punk kids for the medal! Just kidding, they each got to stand on the podium and get their prize. Doesn't he look like such a big kid in that picture?? We start the new session on Monday, and Miles moves up to the Super-Beast class. Roar!

To celebrate our big day (and since I couldn't bake yet) we hit our fave pizza place for dinner. Miles enjoyed a PB & honey sandwich, which he dipped in ketchup. We stopped trying to talk him out of it after he downed a few sections - I figured he'd quit eating it if it were really bad. Maybe I just need to serve all his meals with ketchup?

Hangin' in there

So the back/leg pain is still there. It migrates around, but pretty much every step I take is a little painful. I finally got around to scheduling the massage, and I've been working on Miles climbing up into his car seat on his own. But now Miles has started saying that "baby sister is hurting mommy." Yes, but I don't want him to start being mad at her already!!

But when daddy gets home, mommy gets to go off duty. His favorite evening activity is holding daddy hostage inside his "house" - one of the cardboard boxes from the cabinets. They color and read and play trucks, as well as lean on th sides, caving it in. They also like to close the doors and say "Where's Miles?" which is the prompt for me to go "hunting" for my lost boys until they burst out and yell BOO!!!! But as you can see, it's a little tough for 6'4" daddy to stay scrunched in that box for too long.

After that, the reading marathon begins. Thankfully we're beyond the 12 readings of the same story in one night, but we do read 5-6 books at bedtime. Here are some of those in heavy rotation right now:
.: "Bad Dog, Marley" by John Grogan (every day, many times a day. He loves yelling BAD! DOG! MARLEY!)
.: "A Mud Pie for Mother" by Scott Beck (He can almost "read" this one to us entirely)
.: "Llama, Llama Red Pajama" by Anna Dewdney
.: "Momma Will You" by Dori Chaconas
.: "How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight" by Jane Yolen
.: and "If you Give a Mouse/Pig a Cookie/Pancake" by Laura Numeroff are back in favor too.

And finally, I am in no way getting into politics on this blog, but Goodyblog had a link to this great site that matches you up with the candidate whose views are closest to your own. The nice thing about this one is that when it asks your opinion on a subject, it links to the Wikipedia article explaining in more detail. It then breaks down your three closest matches by issue. Even if you think you know who you like best, give it a shot!

Spies Like Us

I found a video baby monitor at a consignment sale last fall and Wayne and I finally set it up. I hope I can capture some of the feed to post here, because watching Miles "fall asleep" this week has been hysterical. About three seconds after we leave the room, he pops up and starts arranging his pillows, bears, trucks, blankets, whatever. He shoves most of the items under the covers by his feet. He rolls the trucks down the mattress. He'll sit there playing and mindlessly call out "Mom-my, where ARE you?" over and over. Finally he'll just lay down and call out a few more times. We were cracking up.

It's a good thing he still stays in bed, though, as I can no longer pick him up to put him back. My back is in massive protest over carrying another child around. I'm no longer Igor, but the pain has migrated around to right around my tailbone. I called the O.B. and they had me come in just to make sure nothing was happening - like, oh, labor. All was fine there. Her professional treatment opinion? Go get a massage. Um, I can do that. Of course it will take a few days to get one on the schedule. Since my next stop was the mall (to replace all Miles' high-water 2Ts with 3T pants) I made a detour to Brookstone, and without any shame plopped down into the chair with the iNeed and iSqueeze. Ahh! It was sweet relief, but alas, only temporary. By the time I made it through Gap Kids and Children's Place, I was achy again. Oh well, nothing that having a baby won't cure.

What other big excitement is happening? Hmmm... New Hampshire? the other Nicole? my newest must-read? oh yeah, it's my birthday! Thanks so much for all the cards, calls and e-mails, everybody made my day so great. I was even serenaded three times! Once by my niece and nephew, Aunt Elizabeth and YaYa, later by my dad, and finally a few times by my wonderful boys. Miles drew me a pretty card and gave me some beautiful roses. Daddy (Wayne) cheated on our "the kitchen counts for everything" deal and gave me a beautiful amethyst necklace - baby girl's birthstone! Wow! And I didn't even hit one of the milestone years.

No offense honey, but probably the best gift of the day - at least the one that made me shriek with joy - was from a total stranger. Kitchenaid is replacing our oven!! It shorted out upon installation over TWO weeks ago, but they wanted to try and repair it first, despite my concerns over the unit's safety. A part needed to repair is on backorder, so they called and said they wouldn't make me wait and would arrange for the dealer to get me a new one!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!! Okay, yes that made my day because now I can quit stressing over it. I'd been on the phone all day yesterday with a bunch of people, even e-mailed a friend who works for Ferguson in Detroit to get on their case.

This is getting long, but I have one last quick thing - we had to toss out an entire baby name book tonight because I found the entry Dijonaise in it. No lie. The "meaning" was given as "Condiment; combination of Dijon and mayonnaise." Seriously, that nullified every other entry in the book. Sheesh!

a new start

Since we're not going to be just about gettin' more Miles soon, I've been trying to come up with a new blog name. I think I finally have it:

.: It's All Brand New :.

I was inspired partly by the new year, and also by some other bloggers writing about their word for 2008. We have so much *new* going on right now.... New Year: 2008; a new year of life for mommy starts 1/8; new kitchen in progress; new baby on the way; new sister officially on 4/12... the list can go on. But I also think being with Miles so much through the day emphasizes to me how we could all look at day-to-day life. I love when he discovers something and says "Oh, mommy, look!" Things as cool as a big excavator now working down the street; simple finds like a seeing new things in well-loved book illustrations. Just 2 seconds ago he ran up to me wearing daddy's cap, the biggest grin spread across his face. I hope everyday for him (and all of us) is filled with the joy of discovering new and wondrous things in God's great world.


Enough waxing poetic! Happy January 5th! Along with some other bloggers, I'm also making a goal of a photo-a-day for the year. I easily amass 365+ photos during the year (that could be in one month!), but they're often spread over events, not just day to day life. So we'll see how it goes, I've already missed one day (Jan. 3). I probably won't post my daily photo(s), but try to do a monthly wrap-up. But here's today's: lunch at Aubrey's. It wasn't our first lunch stop, both of the first two were closed!! Hopefully we're not jinxing our favorite places.

Happy New Year! (+3)

So I can't blog right on New Year's Day, I guess there's nothing wrong there. We were caught up in the fun! We had our Christmas visit from Mimi and PawPaw, and Miles got to open a second round of presents. His new favorite is the Jr. Doctor kit - he goes around poking us with the thermometer, taking our temperature then saying "Daddy, you're all better" as if he's magically cured us of whatever ailed us.






I can now share the "big" gift that the grandparents got this year - a Blog book! I had ordered one for us in the fall and we thought it turned out so well we wanted to share. The site I used made it really easy, I just had to add higher resolution photos so they would print on full pages like I wanted. I covered the start of the blog through Miles's 2nd birthday, and it was a pretty hefty coffee table book size. So for any of you other bloggers out there, I definitely recommend their blog slurping service!


Not much else happening right now. I've taken down all the Christmas decor, which Miles misses terribly. We had to tell him that everything had to go home to the North Pole, but will be back next year, which I think he accepted. He's starting to focus on baby sister quite a bit, but I can tell at times he absolutely does not want to talk about her. The best time is bedtime, when I start singing his lullaby. It's a round of "mommy loves Miles, daddy loves Miles, baby sister loves Miles..." etc. etc. through the list of extended family, then reversed to "Miles loves Mommy, Miles loves Daddy, Miles loves baby sister...." Whew, it can get long. But recently when I say baby sister, he pops up and states "Mommy gonna feed her? Mommy gonna carry her through the mess? Miles gonna hold her like dis." Then he scoops up his bear and starts to sway veeeery slowly. Very sweet. And a good delay tactic for bedtime! (Oh, the "carry her through the mess" bit is leftover from the early kitchen work, when we wouldn't let Miles near the demolition and insisted that we carry him through the mess!)

Speaking of baby sister, all is well there. I had been concerned that she was breech, based on the feeling of hiccups and kicks in different places. But now I'm pretty sure she's flipped down. We'll see in about 4 weeks when I get my ultrasound. The only bad thing happening is that she's riding my sciatic nerve so badly that I'm literally dragging around like Igor. Good times.

We are working on names, and will probably do our poll like we did last time. (Of course last time the highest vote getter wasn't the choice, so any results should be seen taken with a grain of salt.) Check back for that fun game!!

Merry Merry!

Ah, Christmas.... as I mentioned earlier, we took a much lower key approach to decor, events, etc. since we knew the place would be a wreck with kitchen madness. But we still had a happy weekend in our makeshift dining/kitchen/storage room and with our miniature Christmas tree.

Miles, Beebe and I escaped some of the early demolition and sought refuge at some friends' home to bake cookies. Miles took right to cutting the shapes - although he did decapitate a few men with the candy cane cutter. But his favorite part was the sprinkles!! He was a true artist, using color with abandon and sampling his materials as he went. In fact, we had to tell him not to lick the sprinkle-tops, so he poured some in his hand and started licking. SUGAR!!

We hadn't really been talking up Santa, but Miles for sure knew who he is. Christmas Eve before bed, I asked him what he wanted Santa to bring him (I know, great timing, right?). He said "more trains." (Whew!) We listened to a Mrs. Claus bear recite "The Night Before Christmas" a few times. She reminded us of the old Teddy Ruxpin, but instead of just moving her mouth she opened her coat to reveal.... a Christmas tree with Santa leaving presents. I think he fell asleep listening to the tale again.


Miles had been waking us early for weeks by now, so we fully expected to be up before the rooster on Christmas morning. But he gave us all a Christmas present and slept until 8 am!! Amazing. We all went into the living room and guess what... "he brought you trains!" exclaimed Miles!! He was very excited to open presents, and was giddy with the surprise of the tree surrounded by presents. Even more so since until the night before, the tree had been sitting on a table in the window.

But even with the wish for the trains, his most treasured gift so far is a set of John Deere construction vehicles that were in his stocking. He has carried them everywhere, even been sleeping with them. Another popular gift (especially with PopPop and mommy) was a set of Wedgits from Aunt Elizabeth.

Kitchen set-up is coming along nicely. Click ::here:: to see more pictures from the construction process, including proof of Wayne's drill and drywall mastery.

We were saddened to learn Sunday evening that PawPaw Don's mom passed away at 86. She and the family are in our prayers. Mimi and PawPaw will come celebrate Christmas with Miles around New Years, so we really will be celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas this year!

GO!!!.... um, I mean DONE!!!

Whew! I'm sure some of you are worried that we've fallen off a ladder and can't get up. I'm sorry the intermediate updates weren't there, but when I moved the computer away from construction, the modem went on the fritz!! Anyway, we've all survived and even had a very nice (tho messy) Christmas. If I posted it a million and one times it wouldn't be enough to thank my dad for all his hard work this week, and to Wayne, Brenda, Neil and Keith for adding their sweat to the effort. Yes, for those of you who knew Wayne as Mr. I'm-not-hanging-that-picture, he handled the drill, table saw and even wired some electrical outlets, among other things.

It wasn't as quick as we'd hoped, but still to accomplish what we did in one week is incredible. We ran into issues day 2 when we uncovered the electrical work from 1959. Nothing done wrong, just not as renovation-friendly as current methods. So dad reworked everything and more. Since we ran long, dad stayed a couple extra days to wrap up while BeeBe returned to Christmas with the family. I know dad missed out on the big party, but he got some good extra time with Miles too! I'm putting together a slide show of the process, but here are the before & afters:



Here's where we stand... we left off the cabinet molding since we still have to paint and don't want to mess that up. Also opted to wait on the floor since we're having some carpentry work done in the next room. Don't want sawdust ground into the new floors! So besides that and the counter the corner is done.














On the sink wall we're missing the sink and counter as expected. Oh yeah, that big hole on the right? That's where our new oven/microwave should be. It's sitting to the left in the photo because several of the panels shorted out! So we're without an oven while parts are on order and I'm in talks to try to get a new one. Fingers crossed that it gets resolved quickly, in the meantime I'll become an expert stir fry chef!

Now I'm deep in wiping down and filling up all these beauties. Can't wait to post more when the rest of the work is done!!

Merry Christmas to all. Don't worry, I'll follow up with lots of fun pictures of that too.

On your mark... get set....

So it took me a week to follow up that video. But we've been a little crazy around here. I don't think I've photographed Miles since that show, but I've taken plenty of pictures of cabinet hardware, faucets, counter tops, floors etc. It's all coming together nicely... the cabinets were delivered this morning; the flooring is in, waiting for pickup; appliances all get delivered on Friday. The only hiccup is the sink won't be in until 1st week of January, and they won't template the counter tops until the sink is installed. Then the counters can take 2-4 weeks. So we'll live with some plywood counters for a few weeks, I think I can handle it. Everything else will be so much nicer, it will be an okay trade-off!

Here's what the garage looks like now:
Dad gets here tonight and starts tearing out cabinets tomorrow, so it will be even more packed. He's got an aggressive Habitat-blitz schedule planned, so we'll be done by Sunday. For real. Minus any hiccups, and the already mentioned counter/sink. I'll document and post photos of the process as I can. The real fun this week has been emptying the kitchen while setting up temporary work space in the laundry room. Miles has loved flinging the empty cabinets open and shrieking "It's EMPTY!!!" into the echoing metal box. He also got a big thrill watching the BIIIIG boxes as they unloaded the truck. We already brought one big empty box inside, Miles' new "house". I think I may try to recycle all that cardboard into this cool kitchen I found online. You know, in my spare time after the real kitchen is done!

Back to Miles (here he is cheering on his schoolmates' performances)... I've been trying so hard to get video of him singing, but he clams up when the camera comes out. He sings the 1st verse of Frosty the Snowman on repeat, and has adapted the E-I-E-I-O portion of Old MacDonald into "Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho-Ho!" Pretty funny. I'll work on that one.

More soon, hopefully with some exciting progress photos!

as promised...

Miles's 2nd big performance on this stage... 2 songs!! so stay tuned through the rough patch in the middle.

And on a very sad note, we discovered this evening that our favorite - Miles's FAVORITE - restaurant has closed. No more Calypso Cafe sweet potatoes for us.

Zzzzzzz....

Miles seems to be regressing in the sleep department. I hope this is just some growth spurt and not a rebellion in light of the new baby (a little early for that?). He usually goes to bed at 7, but the last few nights was completely wiped out by that time. He fussed over getting into pjs, what lullaby we sang, what animals got to sleep with him, which layer of blanket covered him... on and on. AND in the morning the usual 6:45 wake up is moving earlier and earlier. At 5 a.m.... we hear "DA-DEEE! DA-DEEE! Cover you up!!" or "Sing Rock-a-bye!" or "I pooptied!" (my favorite, especially when preceded by the call for daddy.)

And it doesn't help me that baby girl decides to practice for the decathlon from 1 to 3am! I guess I should get used to it, I won't be getting more sleep any time soon.

So the big question lately has been "do you have a name yet?" Considering that we were almost checking out of the hospital when we decided on "Miles", we may have a ways to go before we know her name. But in the meantime, I found an awesome site chock full of ideas that we won't be using. So far nothing on our (long) list of possibilities has been listed! We'll hunker down on that task after the kitchen is done.

Speaking of the kitchen, things are progressing nicely. Almost everything is in, just sitting in the warehouse waiting on scheduled deliveries next week. PopPop has graciously offered his skill & expertise and is coming mid-week to begin the work. He promises some speedy work, so fingers crossed! The skills he's learned from leading Habitat builds - fast work, managing klutzes non-skilled labor - should pay off. I guess I should back up that statement since this klutz will not be doing any work, and our unskilled-laboring friends who are helping are most certainly not klutzes! My role will be supervisor/caterer, and to that end I've been tabbing some good stuff in my slow cooker cookbook and making the grocery list. The temporary kitchen in the laundry room will be a fun experience!!

Stay tuned later this week... Wednesday evening is Miles's Preschool Christmas program. I have no idea what they're doing, but I'll be sure to post some video.

Happy 49th, old man!

No Wayne did not just age more than a decade overnight. It's our big boy, Apollo, who celebrated the big 7th birthday (in people years) yesterday. We celebrated with banana-nut muffins and Miles got to blow out the candle. Apollo got some extra treats too - like steak trimmings from mommy's dinner - since this birthday officially bumps him into the geriatric category.

Miles enjoyed celebrating but did add, "I miss my birthday." And Chelsea kept giving us the look that said, "I'll remember this when my birthday comes around."

Miles did his best cheering "Go Big Orange" this weekend, but to no avail. He did let it slip that his favorite color is purple, so maybe that had something to do with it?

I've been doing some Christmas decorating to get us in the spirit, but with the pending kitchen demolition it's a limited endeavor. I've got the stockings and some other goodies on the mantle and put up a 4' tree on the tabletop, rather than pull out the whole shebang. Miles is into the decor - he was in the other room when I put up the little pre-lit tree, and when he came out he said, "Ooh mommy, it's kissmas!"
And when he turned the corner and saw the lit wreath above the stockings he started shouting, "Look, mommy, look at it!" Okay, so this year should be pretty fun. If I can only keep him from opening the presents I've already wrapped!

A little more...

Here's a bit more.... the sink wall. We're closing off that door, which goes to the patio, but we never use. The fridge will slide in there, and on the right end will be a built in oven/microwave combo. We're getting convection for both, I'm curious to see what that does for my cooking. I think just having an oven that will fit 2 dishes at once will be a huge improvement!! And again... more drawers!










The other wall is a bit harder to explain. We're taking most of the wall out and creating a big arch between the kitchen and the living/playroom that is on the other side (connects to our patio, for those who have been here). In the corner we are building in a banquette seat, inspired by this picture from our favorite magazine. But since we're taking the wall out, the area above the backrest will be open to the other room.




We wouldn't want to ignore the most fun thing in our house... the kid! Miles loves this picture from Thanksgiving week. He's been carrying it around everywhere, talking about driving the John Deere tractors. He did get to sit on a real gator at PaPa Bill's place on Thursday, so that cemented the John Deere obsession.

For some reason today he's been telling me that we're going to Chik-fil-a and a basketball game tonight. We're not. I have no idea where he came up with that, but he seems to be convinced. Maybe we'll at least squeeze in the Chik and a little ball at home.

And not to be left out, little sister is currently playing soccer with my pancreas. She's a very active kid, much more so than I remember with Miles. So I think she just wanted a shout-out on the blog so we don't forget her. It's okay baby girl, we're not forgetting about you!

Have a great weekend!!

Add another to the fire....

So lets see what all we've got cooking now....
~ toddler on the go, check
~ baby due in 3 months, check
~ holiday season (that description seems to over-simplify, no?), check

What else should we try doing now? Oh, how about a full kitchen renovation. YES!!!

For those of you who have visited our home, you were no doubt subjected to the explanation of our poor, outdated kitchen. "We've got big plans..." "Someday we're gonna...," "Oh, just slide that floor tile back in place..."

No more. And no backing out! We have the cabinets and appliances on order, we're hoping to start the work around Christmas. Of course I don't mean "we" in the literal sense... no way we could attempt to do this ourselves. But the guys that are doing it have their schedules ready for us.

So here's the rundown of the plans....
Here's the cabinet door:
It's "Antique White" with "Chocolate Glaze" - basically the glaze collects in the corners and ridges, supposedly a highly effective trick for disguising fingerprints!

And here's a wall by wall look at old vs. new:
~ Soffits coming out to allow for staggered height cabinets
~ Cabinet/counter will turn the corner to fill the empty space
~ Gas cooktop shifting down - safer for little reaching hands, also space to set groceries when we get home.
~ Look at all the drawers! I have 2 functioning drawers currently. TOTAL. This will be amazing.





I actually sat down and mapped everything in the current kitchen/storage to it's location in the new cabinets and I have empty spaces still! I know that won't last, but I'm amazed at how much more space I'll get in basically the same footprint.

Okay this is getting long, so I'll save the other info for another day. Have a great Wednesday!

The Grand Entrance

photos

I meant to add that there are updated photos from the weekend at the Shutterfly link to the right (more Photos of Miles).

Gobble Gobble!

In preparation for my 3rd trimester discomfort we decided to make a big trip to see the family at Thanksgiving this year, and stay home for Christmas. All of our family is in the state, so it makes for a pretty convenient route. So last Friday we packed up our things and the dogs and headed west. The first stop was for a couple of nights at YaYa & B's to play with them and cousins Evan & Kate. They had big fun as usual and it was a nice way to kick off the big week. We dropped the dogs at the kennel in Nashville (our usuals in Knoxville were full) and continued westward to my family in Memphis.

We kicked off Turkey week with lunch of the bird and all the trimmings at BeeBe & PopPop's on Sunday afternoon. Miles is a fan of turkey and cranberries, but oddly refused to eat sweet potatoes all week (he loves them at Calypso.) We played trains and Miles napped in his cool new fire engine sleeping bag, then after a quick visit to Gee Gee Mama (my maternal grandma) it was over to Mimi's to crash.

Monday Mimi, Wayne, Miles and I played at the Children's Museum where he was really into the fire engine, the airplane cockpit and the mini-Kroger, complete with a mini-carts & working cash register (daddy had fun running that). Later we stopped by to see my paternal grandmother and entertain her for a little while.

Tuesday we went back to PopPop's for a true tourist must-see in Memphis: the Peabody ducks!! ( I have video for another post). I had never seen the spectacle either, so we parked it by the red carpet to take in the show. After a bite to eat we hopped on the Main Street Trolley for a loop around downtown. We made it a full Memphis day with a barbecue dinner, then turned it in.

Wednesday we took it a little easier, playing trains at Mimi and PawPaw's and chasing the cat around. We did trek out to ride the carousel at the mall, where we ran into Uncle Gus who was out shopping too. He had fun riding the "horse" with Miles, but I'm not sure if Miles was a huge fan of the ride. He clutched the pole the whole time! The first ride he wouldn't even sit on the animals, just rode in the sleigh with daddy and PawPaw.


Back at the house we got ready for the big Turkey dinner with Gee Gee Mama, Uncle Kiley and Aunt Megan. Miles had fun entertaining them all, and I think Kiley had a pretty fun time designing some innovative Thomas track layouts. Miles was much better at sharing the trains with the rest of the family than he is at home. We hear "NO daddy! Percy no go!" quite often when it's just the three of us.



Thanksgiving morning we hit the road back to Nashville - actually Leipers Fork - for a Thanksgiving day feast with uncle Shay's dad. PaPa Bill was very welcoming to extended family from all directions, Wayne and I think there were almost 30 people there! After another day of play with the cousins and YaYa & B (and a reunion with the pooper-doopers) we finally returned to the homestead on Saturday.

We had a fantastic time visiting everyone and Miles has already been asking "where's your suitcase?" - ready to pack and head back on the road! I don't know when we'll see all the family again, but hopefully a little event coming in, oh 90(!) days or so will garner a few visits to the Knoxville area. This week gave us something to be truly thankful for: being with all those we love the most and celebrating.

Gobble gobble, everybody!

Cowboy school

So Miles is really taking to the cowboy thing... I hung a new map in his room and he noticed the buffalo on Montana, so I sang some "Home On the Range." Not satisfied with my knowledge of 4 lines of the song, I downloaded the classic Gene Autry version about 15 minutes ago. We're already on the 6th play and counting.

boy oh boy

Oh where, oh where does the last quarter of the year go? I mean, wasn't it warm just a little while ago and now it seems like Christmas is almost here? I cannot believe Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. I'm trying to work on the Thanksgiving concept with Miles. He got Halloween, but is pretty much skipping straight to Christmas. It's partly my fault.. he had the Hallmark Halloween tree and started asking "where is Halloween tree?" I told him Halloween is over, but we'll have another tree soon at Christmas. So he's told a few people (including his stylist today) "Hall-ween over. Kiss-mass is next." So, sorry, Pilgrims, Native Americans, Squanto and Tom the Turkey. Better luck next year.

Since I've been a slacker blogger this week, here's the quick rundown of all the things Miles is diggin' right now.

.: Miles has been really into looking for the moon lately - and of course we've been in the waning/new moon stage so it's "not there". I picked this up for his room, hopefully I can hold off until Christmas to give it to him!!

.: Glad we have a piano here, even if it is sometimes in the way. He's been hopping up and serenading us all week. He'll just bang around and sing "Old MacDonald" or something. We played a duet of "Yellow Submarine," then he learned that my songbook has "Happy Birthday" so that's his go-to song now. Oh, and he doesn't like scales.

.: He does an awesome chicken dance. I will definitely try to get that on video.

.: He's a GREAT big brother to his dogs. His newest jobs around the house are putting Chelsea in her box before we leave the house and feeding the dogs. He can box Chelsea up, no problem. Gives her a treat and locks her in. The feeding requires a little supervision, as he really enjoys the scooping and pouring part - they'd get really fat if we left them to him! He puts their bowls on the floor, scoops each their food (they're on different diets), then makes them sit until he says "OKAY!". Such a great helper!!

.: This weekend he learned to "tackle" B and daddy in the yard. Although his jacket is the wrong color, he was all about some football, getting down, saying "Hut Hut!" and charging at his opponent. He's definitely all boy!

Howdy!

This was it, the year Miles got into Halloween. We dressed up all day, first for playgroup then for the evening of fun at the house. Miles was the best darn cowboy east of the Mississippi, even without cowboy boots.

Halloween morning we played at his friend Isabella's house. Isabella has a brand new baby sister, Ellie, and Miles was really sweet with her. On the drive over I talked with him about not touching her face, but touching her toes, and he repeated those rules many times when looking at her. I think he's starting to get the whole "baby sister" concept. He'll pat my belly and say "baby sister" in a cute little cooing voice. The other day I was wearing a dress and Wayne asked Miles where baby sister is. Miles started lifting up my skirt to get to my belly! Thankfully we were just at the house, but I guess we should start working on those boundaries.

Anyway, back at Isabella's house, cowboy Miles donned the stethoscope and became the prairie doctor. He was by joined his cowgirl friend, Millie, and Pocahontas (Isabella), as well as an angel, a Tennessee cheerleader and Diego. When Miles saw Ava, the cheerleader, he started his own round of football cheers. He still shouts "go big Orange" and "go Vols!," but somehow the generic "go football go!" is now stuck in his repertoire too.

When daddy got home from the office, we all got on our western gear. Wayne and I decided to dress up too so Miles would be more likely to keep his hat on, but I think he would have been just fine without us. We played out in the gorgeous evening, oddly light for Halloween with the late time change this year. The family across the street had their annual gathering for their 5th grade daughter's friends. Once they all assembled, about a dozen girls came traipsing across the yard to see Miles. The girls were a rainbow - each dressed head to toe in a different color. Miles had a big time entertaining them. He and I'd worked all day on saying "Howdy, ma'am" while tipping his hat, so he was quite the charmer.

We decided to trick or treat at the four houses around us where we know the neighbors. So the first stop was Beth & Dan's, the ones having a baby boy next month. I prepped Miles to ring the bell and say "Trick or Treat" and he didn't disappoint. Since this was the first year he carried a treat bag it took him a second to understand what Dan was doing with the bowl of candy. But he quickly got the process and began loading up his own bag! I don't know where he learned about candy corn, but he recognized it and started digging for that.

We played in their yard for a few minutes, tossing the disc with their oldest dog, Cole. Poor Cole was just diagnosed with canine leukemia so he won't be there for much longer. Miles will miss heading to the back yard to "wake up Cole" on the weekends.

Back to Halloween, we then trick or treated a 3 more homes before returning to ours. It was a slow evening, with just about 4 groups at the door. One neighbor about a mile away pulls a hayride with his truck every year, so when we see them coming we know it's time to unload whatever candy we don't want to be stuck with!

Miles enjoyed the ritual dumping of the candy on the floor, and even got a sucker for the bathtub. We'll see if he remembers his stash when he gets home from school today!!