Day 1 - Disneyland

The kids were beyond excited to get to the park Sunday morning. We made the kids these shirts...

 and then decided to make one for all of us!!

 First character we saw was Minnie, whom is the one person she wanted to see.

And what do ya know? She wouldn't get close to her!

We did a family photo with Pluto, because of Lexie being nervous. Then we talked her into taking a picture with just the boys and she did. But check out her grip on Noah's shorts!!

These two were cracking me up!

 Waiting for the parade.

Don't they look great?

 We had so much fun on our first day. We did find out, that Lexie isn't quite tall enough to go on the big rides, which made for a sad girl. Apparently, she's a thrill seeker!! Who knew??

Miller family vacation - 2012

Sept. 8 - 13

This year, we decided to head to Disneyland once again, with my family. It was a shorter trip than usual, but it was enough time, and still just as much fun. We booked, planned, and paid for this trip clear back at the first of the summer...but didn't tell the kids about it.

I knew they would be excited to go to Disneyland, but I also knew that if we told them where we were going, we wouldn't ever stop hearing about it until the day we left. So we kept it a secret.

We went down the same weekend as Kadence's birthday, so we just told the kids they were coming down to celebrate. They got here Friday night, so we celebrated then told the kids we had a game for them.

Kind of a last minute thing. Wheel of Fortune...without the wheel. 

The kids knew at this point that we were going on vacation the next day, just didn't know where to.

Can you tell that Noah and Megan had it figured out? 

We told them to stay quiet so the little ones could figure it out

They were SO excited! Cutler was jumping up and down and screaming. You would've thought he's never been before ;)

My parents, Makayla's family, and Chad all left Saturday morning-ish. We couldn't leave until later in the day because Noah had a football game, Cutler had a soccer game, and Lexie had a birthday party. Which actually was fine with us. We weren't planning on going to any parks until Sunday. Plus, they stopped...a lot, to shop. We didn't really want to take all day to get there.

We caught up to them at Barstow. It was the perfect spot to let the kids get out for a little bit to run around, and we could do a little bit of shopping. Then we mixed the kids all up: Lexie & Addi went with grandma and grandpa, Cutler & Kadence with us, and Noah and Megan with Makayla & Cory. We grabbed some dinner and the rest of the drive was heavenly!! 

We got to the hotel, checked in, and grabbed an ice cream just in time to go to the breakfast room of the hotel to watch the fireworks. The kids were so overly excited for the next day. And I'm not gonna lie, we were too!!

Rodeo

Ha! 

This post is really just because I have this cute picture of my girl, 

but didn't instagram it. 

And I didn't take any other pictures at the rodeo...at all!

Update - I found another pic from the rodeo!

Yay!!

Camping

We haven't been able to camp as much as we like to this past summer.
We finally had a weekend with nothing going on so we took advantage of it!
We went up to Enterprise, with the rest of the county!
We grabbed the first spot we found, and set up camp.

I had to teach on Sunday, and hadn't prepared any sort of visual aid, so we drove to town to get some supplies, and let Colby do some dove hunting. While I was preparing for my lesson, Colby took the kids to the reservoir and he fished while they caught crawdads!!

We went on a razr ride and on our way back got caught in a rain storm that lasted the rest of the night.

All night!

And I guess I shouldn't say a rain storm, it was a thunder and lightning storm.

It was so close, it would almost lightning & thunder at the same time.

You could feel the trailer shake!

I was sure we were going to get struck. We were out in the middle of a field all alone. Everyone else had a little bit of cover.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep all but about 2 hours the whole night...Praying. And I'm not kidding!!

Saturday, after Colby hunted and we got back from town, we started dinner. We had invited Kent & Sherie up to eat with us.

Colby, the master camp chef!!

And of course we had to do some practice shooting

The rain actually made for a nice cool day, Saturday. Since I had to teach, I went home with Kent & Sherie and left the fam up there. I'm not gonna lie, I was worried to death it would storm again and they were going to get struck by lightning and not come home. They pulled up at the same time as me after church and I was so happy to see them!!
We absolutely love camping and already look forward to next year, when hopefully we can go more.

August Instagrams

1. Most recent project. Oh my it's busy.
2. Party preparations! Thanks a million macdaddyboom!!!
3. Just saw this (again)!!! LOVED IT!!!!
4. It's blurry but literally 4 miles worth of traffic bumper to bumper from Yuba Lake exit to Scipio. What should have taken 10 minutes just took us 45!

5. Love finding a good deal...and when you go to pay for it, it's an even better deal!!
6. More party prepping!!
7. One more swim before school starts.
8. The second round of swim lessons helped a ton!! She's so brave now :)

9. This boy is 6 today!! Happy birthday buddy!!
10. Cutler did the dishes this morning. A little OCD, ya think?!
11. The kids brought this frog home from Kolob last week. He has a broken leg and they've been taking care of him all week. Today we're taking him back to his family!!
12. As much as we both have been looking forward to today, I'm sad it's actually here!! Love this boy SO much!

13. We're over being sad! Sharing a cupcake with my beautiful girl!!

14. First day of preschool!! It couldn't come fast enough. She was SO excited!!

Lexie starts Preschool

Today was Lexie's first day of Pre school. 

Just like the boys, the day couldn't come fast enough. 

She goes M/W/F from 1:00 to 3:00. 

On the first day, I told her I would take her after we dropped Cutler off, not thinking about the hour we would still have to kill. 

The minute we dropped Cutler off, she was asking when we were going to Mrs. Kathy's.

My bad!

I took her back home, and we took the first day of school pictures in the yard. 

Her two friends Sydnee, and Breckyn got there the same time as us, so we had to get a picture together. 

We carpool with them, and they are all best little friends. 

It will be so fun looking at this picture in 15 years ;)

We can't wait to see and hear about all the new things you learn this year!!

We love you little girl :)

Warrior Football

We finally signed Noah up for football. 

Tackle football.

He has never played any sort of football before. 

None. Zip. Zilch!

I was a little nervous, but thought it was the best thing to do, at this point.

And I think I was right!

He loves it!!

Colby and I went to the first couple of practices just to see how it was going for him.

At the very first practice, Colby and I sat back and just laughed.

Laughed because (1) we didn't know Noah was so uncoordinated, (2) laughed because we knew he was going to be SORE the next day, (3) laughed because we knew WE couldn't do the stuff they were doing. 

It was quite the practice.

And I was reminded how much I love football, and I can't wait to watch him play!!!

Cutler's first day of School

August 21st

Kindergarten

Mrs. Snow

Nobody, and I mean nobody was more excited to start school this year, than this boy.

When we got to the school, he literally could not wait to go inside his class, find his name sticker, and seat.

I knew he would be fine, and he couldn't wait for me to leave. 

And I really was totally fine, until I heard some other moms talking about getting teary eyed.

I decided to give one last hug, and book it to the car.

And I was fine.

Ok, maybe one tear.

Or two :)

And I saw this and decided I had to start doing it each year. 

Hopefully I remember ;)

Kolob

On Saturday, we wanted to go do something fun. With school starting, and sports, we just don't know anymore when we'll be able to just go on the weekends. We drove up to Kolob, Colby's favorite place on earth, to fish and just let the kids play. I was supposed to be planning my lesson, for the next day, but had too much fun following the kids around and taking pictures.

Yes, Cutler is ready with the bb gun. I guess he thought he needed to try and shoot the crawdad too. 

After an hour or two of catching baby crawdads, and trying to get the big ones,

the kids were getting a little antsy.

Cutler wore his swim suit under his clothes.

Sneaky boy.

He was dying to get in the water and swim. 

Once it was ok, he wasn't quite sure of it.

I bribed the boys with some $$ and it was a done deal for Cutler.

Noah on the other hand, was a little more nervous. He got a long stick and was using it to see how deep it was out there. He was so funny!

And he wasn't about to let go of it!

And it didn't take long for the little miss to want to join. We didn't bring her swim suit, so we had to make do.

She would have just went out there, but I told her she couldn't. So we found the neighbor's floatie that was left in the truck and she put that on. Like it would have helped much, but it made me feel better.

Noah finally got our big container and used it as a floatie. Quite ingenius!! He really is a thinker when he wants to be.

About 3 minutes after taking this picture, a big flash of lightning struck, and we made them get out. Poor Noah's flip flops came off and he was too scared to go back and get them. Cutler saved the day though and went back in. It cooled of quite a bit, so we got as dry as we could, with dried out wet wipes, and put clothes back on. We weren't 100% prepared for this kind of fishing trip.
We switched gears to the guns, and they were happy again.