My little girl

I park in the YMCA parking lot when I pick up Jude from school. After allowing the kids and Willow to play at the playground after school, I decided it was time to head home. We crossed the street to get to the parking lot. Avery is lagging a little behind because she has decided to walk in the flower bed (there are no flowers, but there are shrubs and tall metal light poles) I turn to see Avery lifting the metal base of the light pole. I ask her if she is geocaching, she replied "Yes." She's a funny one. Now she knows to look under the metal base's of lights to look for geocaches.

Summer Recap, already?

This summer has went by so fast. I cannot believe that Jude will start first grade and Elise is entering pre-school and I start up classes again in one week. Where did the summer go?

This summer we spent a lot of time outside. We went to Lake Erie to the beach, the zoo, a little geocaching, a lot of garden work, the wading pool, WV, & TN.

We were attempting to go the summer with out turning the a/c on. We caved in yesterday when the temp inside the house reached 86. It is now a cool 78 in the house. I'm hoping that we can turn it back off on Wednesday when the temp is suppose to cool down a little bit. Not to bad making it till August 16 with the air not being on.

Well that's it in a nutshell. I will try to post some pics of summer fun when I get a chance.

Another New Layout

I have decided to once more change my blog layout. I think this layout is much more my style. Avery slept most of the day today. She was up a lot last night. Delilah ended up taking her to Children's Hospital in Hudson, after she talked to the pediatrician. After returning from the hospital Avery was feeling better. She was even walking around outside for a short while. I think all the activity wore her out because she was ready for bed at 7:45. While I getting her pj's and drink she went and laid her head on the couch to go to sleep. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow. My poor Avery girl.

She wanted the strawberries

Yes.... that is All-Bran Strawberry Melody.

The Easy Way

Yesterday I was finishing up the last bit of laundary, I set the clothes basket on the kitchen floor so I could refill my cup of java. I asked Avery if she wanted to go down stairs with me.....

... I guess she wanted to.

Happy Birthday Mamaw!

A productive day and it's only.....

I must say that I am having a productive day and it's only 10 am. What gives? Actually I have had a fairly productive week. I think this happens when I am able to keep myself busy. How have I been doing this you ask. Well, let me tell you. I have been looking into going back to school, starting a business, leading the youth on Sunday mornings, leading a small group and co-leading a men's group with my good friend.

First things first, school. As you all probably know, I recieved my Associates in Arts: Liberal Arts from Upper Iowa University in December. I am looking at 3 options to continue my education. Upper Iowa, Malone, and U of Akron. I am weighing the options of all 3. I desire to finish up my bachelors in Public Administration or in Finance, both of which I enjoy.

I am looking into starting my own home based business cleaning out foreclosed homes. I need to develop some contacts with banks and realtors who hande the foreclosed homes and would need purchase a truck and trailer so I am able to haul stuff to the landfill. I would try to save anything I could to resell or donate. I would also need to have a partner working with me because I'm sure I would need help moving larger items.

I have taken on an active role at church. It started with co-leading a men's group which meets at our house. I am currently leading a small group which also meets at our house and am in the process of planning the next series of study. Starting this Sunday I will be leading youth during the Sunday morning service. I am a little rusting at leading youth but I am confident it won't take long to get back into the flow of things.

So I/we have been busy with multiple items. When I resume working outside of the house I may have to curtain a few items but I will cross that bridge when I get to it. As far as being productive today............
So far:

• the kids have had their bath (usually done at night)
• balanced out accounts
• filed our receipts
• fed the kids breakfast (Elise ate a ton... 2 eggs, cereal, and a bunch of cheese)
• wrote a post on the blog

Well, now that I actually look what I have accomplished so far it really doesn't seem like that much. I do have alot more on my agenda to finish today. Such as......final prep for men's groups tommorrow and sunday morning, complete 2 apps for jobs, call several banks and realtors.

And here I goooooooooooooo

Attack of the Avery Girl

Avery has a thing for getting into the cereal cabinet. She loves to grab a box a cereal and grab a handful out of it and then walk around the house eating it. In an attempt to break this little habit of grabbing a handful of cereal I decided to pour some of it into a bowl for her. It worked well for about 45 seconds until Jude ran into the kitchen to tell me that Avery was making a mess with her cereal. This is what I found........

Avery also has a thing for getting into the onions and peeling the skin off. As soon as I put one back she is back into the onions. Don't turn your back when she has a onion because this may happen..........

Such fun advertures with Avery. Everyone things that she is such a good little girl. She has you all fooled. She is the most determined of the 3. She is set in her ways and will let you know how she feels about it. Last night after her bath I was putting her pj's on her and she was just screaming away at me. She is my Avery Girl.

Poor Elise

Elise is not feeling very well today. She didn't eat much for breakfast and didn't eat lunch. She fell asleep on her bed before lunch. I had to wake her up to take Jude to school. I felt really bad about having to wake her up. Needless to say she did not want to get out of her bed. I asked her if she wanted to lay back down when we got back from dropping Jude, she said she did. She laid down for a little while and got up and wanted to have Rice Krispies with a bananna in it. We think she has pink eye in her left eye. Now she is complaining of an ear ache in her left ear. I gave her a sock filled with rice (uncooked rice in a sock, then warmed up in the microwave) to put on her ear to help with the pain, it must have worked she is asleep on the couch now (Avery left her alone long enough for her to fall asleep). She is actually snoring. I do hope she starts to feel better, she is not very much fun to be around when she is not feeling good. I would hate to have to pack her luggage and ship off to Nana's or Mamaw's house till she gets better.

Popcorn

Today I made a trip to the doctor's office with all three kids.  They each had an appointment for checkups.  Even though it wasn't to bad, I do not want to go to another appointment with all three kids again.  Jude and Elise were ok, but Avery kept on getting into the cabinet, trash, and drawers.  She actually hit her head on one drawer and now has a scratch under her left eye.  Avery received one shot, the other kids did not.  During Elise's checkup, at the point the doctor checks up her nose, he says that it looks like there some kind of object in her nose.  I took a look and yep, there was an object up her nose.  The doctor said it looked like it might be a bean.  He wanted her to blow her nose to try and eject the object, but Elise wouldn't do it.  So, the doctor said I would need to take her to the hospital to have it sucked out since they didn't have the right equipment in the office for such a procedure.   I'm thinking "Oh, great.  Another trip to the hospital, just what we need right now."  Well, we get home and I had Elise blow her nose about four times to get this object out of her nose.  It finally came out and it was a popcorn kernel.  We had popcorn last week.  The kernel was split and looked like it had germinated.  How crazy is that, Elise was trying to grow corn in her nose.  Earlier at the doctor's office I asked if she put a bean in her nose, she said "no."  So this time I asked if she put popcorn in her nose, she said "yes."  She didn't have an explanation for it.  What gives?

Movie Time?

A day off

Today Jude didn't have school. I told him earlier in the week that on Friday he wouldn't have school. I asked him if we would want to go the Akron Zoo if it was nice out. He said he wanted to go. I told him I would check the weather to see and that we would have to wait until Friday to make the final decision about it. He seemed fine with waiting until Friday to decide. Well, as it turned out, th weather wasn't perfect but at least it wasn't raining. I contemplated whether to go in the morning or in the afternoon. I knew it would be a little warmer in the afternoon but decided to go in the morning. We went to the zoo and it was nice to go when we did. There were only 4 or 5 other families at the zoo with us when we arrived. It was a bit on the cool side but the kids didn't seem to mind at all. We were able to take our time walking, err running through the zoo. The kids had fun because they were able to run off in front of me with out being swallowed by a crowd of people. The animals were very active. The jauguar was doing laps around his pen and walking right past the window. We actually heard one of the lions rumble out some sounds, they weren't full fledged roars but I think it might of scared Jude and Elise a little. One of the nice things was that we were able to take our time through the jelly fish. We went last time it was so crowded. Actually I can't think of an animal that wasn't inactive. We made it through the zoo in a hour and a half. Perfect amount of time for youngsters. When I put Avery into the van after the zoo her poor little hands were cold. The Akron Zoo might be the closest thing we can come to Disney vacations.

She did it again

Aw that sweet Avery. She did it again. She pooped in the bath tub 2 baths in a row with the other kids in there with her. I am surprised that Jude did not hurl, he has a week stomach when it comes to things like that. Actually there was one time about 3-4 years ago that he started gagging when there was mud on his shows. I have been giving the kids a bath every other day (unless they are really dirty) I gave them a bath on Tuesday morning and again this morning. This morning I put Avery on the toilet in hopes that she may poop in it. But she didn't. She decided to go in the bathtub instead. What fun. So I scooped out all the poop I could while I drained the tub. I cleaned the tub out and refilled it to continue with their bath time. Elise has a routing of wanting to get in the bath tub with Delilah in the mornings. Yesterday Elise told Delilah she wanted to take a bath with her "with out poop." Such a funny girl.
I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before. My official start date is December 1st. It seems like so far off. Delilah and I briefly discussed our child care options and both agreed that we need to start interviewing people for the position. I guess it would be a good time to use some employment screening.

Fixing the van

Our right headlight had been out for about 6 months before I fixed it. I had replaced the lamp and it didn't take care of the problem. One time while in WV, my dad and I thought we traced the problem back to the front end module (front computer). I bought a salvaged replacement for about $40 with shipping. I finally got around to switching the module out and it still didn't take care of the problem. After doing more research and understanding the wire diagram a little bit better and getting additional help from my dad I was able to track the problem down to a wire coming out of the lamp harness. There are 3 wires that come out from the harness, 1 wire is always hot. Well my wire was hot but it was reading about .03 compare to 12.4 to the left headlight. I was able to test the wire and found out that there was a break in the wire somewhere within 1 foot of the wiring harness. I bypassed the break in the wire with running a parellel wire from a known good spot in the same wire. Long story short, I was able to fix the right headlight. It was a gratifying moment for me.

The rear brakes had been making a grinding noise so I decided to take a look at them. My initial thought that there was some kind of debris causing the grinding. I was right. I cleaned the brake pad and the brake drum and took the van for a test drive........ no grinding was present.

It feels good to fix something yourself.



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Procrastination and Waiting

I am taking a literature course that I absolutely hate. I can't stand it. So instead of doing my course work I am procrastinating by doing other stuff. I know, I know, I should be working on my course.

I have a job lined up (as far as I understand). Now I am playing a waiting game. I can't stand waiting. I'm about ready to jump out of my skin.

I guess I should try and something productive and get off the computer for now.
Why would you want talking watches?

I'm still around

I've really fallen off track with keeping posting on this blog. Since Jude started school and I am doing my own course work, I've really cut back my time on the internet. I've fallen in a routine of taking advantage of the quietness when the 2 younger ones are taking their naps. I'm able to get about 2 hours of course work done each day. Except for this week of course. This week has been a little bit crazy. Our kitchen drain backed up pretty bad Monday night. So Tuesday we had our friend Steve come out and take a look at it, he owns his own home repair business. He replaced the drain coming down from the sink going into the stack. Well, it didn't take care of the problem. There ended up being a blockage in the main drain under the concrete floor. He called to call his guy out that takes care of the major plumbing issues with his equipment to snake out the drain. There had been years and years and years of grease buildup in the drain. He finally got it unclogged after about 2 1/2 hours. There has been no problems since then. The drain which was replaced from the kitchen sink needed to be replaced anyways because it was galvanized steel and was starting to rust through one of the joints. In the midst of all of the drain issues I have been preparing for an Experiencing God bible study at our house that we had last night. Almost enough activity for me to start acne treatments. There never seems to be a dull moment in the Miller household.

A mid-week update

Well Jude is in kindergarten now and the rest of us are settling into our new routine. We have been walking to school it is .9 miles one way. You have to live 1 mile from the school to get bused. Jude was kind of bummed out about not riding the bus to school. So, since Monday I have been walking 2.7 miles just taking Jude back and forth to school. Avery has been in the stroller or in the backpack on my back. Elise has been either on her little bike or in the stroller. I let Jude ride his bike to school and back from school to the house. According to the district rules, kids are not suppose to ride bikes to school because of the risk of getting hit by a car. I figured since I am with him I would let him ride his bike. But here's the catch, I have to bring the bike back home with me and take it back to the school for him to ride it. They don't have bike racks at the school. I was able to put it on the the handle bars of the stroller, I'll have to get a picture of it for you to see what it looks like.

I weighed in at 214 this morning and ran almost a mile also this morning. My left foot/ankle has been hurting like crazy. I think I twisted or sprained it on Sunday. The left side of my foot below my ankle is red and tender. It also it is a little puffy. I told Delilah that I have to work out through the pain. I've started and I don't want to quit, it will be that much harder to start back up again.

I guess I could get a hold of a Chicago personal injury lawyers and say that the city sidewalk caused my injury.

More Busy-ness

We've had another busy weekend/end of last week. My mom and dad came up late Wednesday and stayed through until Sunday afternoon. It was a good visit. Thursday we were able to get the mulching done around the house. Well, at least the large front flower bed and the 2 flower beds in the side yard. It looks soooo much better. It was full of weeds. Friday we had a semi-relaxing day. We went for a 1.8 mile hike in the Gorge Metro Park. It really is a beautiful park, it's just a shame that in certain spots that it really smells like sewer. Something needs to be done about it. Friday evening we headed to Ron's house for a cook out and a boat ride. The kids loved being on the boat. Avery even enjoyed it for the first little while, then I think she was tired of wearing her life jacket. On Saturday we headed to Amish World, as Jude called it. We visited some extended family and had a good meal in Mt Hope. Delilah and I with the kids headed back early because we had a ton of stuff to do for Sunday. We had Avery's birthday party on Sunday. It was fun. It's amazing how comfortable it was here at the house with all the people here. At the pink house it would have been cramped and you would probably needed to have tactical gear to get around all the people and kids running wildly. I think everyone had a good time. At least I hope they did.

Monday Madness

It always seems that Monday is turns into madness. Maybe I should check out the wine of the month to make things seem better for me on Monday's. Things seem to get done at a little bit of a slower pace. This is how would like my typical day to flow.

1. Get a shower and dressed before the kids get up
2. Eat a bowl of cereal before the kids get up
3. Read through the paper while sipping on my coffee before the kids get
4. Get the kids breakfast and dressed
5. Put Avery done for her morning Siesta usually around 8:30 or 9:00
6. Do a little school lesson with Jude while Avery is asleep
7. When Avery wakes up, get her dressed
8. Feed the kids lunch
9. Do an outside activity with the kids, usually go to the wading pool
10. Back for naps
11. While the kids are napping do some of my own school work from Upper Iowa University
12. Get the house picked up
13. Wait for momma to get home

I guess that is how my typical day would flow, except on Monday's of course. Because things always seem to get done a slower pace because of the weekend. Well, it's about that time. Time for lunch. PB&J sounds great today.

See you on the flip side.

July - recap

July has seemed like a blur to me. Why does it seem like everything happens during the same time. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad it all seems to happen during the same general time. Let me recall the month.

1. We moved
2. Delilah had surgery
3. Jude and Elise went to TN
4. We celebrated Mandy's life
   

Looking back I guess there wasn't more events than any other month except for the fact that this month it was an emotional roller coaster for all of us. It took it's toll on us.

Moving in itself is not a lot of fun. It wasn't like we moved across the state. We only moved six house away, just around the corner from the "pink" house. With moving there always seems like of lot stuff to do. There is a lot of work to make the house your home. You want everything to look nice, even if you are just renting (again). We are slowly settling in to our new surroundings. I can honestly say this house feels more like home does than the "pink" house ever did. Isn't that weird? Maybe not. I guess we are much more comfortable in our new house.

Delilah had to have surgery this month. A semi-emergency surgery. She had her appendix removed. She is a trooper. The doctors said they were amazed she wasn't doubled over in pain and sweating bullets when she came into the ER. Her surgeon said that if she would have waited another 12 hours she would of had poop all inside of her. (I always knew she was full of sh*t) ha ha ha. She recovered pretty quickly from her surgery. It is always hard to keep her down.

Jude and Elise went to TN the week following Delilah's surgery. They always love leaving the house for a week. They had a blast. They got to go fishing, see wildlife and spend time Nanna and Poppy. But it's always a transition when they get back home. I think they are ready to head back to TN.

On the 28th and 29th we had the opportunity to share in celebrating Mandy's life. She was courageous in her fight against cancer. At this point that is all I am going to write about Mandy. I am not able to get the words to type correcting so they accurately describe what I am feeling and what I wish to share. She was a special person and will be missed by all.

Yesterday we finally registered Jude for Kindergarten. We have to wait until next week or the week after next to find out if he is in AM or PM. That to me is so annoying. Why can't they tell you when you register your child whether they are AM or PM. And what's with having to buy all these Kleenex's, Purel, zip lock bags, etc. I thought that is why schools have levies? What happens when you can't afford to buy these extra "essentials" to be shared with the rest of the classroom? Do they label the child and the family as non-compliant? No Child Left Behind.

I guess that is all for today. Check you later.



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