And Baby Makes 4!

That's right...John and I are expecting baby Miller #2! I will be 11 weeks tomorrow and we are due September 30th! I've been keeping it a secret from the blogging and Facebook world for a while now. But we finally had our first ultrasound yesterday and I was very ready to make the big announcement! We found out on January 22nd that I am pregnant again. John was extremely excited! I was...in shock. Haha! We knew we wanted another baby in the near future but I was honestly a little scared when I found out. Izaak hadn't even had his first birthday yet! It took me a week or 2 to get used to the idea and of course now I'm thrilled! This baby and Z Bug will only be 20 months apart. I know it's been done before and I know it will be fine! I'm sure I will have my hands full and there will be some challenging days, but I'm really happy that they are going to be so close in age. I hope they can be best friends growing up! People keep asking me if I want a boy or a girl this time, and most people are already guessing that it's a girl. I really feel like it's a girl too...but I felt that way with Izaak so, we'll just have to wait and see! Of course it doesn't matter to me either way and I just want a healthy little bundle. I would like to have another boy so that Izaak has a playmate to rough house with, be on the same sports teams with, etc. But I also keep thinking about how fun it would be to shop for and dress up a little girl! Hehe. So, either way I will be happy and excited! Hopefully I will be blogging more in the near future. I kind of got away from it for a while. I really need to catch up on videos of Izaak! But for now, I will leave you with some pictures!

2 pink lines = baby!


Our little blessing #2


Big Brother!

We Are Family

Well I am SO BUMMED that I totally forgot to enter this week's I heart Faces challenge because I already knew what picture I wanted!! Argh! It's been a little crazy around here the past few weeks without John at home. I salute single mothers because.....dang! I don't know HOW you do it! Anyway, I still want to post a few of my favorite family pictures. This family gave me and my friend E the wonderful opportunity of photographing them on the beach one gorgeous Saturday afternoon. They are such a sweet bunch and we got some really good pictures of them. Here are just a few of my favorites!

11 month old videos

Christmas morning playing around in the kitchen




Playing with his new ball pit!




Making a mess of the bookshelf



Can you say "NO"??




Dance and give mommy kissies!




Driving mommy crazy all day long

Guess Who Won?!?

Izaak and I are very proud this week that we were one of the FIRST place winners on I ♥ Faces . Thank you so much to Rebeckah for choosing us!!

The winning photo

Runner Ups

I was only allowed to post 5 pictures for the I ♥ Faces weekly photo challenge, and it was hard to choose which were my faves! So here are the runner ups. Just wanted to share.

Hilarious Outtakes

I ♥ Faces is ending their year by featuring "Hilarious Outtakes". I've been excited about this post because I have SO MANY funny face pictures of Izaak. It was so hard to choose but I had to narrow it down to 5. So here they are! P.S. Be sure to check out my Runner Up pics!

#1 This is Izaak when he was just a few days old.

My mom was trying to burp him, but I thought
this "pose" was just hysterical.

#2 Here he is a few months old making this SURPRISE face!


#3 My husband was letting him lick the cake batter
off the beaters. It looks like he's saying, "Are you
sure you aren't going to tell mommy about this??"



#4 Izaak's daddy is a Marine and Izaak LOVES daddy!
I think he was trying to give me his best Devil Dog
face here. :)


#5 I had to save the best for last. My husband was
cleaning out our fridge a couple weeks ago and
Izaak decided he liked the Coors Light! This
picture is SO funny because it looks like he had
a little too much to drink!

Holiday Traditions

Bloomington, Indiana. My grandmother's kitchen. That's where my mom was sitting just a few minutes ago as I was talking to her on the phone. Her and my dad and the 3 puppies just got in yesterday after quite a long drive. She told me about the barbecue, baked beans, potato salad and jello they just finished up. And then of course, you have to top that off with a piece of Nana's homemade blackberry cobbler. Wow that sure brings back some good memories. Every year my parents, my brother and I would drive the 10 to 12 hours to my grandparents house to spend Christmas. My aunt, uncle and cousins were usually already there waiting for us, and we would all have a big meal. Chili or vegetable soup the first night, barbecue the next. Hehe. Nana's candy and fudge was always sitting out on the cabinet, calling to you to come take a nibble. The days leading up to Christmas would be full of excitement, seeing all of the family that you haven't seen since last year and hearing, "Oh my how you've grown!" The girls go shopping and to movies. The guys lay in the living room floor watching basketball games. Then finally...Christmas morning would come!! The tree always had an embarrassing number of presents under it but...oh how exciting it was!! Of course, my family was one of those take turns families, so the present un-wrapping always lasted a few hours. After we cleaned up, we would either get ready to go to my great Aunt Toot's house, or start preparing food at Nana's for the HUGE Christmas lunch! (They take turns every year). My very favorite food of the day, and I think everyone else in my family would agree, is Memaw's noodles! And then when I was real young, we would always end the day by going on a terrific hay ride through the woods pulled by Gene's tractor. It would be freezing but SO much fun! That night we would all crowd together in Memaw and Great Grandad's living room for more present opening. When they passed, that tradition kinda seemed to come to a close. And that's ok. Because I will always have those beautiful memories.

I never knew a Christmas not spent in Indiana until 2006, my first married Christmas. John was about to deploy to Iraq so we chose to spend that year with his family. I can't deny that I was a bit sad not to be having my traditions that Christmas. Then the next year I would have gladly spent Christmas day in a cell as long as John could have been with me. He was still deployed and not even my family's traditions could help make me feel better. But little did I know, the next year I was going to be 8 months pregnant and living in Okinawa, Japan! Obviously, we were unable to travel back for Christmas. It was so very strange to both of us spending the day just the 2 of us with only 10 or so presents under the tree. We hardly knew what to do with ourselves! Haha. We were unable to make it back again this Christmas, but we have a bouncing, high energy, almost 11 month old to share it with this year, and we are SO excited to see him with all of his MANY MANY presents that we've been collecting at the post office over the past month. For the first time last night, I wrote on a gift tag, "From Santa Clause". Boy was that a strange feeling! But I'm sure I'll be doing it for many years to come!

I don't know where we'll be next year, or the next, or the next. Being in the military, it's kinda hard to plan these things. I would like to think that I most certainly will be going back to Indiana to spend Christmas with my extended family once again and share our traditions with Izaak and my future kids. Of course I miss my family and our traditions at this time of year, but for now, I want to make sure that John and I start some of our own traditions that our kids, grandkids and maybe even great grandkids will always have fond memories of just like my Nana and Grandad did for us. I found this quote that I really liked and it really kinda fits my life right now, so I'll leave you with that. Merry Christmas everyone!! Be sure to make lots of good memories this year, wherever you are and whoever you're spending it with.

"Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag." ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

P.S. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures with me here in Japan of Christmas in the old days, but I will leave you with some much cuter pictures and my reason for looking forward to many more Christmases wherever they may be spent!