the best

1. The best decorated house for Halloween...well technically it's not ours. But we tried. Rhett was extremely concerned that our house didn't have a "costume" for the upcoming all hallows eve so we made a trip to Target to remedy that. Rad has the best love/terrified relationship with the spider. Mr. Maniacal Laughter is absolutely giddy when he sees the itsy-bitsy from a safe distance, but refuses to enter the door unless he is carried. Knock if you dare. 

2. The best $5 I've spent this year...was on this bubble maker and the jumbo jug of bubble juice. Clearance aisle friends. 

3. The best political campaign ads ever....the ones that someone glued googly eyes onto. Now pretty much I have little to no political opinions, but I do find these hilarious and can feel every immature bone in my body when I chuckle looking at them.

4. Best white lie I've ever told...telling Rhett that all the rocks in our raised beds are really dinosaur fossils. Not a white lie, the amazing amount of time Rhett spends looking and organizing for the "bones."  From that day's excavation he found a T-Rex tooth, heart, 2 toes, and a Brachiosaurus nose. 

5. The best date night when you don't want to pay for a sitter? The park, where the twisty slide babysits the posterity. I really don't know why it took us so long to figure out that if we take food that our picky eaters won't beg for, we get at least 25 minutes of date night. It's almost a fairy tale.

6. Best time when everyone is happy...movie night. I think we haven't done this till now mostly because attention spans where lacking for the boys, but seriously all hail the DVD because it's as easy as popping some popcorn. getting everyone into out bed and hitting play and EVERYONE is happy/entertained/being quite. Also all hail the library for their DVD selection. (And books...of course.)

^^^And a little bonus from one movie night, after watching Cinderella I got to relive my glory days when they boys fought over who got to dance with me at the ball. One was diapered, one was naked. Like I said...glory days. 

Natural Disasters

Alternate post title: The Miller's and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Morning.

How does the saying go?
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger?
Or is it what doesn't kill you makes you a certifiable nut case?

I think it's the latter.

Or such was the case on Monday morning as I watched a little bit of a horror drama unfold starring: crazy Julia.

After weathering a freak visit from Rhett circa 5am on a Monday morning, treating the offender and dozing parents to a Paw Patrol marathon, lying in bed figuring out how many hours it was till nap time, we eventually conquered sliding out of bed (sixth time's a charm). Jazz hands for us.

I threw the boys into the bathtub/playpen, got them scrubbed and sweet smelling. Rad wanted to get out, got dried off and I decided it was a good time for a bathroom break.

And then Rad decided he wanted to be grounded for life.

I come out of the bathroom to find a box of contacts floating in the tub and 2 opened and empty contact packets(?) floating in the tub sans lenses.

Offender: Rad.

Unphased Observer: Rhett.
Definitely phased: Mom.

And I am the worst at punishment on the fly when I'm feeling emotional about watching money literally go down the drain, so I just held my head and proceeded with clean up.

In the process of cleaning up floating cardboard, Rad snuck his Precious (my mega eyeshadow kit) out of it's drawers and toddled into our room. Enter mom about 30 seconds to late to save the Precious from getting peed on by the toddler that mom forgot to diaper.

We now had a repeat offender.

And a repeat head holder.

The offender was diapered, the boys went downstairs to enjoy some quality children's programming a la PBS, I debated on keeping the eye shadow...I didn't, and then hopped into the shower with a strict admonition to the boys to sit, stay, and eat cereal.

Showered.
Got dressed.
Went to check the boys.
Was greeted by an overwhelming smell of Febreeze and Rhett rambling about using all of the "poop spray."

The story: good-hearted Rhett decided to try change  Rad's supreme offensive smelling diaper. The diaper, it's owner and it's contents escaped and Rhett extinguished the smell with half a bottle of Febreeze.

Head in hands.

Let's stop there. Yep, that's it. Nothing screams interesting and quality reading like a few Hallmark moments. :) forced smile.

Toe touch.

Triumphant finish of the gallery wall

I don't know what's gotten into me (nesting? living here for 2 years already?) but I've been a bit of a cray crazy wanting to get the house not looking like a lone college male/2 toddlers with zero desire to decorate live here. Lucky Jake. 

And the stupid gap on our gallery wall has been killing me softly for the past embarrassing amount of months and then the east winds blew and my wonderful mother came to visit. She took it upon herself to fill the gap, and knowing I was leaning toward a wreath she found this beauty at Target. 

Much improved, right?  Oh, I know we aren't going to be featured on Little Green Notebook tomorrow or anything but Jake said it really warms the wall up and I agree.

It's made of tree bark and has texture and warmth up the wazhoo. Love it, and love my mom for taking control of the bare "minimalist" walls.

Oh. And I'm thinking of this table to go against the wall. Or a lucite one like this or this. The lucite ones are my top choice. I'll be sure to update in 6+ months.  Thumbs. Up. 

Faux Fall

After a quick gander at the internet this week I'm going to tip toe out on the dangerously flimsy part of a long limb and take a gamble guess that...you and almost everyone else just love this time of year?

We do too. Sadly we don't get 99% of the fall beauty, but it's under 100 degrees so...yay. But we can still love the beauty of the pumpkin spice, admire the layering of scarves and sweaters and chunky socks with functional riding boots that technically I won't be able to wear till February for 2 weeks max, the excitement of football season, or that first magical pot of chili simmering on the stove. Yep. Fall (let's get fancy - autumn!)...even faux autumn is the best.

And because I don't share pictures of the kids in front of a white wall enough...allow me to do so for a minute.

The Fairy Grandmother (my mom) came for a visit last week and brought the boys matching Halloween jamas (pajamas) and lots of Halloween hats. (Not pictured the astronaut and the knight.) I was hoping that Rhett would be convinced to use one of them in his Halloween costume but no. The boy wants to be a possum for the blessed holiday. I'm not even kidding. Possum. More on that later.  

We took the kids to one of those super cliche but super fun pumpkin farm/hay bale establishments with little rides that sent Rhett straight to kid heaven while Rad hunted and gathered all the loose hay straws and pointy rocks he could get his little grubbers on. And this was all planned by Rhett's ridiculously amazing preschool teacher so no credit to us for creating family moments.

^^^Thank you Target for the last minute quasi costumes. And 20% off no less. 

^^^Both stared off happy little cowboys on the train.

^^^ We waited for the train to return. Took a selfie.

^^^Looked up to see Rad not at all happy about his trip around the hay. Opps. Rhett was instructing Rad to "Stop crying and be a big boy" but Rad could have cared less.

^^^ Jake's muscles earned him a 1000 points and a ring from the bell. My muscles earned me 200 points and a chuckle from the shaved ice guy. (In Arizona we don't do hot apple cider and hot chocolate we do cotton candy and tiger's blood over ice. I had two. The baby wanted one to itself.)

Long post, but don't worry it's still October. Happy Fall...ya'll. :)

Miller party of FIVE coming soon (!!!)

I'm hungry. All the time. All I can think about are salami, waffles with nutella and pretty much anything carb.

And then, as soon as I get the food out, it disgusts me, and I can't eat.

 And, I know what you're thinking, "Hm, is she pregnant?" So, let me just clear things up:

I am.

Bambino (bambia?!?!) #3 will be joining our fantastic clan on May 4th of next year. :)

We are extremely excited and think we are officially no longer playing with a full deck. 

We're about to be outnumbered. :)

so much to say, so little time

Observing Jake and I hug in the kitchen:

Rhett: Guys. Why are you attacking each other?

Eating breakfast, post rapid fire question asking session:

Julia: And that's why you get the hiccups.
Rhett: Whoa! You know a lot of stuff!
Julia: Yeah I know some stuff. (Feeling medium proud)
Rhett: But remember mom. You're not smarter than a cow.
Julia: deflating ballon

Proving that we are raising our children to be BFFs:
Julia: Can you go give the sippy to Rad?
Rhett: Wait wait wait WAIT who is Rad?!?!

Overheard while warming the bench at the park:

A small heard of kids run by
Kids: Watch of for the sniffy kid!
Rhett: Running after the small heard trying to sniff/smell them.

Attempting my hand at 4 year old humor while running errands:

Rhett: Mom. Where you trying to be funny?
Julia: Well...
Rhett: You should try again.
Julia:

Rhett downstairs, Julia upstairs:

Rhett (yells) MOM!!!
Julia:
Rhett: (yells louder) MOM!!!!!!!!!
Julia:
Rhett: (and louder) MOMMMMYYYY!!!!!
Julia:
Rhett: (softly) Sweetheart? Are you up there?
Rhett: Honey?

Negotiating a toy deal with Rad:

Rhett: Can I have my rescue bot now?
Rad: NOOOOOOOOOO!
Rhett: (sighs) I really hope you learn some new words soon Rad.

While having our second-lunch order taken at Chick-fil-a:

Rhett (to the teenage employee): Hey.
Employee: Hi.
Rhett: I really like all the polka dots (acne) on your face!
Julia: cringe...

In a very occupied public restroom:

Rhett (in a stall): Grunnnt Come on!
Rhett: I'm kinda in a hurry! Grunnnt
Rhett: Come onnnnn!
Rhett: Oh.
Rhett: Well I see you were ginormous.

A brief glimmer of potential religious upbringing:

Rhett: Wait! Hold on!
Rhett: I think I hear Jesus!
Julia:
Jake:
Rhett: one finger held up, other hand cupped around ear
Julia:
Jake:
Rhett: Oh. Actually I think it's just the fan.

Rain day

Tardy to the party post. This some how missed getting posted during my brief blog hiatus so here it is. 

I promise I normally don't document every waking moment of our glamorous lives via camera and eventually blog post...OK maybe I do...but! for now there is a need to post about the 3.29 inches for rain we got on Monday (a few Monday's ago).

Don't laugh.

3.29 inches of rain in a desert leads to THIS.

At first we kind of chuckled when we heard that schools were closing. And then we started to worry when Jake couldn't get to work (well one road was closed and the other looked like it might have problems if the rain persisted.) and then when we heard the governor had declared a state of emergency and saw the pictures and learned that people needed to be evacuated we started to worry.

Thankfully our only adventure with the epic rain drops was our backyard flooding and for that we are very very grateful. Rain is so seldom here, that we kind of feel like it justifies a day-cation.

Plus, rain brings out my inner geriatric and all I want to do is nap and look at fireplaces on Pinterest.

So a few pictures.

^^^The large 4 year old does still wear a diaper at night. He's always most, pretty much, always dry but this sleep-o-holic is not great at getting up and changing the sheets, tending to Rad's 4:30 bottle call and being functional the next day. We're trying. Baby steps. 

^^^ Rad sat on the little red fire engine, ate his cold pizza, and stared at the rain. If he could formulate verbal deep thoughts I'm sure he would have had some poetic musings. But all we got was this face.

^^^From his perch he saw a big lake with lots of dad-poles. (Tadpoles) Technically neither of his observations was true, but we didn't fill him in on that.

^^^ I call this 3 picture series "Baby Brother Tries to make a Bossy Coup and Fails."

^^^ Recreating "Noah's Boat."

^^^ Giraffe be like "Flood? Please."

^^^You know that secret garden of mud we have in the backyard? Delightful.