bad joke

So, if my title gave you anxiety that this post was going to be negative, let me just clear that up right away by assuring you that this post is, indeed, actually about bad jokes. Specifically the ones perpetuated by my hilariously unhilarious children.

It should be noted that Rhett actually tells most of the jokes, but Rad is always there to cue the requisite laughter.

It should also be noted, that Rad finds Rhett a certified comedic genius.

I'll let you be the judge. ;)

Joke #1

Rhett: Knock knock

Us: Who's there?

Rhett: Chair (or insert any other random object)

Us:....Chair who?

Rhett: Chair on my heeeeaaaad!

And then they both laugh like minions and tell the same joke about 50 times using different objects.

Another? OK.

Joke #2

Rhett: Knock knock

Me: Who’s there

Rhett: Dragon

Me: Dragon who?

Rhett: DRAGON FIRE that burns your bum!!!! (Cackles maniacally)

Me:

Seriously, people. He would keep at this winner, using the exact same wording and tone of voice, until the breath left his body if I didn’t eventually crack and hide in the bathroom after the 42nd repetition.*

Joke #3

This one is more of a story -

Rhett: Once upon a time, a man went to the moon. He took a bite out of it and he glowed FOREVER.
Rhett: HAHAHAHAHAHA

Cute the first time. Not so funny the other 9,999,999,999

But he’s not the only Knock Knock Joke Offender.

Rad's comedic contribution is to yell "JOKE!" and then laugh like this....




(If the interwebs aren't in a good mood...HERE)

It's always Saturday Night Live here.

*I have to admit that they tell their “jokes” with such enthusiasm and personality that I genuinely crack up every single time.

Rhett and Rad chat

^^^ these were taken from the night of our talent show debut and found in archives. As I remember Rad felt like he had already preformed enough for the cameras. Rhett felt otherwise.  

Overheard from the couch:

Rhett: Rad say tattoo.
Rad: Dadoo
Rhett: No. Taaaaa-tt-oooo
Rad: Daaa-d-ooooO!
Rhett: Rad. This is a really important word.
Rad:
Rhett: Cause we're getting tattoos for Christmas.

Julia: Yeah. Heck. No.

Listening to a Shakria song in the van-o-fun:

Rhett: (singing)
Rhett: I'm pretending I'm the black woman who sings this song.
Rhett: (continues serenade)
Family: (exchange looks of confusion and concern) 

In the wee hours of the morning:

Rhett: MOM
Julia: Ehhhh
Rhett: (whispering) I have magic pee.
Julia: Ehhhh?
Rhett: I peed in my underpants but none of it got on my bed.
Rhett: MAGIC.

Singing (literally) in the shower:

Rhett: “Mary had a little lamb, its fleas were white as snow.”

And now that Rhett is spending more time away from our loving home we get some quips from friends...

After school pick up:

Rhett:My Grandma Dot died when I was zero months old… I mean right after I turned 15. I think someone threw a bomb at her and it exploded. Or her house caught on fire.
Tyrell and Everett: (Laughing) 
Rhett: Guys! It's not funny. She was made of wood and burned up. It was really hot.

And also with Tyrell, his second mother:

Rhett: Hey Tyrell, you know how I got blind?
Rhett: I went for a walk and a poison branch fell on my eye. That's why I'm blind"

Annnnd from the ever expanding vocabulary of Rad:

A potty training moment:

Julia: OK, now go potty.
Rad: Tay.
Rad: One, three, four, weady!
Rad: Set...
Rad: Go pee!!!

A MDSA (Mother Desperately Seeking Affirmation) Moment:

Julia: Rad I love you.
Rad:
Julia: Do you love me?
Rad: I wuve Diego.
Rad: Go Diego go!!

navy baby {2 refinished pieces}

Once upon a pregnancy I thought maybe, just maybe one of the boys would be a potential lady baby. Well...the thought crossed my mind for about .2 seconds. BUT if we ever did have a little girl I thought Navy Jane would be cute girl's name (I can hear your deep sighs of relief that we never actually named a little girl). 

I digress. As per usual.  

My point is/was that I love the color navy blue. It's classic and modern and warm and cool. Basically the best on the color wheel. So when I picked up a 1980's orange oak dresser and very crusty secretary I thought blue. Navy baby blue.  

The power of a good paint color never ceases to amaze me. 

{the color is General Finishes Costal Blue) 

a weekend holler (with doughnuts)

Hey Julia, you know you don't have to blog about every single time you load up the Odyssey and fly the coop...right?

I know. I know. But at the tail end of Jake working Saturdays for like 5 weeks has left us (me) feeling like the circus might just swallow us (me) whole, I think it will do a Julia some good to look back and read about some times that didn't leave her feeling like the world was out to git her. Because...the world...it revolves around her, as we all know. 

When it turned out that Jake's appointment was going strong about an hour after the estimated finish time, we loaded up and well, you know where this is going...we headed to my favorite place of all time...the drive-thru. Of course. We flew through Dunkin Doughnut's gates on the way to the park and enjoyed the 93 degree temp. And park bonus!! There were other kids!! 

I have much much hesitation about just free park hoping without a planned play date because my children are the children who want you to be the lava monster for about 17 rounds. And when there are no other potential candidates for all the phun that is lava monster, that duty falls to me. Which I'm cool with for about 5 rounds. But there's a 12 round difference between my 5 and the boys wish for 17. In case you were following the mental math in this here paragraph. 

But I digress.

Back to us.

Always us...

This is thee trendiest doughnut, hipster filtered, live authentic, kinfolky picture you ever did see. Indeed.

Rad likes taking pictures with me. I swear it.

Rhett is a very enthusiastic doughnut enjoyer.

And Beckett took a selfie. He learned that in the NICU.

Some highlights:

+  Rhett fell twice and he had a bit of bleeding from his lip the second time. He stopped crying 4 seconds after the fall whereas his younger brother would still be limping around and requesting that we resurrect a memorial at the site of the fall to recognize the fact that he lived to tell the tale to any that might lend a listening and sympathetic ear.

+ Rad made besties with some older (like age 7) boys playing basketball and did a super fantastic job sharing their ball with them. Since in most cases he currently proceeds every noun with the pronoun my/mine. 

+ Jake eventually met us (duh) and the kids running across the park to greet him with their grins and shrieks didn't entirely make up for the day but...maybe 88% of my faith in humanity was restored. 

Over all the doughnut picnic was a big success and the boys want to do it again this weekend. Fist bumps.

beck: 6 months

Beckett is a big 6 month old today, but by his premie standard he is 4 months, and either way how?! Too fast! Way too fast! As Jake says, it's hard to imagine life before Beck (B.B.) 

The other day I cleaned out his dresser and moved his 0-3 month clothes to the closet and I found the premie onesie he came home from the hospital in. Usually I'm not one to mourn the baby stage passing, but I am this time. Maybe it's because we're in the throws of toddler and little boyhood, I don't want this sweet snuggle, easy to please, smiles whenever he sees you, stage to pass too quickly.  

So here's what I want to remember about Beck here and now. 

+ Beck is all about go go gadget moving and flailing about and smiling always. Boy loves to cheese. 

+ His fists or at least one finger are always in his mouth. Always. Which means he is also covered in drool. Always.

+ He's a big fan of being worn and he might be our best car baby which is SO VERY APPRECIATED. Thank you, sweet baby Beck.

+ He knows exactly when all the other kids have gone down to bed and is up and ready to party with his parental units. And we love it.

+ He's still on a sort of "sleep when I want" not-schedule during the day and the old Julia-mom of Miller babies past would be going crazy with the lack of regimentation in our day but suddenly the energy required of watching a baby seems so easy breezy compared to the energy and vigilance required to watch the older boys so I don't mind at all.

+ He wakes up once or twice at night (I like to think it's because he misses us and likes to pop in and say a quick hello) and it's not horrible because he goes back to sleep right away...but my dark circles are approaching maximum raccoon status. 

+ He is the chillest baby I've ever had the privileged experience of raising. Even though he river dances all the live long day, he's content to just be. Content to just sit on his perch (Bumbo) and watch his brothers. 

+ And Beck and his brothers. Rhett and Beck are peas in a pod. The kid loves Beck. Loves him. Rhett carries Beck whenever we can closely supervise. He climbs into the crib to unswaddle Beckett, sings to him and chats with him about everything on his mind. 6 months in and Rad is warming up to sibling who dethroned him. Truthfully, I fully expected Rad to throw more temper tantrums because the child has needs and expectations. But, so far...so wrong. He's been a little indifferent to Beck until lately and truthfully that was probably the best as far as safety goeth. Currently Rad will bestow all manner of toys on Beck's lap and will sing/count all the numbers in his repertoire (not necessarily in numerical order...) when Beck is upset. He also refers to his little brother as "my Beck" which is about the sweetest thing. 

+ He's not one to mince words and for the most part skips the coos and hmms and goes straight for screeching pterodactyl banshee. We think he's happy when he's screeching because he's grinning ear to ear. 

+ And he also grins big and hard when you swaddle him. He gets excited about food and sleep just like his momma. 

+ In general Beck is just sweet. He rarely gets upset and if he does he clams right down as soon as you hold him or talk to him. His kissable baby-ness makes me talk in baby talk and high pitched nonsense anytime I see him/think about him/talk about him/write blog posts about him.

+ He is also very smart and dictated this complicated post to me, word for word.

And now, because siblinghood is a competitive sport, let's take a look back at the others at the six month mark.

I think Beck looks MOST like present-day Rhett (from the forehead down) but after looking through these I think he looks NOTHING like baby Rhett and most like baby Rad...let's take a gander, shall we?

Or maybe they all look exactly the same. Minus Beck's clear lack of hair...baldy Beck. 

Happy 6 months Beck-a-roo! We love you like crazy.  

now and then

Okay. I'm all over the place today. Let's go.

1. "Mommmm- the sink won't stop watering!!!!!" - Rhett last week during his "chores"

And he was right. It watered heavily from under the sink, all over the kitchen floor, the in front of the fridge, under the stove and a bunch of other fun places. From my limited knowledge and lengthy investigation of the pipes I believed that something was up... which resulted in the great garbage disposable vom sesh of 2k15. And while I was trying to quickly! quickly! quickly! mop and sop up the disaster the boys saw the newly created lake Miller, smelled my distracted demeanor, and emptied the pantry and all of the accessible cupboards. All of them. All in the name of being "helpers."

But Fix-it-Fox (Jake's self titled title) came to the rescue that evening and replaced ye old faithful disposal. Beck was happy to keep him company.

2. In a moment of baking excitement Rhett dumped a sizable container of cinnamon (most cruel word to repeatedly ask Rad to pronounce ... butIstilldoit) out and onto the kitchen floor yesterday evening. Have you ever cleaned up cinnamon? Let me rephrase that...have you ever tried to clean up a ever growing cloud of fragrant spice? It's almost impossible to contain.

So that was yesterday's carnival.

3. A letter to my youngest.

Dear sweet Beck,

Can you pretty please skip the toddler phase?

My heart can't take another one of you turning on me because I let you off the swing like you asked or made you the meal you requested or tried to brush your teeth. 

Thanks in advance.

4. This is old news, but I took pictures so it must make the blog. My hands are tied.

We attended the school picnic for Rhett's class. The weather was perfect* and the kids didn't fight (a full fledged miracle these days ...Rhett and Rad fight about e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g lately ... ) and Beck was the happiest little clam.

*Perfect by my almost always and forever cold standards. Jake felt like it was about 15 degrees too hot.

His triumphant trot celebrated him finding the mate to his flip flop among a sea of other children's footwear. 5th time was charm.

5. Um...another picture.

Candy-palooza.

6. Proving that we are doing a very fine job raising good and Godly children...letting them "play missioanry" for Family Home Evening. (ie knocking on the and teaching us a lesson.) It's always fun to hear their religious musings.

"Oh, Rad! You just need to forgive your mom because she's the son of God ... "

and

"Thomas S. Monson is the prophet of all the sins."

(Theology lessons for tots at the Miller house, anyone? Rates are SUPER reasonable!!)

7. Rhett started saying "ya" for "you"

"Hey Mom!! Where are ya?!"

"Rad, what's wrong with ya?!"

"Are ya going to make me some lunch, Mom?"

Etc.

Rad has added "way" to his frequent use of "No"

"No way Mom!" 

"No WAY Rhett!"

"NO NO NO WAY!" 

Etc. 

8. It's been on my radar that we're due for a professional family picture (aka not taken with the hot pink selfie stick). And Rhett decided he could deliver that.

I think we can consider the family portrait good and done. 

Just like this fiesta of a post.

Something less profound SOON. I pinky promise. X

will sweat for food trucks

The perfect weather fairies finally descended upon Hotter than Hades Arizona this weekend and graciously combined forces with the food truck gods to set up fun camp at the horse park near our house on Saturday night. So we grabbed our biggest and greasiest appetites and walked down to rub shoulders with/gawk at all the cool cats from our hood.

Like Elsa. If there was ever a Disney princess to be out of her comfort zone, I present Elsa of Arendelle, Queen of Snow and Ice, in Gilbert Arizona - Land of Blazing Sun and Cacti. 

PS: Rad (terrified) refused to participate in the Elsa meet-n-greet.

I think the impeding dust storm scared away a few felines, but there was still a strong, hungry crowd roaming the premises and after deciding against waiting in looooong lines for super fancy grilled cheese or giant plates of BBQ...we went with boring but (so) delicious Navajo tacos both regular and dessert.

Whose glad I didn't discover these when I was pregnant with Beck? You, me and my love handles are.

While Jake was waiting in the itsy bitsy 20 minute Navajo line I watched the shorts play on the bleachers with the other dozens of kids and felt like a negligent parent for not accompanying and following 8 inches behind Rad on the play structures. Tangent: when did this horrible not enjoyable epidemic begin and when will it end? I really hope it's just a trendy phase and that we can all forget about tomorrow because I've got bigger fish to juggle (like the tattle tail mom telling me about Rad crawling under the bridge and making dirt snow angels while I silently yell at my eyes to not fly into their occasional favorite rolled position). What? I was hangry. 

The boys opted for french fries and cotton candy. When I told them to finish their fries before they ate their cotton candy Jake mentioned that should be the title of my first novel. Noted. 

Oh yeah, Rad completed the holy junk food trifecta with ice cream. Which probably is what led to this...

Him forging for another sugar filled hit. Not our best responsible parenting moment...we know. :/

After we inhaled our healthy fare we took a long 6 minute walk around the rugged terrain to burn 3-5 cals...

...which was fun and not dumb at all.

Because there were horses! Or has Rad calls them...whores.

And some old fashioned rodeo fun with barrel races.



It was a great 65 minutes of something new and different and my favorite moment occurred when a pleasant gentleman came and sat one inch away from us on the bleachers and grumbled, "there are two many darn* kids here." (edited for family friendly reading)

 I know. They're the worst.

golden boy

Happiest of 30th (!!!!) birthdays to Jake!!! I don't know how he manages to work the craziest hours and come home to the craziest kids driving their crazy mom even crazier than her usual baseline of crazy all while not going crazy himself but...he does. And he now has a few manly new gray hairs to prove it. ;)


Or HERE because technology doesn't always love birthday videos. Every party has a pooper.

You can't count on much around here but you can generally count on a nice birthday sleep-in (10:30 no less!) and a 38,000 calorie balanced birthday breakfast in the form of a doughnut cake, handmade birthday signs and only light kid duty...well as light as it can be around here. (check, check, check and check).

^^^ One of our posterity is going through a bit of a narcism phase. Any guesses which budding self portrait artist it might be?  

^^^ Another young Miller is going through a minimalist phase. Everyone gets one streamer and one streamer only.

Ever the saint, Jake didn't bat an eye at the hot pink gift bag (thank you for being the chillest and I'm sorry for that birthday boy) that got used over and over to give him his fancy birthday swag: nose hair trimmers, black socks, a Enduracool cooling cloth, Whoopers, Pistachios and a 2 liter of Sierra Mist (non diet so it was kind of a big deal).

His biggest gift was two long date nights in a row. Good wife points won by the ton.

I may not have many or any talents but I am pretty skilled at texting sitters and asking if they are free to watch our docile pack of kittens. We've been so fortunate to find some truly amazing sitters here over the years. Jake and I try to go out on "dates" (I read somewhere that calling married dates, "date nights" is annoying? I don't know) because we are selfish and enjoy spending time alone away from the kids when schedules and finances allow. We just aren't good about doing in-home "date nights" (sorry for those of you cringing as those words grate against your brain) and I'm a real pro at falling asleep seven minutes after we put the kids down anyway...so! Out of the house it was.

^^^ Which makes us look more sophisticated? The pic in front of the garage or in the middle of the street? I'm leaning toward garage door because I'm maintaining a pretty decent Ms. America arm.

Friday night (Jake's actual birthday) included my mother hen coming out and insisting on taking Beck (a few of those Good Wife points lost), forgetting the diaper bag and taking Beck back home to be in the capable hands of the sitter, changing plans and scarfing down In-N-Out and neurotically rushing to get seats (forgetting that the movie came out quite awhile ago) see Mission Impossible.

A quick Facebook check #canyoufeelthelovetonight pointed out that Jake also shares a birthday with Beyonce apparently. Which explains a few fun Jake quirks. Ha. ;) Seeing her fun hashtag #beyday made my witty hashtag ideas come up with #baeday to add to our birthday pics. And of course this lead to our usual deep conversations about things like how to pronounce "bae" which I looked up (it's pronounced, "bay" in case you're part of the .02% of the population that wasn't aware) which made us curious about the exact definition (apparently it's an acronym for, "before anyone else") and found this fun bit of trivia...

Things you learn when you're 30.

Saturday we went out with our amigos Tyrell and Jake to use some birthday gift cards from my parents to Cheesecake factory.

The waiter on the far right is quite the birthday enthusiast.

Happy Birthday birthday boy!! Or shall we say...birthday man.

Love,

Your Very Favorite Family

PS: In case you caught on, yes I am 9 months older than Jake. I like to tell him that "he'll understand in 9 months" or to "respect his elders. " I find it humorous. Jake rolls his eyes. He'll get the humor in 9 months I'm sure. ;)

PPS:

In case there was any doubt what the boys will look like in 12ish years. Our genetics are nothing if not consistent.