HD

Brandon and I have different opinions on having HD for our TV. I think it's nice, but not worth paying for. Brandon can't live without it. Once you've had it, you can't go back. He says it's like going from a car to a handcart.

hypnotized

My brother and sister were recently hypnotized at their work party and the video was pretty funny. I love hypnotist shows. It's so hilarious how people act. At the end they are told to focus on something they want to achieve and hypnotized to be able to do it. It made me wonder what one thing I would choose if I were hypnotized. I think it would be healthy eating. There are a lot of things I want to achieve that I can summon up the motivation or will power to do on my own, but healthy eating just isn't fun. Some sort of brain washing would be really helpful. What would you pick?
Also, since it's 3am while I am writing this I wonder how old a kid has to be before they can be hypnotized into sleeping through the night?

Financial Reading

I loved reading Dave Ramsey's book A Total Money Makeover. It was so inspiring what you can do by being smart with your money. I really liked the point he said about how you should read books to learn more about things that are important to you. It's important to me to be financially smart and yet this is one of very few books I've read about money. If you know of some other good personal finance books let me know. I'd like to read more, but it'd be nice to know which ones are going to be useful and which ones are boring.

Austin

Calvin has a good friend we hang out with a lot named Boston. He also knows a couple of Austins, but can't figure out how to say it, he just calls Austin Boston. Since Austin is coming over to play this morning I was trying to practice with him and this is how our conversation went:

Me: Aw-stin
Cal: Aw-Boston
Me: Aws - tin
Cal: Aw -Boston
Me: Austin
Cal: Good job Mommy!

Green Car

My mom came to stay with us to help out with Shelby last week. Brandon and Calvin took her to the airport and Calvin fell asleep in the car. When Grandma was walking away Calvin woke up and started crying frantically something that sounded like "Grandma! Grandma!" and Brandon figured he was upset she was leaving. Then he realized he was actually saying something about his "green car!" Brandon thought it was kind of confusing and told him they'd look for it when they got home.
Fast forward to my mom going through her luggage and I get an email telling me she found Calvin's green car in the pocket of her bag. When we asked Calvin how his green car ended up in Grandma's bag he said it was hiding. We let him know bags headed to the airport aren't a good place to hide things.

Statement

Sometimes I think Calvin leaves things around the house just to say "I was here."

Shelby Claire Miller

Shelby came on Monday at 5:30pm. She weighed 8lbs 2oz and was 19 inches long. Labor went well. I highly recommend having 8lb babies over 10lb babies, it's a much better way to go. I only had to push for 20 minutes instead of 3 hours like I did with Calvin.
Calvin loves having a baby sister (so far). He keeps telling us that she is "sooo cute". He is constantly sharing his favorite toy, a little motorcycle, by sitting it next to her.
If you want to see massive amounts of pictures, I'll add lots to the picture blog soon. (link to the side)

Nap time

This is what Calvin likes to do when he is locked in his room to take a nap. It's pretty funny to watch the books creep further and further out. I'm not sure who he is trying to reach, but it seems to be some kind of "I'm trapped in here, let me out" message he is trying to send.

Tums

I've had quite a bit of heartburn at the end of both pregnancies. This time I've decided if I can't stand the thought of eating another chalky Tums, I'll take a break and just try to OD on chocolate milk and Breyers Rocky Road ice cream. Tums isn't the only source of calcium out there.

modern coloring

One of Calvin's first attempts at photoshop:
Gotta start them young.

Red Punch

My friend has a cool company called Red Punch Designs that you might want to check out for Christmas cards this year. Some of them even have my art. That's right, you can have your very own Rebecca Miller illustrated Christmas cards. Merry Christmas!

Christmas shopping - check

Yesterday I finished all of our Christmas shopping. And it's mostly all wrapped and stored in a tote. Record timing for me, for sure. I think Christmas shopping counts as my "nesting" this year. Sure, I want to get the house in order a little more before our baby girl comes, (in 2 weeks or less!) but this will be one less thing to worry about. Now we can sit and relax and enjoy the holidays and never leave the house. Until sometime in December I get stir crazy and go and do more Christmas shopping just so I can get out of the house.

Stickers

Calvin had some Toy Story stickers that he was really excited about putting to good use. He decided the best place was on my belly. A reason wasn't exactly given, but one by one he put his entire collection on me. He insisted that I keep them on so I wore them most of the afternoon/ evening (only a little bit outside). Eventually they ended up on his picnic table, which was convenient for him because then they were readily accessible so he could reapply them to my belly again the next day.

Waiting

I keep thinking how ready I am for the baby and wondering when I will feel another contraction. I go over things I need to get done, buying newborn diapers, setting up the bassinet, planning some simple meals for when we come home. I tell myself, ok, I'm ready! Then when I feel any kind of contraction related pain I panic and realize - I'M NOT READY!!I'M NOT READY!!I'M NOT READY!!But let's be real, I'll never be ready for the pain.

Cooking

Here is a list of things I have been really wanting to make lately:

homemade donuts
chocolate chip zucchini muffins
apple kuchen (pie)
caramel apples
samoas cookies
snickers salad
pumpkin cheesecake

I'm trying to figure out which one would make the best lunch...

Motorcycle

Calvin tells me several times a day that when he gets bigger he is going to drive a motorcycle. In the meantime, he uses combs as motorcycles. He has no preference which one and I have no idea how it started, but it sure is a convenient toy that entertains him for long periods of time.

The best thing to do with an apple:

Apple crisp is good, so is apple pie. Caramel apples are amazing, but when it's apple season you can't leave out Snickers Salad. You can make it as semi-healthy or unhealthy as you like. Chop up a pile of apples, add some spoonfuls of cool whip, and mix in a few chopped up snickers bars. Your welcome.
....Or I guess I should say thank you to Heather for bringing this recipe home from work. love it.

Closet

One day I told Calvin we should hide in the closet and surprise Brandon when I saw him pull into the driveway. Ever since then it's his favorite thing to do. At first it was for when he knew someone was coming over, like one of my siblings. I guess those events didn't happen often enough because he started to hide in the closet to surprise me. Only, I don't leave for very long so he would hide in the closet when I went outside to get the mail and another time when I just went upstairs for a minute.

Halloween prep

I was going to try and make Calvin a simplified Super Why costume (his favorite show), but this was so much easier and still really cheap. At first he didn't want to put on the jacket, just the hat. I told him we need to try it on to see if it was too big or too small (although, it was obviously too big) and as I put it on him he happily exclaimed, "it fits!" They only had size 5-7, which is great because now we don't have to figure out another Halloween costume until 2015.

Amazing treats by us

We had some friends over to make caramel apples with us the other day. We tried to recreate Rocky Mountain Caramel apples as much as possible, and I think we did a pretty good job. (although, we didn't get pictures of our prettiest apples - sorry) They tasted AMAZING. This site was helpful. We coated the apples in caramel, then drizzled with milk & white chocolate and rolled them in either: snickers, cookie crumbs, m&m's, or graham crackers.

And since we had lots of leftover chocolate, and some strawberries laying around.... and marshmallows, we ended up with a few more creations later as well:

tribal burn

The other day I was pulling an eggo out of our toaster oven and accidentally touched my finger on the top burner. It's kind of a funny burn because it has such a clear pattern. It's like a gang burn or something a tribe would give you. I haven't decided what gang/tribe I should pretend like I joined. One that likes circles I guess.

Football

Calvin has been a football fan for awhile, but recently he has actually watched some football on TV. Instead of playing catch with a football like we used to he has a new system. First he will squat with the football, then run for a little ways, throw it, and then dive to the floor (like he was tackled). Thankfully he lets us just throw it and not do the entire quarterback routine like he does.

October Illo

I know it's not quite October, but I don't always fit in any October illustrations. I'm better at Christmas, probably because the season lasts for awhile. I don't know why I don't illustrate more just for fun. I LOVE it, but never get around to it. It's so illogical.

Toddler prayer

Calvin likes to pray on his own now and "shhh"es me & Brandon several times before he'll start praying. He mostly just says thank you for several things, some samples include: thank you blue bowl, thank you orange cup, thank you food, thank you outside, thank you clothes, thank you library shirt, thank you green daddy's (his green shorts- these are what he was wearing at the time), thank you Ian (usually this is said multiple times), etc.
If you ever feel like your prayers are redundant, just open your eyes and look around for a minute because I'm pretty sure that's what Calvin's strategy is.

Extra Dangerous

I just bought a coleman axe for camping and after getting home I saw this warning on it about the chemicals it was made with causing reproductive harm and birth defects. Really? That seems kind of extreme that holding an axe could give my baby birth defects. Maybe if I eat it? Because I'm not planning on it. Still, it is a scary warning and I can't help but hold my breath a little when I walk by it.

Crash

Calvin has been really into making his cars and truck crash lately. He thinks it's so fun. He also thinks it must be even more fun to crash in a real car because when we were driving around the other day he asked me, "crash, mom?" I told him, no I didn't want to crash and he said, "please mom! Please crash!" Let's hope a lot of learning happens between now & 16.

Art Teaching

I'm going to be teaching my first formal art classes. I've done a lot of teaching in the past, and a lot of art, so hopefully I'm good at art teaching. Here's the info if you know anyone in my area that might be interested?

Good mistake, or Gestational Diabetes

The other day I went to the doctor to have my glucose checked. (they see how your blood sugar is doing to make sure you don't have gestational diabetes, which is fairly common when you're pregnant) I didn't have it with Calvin so I wasn't too concerned that it would be different this time. I was pretty bummed when the nurse gave me the numbers and how high my blood sugar level was. She told all the steps I would have to do to take another more elaborate test and I wasn't looking forward to that.
After complaining to my sister for awhile about it and realizing I probably shouldn't eat piles of candy at the movies that night like I planned to, I got a phone call from the doctor's office saying they switched my test results with someone else and my blood sugar was actually healthy. I was so excited! What a relief! It seemed like something that would happen on TV.
I felt like I did when the bank deposited a check for me into my bank account that had someone else's name on it. I was happy for the mistake but wondered if I should trust my doctor's office (and bank) after that. oh well. People are human. Let's just hope they are better at delivering babies?

Big News at Shopko!

There I was, just walking along the pen aisle in Shopko when I saw it - the Pilot g tec c4!
For those of you that haven't followed my blog since 2006 when I first mentioned these, this is my favorite drawing pen that I discovered in Canada and it took a lot of work to hunt them down once I got back. The company said they weren't sold in the U.S. due to patent laws, but after awhile I found a place in NY that I could order from online. (I'm not the only one obsessed with these pens btw, it's quite common. Even my professor said he would try to buy them every time he was in England) Spread the good news everyone, pilot g-tec c4's at a store near you! ....Or near me, at least.

Rival

My sister and her family came to visit us from Seattle. We did lots of fun things like swimming, Thanksgiving Point, Pirate Island, etc. When we went to the Bean museum the kids each picked out a toy and my little nephew picked out a husky dog while we were at a BYU museum. Seriously, what were they doing selling those anyway? He named the dog Jake Locker. (UW quarterback, playing against BYU next Saturday) Everything he talked about from then on involved Jake Locker. "Jake Locker and I are going wrestle uncle Paul" "Calvin keeps taking Jake Locker" It was really funny. When Calvin gets older there will be some rivalry there because Calvin definitely wanted to buy the BYU helmet from the museum (it was just a decoration). In the meantime, they let their dad's battle it out.

Deluxe Park

It turns out where we live is pretty awesome. We moved here because we found the perfect house for us. (perfect, as in decently awesome and massively cheap) The longer we live here the more we discover cool things that make it even better. We love the bike trail that takes you over to a beautiful river and park. They have yearly parties like fiesta days, and a fair. And there are rumors that one day we will have a Home Depot, Chili's and even a Target.
On Saturday we went to this amazing park grand opening. Free carousel, pony rides, face painting, balloons, barrel rides, hot dogs, snow cones, more and more food, frisbees, live music, not to mention the amazing park they built. This place has different age level sections and unique toys and fun designs. There's also a splash park area, which was a highlight for Calvin. At first he said he wasn't going to get wet, but I knew as soon as he was by the water he wouldn't be able to resist. He was soaking wet in no time. I'm pretty sure this is our new hang out. If only the carousel would always be there.

Simple Gardening

My strategy for gardening this year involving buying a few packets of seeds at the store and throwing them in a dirt patch one day. The soil didn't look very promising, I didn't bother with weeding and I followed the instructions on the packets only if they were simple enough. The sprinklers were in charge of watering. I figure next year I can put some time into more preparation, research & maintenance.
My strategy hasn't gone too bad. There are no peas in sight whatsoever, and carrots have only grown in one small area, but the pumpkins are flourishing like crazy. There is one already big enough to carve, but really green. I'm guessing by the end of October it will be huge and orange. I can't wait. The weeds are also huge and have done really well.

30 going on 13

I've never been really into make-up. Not because I didn't like it, but I was intimidated that I would put it on wrong. Once I was approaching my mid 20's I started realizing it really wasn't that hard. Yeah, kind of a slow starter. But then I realized it was such a pain to get off, especially eye make-up, I didn't want to bother with it. I think I tried one make-up remover that was really soapy and I wasn't a fan, water involves so much scrubbing I saved make-up for only certain days.
I recently tried a new make-up remover that is so easy, quick and zero scrubbing. One cotton ball, a simple swipe and I'm ready to hit the pillow. Love it. I feel a new freedom like I can wear as much eye make-up as I want without the pain of taking it off. Now you'll understand if you see me and I look like this:

Comedian

Calvin learned his first joke last week. He repeats it several times a day to whoever will respond. It goes like this:

Calvin: "Knock, knock"

Me: "Who's there?"

Calvin: "Hahaha!"

And really, even though the joke makes no sense, it's still hilarious just because he's laughing. (0r fake laughing, depending on how times in a row he just told the joke.)

Expired

We post poned registering our car for awhile because we didn't want to spend a bunch of money to get it pass. Four months go by and we are finally taking care of it. Of course, the day I have an appointment to take care of the last item I got pulled over. So I handed the police officer my driver's license which he informed me expired 3 days prior. oops. Then I had him my insurance cards, which were also expired. (the new cards sitting in the kitchen hadn't made it all the way to the cars yet) I felt a little silly having expired tabs, license and insurance cards. However, he was pretty nice about it considering he could have impounded my car and let me go with a $30 ticket for the expired registration.
Fast forward 5 days later and I am pulled over AGAIN. Our city is a little too efficient. And we live just a few blocks from the police station, that's not a good idea. This time I was in our other car, which had a broken headlight. He was impressed that I had my insurance card right on top, ready to go. He joked that I must have been pulled over recently. yep. Luckily that citation won't cost me anything (besides the repair) and I can take care of both the same day when I go into court to turn in the paperwork. How convenient.

SLR

I'm not sure if I can convince Brandon that an awesome camera is a wise purchase, but just in case I'm doing a little research into it. Does anyone have recommendations on an SLR? Things you like/ dislike about yours?
The Canon Rebel seems to be the cheapest out there, and I'm guessing it would serve my purposes for having quality pictures and the ability to expand my photography abilities a little. I don't plan on getting more lenses, but maybe down the road?
Tell me what you know... brands? features to look for? books that will help me with all the aperture/ shutter speed stuff I can't remember... etc. etc.

It's about time

I've always wondered why no one ever came out of a copy of Girl Scout's Samoas cookie. I wouldn't say these are to the quality level of the originals, but at least it's something to get you by until next year's order. Thanks Keebler, it was an exciting moment in my trip to the grocery store to discover Coconut Dreams.

Fill in a caption #4

The baby is...

A GIRL! The top pic is of her buff arm and a little clenched fist, and the bottom picture is of her spine. She is healthy and growing (as is my belly) and kicking and we couldn't be happier. Now to work on that naming part...

Happy 4th weekend

We had a good time celebrating the fourth (and the 2nd, 3rd & 5th). Calvin had his first experience with sparklers. But first, he had his first lesson on proper sparkler safety:Here is Calvin when he chose gardening over swimming at a family BBQ. I was a little disappointed in him:He used his cuteness powers, combined with his cousin's, to get sled rides from Uncle Paul:I would say it has been a very successful weekend. We also had some fun family bike rides, trips to the park, and a great time at Provo's Freedom Days. I am worried Calvin is going to think this coming week is really boring.

My Gay Sister

Over the past ten years since my little sister told me she was gay I have tried to understand what she is going through and help her deal with life. It's a rough road to grow up in an LDS family and have such strong same gender feelings. It's easy to feel evil and depressed. Although she has gotten past that stage in her life, it's still difficult to deal with. Since she is being more open with everyone, I thought I'd share what I've learned in case it can help anyone else relate better to someone in a similar situation. I'm not an expert at all, but at least I'm less clueless than I used to be. (And to those of you that know Heather, she is happy to talk more about it)
As her big sister who has all the answers (ha!) I've gone through different phases of trying to find solutions for her to be happy. Pray and it will go away. Fall in love with a boy and then you can just focus on him. Be single and be happy about it the rest of your life, just like straight people who can't find their match. Really none of those are solutions though because she has tried them all with no success.
When people are straight and single they at least have that hope that someday they will meet the perfect person for them. When you don't want to be in a gay relationship, but that is who you are attracted to, you feel hopeless and alone. It makes friendships difficult too. You want to have close friendships, but not too close that it's unhealthy for you. It's never fun to fall in love with someone you can't be with.
I guess some people are attracted to the same gender and then later are able to have healthy heterosexual relationships, but that isn't always how it works. I read the book, "No More Good-byes" and it talked about a scale from 1-6. People that are a 1 are completely straight, no sexual feelings towards same sex at all. 6 is homosexual. In between are people that are bisexual, or people that have a little more option in choosing gay or straight. If you are a 2 or 3 and want to live a heterosexual lifestyle, it's not that drastic to find someone to fall in love with and make a marriage work. But if you're a 5 or 6, that's just not realistic, as in Heather's case.
There are a lot of strong active people in the church that are gay, but don't act on their feelings. I'm sure it is very difficult, but what do you do when you love God and the church and are gay? Some people can't take it anymore and commit suicide. Even if God commands people to not have same gender relationships, I don't think He sees suicide as a better alternative.
I worry about the youth out there realizing how they feel and struggling to know what to do about it. I hope they will have understanding people to help them feel loved by God and everyone around them.
I'm sure it effects people in different levels of intensity. Heather is a very emotional person who puts so much into the relationships of her life. Being homosexual effects her everyday. I wish I had a solution for Heather. She has told me she knows she needs to live her values to be happy. The conflict comes because she has a value of having her needs met, by being loved and cared about in a relationship with a woman. However, she also has a value of following God and living the gospel.
I know she does all she can to reach out to others feeling the same way and help support them. She is an amazing person who deserves to have a happy life and I hope she finds a way to live all her values, even though right now the path is unclear.

Family time

We have been wanting to do some bike riding together, especially since we live by so many awesome paths. We put Brandon's old bike back together, bought me a bike and even found a nice used trailer for Calvin to cruise behind us in. We are all loving it!

Toilet

Sometimes when things are quiet and I haven't seen Calvin for a while I find him playing with the toilet brush in my bathroom and making a mess. Last night I found him in the bathroom and he didn't have the toilet brush (it was in the garbage can, he must have already finished with it) and for some reason his hair was all wet. I asked him why his hair was wet and he scrubbed his head with his hands and said,"washing hair!"
"How are you washing your hair?" I asked. He started to reach his hands into the toilet to demonstrate. ew! Washing his hair with toilet water??! What will he think of next?