Our neighbor's car

Anyone who lives around us in Provo, just south of campus, may have seen this great looking car parked on 5th north. The funniest part about it is if you look inside the windows it is full of balls, you know, like the ones in the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese or McDonald's Playplace. When I first saw this I thought it was funny, and then thought it might be a little disturbing too. Someone could drive this car around and easily lure innocent children to come play in the ball pit, only to be taken away. Maybe it is just owned by a young family whose kids are really hard to take places and they needed some extra persuasion to get them into the car. There could be a lot of explanations for filling 80% of your car with colorful plastic balls, what do you think?

Something extra at aerobics

For a week now I've been regular at my old stake's aerobics. I'm excited about my record so far, it is so exhausting to get used to again. Today we had a teacher I've never had before and she was really fun. A little over half way through she said, now we are going to have belly dancing instructions. So today I learned how to belly dance, and it was pretty fun. I feel like I'm better prepared for the big Miller reunion next year.

First day at Church

Calvin went to church for the first time today and he did really well. Although, he was in his 3rd outfit when we left due to diaper explosions.

Mealtime

I don't know how he manages to make such a mess just drinking milk. I can just imagine what he'll look like when I start giving him baby food.

4 weeks old

Here's Calvin in the hospital in his little striped onesie. And below he's in the same onesie 4 weeks later. He's our growing boy.

Old Habits

I used to love having a daily run, it was such a great habit. However, many many months have gone by without running even a mile. So yesterday I was out for a nice early morning walk with Cal and decided I would give jogging a little try. I knew it would be challenging, but wow, even more than I thought. My lungs felt like they would burst after half a mile. So pathetic. As rough as it is trying to get a normal body back, it sure is great to have such a cute running companion. I feel bad for him though because you can tell he just wants to get a nice nap in, but right when he looks so comfortable we'll go over one of those messed up sidewalks that causes quite a bump for him. Maybe after awhile he'll get used to it and then he'll have incredible sleeping powers.

Family resemblance

A lot of people have commented on how much Calvin looks like Brandon. We looked through Brandon's baby pictures to see which pictures he looked the most like Calvin. See the similarities?
Calvin 2008:
Brandon 1982:
Calvin 2008:
Brandon & his sisters 1982:
Calvin 2008:
Brandon 2008:

Different

I'm sure there are lots of differences between taking care of other people's newborn babies and taking care of your own. The biggest difference I've noticed is that I always look at Calvin to make sure he's breathing. I don't think I ever did that when I would watch other people's babies. I just assumed they were always breathing. Now I'm a paranoid mom. It's different.

Bald Spot

When Calvin was born he had a tiny circular scab on the crown of his head, about the size of a ladybug. It turns out the skin grows from the outside in, towards the center. Who knew? The scab is where the skin didn't quite connect. There isn't any kind of damage from that happening, the scab already fell off. The doctor just said he won't ever get hair in that spot. So our little newborn is already going for the come-over look. I think he'll pull it off well.

Correction

On Wednesday Calvin went to his first doctor's visit. Things went really well. I thought for sure he would decide that was the perfect time to eat and scream his head off when we got there, but he was mellow, I was so glad. They weighed and measured him again and he gained back a few of the ounces he lost, and he also grew an inch and a half. He is 21 1/2 inches long. Okay, we don't really think he grew an inch and a half. They said the hospital just measures them so fast it's not always very accurate. We thought he looked longer than 20 in. He has already grown out of some of the newborn clothes and I put some socks on him where the heel only went to the middle of his foot. He must have his dad's feet.
The picture is of him in his bassinet. We placed him on his back in the sunshine to help with jaundice. He tried to get out of the sun and almost rolled over!

Pictures

I added some Calvin pictures to the picture blog (link is to the right) It's just a few, but you know there's a lot more where that came from.

Finally!

Our sweet little baby came on June 25th at 7:36pm. It was quite a day. He weighed 9 lbs 13 oz.! Yeah, huge. And he was 20 inches long. His name is Calvin John Miller and we love him!

oh yeah, and nobody passed out.

Safety First

Big-D was kind enough to send Brandon a package this weekend. Enclosed was a letter about the importance of safety and they included safety glasses, glasses strap (not shown), leather gloves, and the nice glowing vest. He has a hard hat at work, which would have looked good for the photoshoot too, maybe next time. At the end of the letter it stated that safety is important to keep in mind, even while working on things at home. Of course, I insisted that Brandon put everything on so I could take pictures. Now Brandon is prepared to safely hang pictures on the wall, keep our carpet in place & move furniture around. (those are the only household projects I can think of right now)

Da Vinci

As much fun as it is for Brandon and I to sit around the apartment staring at my belly, wondering if I'll have a contraction in any moment, we ventured out to Orem today. We had heard about the Da Vinci exhibit on display at the mall gallery and it was pretty cool. It's amazing that one guy could come up with so much by himself. I love how great Da Vinci was at science and art, his anatomical studies are so amazing. Mostly the exhibit was models that had been made of his inventions. So today we learned some things, and most importantly, killed some time waiting for junior.

Wikipedia

I noticed that on Wikipedia they have Rebecca Miller on there, only it's not me. It's some film lady. What I want to know is, how do I know when I am famous enough that I can edit Wikipedia and write down my bio info in replacement of hers? Do you think she'd be upset? I also noticed on google there is another Rebecca Miller who is even an illustrator. I feel like I have name competition. I need to hurry and become famous before she does.

9 months

After running some errands today I made some observations. As did the people around me. I don't feel like I'm much bigger than I was last week, but for some reason I felt like everyone noticed me today. Some of the looks I got were "are you suppose to walk around with a belly like that?" and "what if that girl goes into labor right here in the middle of the store?"
What I decided today is that anyone 9 months pregnant should be given a disability parking pass, just to have the option, and free cuts to the front of any line more than 10 minutes long.

Absolute deadline

Even though our little baby may be nervous about ll this coming out into the world stuff, kind of like his mom is, 2 weeks from today there is no way around it. We will have a baby! Our doctor let us know that after the baby is a week late they'll induce me to make sure unnecessary complications don't come up. Being induced doesn't sound like the ideal way to go, kind of intense. So even though I have zero signs of labor so far, hopefully that will change before the 2 week deadline.
I love watching my massive belly when he is moving around and I was thinking how nice it would be for the pregnant belly to not only expand really huge, but what if it turned into transparent skin too? Then you could see how he's doing and what he looks like. It might be kind of gross, but also really fun.

Summer Band

Apparently our neighbor has a band that likes to play in their backyard so everyone can enjoy their music. At first I thought it was nice, something unique to listen to instead of the radio. Lately when they've been practicing they decided against lyrics though and they just yell various things like they're pretend singing - euh uh. EUUUh ah ooh. Do you get the idea? Brandon does a great impression of the female vocalist if you want to get a better idea what they sound like.

Scera Shell Outdoor Theater

Friday night Brandon and I went to see The King and I in Orem. We had never heard of this outdoor theater before, but we saw some pictures and things in their brochure. It was really fun, a little windy so we bundled up in blankets to keep warm. The funniest part for me was trying to figure out where to sit before we got there. They have different sections and different prices for each section. I just knew I wanted to be in a section with chairs because I would get way to uncomfortable trying to watch a whole play sitting on a blanket with a big belly and aching back.
When we got to the ticket counter we decided to sit in section B, the further away, cheaper, but still chair seats. I asked the ticket kid if we could still see from those seats. He nodded and confirmed that we would be fine. Then we walked over the big grassy hill to see the theater and everything was a lot smaller than we had pictured it. They had some chairs for the "floor" seats, maybe a couple rows, a few rows of chairs for section A, and then 2 rows for section B. So yeah, we could see just fine being 8 rows from the stage and on hill. Brandon mentioned how funny it must have been to the ticket kid that I asked if we would be able to see okay from section B. I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know if I can adequately describe how funny this was to us, so it's okay if you don't get it. But if you're looking for a nice summer activity, it is a pretty cool place to check out.

Educated Voting

To assist you in determining who is more likely to pass out in the delivery room here is some background information to assist you:

When Brandon had to go with me to the ER for breaking a window and getting 10 stitches in my slashed wrist, he almost passed out while I was getting checked in and prepped. He was white as a ghost and had to go outside and lay down on the sidewalk.

I've passed out from pain before. I was running around getting ready for work one morning a few years ago and I smashed my elbow against my bedroom door. As I was walking down the hallway my elbow was throbbing and I started getting light headed. I reached my hand out to balance myself against the wall and the next thing I knew my face hurt really bad and I thought I had run into the wall. I opened my eyes and realized I had passed out and smashed my face on the floor. It was a painful morning.