Eye Cream

I find this especially funny because I had a crush on Devon Sawa (upper right)... and I recently have been reminding myself that I need to wear an eye cream.

Whomever made this reached an entire generation with a single meme.

1000 Words

1000 Words

Hunter's Dedication

We had Hunter dedicated in church yesterday...   quarantine style.

For us, that means that our church has just started meeting again in person at half-capacity.  They are not offering childcare until later in the summer, and they are continuing to broadcast their services on their youtube channel and facebook.  We have decided we will not be going back to church in person until childcare resumes, and until we see what kind of impact COVID-19 illness continues to have on our community as businesses begin reopening.

That being said, Hunter is six months old, and we didn't want to wait any longer to have him dedicated in church.

So, we asked the Pastor if he would work with us regarding some social distancing baby dedication options.

We decided to meet at the church mid-week to have a private baby dedication and the church would video it to show during the Sunday church service.  We also asked some dear friends who work in children's ministry and have invested much love in our children over the years, to stand in for us as family and church family.

And yesterday was the day.

I'm very glad that we have dedicated Hunter... but frankly, our children are not read to be released from home yet.

Since no actual church congregation was watching them, they were not well behaved standing on the stage listening to our Pastor speak.  They looked very nice and they were thrilled to get out of the house... and it showed.

Anyway, here are some pictures that our friends took for us.  Come Sunday, you will find us hanging our heads in shame as our church congregation watch our wild children literally run circles around us on the stage of the church during Hunter's dedication.

I pray God, and our church family shows us grace.

My Boys

I love these little boys... and so handsome in nearly matching shirts.

Hunter Birth Story -- Part IV

Just recently I realized that I never really finished sharing about Hunter's birth story.  I mean, I did... he was officially born in Part III... but there really is a little more after that.

We left off with my just having delivered Hunter, very quickly after Hubby arrived at the Hospital.  Within ten minutes of Hubby's arrival to the hospital to be exact.

I moved to the hospital bed to regroup a minute and hold him while the midwife made sure everything had gone smoothly... but Hunter (who at this point was just Baby Boy Miller), Hubby and I did not take much time to relax.

When our baby boy was born, nothing really slow down because at 5:15 PM, we realized we could have the children come and meet their new brother that evening if we acted fast.  We made the decision to ask my parents to drive to the hospital since they would be driving right past Glenwood Springs on their way to Rifle, and we asked the Babysitter’s mother to drive our kiddos up from Rifle to meet their new sibling. 

We knew it would be a late night for our kiddos, and we would be forever indebted to our sainted baby-sitter and her mother, but we really wanted our children to be the first ones to meet their sibling and learn if it was a brother or sister.  Also, by the children and my parents coming up Friday night, we could all relax and sleep in on Saturday morning.

Hubby ran to the party store to buy some blue confetti so we could do a gender reveal, and I worked on getting showered, and dressed and moved to a residential room so I would be settled when the kiddos arrived.

My parents and the kids arrived probably shortly after seven and we got to introduce Hunter Miller to his older siblings and my parents.

When we introduced Hunter to his siblings and my parents, we did not yet have a middle name for him.

We had a wonderful time with the little ones and my parents, and our sweet baby-sitter and her mother who brought our children to meet their baby brother.

The baby-sitters even changed the kids into the special outfits I had for them to wear to the hospital, and they fed them dinner, and handled everyone as smoothly as you could imagine -- probably better than Hubby and I do.

We let the kids FaceTime their Miller cousins and announce the arrival of their baby brother, Hunter, and thankfully, they have so much family on that side that all of our children got to announce Hunter's arrival on at least one phone call.

Hunter did not not have middle name until later that night... but that is a story for another post.

Baby Dolls and Baby Brother

Lee Lee is such a sweetheart... she is totally into babies -- both baby dolls and her baby brother.  It's really adorable.

Hand-Me-Down Dresses

While our kiddos live in hand-me-downs, there really are not that many outfits that start with Tracey and work their way down to Lee Lee.

For one thing, I was still finding my style when I bought clothing for Tracey... still learning what worked well for play clothes and what styles I would let my children wear.  Also, my kids are hard on clothing -- that's why we buy them cheap.

In addition, since Howard and Caroline were twins, I think some of the cute outfits I got were when people bought an outfit for Howard, and then they bought one for Caroline too.

Then, sometimes there are dresses that Tracey wore, but they were packed away and just didn't get out of storage in time for Caroline to wear it.  Or really sweet dresses that were given to Tracey, but they were too small for her, or her size didn't work with the season.  There really are not THAT many that all three girls wear and I have photos to document it.

That being said, there are two dresses that were given to Tracey when she was a toddler that are just so completely adorable, and they have survived being passed down to Caroline and now Lee Lee.

It has been fun to find some old pictures of the girls wearing them and compare how sweet they look.