Halloween, Halloween!
October 31, 2008 by Ryan
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Happy Halloween Everyone!
I can’t believe this is Kim’s third Halloween! She was just a ball of pink dressed as Piglet for her first & we didn’t go trick-or-treating on her second.
That’s what made this Halloween so fun! We went trick-or-treating, it was Jeremy’s first Halloween, and we got to do the first of many years of coordinating costumes! As you can see we did Mickey & Minnie. We took these picture and just died with how cute they came out!
Hope everyone had a safe & happy Halloween!
Friends & Family: Be sure to leave links to pictures of your kids in their costumes!
Update on a few more notes that I forgot to include last night:
Beth actually made Jeremy’s costume!
A black long-sleeve onsie + black tights (at least it’s not a full on dress like my mom put me in once!) + red sweats cut into shorts with felt circles sewn on and a shoelace tail + white socks for gloves & yellow socks for boots + the Mickey ears we got last weekend from Disneyland! I think it turned out adorable!
Tip for Trick-or-Treating with little ones
We went with cousins and they were smart enough to bring a little wagon! It made it so much better for the sometimes long walks between houses. The kids didn’t get quite as tired and we didn’t have to wait for little legs to catch up!
My Little Family
October 22, 2008 by Ryan
It’s after midnight.
I’m up because both Kimberly and Jeremy have colds.
I’m sitting in my bed with Kimberly sleeping next to me, so cute, so peaceful…other than her occasional cough.
Next to her is Beth, with Jeremy sleeping on her chest. I’m jealous. I love when they sleep on your chest. He just giggled in his sleep! That’s good, poor little guy caught Kimberly’s cold. He really loves his mama!
Beth is asleep…I think. I think I might be keeping her up with my typing. She’s so good with the kids.
It’s so sad but sometimes it’s so sweet taking care of the sick babies. Every now and then they snuggle into you, or do something off the charts cute and I exchange looks of “Ahhhhh” with little half-frowns with Beth.
You might think that I’d be thinking, “This sucks!” Instead, it makes me think of how much I love being Daddy!
The Hairesy of 2008
October 4, 2008 by Ryan
Here’s some cute pics we told of Jeremy & Kimberly. You’ll notice their hair has been “done up” because we took them in conjunction with what I am referring to as The Hairesy of 2008!
Beth wanted to get her hair cut, and it had been a while because like any good husband I’ve resisted, for her own good. What? I’m a fan of long hair!
So finally I relented and gave her the green light. She posted to get suggestions on how she would get her hair cut. The consensus came back for the Feb ‘08 haircut and the deed was done about two weeks ago. She’s finally getting around to posting the results but I thought I’d link up and post the kids pics along with her update.
For the record…I think you look beautiful baby!
Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
August 1, 2008 by Ryan
Image by oscar alexander
How do I prioritize my rocks?
Earlier I posted about the overload I willingly subjected myself to and how confused I was about tackling it. In the few days it’s been since then I have really enjoyed all the interaction and new connections I’ve made now that I, as of this moment, follow 585 people on Twitter and 135 people on Plurk. How does it work trying to talk to 700+ people? It’s actually a lot of fun! I plan on posting soon about some observations, thoughts and insight from this new experience.
My question a few days ago was, “How do I process all this information?” I got some great comments of sympathy and shared exasperation, as well as great tips from very wise sources! Even though I joke a little about my dad, his advice about chunking tasks was echoed in a ZenHabits post here. As I read that today, a couple things stood out to me:
- Find your essentials
- Find your time-wasters
- Do your Biggest Rock first
The fact that I really took the time to read and think about this post came from an adjustment since starting this self inflicted onslaught. I love Leo’s posts! I get so much out of them! I’ve noticed that in my Reader I tend to put off reading my favorite sources and rip through the posts that I’m confident I can scan and be satisfied. That’s completely backwards! I’m only doing it to get that “unread” number down! One of my new friends twittered today that she had 1,000 posts to get through on her reader! And I thought I had a problem! (It’s okay Erin, my wife’s almost as behind!) But realizing I was spending the majority of my time working though information that was lowest value. Imagine if that was money! Actually, now that I think about it, we do that too! How much time do we spend on activities that have the lowest return! I guess that’s the whole 80/20 Pareto Principle!
Now it comes down to implementing these realizations into my information diet. Here’s a few questions I’m asking:
- Is this information intake inline with my goals?
- How much time am I willing to dedicate to this information source?
- How do I value this information’s ROI?
- Am I putting those with the highest value first?
I’m still in process with all of this and may revisit it again, but I’m curious how all my new “friends” are coming along. Do share!
This post is part of my Information Overload Series
- How Do You Process All This Information?!
- Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
Rockbabies!
June 23, 2008 by Ryan
We got Rockband today! Lots of fun for the whole family. It was actually a present for my wife, she wanted it for her birthday!
Maybe you’ve seen Guitar Hero, and it’s that plus drums, plus a mic to sing on! What I really like about the Rockband guitar is there are two sets of frets to play on (one at the top and one on the high strings). Apparently, you can download more songs to play on Xbox and Playstation, but on the Wii you can’t, at least not yet. I imagine they’ll add that down the road.
As you can see Kimberly wanted to do it all. We had her cousins over, Alexa and Ayla, and we had our own little Rockbabies Rock Band!
The Wii: Bringing Husbands & Wives Closer Together
June 3, 2008 by Ryan
So I was watching Last Comic Standing and one of the female comedians was making a joke about how Halo 3 destroys relationships…something about how her boyfriend spends all day with a headset talking to little boys online. I tried to get my wife to play Halo with my friends and I but she inevitably ends up spinning in a corner staring at the sky.
Then came the Wii.
Hopefully, you’ve all had a chance to do the bowling. And I do mean all of you because even my grandparents have Wii bowled with us. The beautiful thing about the Wii is my wife loves it! I can play video games and not only is she okay with it, she plays with me. We’ve recently come across some new games that we’re kind of excited about:
Pray for Jeremy
November 27, 2007 by Ryan
It’s hard to describe the emotional rollercoaster my family has been through this last 2 weeks. For those of you who have not heard, we have some concerns for our little boy, Jeremy Michael. He’s due in early March. I’ve waited to write about this until my wife had and she did a good job of explaining what we’re up against.
We’re Pregnant!
When we found out we were pregnant it was a pleasant surprise: we weren’t trying, but we weren’t not trying. It actually was about perfect because the baby would be about two years apart from our daughter Kimberly. I really did not care whether it was a boy or a girl. If it was a girl, Kimberly would have a sister right close to her age. If it was a boy, hey! it’s our first boy!
Saying Hi to Jeremy
About two weeks ago, we went in for our doctor’s ultrasound. I just Twittered…
Just saying hi to Baby Jeremy @ my wife’s ultrasound!
After the ultrasound, I went to take care of Kimberly as Beth went to go talk to the doctor. The doctor called me in. She said us down and told us they saw some things that concerned her and that we’d need to go see a specialist. Needless to say we were in quite a bit of shock. I think I had always assumed everything would be okay. I think most parents in general think that way.
We went to see the specialist the next day, which was nice to not have this unknown hanging over our heads for too long. He did another ultrasound and then sat us down to talk about it. Again, I’m not going to rehash all the details, Beth did a good job in her post. From that discussion we were faced with that reality that our little boy had Spina Bifida and the possibility of worse. The doctor explained that there might be a chromosome defect and we then spoke with a genetic specialist. She told us that the most likely of the rare problems we could have would be Trisomy 13, which would most likely mean we wouldn’t have him for very long.
Perspective
I was going to write that it “hit us like a ton of bricks” but, honestly, we were fairly calm about all of it. There have been things that have come up in the last while that, I believe, happened to prepare us. We’re very blessed to have the perspective that we do. We know that whatever happens, in the grand scheme of things, we’ll be okay. We know that if he was only with us a short time, we wouldn’t be losing him forever. If we do get to have him, whatever challenges he’s going to have we can do it. Not on our own, but with the Lord’s help. We have wonderful families that will be there. We know that we’ve been seal as a family, and that we will be together after this life.
The Results
As it turns out, I have been writing this post here and there since that time and we found out that there are no chromosome problems! And we are so grateful and happy that there aren’t. I want to thank all those that prayed for us. One of the first thoughts that I had was to call my family and ask them to pray for Jeremy. And we still need those prayers and that faith. Now we know that Jeremy will be with us for a long time and now we are praying that he will be able to walk and not require a shunt.
I am so excited to have him. I love him already. Knowing how much I love Kimberly, I can’t wait to have my little boy!
Go Rockies!
October 7, 2007 by Ryan
We got swept! Stupid! Ridiculous!
Why didn’t we play for home field advantage? We had best record and let it slip away.
Momentum is way more important than resting players and setting rotation. Look at the Rockies! They rattled off 11 wins in a row and won something like 14 of 15 to end the season, and now look at what they are doing to the Phillies! Beth’s family is from Colorado so…
Go ROCKIES!
We Evened the Odds!
October 5, 2007 by Ryan
2-to-2!
Two girls (Beth & Kimberly) and now two boys! That’s right Jeremy Michael Miller is on his way! He’s due late February, maybe early March.
We found our we were pregnant a little while ago and have been waiting to find out since. I honestly would have been happy either way. If it was a girl it would have been fun for Kimberly to have a sister right close to her. And if it was a boy (as it is) then, hey! We have a boy!
I am so excited though. Our neighbor said to us, “If anyone needs a boy, it’s Ryan.” I guess I’m just a big kid! I can’t wait to play catch, to go to his first baseball game, and all that male-bonding stuff!
I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m going to have favorites because I love Kimberly! I can’t even put it into words! She’s my baby! I think she is going to be a great big sister.
Kids are awesome! If you don’t have any, you should make some. (Yeah, yeah! At the right time, right place, with the right person, yadda yadda. I know!)
