Fun With Cars
February 16, 2009 by Ryan
We had some fun recently bringing the kids’ cars in from the garage and playing. I love making little movies so I took the footage and made this!
After watching the finished product we notice that the kids would crack up so we record that too!
I know this is a pretty lame way to get back into posting, but hey! I gotta do it!
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!
Nightmare Before Christmas…Tree!
October 13, 2008 by Ryan
Our Nightmare Tree
You know, I think this Christmas thing
is not as tricky as it seems!
But why should they have all the fun?
It should belong to anyone!
Not anyone, in fact, but me!
Why, I could make a Christmas tree!
And there’s not a reason I can find,
I couldn’t have a Christmastime!
I bet I could improve it, too!
And that’s exactly what I’ll do!
-Jack Skellington
“The Nightmare Before Christmas”
Halloween Trees are all the rage these days. My wife sees them in tons of the countless Mama/Crafts/Design blogs that she subscries to. Trendy or not, I think it’s cool and we had fun making it which is what really counts! We found the branches outside my work, brought them home, spray painted them black and did this!
Halloween has always been a holiday. Nothing beats the excitement of those nights trick-or-treating! Running from door to door trying to get as much candy as you can stuff into your pillow case (Yes, experienced Trick-Or-Treaters know that you don’t use the wimpy Jack-O-Lantern buckets, you use the pillow case because it hold like 10x as much!) I remember how fun it was to run around with all my friends, the McCraes and the Sundbergs, way back and then Robbie & Andy when I was older but still old enough to get away with trick-or-treating.
Back in the day, my house had quite the reputation! My dad was working for M&M/Mars and come Halloween he laid out two huge tables filled with boxes of full-size Snickers, Twix, Milky Ways, etc. and we’d invite everyone to come in and grab a few. We would have kids that would switch masks and come back over and over. We’d have people that would drive just to come to our house! It was funny the year my dad switched companies and we were relegated to handing out the “normal” Halloween candies. I remember over hearing a few kids say, “They must have moved!?”
Somewhere between then and a few years back Halloween lost it’s excitement for me. Then I married a Halloween fanatic! Add to that kids coming into the ages that it becomes really fun and Halloween is back to being a really exciting time. We’ve been watching a ton of The Nightmare Before Christmas especially because of the new anniversay edition. We put the digital copy it comes with on our little Archos video player for Kim and bought her some headphones for car trips, but she loves it so much, she’ll watch it on her own some days. If you ever get to talk to her about it she calls it Halloween, Halloween.
Little Angel
July 20, 2008 by Ryan
We recently went to an Orem Owlz game, and we went all decked out in Angels unis (The Owlz are the Angels’ Single A team). We were taking pictures and in these pictures it looks like Jeremy might have some red in his hair! It’s actually not too surprising because Papa Ottley had red hair.
Kim had a blast running all around the outfield grass seating and on the huge playground. She had a pink Angels jersey and wore here Daddy out.
Go Angels!
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!
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!)
Kimberly Performing
October 5, 2007 by Ryan
As promised, here is a video clip of my little girl! She has grown up so much in the last two or three days! She is so smart, so curious, and so adventurous (which is good & bad). I love watching her figure things out. You can just see her mind working. And this kid already knows too much about electronics and how they work!
She really does have her own personality. I can see it in how her reaction has changed to when I come home from work. Obviously, for a long time she didn’t have any clue if I was there or if I was gone. But eventually, when I’d walk in the door she’d see me and brighten up with a smile. Then after she learned how to wave she started smiling and waving. Then after she learned how to walk, Beth would prompt her to come over to me and I’d pick her up and give her hugs. Next she started doing it on her own where she’d come over and reach up for me. That changed to her running up and hugging my legs. Now, she wants me to drop everything and give her hugs. If I come in and she doesn’t catch me at the door she’ll find me and basically give me a “Daddy! I want you to hug me!” I love it!
As for the video here, it is a clip of her doing a little performing for the camera. She does the actions to Etsy-Bitsy Spider and then, I told you she was smart…well, just watch!
Gotta Love YouTube
September 26, 2007 by Ryan
This will be my first video post. I finally found a easy way to embed YouTube videos.
Check out my cute nephews wrestling. These boys are little tanks! I imagine they’ll be wrestling like this for the rest of their lives being that they are brothers and so close in age. Their giggles just crack me up!
I’ll get some videos of Kimberly on here soon!
