5th Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating

We held the annual cookie decorating contest again this year. The winner was once again Emily, who continually trounces everyone with her artistic talent. We added gingerbread houses to the repertoire this year. Some of them looked really good, others, well, you can see for yourself.

The winner, I believe a "Christmas in Killarney" cookie

Nice work Abby!

Partially constructed houses... waiting for the final layer of icing and decorations

My favorite. Kiwi's bombed out and abandoned WWII home

A Tough Day

We just got a call from our social worker this afternoon and found out that Thaddeus' birthmom has asked for him back. We knew that this was a possibility, but I'll be honest, we didn't expect it. And that is probably why this is hurting so bad right now. I am reminded of Proverbs 4:23 where it says, "Guard your heart, for it is the well spring of your life." I definitely did not guard my heart this time around like I did when we got Norah and we are paying for it now.

Jamie and I have spent the last hour crying and trying to deal with it, but we firmly believe that God is in control. We certainly appreciate all the prayers from everyone so far and we certainly could use more as we heal our hearts.

We love you all.

Ryan and Jamie

More Pictures

Things have been a little crazy around here, so pictures are a little delayed... sorry. We didn't get home from the hospital nearly as early as we had planned, plus Jamie has picked up a pretty nasty cold, so we are just a little out of sorts at the moment. But nothing like some pictures to set things straight.

You can see how small he is because the pacifier is as big as his face

Norah, what did you do?!?!

One Crazy Day

So if you've been following the weather in MN you know that we are just coming out of the monster snow storm that dropped around 14"-20" of snow on us. That is great and all, but yesterday we got the call that the birthmom that had picked us went into labor, so we needed to come up to the Twin Cities. So, at 9:30am Jamie and I started the white knuckle drive up to the hospital!!!

We got to the hospital around noon today since we were told that was when we could go up and see the baby. When we got here though we found out that the plans had changed. The birth grandma wanted to spend more time with the baby, so we moved back the meeting to 5pm. That meant we had lots of time this afternoon we needed to kill, and so began "the adventure."

Jamie wanted to head to Target to look for a few more infant outfits and also to get some flowers for the birthmom. So we headed out. The first part of our journey took us down Lake St. We passed more retarded drivers in that short 1 mile stretch than I have ever seen in my life. Every cross street had about 2' of snow from the plows and every Civic, Malibu, Celebrity, and other tiny little car known to man tried driving through these mounds of snow. The result were totally predictable. The few that actually looked like they had a chance of getting out were gunning their engines and spinning their wheels.... all while pointing into the main street. We were just waiting to get T-boned by one of these morons.

We spent the next 4 hours driving around town with pretty much the same results. Target didn't have any flowers (strike one), so when we got back to the hospital we headed straight to the gift shop. The good news was the gift shop did have some nice bouquets. The bad news, it was closed even though the hours posted clearly showed it was supposed to be open (strike two). So we quick headed to the truck to find a floral shop. Bad move. The first place we stopped was some "world market." They used to have a flower shop, but not anymore, or so they said (strike three). We called about 3 different flower places and they were all closed.

Now it's 4:55 and we need to be back for our meeting at 5:00. Enter Lake St into the narrative once again. Its now bumper to bumper in every direction. Instead of the few morons we saw on Lake St previously, it was now packed with them. We needed to make a left hand turn to get back to the hospital, but every single street was blocked from a stuck car. At one of the blocked streets there was a brawl. I assume because of the blocked car, but two guys were just wailing on each other. Two other guys jumped in to try and break it up. At the exact same time, there was a guy on the right side of Lake St with a snowblower launching ice and snow into the middle of the street. So its just pelting the truck like its a hail storm. And while this is happening, one of those stuck cars is high-topped beside us but is rocking back and forth trying to get out. He finally got traction and lurched forward, stopping approximately 3 nanometers from the side of our car. I'm not making any of this up either.

After passing five consecutive streets that were blocked I finally saw an open street. Note its well past 5pm at this point. I'm waiting for a car to let me turn through the bumper to bumper traffic when a Kia Sportage coming from the other direction decides he wants to take my open street. Do I even need to tell you what happens next? That's right, he doesn't even make it 5 feet into the street before getting stuck.

We did finally get back to the hospital. And we did get to meet the newest member of the Miller family. I'll blog more later about him and our experience with him, but for now allow me to introduce:

Thaddeus Tell Miller

born on 12/11/10 @ 3:48pm

5lb 13oz

19.5 inches

Moments of Joy

Norah, like any almost two year old, has her moments that make us want to pull our hair out. But at the same time she is just so stinkin' sweet. Let me provide you with a few examples:

#1 - Yesterday I took Norah with me to the gas station since we had to get gas for the snowblower (which didn't work, so I had to shovel all 10" by hand, but don't get started on that). Since its only a few blocks away I let her sit in the front seat in mommy's "big girl" seat. As soon as she sat down she looked at me, smiled, and said, "I big goil (girl)".

#2 - A little later we went on a Menard's run. Some of you may be familiar with the music of Casper Babypants, well, we had it playing in the van. The second she heard it she asks for "Monkey Wiver (River)". This is the same song she made us listen to on repeat from South Bend to the north side of Chicago (I was about ready to jab my eyes with a fork on that trip). Like that trip, as the song ended she starts yammering, "gen, gen (again)." Mommy always tells her to be patient, so when I told her that it was going to start again as soon as it ended, she says "I payshun (patient)."

Below are a few more older photos, obviously as there is no snow, since I have not downloaded any photos recently. Enjoy.

Living large on the bigwheel.

Classic scrunched face smile

Check out my hot ride boys!

Go To Work

Nearly every time I drop Norah off for daycare it takes her several minutes to warm up enough for me to leave. She gets so excited to go to Heidi's when we are still at the house and she recites everyone's name who will be there: Hannah, Chi-Chi (Malachi), Zackson (Jackson), and Kaden. But for whatever reason once we actually get there she never wants me to go.

However, today we reached a milestone. Today when I dropped her off I put her down and then dropped to my knees to try and play with her a bit knowing she usually needs that. Only today she looked at me, put her hand on my shoulder, pushed me, and said, "work daddy. work" So I got up and left. Its weird, I've been wanting that to happen for the last 12 months, but now that she wants me gone I'd kind of like to stay :-( My baby doesn't need me anymore, sniffle sniffle.

Norah always grabs my hat and puts it on like a homie

She was so proud of herself double paci-ing

Norah and Hannah in my grasp

Waiting For Sugar Peanut

Most nights it is my job to put Norah to bed. Our ritual is that once we get to her room and shut off the lights the first thing we do is pray. For the last few weeks the first thing we pray for is auntie Many (Melanie) and the baby in her belly. But you never really know if they know what you are praying for. Then tonight as we walked downstairs I told Norah, "its night-night time. we need to go to bed and pray for auntie Melanie." That's all I said, but then after Norah gave me sufficient time to finish that thought, but didn't, she says, "and baby in belly." Seriously, how freaking sweet is that?!?!

Also, I've been letting Norah help me do all my chores around the house. So over the past several months she has been helping me do the dishes in the sink, empty the dishwasher, put a table together, fold the laundry, etc. And she is always asking to do the dishes. You can't turn on the kitchen sink without hearing, "dithes, dithes!!!" Tonight I actually left her alone in front of the sink with a bunch of dirty plastic ware and the scrubbing brush and she did a pretty decent job. I'm amazed sometimes how quickly she picks stuff up.

Norah with her mom (who's stoned out of her gourd).

Helping mom with the dishes.

Getting her feet wet on Ruby Ln BigWheel Sprint Cup circuit.

Operation: Enduring Boredom

Ok, here's the deal. This one single blog post is going to be drawn out over the next several days. "Why?" you ask. Good question. Because my sister has been on bed rest for the past several weeks and is going bonkers. So Melanie, this is how much I love you, I'm going to give you a new blog post every day this week. (Note, if I forget, then I won't). My goal is to successfully deploy a new blog with either pictures, some update, or a combination of the two, ALL FOR YOU. Merry Thanksgiving to you!

So without further adieu, here are some random photos to keep the peeps happy.

Well obviously any picture of Norah loving on her daddy is going on the blog.

Hamming it up for the camera.

Just chilling and making some artwork on the driveway

This was a model shot I took of Norah wearing an old Anderson University tshirt. It was mainly to make Tim and Matt proud. However, they should note that is well worn, not something that I stuffed in the bottom of my closet. You can also see the "butt model" in the background... roar!

Norah Knievel

So today was a fun day. Jamie called me on my cell and said, "You've got to get home now, Norah is playing at the neighbors and it is so cute!" Well, it turns out she and our neighbor Sean were racing down the hill next to their house on Big Wheels. Norah was having an absolute blast. According to Jamie, she did this for about an hour. Her first trip down the hill was from only halfway up the top. By the time I got there, she was going from the top and in order to get more speed she was doing the Fred Flintstone with her feet until she got to the steep part of the hill. It was pretty neat.

She also has started talking up a storm lately. Today for the first time I heard her complete the entire alphabet. She usually gets stuck around Q-R-S, but there was one time that she made it through. Then Jamie was said, "watch this. Norah, can you count to 10?" Which she proceeds to do. I about crapped my pants. I had not ever even heard her count to 3 before!!!!

Here are some pictures from her recent trip to the apple orchard.

I'm loving this one. The poses are very Abercrombie & Fitch

the end

Return to Indiana and the Ruby Lane Players

We spent nine days back in Indiana the weekend before to the weekend after Labor Day. Norah warmed up right away to grandma and grandpa Miller on this trip. I think she's getting to that age where she's remembering them. The nice thing about this trip is that is was much more laid back than past trips. We did a lot of sitting around and reading/talking/playing games, and of course, playing with Norah.

The first part of the week we spent in Elkhart where we had a gathering with some the Graber clan. It was nice to see some of my cousins that I have not seen in several years. And the best part was that there were older kids there (a.k.a. free babysitting).

The last half of the week was in Middlebury. I think we took Norah to the park downtown about 10 times because she loved it. We also made our regular stops to Chick-Fil-A and Hacienda while we were back. But the highlight for me was last Saturday when I met up with 7 of my college buddies in Crown Point to do a little golfing. There were lots of stories retold and definitely lots of laughs. All in all, it was a great trip.

Norah was chilling on the couch watching ND football with her daddy.

Hanging with grandma

Hamming it up for the camera.

Don't ask how I fit into that tub, I still don't know.

Atleast there's 1 Miller in this photo with no Amish blood

So last night we got to partake in a fun event. Our cul-de-sac street has about a 10:1 girl to boy ratio, and last night those lovely ladies put on the first production by the Ruby Lane Players. They performed "The Wizard of Oz" using one of our neighbor's decks as the stage. It was great, it was Norah's first play! And her first popcorn!

Mom and Norah getting read to enjoy the show.

The cast, from L-R: the wicked witch, Dorothy, the good witch (who also played the scarecrow), the leopard who wanted to be a DJ, the Tin Man, and Emma who was not allowed a part :-(

ABC Time

Norah has been on a roll lately learning new words and songs and whatnot. For the past week she keeps singing her ABC's. This clip isn't her best effort she's had, but you can atleast tell the tune she's singing. And oh, Timmy and Matt, check out the shirt I be rockin' in this clip.

Softball Tournament

Last weekend we packed up and headed for Shakopee for the Berean Baptist Invitational Softball tournament (not to be confused with the Berean that we attend). We went up on Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel, which also happened to have a small water park in it! Norah loved it. She even went down the big slide with me a few times.

The softball tournament was all day Saturday. The good news: our team won our division. The bad news: the heat index was well over 100 and we played 5 games. We were all pretty much toast at the end of the day. I easily drank over 100 oz of water throughout the day, but it still wasn't enough as I never had to pee once! I managed to get some road rash on about every conceivable spot on my body, but I'll definitely settle for that as we had one guy tear his calf muscle and another snapped his quad. So a little road rash was nothing.

And some random shots of Norah:

The Black Hills

This weekend we returned from our 2nd Annual camping vacation to the Black Hills. It was a good trip, if not a bit unconventional. Due to weather (lots of rain and cold) we didn't have a single night where we all gathered around the fire after dark. That's the best part of camping, so it was a little disappointing. We also had the joy of keeping Norah under raps. We learned two things last week: (1) she's really fast, and (2) she doesn't listen very well :-)

We did go to Sylvan Lake about every day. They have a somewhat easy 1 mile hike that takes you around the lake. We walked that trail and then would head to the beach to let Norah play in the sand and water. This was about the only thing we could do to keep her happy. We also ended up hiking to Harney Peak. It was a grueling hike for someone as out of shape as me, but it was awesome. Harney Peak is the highest point east of the Rockies and west of the Pyrenees. We got a bunch of pictures, but they are on the Nikon, so I'll download those later.

We took one day and went to Old McDonald's Farm. (See all the pics below). This was a small little place that had just about every kind of farm animal imaginable. They had chickens and turkeys just roaming free through the park and Norah immediately started chasing them.

Norah and Ellie hanging in grandpa's trailer

Norah and grandpa with the goats

Washing grandpa's truck. This went on for 3 days.

Um, that's just nasty.

Getting ready to hold some baby chicks.

Eagerly awaiting the start of the pig races

Playing at the beach