Merry Christmas!

Corban - 5 1/2, Annie - 2 1/2, Jakin - 7 1/2

31 weeks

Here's the most recent picture of our growing little girl. Generally, I still feel good. My most pressing complaints, if they can even be called complaints, are: 1.) That I'm at the stage of pregnancy when my pants are always falling down. Whenever I bend over to pick something up (and in a family with 3 children, that happens a lot) my pants sort of roll down, requiring me to hike them back up. 2.) That I grow weary of people's comments about how big I am. "You look great!" sounds much better to a woman in her third trimester than "Are you sure there aren't twins in there?" or "Still two more months?!" But, the baby is healthy. That's the important thing. And I'm healthy and, incidently, I'm measuring exactly where I should be at this time (not that I'm defensive or anything). As for timing, right now I'm consumed with Christmas preparations. When January begins, I'll be in my last month. That's when I'll start preparing for our baby's arrival. So, while I'm not quite ready for the baby to be born, I'll be ready anytime to not be pregnant anymore!

Stitches

On Friday, November 21, Corban was running in our house. He tripped and cracked his head on a wooden toy shelf. He and his dad were soon off to the hospital (like Ski Equipment, Emergency Room Visits also fall to Jack in the Miller household). Corban was very brave and came home with 4 stitches in his head. Forty-eight hours later, Jack was back in the emergency room with Jakin who cracked his head while playing at a friend's house. Jakin came home with two stitches above his left eye. Both boys in stitches at the same time. Poor Corban. The boy can't even get stitches without his older brother butting in and claiming some of the attention for himself! Jack was gratified to have the clearance (sort of, but that was all the clearance he needed) to remove the stitches himself and both boys are healing nicely.

Not Quite "Completed"

Jack says the porch isn't done. It still needs lattice. Although I don't always notice such things, I wouldn't want anyone who does notice such things to think less of my husband's carpentry skills.

The Shoemaker's Wife

Isn't there a joke about the shoemaker's wife going barefoot? Well, the carpenter's wife often has to be patient as she waits for house projects to get accomplished at her own house. Because this is true for the us, it is blogworthy to mention that this carpenter's wife got a completed front porch this week. Pretty nice, huh?

Getting Ready For Winter

In the Miller family division of labor, "Ski Equipment" falls into Jack's department. Every year at the beginning of November, he gets all the equipment out to see what fits who and who needs what. Annie was not going to be left out of the action. The kids spent the evening skiing around the house and getting really excited for snow!

Halloween

I don't have much to say about Halloween beyond what the pictures say. We've been trick-or-treating with our good friends, the Daniels, since 2004. This year other good friends, the Gills, joined us. The number of kids represented by our 3 families continues to increase! Since my domestic skills do not include sewing, my kids are somewhat limited in their costume choices. Fortunately, they have been content to raid the dress up bin each year and find a costume about an hour before Halloween starts. Fun times!





During my Bible study on Tuesday mornings, the kids go to a group they love (and have been with for 6 years) called "Tuesday Tigers". Annie looks forward to this time of playing with her friends each week. And the opportunity to wear these special dress up clothes on the Tuesday before Halloween made this day even better. I kept looking at her in this get-up, shaking my head and thinking, "Sometimes I still can't believe we have a girl." And she is quite the girl.....
Her friends in this picture are Brooke Bishop, Talia Kapiloff, Annie and Isabella Champney.