Painting wavy lines is harder than you might think

It's been a whirlwind summer! For Shira's 6th birthday (back in June!) we told her that she could redo her room - so she chose the bedspread, and momma painted the room. The rest of the summer has been spent looking for co-ordinating accessories - so here's what it looks like so far:
That lamp you see sitting there all by it's lonesome will eventually go on the nightstand that Papa is making for her. She is totally excited about that lamp - because it's almost identical to the one that was in the picture that came on the comforter.

This is where she stores all her toys, books and just recently, my stereo that she bootlegged from our master bathroom. Seems like the girl's gotta have her tunes, no matter what!

When Shira was first born, we began collecting teddy bears, thinking that she'd be a sweet girl always carrying around a teddy bear. Not so much. But, they're too cute to waste, so Papa made these great shelves, and I think it looks great on top of her window!

We found the S-H-I-R-A letters at Hobby Lobby - and Shira loves them! I think they're really cute with the wavy rick-rack paint border that we did, too. All in all - a really fun project!

First Day in the First Grade (and the 4 year old, half day program)

prayer time and burps

So here's the background...

We have a continual struggle with our kids when it comes to prayer time. They both love to pray for our meals, but they DON'T want to do it at the same time. We'll often sing "Thank you God..." (to the tune Frere Jacques) but Tobin will get mad if Shira sings with him and vice versa. So last night, when we sat down to eat, my heart was swelling because Tobin was genuinely being great about singing like he meant it (instead of the usual TOP OF HIS LUNGS yelling) and I was afraid my heart would burst with the sweetness of it all.

And then...

(Tobin singing very softly)
"Thank you God...Thank you God.
For our food...for our food.
We have many blessings,
We have many blessings.
Amen, Amen."

(and Momma sighs, thankful for the moment of peace in a crazy day...)

(Momma says) "Good job Tobin , we’re proud of you."

(Tobin says) "Mommy, I burped when I said 'Amen.'"

(family laughter)

(Momma says) "You did…oh... OK."

And just for an equal measure of all things gastrointestinal related, Shira feels the need to chime in...

(Shira says) "Mommy – Zach can burp his A-B-Cs…"

And the moments of thankfulness for the sweet peace of knowing that my children were connected to God vanished - a whole 30 seconds after it happened.

Shira's Tea Party

Shira turned six years old this past Sunday. To celebrate, we hosted her very first "official" party - in the form of a fancy tea party! She invited 6 little girls over, and we have a very fun tea party. These are the girls, where we started out on our back porch - the plan was to have a "garden tea party," but although the weather was gorgeous - it was incredibly hot and muggy.

We made pink and purple bead bracelets and blew bubbles, and the girls played on the swingset. All that activity made them hot - so we moved the party inside!

This is our living room - where the tea party was relocated to. MUCH cooler - thank you, Lord!

The menu was chicken salad sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, pimento cheese sandwiches, PB&J on Cinnamon bread, deviled eggs, olives, mini fruit kabobs, petit fours, chocolate chip cookie dough truffles, lime-raspberry bites and mints. Rather than hot tea, which I was afraid the girls wouldn't like, I made a great recipe from a friend of mine called Tea Punch - basically brewed decaf iced tea with pineapple juice, lemon juice, orange juice and gingerale. It was a hit! And my mom was sooo great to help with Micah while I was busy with the girls!

Hannah Hayley Milena

These are some of Shira's best buds...they all had a fun time. So sweet!

My mom ordered these amazingly cute teacups online for the party. They are tiny - they hold probably about 1/3 cup of liquid. The girls had a blast drinking out of the fancy cups - we sure went through the tea!

These are the favor bags. I wanted to fold the corners down and staple them to look like actual tea bags - but the bags were too full to do that, oh well. The gifts inside included a mini china tea set, a book called Ella's Tea Party, wildflower seed packets and a toy tea cup with mints it it and a bag of Stash Blackberry Herbal Tea wrapped up in tulle and tied with a sheer ribbon and artificial rose.

to prove how much we love Food Network...

Tonight I was reading the kids their bedtime story from a phenomenal book recommended by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer called "The Jesus Storybook Bible - Every story whispers his name." I cannot even begin to tell you how much my kids love this book - this is one you'll want to have in your kids' library, for sure. We started in the New Testament when we got it, because we were close to Easter, so I wanted to read the kids the story of Jesus and the cross, etc...so we read from there to "the end." So now, we've started again at the beginning and tonight's story was about Abraham sacrificing his son Issac. We read the story, and stopped to put the bookmark in, when Shira asks what the title for the next chapter was. It was "The girl nobody wanted" - about Leah and Rachel. So Shira reverently whispers "Rachael Ray!" Apparently, God is into 30 minute meals...at least in the mind of my daughter!

my little man

One month old - lots of sleeping to do!

(Bless you, Heather, for the magic swing!)

6 weeks old - the first smiles!

7 weeks old - and I've already gained OVER 4 pounds since I've entered this world! Love that Momma-milk!

My big sis and bro love to hold me "standing up!"

The love really is abundant in the Miller home!

They're supposed to be sleeping...

Many, many, many nights as a child, my parents would catch me reading "just one more chapter!" I LOVED to read, and since we moved around a lot, I didn't always have a lot of friends to spend time with - so falling in love with books was easy to do...I found my friends in all the many worlds I read about! To this day, I can recall scenes from books almost as if I had actually visited them. This is the scene I came upon tonight when I went to tuck the kids in bed...(and found Tobin missing from his.) Although the picture looks light, it was actually pitch-black in Shira's room and they had her princess night light between them, totally absorbed in their own worlds found in the picture books...

little Momma

Look what we caught
the little Momma doing
the other day!
(she was embarrassed
that we saw her -
we were sooo proud!)

She's Reading!!!

So it's a good thing that I started this blog today to document the special moments - because Shira brought a book home from the school library today and all on her own, started reading it to me!!! I am so proud of her - and just can't believe that she's started reading, practically overnight! The look on her face was precious - she was so proud of herself, too! I'm so excited for her to continue discovering the joy of reading, just like her momma has!