A Budding Pianist

One of Bradlee's favorite pastimes - playing Grandma's giant noisemaker.  He will amuse himself for quite a while making a 6-month-old's version of music.

Working on the treble notes...

Grand finale.

Four Generations

At Christmas, I realized I was looking across the table at four generations of Millers with Bradlee on Nick's lap, flanked by Mike and Mike's dad Ray.  So I demanded a photo.

They're going to get so tired of me lining them up whenever we all get together...

Fun With Family

     Last week, we had the privilege of hosting two of my cousins when they stayed in town for a short time.  Actually, to be strictly accurate, Chris and Robyn are my kids' third cousins, but who's strictly accurate except in my family?  Anyway, after supper, we pulled out the Trivial Pursuit game and had a hilarious time.  Robyn kept rolling sixes and got a tad disgruntled with her slow progress, especially when Chris habitually rolled twos and fours.

     Here, Robyn is reading Cameron's question while Chris tries to figure out the answer.  I knew a lot of the answers...unfortunately, they were to other players' questions.

I read Chris' card at this point and so missed his incredulous expression as the question unfolded.  It ran something like:  "What French president adopted a boat person refugee that he'd found crying in the Charles de Gaulle Airport?"
     "There's been so many French presidents, even the French wouldn't know this answer!" he exclaimed.
    
    

"The first name will be either Jacques or Pierre," Robyn suggested helpfully.  But after several minutes of agonizing thought, he decided he simply couldn't answer correctly and so gave in.  

     Although she didn't know the president's name, Robyn's guess was correct.  It was Jacques Chirac.  Chris groaned, shook his head, and passed the dice on.

We knew Chris and Robyn but not well, so it was a real treat to have them spend time with us and get to know them better.  

For Kimberly

Kimberly, Nick took these pictures just for you...

And for a closer look...

Christmas

Due to work schedules and extended families, we celebrated Christmas together on Christmas Eve morning.  Nick, Jenn, Bradlee, Cameron, and Serena gathered at our house around 8am and exchanged gifts.   

Bradlee gained experience opening presents thanks to Nick and Jenn wrapping several and putting them under their tree a few days before Christmas.  Their front room is small and Bradlee didn't have to squirm far to reach the pretty paper.

 A few years ago I started a tradition of finding some off-the-wall gift for the kids still at home, wrapping it up and giving it to them a week or so before Christmas.  They were allowed to handle it as much as they wanted and if they guessed it, they could open it on the spot.  Otherwise, they had to wait until Christmas.  The first couple of years, I fell into the 20 Questions trap and they had the gift in hand in a matter of minutes.  This year, I faithfully stuck to the "You must ask specifically" rule and Richelle couldn't guess it.  It was killing her with frustration after six days of wrong guesses so I let her open it with her other gifts Christmas Eve after everyone else made helpful suggestions.  Only Cameron knew what it was and he was giving broad hints.

 Richelle loves all things earth science and I'd gotten her a set of BuckyBalls.  There are 216 extremely strong magnets the size and shape of BBs.  As you can see, she was thrilled with the gift.  It's amazing what you can make with 216 magnetic BBs!  We first saw and played with BuckyBalls at my brother Steve's house last June.  Richelle wanted to go right out and get some immediately.

My favorite part of the entire day.  We all worked together to put on a breakfast feast:  Cameron made Belgian waffles, Serena manned the bacon, Jenn saw to the biscuits and gravy, I whipped the cream, sliced the strawberries and assisted with the scrambled eggs, Richelle arranged the table and ran errands, while Nick and Mike entertained Bradlee.

I think we're going to make it a tradition.