Happy to be on Father's Day

Father's Day or Greg thanks for watching the kids day at the millers.  Kara helped with the worship music team at church today. that meant a solo morning for greg from 8-1.  its nice to be married to someone who is capable and even thrives while handling the kiddos by himself.

in capable hands

Here's a recent shot of the boys and greg during our florida vacation. yes that is an alligator skull.  

greg and the boys, May 2011

we are having a monumental afternoon.  greg decided for father's day to let jude see star wars for the first time. we are sitting watching while harry naps.  jude is asking a million questions while completely enthralled by the whole thing.   and he keeps forgetting darth vader's name.

Movin on Up

So mark the date, June 9th is when our life got one step busier.  That's when Harry gave up his energetic army crawl, lifted his belly, and got moving.  He is even faster now that he's not dragging half his weight on the ground.  He also took his first hesitant steps, cruising between the couch and the coffee table, and the aptly named 'crawl and cruise musical jungle'.

would i get into anything?

This means that at least once a day we find him pulling up by george's dog food station just to survey what's inside those shiny bowls.  so far we've been able to ward off a taste test situation. ugh.
Its also a lot of fun. Unlike jude, harry seems to have no fear of the let go, fall down part.  he gets a big grin and then simply disappears behind the coffee table as he drops from holding on.  its so cute to see.

as for jude, he is also moving on up...in height.  today is his four year old check up. i can't wait to see his measurements.

checking out the view from mommy's roof

Jude is enjoying summer preschool camp for the month of june. last night he started a soccer class.  greg, a former soccer player & fan himself, with the history of the broken face to prove it, enjoyed watching jude trap and dribble the ball. i bet this is the beginning of many nights in the back yard working on some skills and spending time together.

i finished my article on social media and college admissions. it was super challenging to write, research, interview and create with the boys around. my strategy was basically -  play, feed, work.  let everything else- cleaning, laundry, etc go.   i am actually excited to pull out the vacuum again and get our house back in some sense of order after vacation, birthdays and article.

hope you enjoy this summer day.

harry's turn

it is amazing to watch another person learn to stand on their own.  here in oak park, baby harry is flying through stand up school on a self directed, very focused mission.  unfortunately he's also a frequent student in the school of hard knocks.  learning to get down is the hard part.

now i pull up high

each day he seems to grab and go up somewhere new.  yesterday morning he did an elaborate pop up with his hands through midair to grab the coffee table top.  this is both terrifying and fun to watch.  you see kid number one took his time, a long time to crawl, pull up, basically move.  harry is now happy to help himself to anything he can grab. and by help himself...we mean stick it in his mouth.

speaking of mouth, check out the drool drop on this chin!

drool face

we finally have two more teeth popping out on top after weeks of heavy downpours.

harry is already starting to reject baby food sometimes.  he loves pasta, cheerios and soft vegetables.  i hope for his sake more teeth arrive soon to match his desire for independent eating.

as for the rest of our house, our favorite four year old resumed summer preschool this week. he proudly told everyone about his three birthday parties.   a simple one at preschool where mom brought in a train cake that the class helped make, the kid pinata one, and a nice time with the grandparents and uncle todd.  kara has an article due next week so its been difficult but necessary to delay the posts from florida and the birthday bashes.  but here's a quick look at the aftermath.

yup that's one tired out partying dinosaur. he had to stand on two cakes

I am happy to say that the miller movie night tradition is back on. tonight it was the muppet movie and dominick's take and bake pizza.  we loved the film.  jude however is still trying to understand what the bad guy wanted to do to kermit and his friends.