Mike and Maranda

Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale. (Actually a couple)

2012-02-12T23:27:00.001-06:00

Our tale starts on December 31 2012. IE New Years Eve.

Place: Portland OR.

People involved: MNM Miller-ites Aunt Natasha

Our first stop was the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Taden made a New Years hat and Lilly dressed up as a woodland creature. Thomas made friends with a stroller and Maranda remained friends with her sister.

Next stop was Red Robin were our kids chanted Happy New Years and we ate mostly amazing food.

To end our journey the kids watched most of the Lion King with popcorn.

Our second journey took us up north of Seattle to a place called Stanwood where we experienced our first real winter snow and got to experience what Gilligan and the crew felt like.

Place: Stanwood WA, and Orcas Island WA. (The place you go by ferry and make sure not to follow the weekday schedule on the weekend)

People Involved: MNM Miller-ites. Kristen and Nathan Frongner, and kids, and Stacy Henn, and Jade Canafrican Schwartzberg. (some of Maranda’s roommates from BYU Idaho that we hadn’t seen since 2006)

Isaac was very social and seemed to like us quite well.

Our children got along really well with the Frongner children and even pretended well together.

While the girls went to Sea Tac to pick up Stacy Nathan and I had babysitting duty. He put in Tangled, and here they danced to it.

We arrived from Stanwood to Anacortes not knowing what the weather would be like. It turned out beautiful. Here we are at the ferry station. We stopped to get fresh cider on the way.

I have never taken a picture of a men’s bathroom before but this intrigued me. It reminded of what a cow might feel like.

Our kids loved the beginning of the ferry ride but most of it was spent fighting over who could pretend to play the one an only video game. Michael was the most excited because he had never been on a ferry and even though no whales were seen. We found out that Orcas Island isn’t named for seeing whales, it is in the shape of an Orca Whale.

We arrived at Orcas Island thinking we could stroll around the town. We started strolling until a nice guy told us how far town was. It was 10 miles away. 2 strange men were kind enough to offer us a ride in what looked like a hippie van. We were planning on going back 2 hours later but we read the wrong schedule. We read the weekday schedule instead of the weekend. We ended up being on the island for 4 hours. It was a long day but it was quite an amazing adventure being stuck on an island with 5 kids under the age of 5. We solved the problem by buying hot chocolate and trying to watch a movie on Nathan’s phone.

Some of the beauty we were able to see.

A tale of three Christmases and a late winter wonderland.

2012-01-18T23:43:00.002-06:00

For every Christmas festivity you need family, food, and fantabulous presents. Our family got to have all of this repeated three times.

The first tale was a Christmas Eve celebration with Grandma and Grandpa Ripp, Uncle Anthony and Aunt Jennifer, cousin Austin, and cousin Brooklyn and Uncle Ben.

1) For the food, Maranda and I combine foods from both families old traditions and this is what we had.

The fantabulous gifts.

1) A rock star microphone for our kids to sing into as demonstrated below.

2) Grandma Ripp’s fantabulous gift was the final Dalmation Mcdonald’s Toy making 101 individual Dalmation’s in her collection.

3) Grandma and Grandpa gave each kid a stocking full of presents.

4) Aunt Jennifer and Uncle Anthony gave Lilly 3 Disney princess dress up costumes. It was a big hit for both genders.

5) Taden received a spy kit.

Thomas got a Thomas ball.

6) Taden and Lilly made homemade Christmas gifts with Maranda.

The 2nd tale was spent Christmas Eve and morning as a family with hot chocolate Christmas Eve followed by fantabulous presents from Grandma and Grandpa Miller and parents.

We had hot chocolate Christmas Eve.

Taden’s most fantabulous present was his Ben Ten Swampfire Costume.

The third and final tale was spent Christmas Day where we got to see Uncle Karlson, Grandpa Dave, Grandma Laurie, and Aunt Natasha.

Waking and and walking in a late winter wonderland.

We had our first real snow of the year on our way home from our friends house north of Seattle. (More will follow on that adventure the next blog post.) We were travelling home and went from going 70 to 20 in downtown Seattle where the biggest flurries I have seen in many years came pouring down. Well that was just the beginning.

We only got a few inches but it was enough to make an amazing powdery snow man complete with bow tie.

After our snow man was made the weather people predicted that we would get between 6- 12” overnight. We didn’t think it would happen as it was mostly sunny all day. We woke up to a surprise which is demonstrated below.

What you get from living in paradise!

2011-10-02T23:16:00.010-05:00

You learn to walk and also to walk on water

You get to meet John Denver and hear him sing while he is accompanied by an angel.

You get to experience flowers in their true beauty. (Both by smelling and by seeing)

You get to see the real ring of fire.

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You get the ride of your life.

There is pure oxygen.

A birthday message for Grandma Miller from the MNM Miller-ites

2011-10-01T17:04:00.000-05:00

A birthday card from Taden Lilly Thomas, and the new one.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

A birthday message from Mike and Maranda.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

What our kids remember about you and a birthday cake to remember. (Where you don't have to blow out the candles!)

Fun times with Grandma and Grandpa

2011-08-08T23:25:00.014-05:00

Our kids at first kept saying they wanted to go home. But home soon became Grandma and Grandpa's house. What helped persuade them was the various activities that Grandma had the kids do. Most of which had to deal with sugar, chocolate, or bribery.

First a painting lesson. Grandma bought Lilly nail polish and Lilly was easily persuaded to make her look beautiful. She will let anyone know who lends a listening ear that she is beautiful and that, "I love me!"

Taden felt quite left out but he knew that nail polish was for girls but he made the exception that "pink is pretty but blue is for boys."

Next Grandma incentivised bath time and bought a pool. Here are a few examples.

One of the niceties of living in paradise is that you live close to beaches. And another nice thing about paradise is that those beaches aren't full of tourists. Here is a video and some pictures of our grand experience complete with some views of paradise.

A 51.5 hour move

2011-08-07T22:40:00.011-05:00

In preparation for moving to paradise we had to condense to a 6 x 12 Uhaul. This meant much use of Matt Scott's dumpster at Big O Tires and thrift store runs. My dad bought a flatbed 4 x 8 trailor around the same time that worked perfectly to haul our stuff away We had a tornado hit our town the night before we moved. A couple blocks from our house was hit as demonstrated below. Our house, our trees, and our 6 x 12 Uhaul all remained in place. A sign that it was okay to move I believe.

It turned out to be the longest road trip I have ever taken. Our kids behaved very well. It turned out to take around 51.5 hours driving. My dad helped get us to Utah and then Maranda drove most of the way to Washington.

This is what our Uhaul looked like when we unpacked it. We were greeted by stuffed animals.

A boy turns one and a science center with little girl next to a big ear, astronauts, and a little boy chipmunk

2011-06-05T12:51:00.014-05:00

On April 14, Thomas turned one and my dad turned one for the 63rd time. Maranda found an idea to create a birthday cake that looks like the one year old on their birthday. Here is her version of Thomas.

A tradition that Mike's family has is to allow the one year old access to the cake on the ground. Taden just daintily picked at the icing, but Thomas devoured almost the whole piece in around 5 minutes.

We departed Indiana on Thursday the 26th. 51.5 hours in the van we made it to the beautiful state of Washington on Tuesday the 31st. We spent a couple of days with Mike's sister. On Saturday we went up to Portland to visit with Natasha, Grandpa Dave and Ben and we went to OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.) Here are some of my favorite snapshots.

One of the highlights was being able to become astronauts. Everyone shows off their own unique personalities. Taden refused to stick his face in it. Grandpa Dave told him to stick his face in so that he cold kiss him. Taden just sticks his head in. (That's the first picture.)

They had a dress up costume in a play zone for Thomas. Here are some of our favorite shots of our cute little chipmunk.

A messy child, an adopted Pointer and some amazing cakes and pillowcase dresses.

2011-03-29T20:43:00.000-05:00

We feed Thomas baby food and in the afternoon I came and saw the following scene.

Lilly decided that she would help feed Thomas. Thomas didn't mind at all.

Last Wednesday we tried to go find an adopted dog for our family to bond with. We didn't realize how sick Taden was and decided to take him anyway. I have never seen Taden so uninterested. He didn't want to look at the dogs and didn't care about being there. At midnight Maranda took him to the ER and he was severely dehydrated and spent the next 3 days in the hospital with Rota Virus. He is now complely better and on Saturday he said, "Daddy I want a puppy." We went back to Evansville and found Katie a pointer, springer spaniel mix. She is about 3 years old and is learning commands very well.

Maranda has found that she has a very creative knack for creating dresses and cakes.

She made a cake for Groundhog's day and it even had a Groundhog that moved up and down.

Each year the Relief Society (The women's organization of our church) has a birthday celebration. Maranda made a cake that matches one of their symbols.

Here are pillowcase dresses she has made for Lillyana.

Silly faced presents, free food, Christmas hats, MORE SNOW!!!!, baby snowman, and Kitty Kitty

2010-12-25T14:26:00.000-06:00

Here is Taden's present to his Uncle Ross and Grandpa Ripp.

I got a fruit basket from Maranda, and then we were greeted at my parent's house with carolers who brought cookies, and free authentic El Salvador tamales from our friends Carlos and Leonor Gongora.

We got about 4" of snow Christmas Eve at night.

We went to our friend's home Marlene and Lloyd Breaden. She has a pet "Kitty Kitty". Lilly kept asking for her kitty, not knowing that Kitty Kitty is actually a Bearded Dragon. Here it is for the splendor of all to behold.

A blessing, 2 new family members, and a snowstorm.

2010-12-12T19:06:00.000-06:00

After 7 months Grandpa Dave was finally able to visit. It worked out great because it also was the day of Taden's 4th birthday. From top left to bottom right, Bishop Meservy, Grandpa Dave and Thomas Gideon/Goliath, Grandpa Miller, Myself, Brother Trusty, bottom, Brother Whitaker and Brother Scott. Brother Leclere also participated but had to leave before the picture.

For Tadens birthday we decided to add two new family members. You can meet them below.

Meet Squeeski.

Meet Bootski

It took until almost the middle of December but snow finally has met southern Indiana. This is a view of my father's house with a manger that he constructed.

Lilly's birthday present

2010-10-13T14:17:00.000-05:00

Lilly received a tiara from Grandma and Grandpa Ripp and a feather boa from Amy and Evan Bland.

I will smile for a picture in exchange for a lollipop.

Taden's version.

Lilly's Version

The M&M-Millerites and what we have done

2010-09-26T21:55:00.001-05:00

Uncle Josh (Maranda's brother) is trucking for a living and came to Indianapolis. He was supposed to be able to only spend an afternoon with us but his schedule for his next load was delayed and he spent the whole weekend. I didn't even recognize him at first when we went to pick him up. It was great for the kids. It was also great to have someone take a picture of our whole family.

We went to the annual 4H Fair and their were only about 20 animals left but the kids enjoyed being around the animals and Taden loved all the tractors.

Some fun pictures of our kids, Maranda's birthday, and Thomas's first solidish food.

Things the M&M-Millerites get into. Flour, guitar cases, and toy bins.

After all a long journey it's time to sleep.

A Lillybug in a bathtub and a bug birthday cake.

2010-08-08T21:24:00.007-05:00

This is Lilly's pose when she refuses to get out of the bathtub.

Maranda decided to take up the hobby of cake decorator. She went to the library and got about 5 books on the subject. She wanted to create a birthday cake for me and came up with a bug cake. Everything is homemade even the fondant. She is a most impressive woman.

2010-06-24T21:24:00.006-05:00

You will be proud of us. These pictures were taken not 6 months ago, not 3 months ago, not even 1 week ago, but today!

Our punk rock ladybug princess.

Our dinosaur tourist in pajamas.

And wide eyed not bushy tailed Thomas.

Chalk walk, Mother's Day and a chocolate mess

2010-05-09T21:05:00.016-05:00

Each year our local community lets anyone come and draw on the sidewalks for a day. Here are some of our favorite drawings.

Maranda's favorite:depicting the Battle of Thermopylae. Amazing story. The Greek words at the bottom mean "come and get them" referring to the weapons they refused to surrender.

A cool illusion was done as well as demonstrated below.

For Mothers Day I made Maranda my once a year dessert of three layers of Devil's Food Cake with a bottom layer of cheesecake and the kids got a little messy.

Our kids will get dirty for chocolate. Their grandma will be especially proud.

An older post again a new baby and a new package

2010-04-15T11:47:00.014-05:00

Here is a better look at what the gene pool can do when your cousins.

What 51 inches of belly can do. Be your table for your bowl of cereal and allow a little girl to stand tall.

Thanks for medical professionals (Casey, and April and Dr. Cecchi and good friends, (Rhonda LeClere) and epidurals you can have a mostly good time waiting for the baby to come into the world.

We are happy family.

We got a couple surprises with our new Thomas Gideon Miller.
Taden was happy because he has a new brother that will play with him and not steal his toys.

Lillyana's happy because she can now say the word baby 100 times a day to a real baby and check every 5 minutes to see if he is still a real baby.

Maranda is happy to have a 9 lb 12 oz 23 inch son out of her belly.

Michael is happy that Maranda has a 9 lb 12 oz 23 inch son out of her belly.

Grandpa Miller is happy because our little boy was born on his birthday.

Grandma Miller is happy because she now has 13 grandchildren.

Grandma and Grandpa Ripp are happy because the USPS man beat the delivery of Thomas by a couple of hours. (This makes Taden happy as well as will soon be told.)

The soon be told part will be told right now. Taden was told he was getting gummy worms but he never could have expected to have received a "brocolliosaurus." Note the picture below.

Another late snowfall and a crying buddy

2010-01-30T15:51:00.008-06:00

I think they might be cousins. I would have put a younger Livi but couldn't find one. Ashley has her in pig tails when she was around Lilly's age and they look very similar.

Indiana doesn't believe in snow in November or December, but better late than never. We are excited to move back to BYU snowville/spudville/Idaho.

Taden has inherited his dads dessert stomach chamber. He becomes very sad when told no to sugar candy/sugar donuts/sugar on his cereal. Here is some proof.

The last 6 or so months.

2009-10-26T20:41:00.014-05:00

Since our last post was ancient history I decided to squeeze many moons into one page. I seem to go in 6 month intervals. Here it goes.

A little girl is blessed in the outfit made by her mom.

Our two wonderful stars.

We had a beautiful lady bug and a handsome bumblebee for Halloween.

That received a plethora of goodness. IE Candy.

I think 6 months after Taden turned two is the perfect time to update our blog.

2009-06-14T20:01:00.014-05:00

After not getting much snow all winter, we had a big ice and snow storm that covered our house and made several branches fall. It sounded like a thunderstorm.

Taden had a blast.

The city was going to do road construction as demonstrated but didn't get much work done that week.

It is amazing how much weight built up ice can have on tree branches. It is very pretty.

Some pictures of our beautiful home and yard.

Taden had a blast helping shovel, and playing with his best friend Paul Bowles.

2009-02-15T21:01:00.001-06:00

We will be doing a blog specific to Taden and Lilly. Mike will be updating it every other Sunday.

Taden's TWO...

2008-12-06T18:10:00.004-06:00

After 2 months have passed from Taden's birthday I figured it is a perfect time to update it.

What do you do on a birthday?

#1) You find friends

2) You play with balloons

3) You experience the wanders of candles and cake

Step 1) Look dazed while trying to think of a wish. Step 2) Blow Out the Candle

Step 3) Compile and then eat your cupcake.

Here is a starter for Taden's 2nd birthday. The camera decided that it's battery life was done, and so we got 3 pictures. Their will be more coming.

Maranda worked very hard all day getting things ready. She made a cake out of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper for pin the candle on the cake. She also made bean bags, and cut out holes in cardboard for a bean bag toss.

One of Taden's Favorites was he got decorate a cupcake with whatever he wanted to and as much as he wanted.

Fall time and Thanksgiving at Uncle Mark's and Charlotte's

2008-12-06T17:02:00.010-06:00

We have 3 hugely ginormous tree's in our yard. They produce a bounteous supply of leaves leaving us lots of fun and itchy times.

For Thanksgiving we took to the road and went to Kentucky where Uncle Mo Mark got to live out one of my American Dream's, Taden learned how to play Football, and Maranda got some needed rest.

Lilly didn't like to participate in many of the activities and we had to leave her comfort swing at home so we came up with next best thing. An aunt an uncle.

And last but not least what else could a kid want to be but an apprentice Jedi learning from Jedi Master cousins.

Hoppy Halloween

2008-11-01T17:54:00.009-05:00

While Maranda was laboring Lilly into this world, we had many conversations with the nurses. One of them was inspirational, Kelle shown below gave us the idea of what to have as Halloween costumes.

She suggested that since we have a Tad and a Lilly we can have a Tad Pole/Frog and a Lilly Pad.

The kids with their favorite people mum and dad, and of course baa-ba (grandpa)

2008-10-11T09:31:00.014-05:00

Lillyana Miller

8 lbs 3 oz. 21 inches.

Our little one came after only being in the hospital a mere 4 hours. Compared to Taden at almost 12.

Enjoy the pictures, and come visit us here in the Midwest.

Dr. Cecchi

Lilly's Mum and dad.

Taden's 1st Video Premiere

2008-09-07T20:27:00.004-05:00

Mike put together this video for his parents and Maranda's. But now it is available for ya'll (yes we are far enough south to say ya'll) so enjoy. Make sure to turn up your speakers as the music selection is outstanding.

P.S. (The video is actually only 4:38 seconds not 8 something.. I took it from a Premiere Elements file and exported it to a Windows Media file and it is adding almost 4 extra minutes of blank boring nothingness to the screen. If any of you know how to get rid of this annoyance we would be much obliged.)

Baby Girl

2008-07-13T15:27:00.006-05:00

Our little girl is growing well. She is due on October 7th. We just got another ultrasound of her last week where they were able to tell her gender. We were excited to see her and are even more excited to be able to hold her in a few months. We are having some troubles finding a girl name we are both willing to stick with and are open to suggestions.

Our little girl is shy. Sorry. Except for when it comes showing off her legs.

Taden

2008-07-13T15:03:00.002-05:00

Taden is 19 months and adorable.

He started so small (he still is) but, he's growing fast.
He's all boy. All 16 teeth, 23 pounds, 32 inch part of him.

Taden has certainly entered the toddler stage, leaving infanthood chocking in the dust.

Sometimes growing up is a little rough on a person.
Like they say, "what doesn't kill ya only makes you stronger."
At this rate, he might be indestructable by adulthood.

With curiousity like this little guy, nothing is going to hold him back.
Look out world, here he comes, the Magnificant Curious himself.

Michael

2008-07-12T17:44:00.000-05:00

One of the highlights of moving into our home was that we got a ginormous painting of the last supper to put on our not so ginormous wall. We got it as a token of appreciation for helping move the missionaries. (It was actually in their closet and they didn't want it)

Another highlight was seeing Mike and Kevin. I haven't seen Tree since the summer of 2003. He hadn't met Maranda or Taden. Kevin hadn't seen us since our wedding almost 3 years ago. They stopped by late on Sunday Night on their way to DC to work out their.

Another Miller highlight was the chance to grow portobello mushrooms downstairs in our food storage closet. A picture will be forthcoming. Anyway it went really well and they were growing splendidly (the one pictured weighed in at just over 1/2 a pound) then we went on vacation. The mushroom sitter didn't know when to pick them. They turned over released their deadly spores and died a slow and overripe death. Actually we got 3 more later but we went on vacation again and you can guess the rest of the story. It was a bitter sweet scrumptious experience.

Me failing at slack lining.

The professional mo

Our House

2008-07-12T17:14:00.000-05:00

We are so happy to own our first house. It's in Huntingburg, Indiana (not far from the town Mike's parents live in). It was built in 1942.

Our favorite parts of it are our garden and the beautiful honey-oak wood floors.

Taden loves his mini-closet behind his clothes closet. The adorable hidden room is only around 4 feet at the tallest part.

We sure will be glad when everything is unpacked and we get settled in.