Bouncing and Cruising

It was a pretty slow-paced week, which I hope is a new trend for our family. I've been playing tennis in a weekday division, and have lost my first two matches. I don't mind losing when my opponents are good, and the exercise is great! Tony and I had a date night/budgeting meeting on Thursday night, and our babysitter Lesley watched the kids. We love having Lesley around, and I feel very lucky that we have such a sweet person watching our kids! When I told Raegan that Lesley is coming over two nights this week, her eyes got wide and she said with a smile, "What are we doing?"

On Friday, we had a blast at Kangazoom (a big building with bouncy houses and slides), with our neighbors Karen, Drew, and Tyler. It was Hudson's first time and I expected him to be more adventurous. He clung to his mommy pretty closely most of the time, but I managed to get a few pictures of him playing. Raegan and Drew were like big kids playing on everything in the place. It was fun to see them acting so fearless in a place where it's pretty hard to get injured. Hudson has started "cruising" at home, so there are few pictures of this in the slideshow. We were pretty lazy this weekend so not much else to report!

Week One is over and Hudson turns 10 months

Week One of my new career has ended, and it was a good week. Hudson stayed home on Wed. for his 9-mo. check-up. It's late because he's been so sick, but thankfully he was given a clean bill of health. No more ear infections or wheezing. We've put the nebulizer away in his closet, woohoo! I had a retirement lunch for a co-worker of mine, so I saw everyone I worked with on Thursday, just like I normally would! Both kids stayed home Friday, and we spent the day packing for the weekend at the lake. Karen, Drew, and Tyler came over in the afternoon to try out our new playroom (still in progress). It's nice having a place to keep all the toys, but I definitely have a lot more organizing to do! Hudson started climbing the stairs - all the way to the top. Time to re-install the baby gate.

We enjoyed a lazy, relaxing, rainy weekend at the lake with Nana and Papa. Raegan got lots of reading time with Nana and Papa, and Hudson enjoyed some quality cuddling. He also explored the house more than ever before. Tony and I enjoyed relaxaing, sleeping late, and eating way too much yummy food. We also went for a jog together and took the paddle boat out in the wind and rain to see the island while the water was down.

Tony was off today for MLK, and he did a project for me that I've been wanting for years. He replaced the wire shelving in our pantry with solid wood shelving. He also installed an over-the-door rack for more storage. Sounds small, but it has made a HUGE difference in what we can fit in the pantry and how organized I can be. I'm very impressed that he did the whole project in one day.

Finally, Hudson turns 10 months tomorrow, so we took his pictures tonight with the little bear. His personality is so funny and it's starting to show in some of these pictures. He's still pretty big for his age (21.7 lbs) and tall, too. He's eating a lot of "table food" like mac-n-cheese (a staple in our house), spinach, sweet potatoes, spaghetti, cheese, to name a few. He's pulling up on furniture and reaching for things while standing. He's generally happy and seems to really like playing with his daddy. We think his first word is 'da-da' but we won't make it official yet. He mostly says "aah" and he'll repeat it back like he's having a conversation with you. He still naps twice a day, but his naps are getting shorter. He sleeps great at night.

This week, the kids are going to school two days and staying home the rest. I'm excited about spending more time with them, and looking forward to the two days alone to work on more organizing.

Day One

Hi Friends! It's day one of a new way of life in the Miley household. First change - I'm doing the update instead of Tony (this is Hannah). No worries, you will continue to see updates from Tony, but since I'll be spending more time with the kids, I'll probably start doing more updating. I like to think of my new role in our family as the Household Manager. Tony will always be the head of our household, but I hope to help make things run smoothly so that we can have more quality time together as a family. This is a picture of the sunrise on my way into work on my last day.


We are in the process of transforming our house into one where kids can play more freely and more orderly. So we're moving the "office" upstairs to the guest bedroom, the guest bed to the basement, and all the toys to the new "playroom," where the office used to be. There's a futon in Hudson's room that will be moved to the new office, so if you're an overnight guest in the Miley house, you get to sleep college-style. Actually, we think the futon might be more comfortable than our guest bed, so Nana and Papa may have just been upgraded for their next visit : )

The kids went to daycare today to allow me some time to get organized (physically and mentally). It was a fun, productive day, and it made me look forward the days ahead. As I think about all the things I want to accomplish, I'm amazed at how much we WEREN'T doing while we were both working. I know some families are better at handling two working parents than we were, but I think our quality of life is about to improve ten-fold.

So, on to the re-cap of the week. My last day at work was Thursday, and I can't really remember anything before that. It was a hectic emotional week of wrapping things up, and when I look back it all becomes a blur. Friday was a snow day but Tony had an 8:30 meeting at work. He put the car in low gear and treked up our icey street to get to work. It was kind of funny to watch all the cars in our neighborhood parked at the clubhouse b/c they couldn't get up the hill. Hopefully all of you have stayed safe through the ice and snow. I took the kids out in the snow for about 10 minutes for a photo op, and neither really liked how cold it felt on their hands. We stayed inside the rest of the day and I felt very lazy after such a crazy week.

Saturday, Raegan and I did some shopping while Tony and Hudson worked around the house (started the transformation mentioned above). Sunday, we went to church, and Raegan and I went to afternoon tea at the Four Seasons afterwards. We were celebrating my friend Lauren's birthday. We enjoyed full tea service with the best scones and lots of little sandwiches and desserts. One sandwich even had salmon and caviar! Needless to say, Rae didn't get to try that one. She asked for hot chocolate, and was given the fanciest hot chocolate I've ever seen - thick hot chocolate in a carafe with a plate of Devonshire cream, white and milk chocolate shavings, and a silver spoon. It was definitely a treat! That's pretty much all she wanted to eat the whole time. We had a lot of fun, but I think Raegan may have gotten a little bored after the first hour. Her tea parties at home involve a lot more dancing and walking around than the one at the Four Seasons!




Tony copied these pictures from the daycare and from a mom/co-worker at the daycare, all taken around Christmas time.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We've had a good year and we're looking forward to a great 2010!

The biggest change we're looking at for 2010 is that this Thursday is Hannah's last day at work. She turned in her notice a few weeks ago and will be staying home to focus on managing our house, finances and of course our children. We're excited about this change.

The latest on Hudson is that he is doing much better. On Christmas Eve we had to take him to the doc and they said he has ear infections in both ears. And then on New Year's Eve we had to take him to the doc because he broke out in hives. It turns out he is allergic to Amoxicilin. So they put him on another antibiotic. But the good news is that they said his lungs are good and he no longer has to do the nebulizer treatments. So both of our kids are mildly allergic to penicilins.

So Hudson is doing much better. But he is dealing with teeth coming in. He has a tooth or two coming in on his bottom teeth. In the slideshow below, I have a couple shots.

Raegan is doing really well. She is healthy and mostly goes to the potty when she is awake. She still has accidents if she naps without a pull-up and if she is really pre-occupied in what she is doing (playing).

The slideshow below shows what we have been doing over the past week. But just to summarize - we handled a sick Hudson, Hannah started battling something like an ear infection, we brought in the new year at home, had a New Year's brunch with our small group, left the kids with Granddad & Mimi over night, we watched a movie, slept late & shopped, we took down Christmas decorations and played around the house.

Here is the slideshow: