Various things...

This week all four of us have been kind of sick. Raegan, Hudson & I have all had runny noses & slight coughs. Hannah is starting to show signs of it too. I think we're OK though. I went to the clinic in Walgreen and they said I just have inflamed sinuses - not even an infection. So hopefully we'll be well in a day or so.


On Wednesday, I went to a ball game with the guys from work. We tailgated and had a good time.



On Friday, Hannah & the kids went to the Zoo with some of her girlfriends and their kids (no pictures). Then Hannah took Hudson to the doctor for his check-up. He is still a big boy. He is in the 95% on weight and 95% on height. He weighs almost 18lbs! He's healthy and is still a very content baby!



By-the-way, Raegan seems to be growing in intellect so fast. It's amazing how well she puts her sentences together, the songs she can sing and the things that she remembers. I may be biased... but I think my daughter may be a genius! We're still working on potty training but I have to brag that Friday morning, she woke me up to let me know she pooped in the potty. I got-up expecting a mess... but sure enough, she had done exactly what she said... without any of our help. I can't say the rest of the weekend went so smooth in that regard but we're getting there! Also, we're having to work on her not getting out of bed at night and coming into our room to get in our bed or just wondering around.


Friday night, Mimi & Grandad came for dinner. It was a good time and the kids enjoyed their grandparents.






On Saturday I finally did the yard work I've been putting off. Below is a picture that I wish I could say was a beautiful tree I had planted. But it's actually a tree sized weed that shows how long I've been putting off pulling weeds. I spent the whole morning cutting grass, trimming bushes & pulling weeds. I thought I was going to die. But the yard looks good now! I should have taken a picture of how good the yard looks but instead you can just see this picture of the monster weed that is now gone. (the rest of the day we just hung-out, ran some errands together and went out to dinner)

Hudson is 4 Months Old & More Lake Fun...

Hudson turned 4 months old yesterday! He's still a happy baby and he is a chunk. He lights up when Raegan gets near him, and Raegan really likes him and wants to help care for him.

This is a picture that Raegan asked us to take before school one morning. She is saying so much and forming her sentences really well! Plus she is a clown!

This past Thursday night, 2 of my friends [Jonathan & Todd], my brother [Jason] and I all went down to the Lake. We spent the night and got up the next day for all day water play! The weather turned out great and we had a great time. I guess I got too much water in my sinuses because I ended-up with "Sinusitis." That's just inflamed sinuses & some fluid in my ears. But that didn't really get me until the end of the day. Below is a slideshow of some pictures from my camera as well as Todd's camera.

Then the 3 guys all drove back to Atlanta on Friday night while my parents, Hannah, & her sister [Jennifer], Raegan, and Hudson all came to the Lake. Raegan was a little sick and Hannah thought she might have Pink Eye. She stopped on the way and got some medicine for that... and either the medicine cleared things up pretty good or she didn't have Pink Eye. She still has a little bit of a rough voice but she is fine.

We all had a good time over the weekend. You can see some of the shots from my camera as well as my Mom's camera in the slideshow below.

Now we're back to work and school. I've started back in a co-ed Wally Ball league at work. We lost a match today. Our record is 2-2. Also I'm on week 5 of the P90X program. I can't hardly move my arms tonight. Hannah is starting back LeagueTennis this week (w/ Carrie). I still can't beat Brian, my neighbor (at tennis).

That's about it for us right now!

Pool Parties & more transitions...

Hi all! It's been a good week. First, here are a couple cute shots of Hudson. He's growing so fast! He's still a happy, mostly content baby. He has been sleeping through the night really well. When he first started rolling over, he awoke a couple times because he was frustrated that he couldn't turn back over. But he's actually rolling over and sleeping that way a good bit too now. He seems to have good control of his head now. See the 4th picture... I can't lift my head that high!


This is a few shots of Hudson in the Bumbo. I took these with my Blackberry and didn't realize how poor the quality was until I transfered them to the PC. But I'm posting them anyway...




Another place that I took poor quality pictures with my Blackberry was at our friend Marley's 2yr B'day party. That was Tuesday and I took a few pictures. But most were blurry. Here are two shots from that party.


This is a shot of a dress that Hannah's friend at work made for her. She made it for Raegan when Raegan was first born... and now she can finally wear it! We think she looks cute in it.

Hannah has been in a productive mood this weekend. Before I got up on Saturday morning, Hannah had already fed Hudson, taken Hudson for a jog, started laundry, got Raegan up and she and Raegan were making blueberry pancakes. I felt kind of lazy once I drug myself downstairs and realized how much was already in motion!

I don't think I mentioned in our last post how at the Lake last weekend, Luci got caught under the running board of my brother's van as he was pulling out of the driveway. We knew she didn't get under the tire but she seemed traumatized. Her mouth was bleeding but it was a surface scratch. Anyway, we took her to the vet, they kept her over night and she is OK other than bruising. Hannah has been giving her medicine the vet prescribed. Anyway... all that to say that Bristo seemed pretty concerned of course. Below is a picture Bristo giving her care (and maybe acting as a heating pad for her back).

On Friday, the Stuckey's came over. Raegan and Hudson had a good time playing with Harrison and Cooper.

Our neighborhood had a pool party on Saturday. It was fun for adults & kids. They even had an ice cream truck pull-up and the ice cream was free! This slideshow has some shots from that party...


Finally the biggest milestone of the weekend... on Friday night we converted Raegan's crib into a toddler bed. Here are a couple shots of her first introduction to her new bed.

She went right to sleep. And she slept through the nite. Below is a shot of her after getting out of the bed after her first night sleeping in it.

The only issue we're having is that she wants to take her diaper off in the mornings and potty on the bed. She still doesn't understand that she can get out of the bed if we're not in there. But I'm not sure why she thinks she should remove her diaper. We told her she can get out of the bed and go to the potty. Then remove her diaper. I guess she'll learn.

This is a little video we took of her the night we first introduced the bed. In the background is a funky version of the "Monkey's jumping on the bed song...".

Have a good week!

Independence Day & a move toward Independence...

Hi all... I hope you had a good Holiday this past weekend! We did. We have a ton of pictures to post. First, let me show you a video of Hudson's move toward independence (there is no sound in this video)...

Hudson has started rolling over from his back to his stomach. In the video he started out completely on his back. This started Thursday. First he's rolling over and the next thing you know he's off to college!

We went out to Lake Martin for the July 4th weekend. My brother and his family were there as well as Nana & Papa. We had a good time (I don't know why Jason & I dressed alike in this picture).

Between my mother, my brother and me... we have way too many pictures. I tried to narrow them down but it became overwhelming. So... I have gone through and picked my favorites from each camera and put them in seperate slideshows.

This is a slideshow of 25 pictures from Nana's camera (pics not necessarily taken by Nana):

This is a slideshow of 75 pictures taken from my camera:


This is a slideshow of 40 pictures taken from Jason's camera:


If you made it through all of those pictures and you're still reading... I'm amazed and appreciate you're interest! So I'll throw one last thing at you. This is a video of Raegan on the boat. Sometimes she gets really excited and you can tell on this clip that she get's almost crazy excited.

OK... I think that's enough media for one post. Maybe next time we'll have more to type. Have a good week!

Video for Me

Hi all! We're getting back on track with Sunday evening updates! I know we just did a post three days ago but we have to get the Sunday evening thing going again.

So... since the last update, we've gone to the pool a couple times. Raegan is pretty passive while other kids are in the pool and she likes to just watch them. Tonight, Raegan & I were down there [at the pool] and she was doing her normal passive behavior. But eventually everyone else left the pool and then she felt brave. She told me she wanted to swim on her own. She said she wanted her diamonds. I finally realized she meant her water wings. Anyway, she put them on and she swam without me holding her at all. I told her she needed to keep her feet kicking to move and keep her head above water. She did really well. She swam to noodles floating in the water and did well keeping water out of her mouth. Now if we can just get her to do that while other kids are in the pool!

Another thing that's been happening is a lot of Potty time. Hannah made a Potty chart and Raegan gets to put a sticker on it everytime she pee-pees in the potty. And she get's 2 stickers for a poo-poo. She is trying to earn enough stickers to get little prizes. It must be working because she has already racked-up a lot of stickers.

Hudson has slept through the night more lately. I don't really want to type that because now that I have, he'll wake up 3 times tonight. But he's been doing really well with sleeping lately. He still seems to be a happy little boy.

OK... I know I can't only post writing. So... below I have posted a video that Hannah & Raegan were working on for me for Father's Day. It didn't completely come together but I still thought all of the attempts were cute. So I edited a few of the clips together below.

Busy, Busy...

Hello! We've gotten a little behind on our regular Sunday night blog updates. We'll get back on track. As Hannah mentioned in the last post, we've been doing a lot of transition lately and so we've been pretty busy.

Hannah started back to work and I think it's going well. With that, Hudson has started daycare. He is doing really well in his new class. Raegan transitioned last week fully to a new class and new teachers at daycare. She had a rough first week but this week she is doing great - and loves her class. So now I am learning how to handle taking 2 kids to daycare... and to 2 different rooms. It's not nearly as tough as I thought it would be. The teachers are all so helpful!

Friday night Mimi & Granddad came over and watched both kids while Hannah & I got to go out to dinner. That was really nice.

Tuesday night is the first time we left both kids with a non-family babysitter. That went really well too! Lesley from our neighborhood has been watching Raegan on Tuesday nights while we go to Small Group but now we added Hudson too!

On the 19th, Hudson turned 3 months old! Time is flying! He is a big boy! And I think he is a really happy baby. Below are his 3 month pictures. He was already really tired when we took these so they're not his smileyest pictures.

Sunday was Father's Day. I got to sleep a little late and then I awoke to Hannah, Raegan & Hudson all bringing me a couple gifts and wishing me a Happy Father's Day. We went to church and then Hannah went down to her parent's house while I got a free day to go biking & running. Below is one of the gifts. Hannah made a mold of Raegan & Hudson's hands. It's amazing how life-like they look! Once we're sure the plaster is dry enough, we'll glue them to the wood and I'll keep it on my desk at work. I feel very fortunate to be a Father and to have a son and daughter!

Below is a slideshow of just some random things through the past week. Some of the pictures are from Saturday when we went to Ava's 3 yr Birthday party (Ava is my brother's daughter). The rest of the pictures are mostly around our house.

Wild Animals and then Back to Work

Last week marked the end of my maternity leave, so I filled every minute with the things I'd been meaning to do for the last 12 weeks but never got around to. Most of it was administrative stuff like paperwork, bill-paying and daycare orientations, but I did squeeze in a trip to the zoo with my small group friends and a trip to the Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, GA. Needless to say, I had my fill of animals last week!

My mom's friend visited the Wild Animal Safari and suggested it to her. We decided take a girls' trip and spend the night Friday at Callaway Gardens (just down the street from the Park), and get up in the morning to visit the Wild Animal Safari as soon as it opened. The 3 generations of girls had a great time together: playing in the pool at Callaway on Friday night, eating a southern meal at the Country Kitchen, having a sleepover in the Mountain Creek Inn, stopping to see the horses on the way to the Safari, and then of course the Safari did not disappoint!

I separated the pics into 3 different slideshows, and there are a couple videos, too.
Here are the pics from Callaway and the "walk-about" portion of the Wild Animal Safari. We did that part while we were waiting for our "safari van rental". Raegan loved the jeep/stroller! The animals in the walk-about were so close and easy to see. They even had Ligers (lion/tiger mix)! Raegan wanted to feed the siberian tigers, but we decided that wasn't a good idea.


Here's a video of Raegan getting ready for the safari:

Next slideshow is the safari experience. We rented a safari van instead of taking our own car - it was a good move b/c those animals have lots of slobber, horns, etc. that could mess up your car! The car was very old, had no AC, and the seat was bolted in so my feet barely reached the pedals. The animals are all roaming free, and they are not afraid of the cars! Raegan enjoyed feeding them for the most part, but you can see that after a while we had to start rolling our windows halfway up b/c the animals were a little intrusive. Definitely not a good trip if your child does not like animals, but Raegan really enjoyed it!

This is a slideshow of more animals, no people. Just in case you are interested in seeing more of what the park had to offer. Some pics are from the walk-about part and others are from the safari.

Lastly, a video of part of the experience:


Meanwhile, Tony and Hudson had some father-son bonding time at home. They ran errands on Saturday and Hudson slept through the night for Tony (of course!). We spent Sunday preparing for the week ahead, and I started work on Monday. So far, so good. Hudson is doing well in daycare, although I think Tony is exhausted by the time he actually gets into work after dropping off both kids! We have a pretty good routine going in the mornings to get everyone and everything loaded into the van. Raegan is having a hard time with her transition to the next class at daycare, so that makes the mornings a little challenging. We feel like she will be well adjusted in just a few more days. On my first day back to work, there was NO ONE that I work with in the office! I'm looking forward to seeing some faces when I go back into the office on Thursday. I'll be keeping the same schedule I had before - Mon, Tues, Wed at home and Thurs in the office. Off on Fridays, and Raegan and Hudson will stay at home with me.

The Miley household is definitely having a crazy week of transition, but we are looking forward to a relaxing weekend!

Vacation for us...

Hello everyone... we've had a good week. Sorry for the late post. We've been on a little vacation. I'll tell more in a second... but this is a photo of Hudson during a bath this past week. He smiles alot!



Hannah and I got a quick little vacation this past weekend. We headed down to my parent's house on Friday and spent the night. Then we left Raegan & Hudson with Nana & Papa and we went down to Pensacola Beach. We checked-in to Portofino Island Resort and spent the day relaxing and enjoying time with no responsibilities. We stayed through a lot of the next day and then went back to my parent's house on Sunday evening. The resort was really nice and we had a great time!

Here are a few shots from the resort. We forgot our camera so these shots are from my phone.

This is a shot from the website. It gives a good arial shot of the resort. It was sitting in between the Gulf and the Bay.

This was Raegan on the way down to Nana & Papa's house:

...and this is Raegan on the way home (you can see Hudson in the mirror doing the same...)

While we were enjoying the beach, Nana & Papa were playing with Raegan & Hudson. Here are just a couple shots (from Nana's camera). Raegan enjoyed playing in a little pool, playing with Bailey's dog toys & also just sitting in Papa's chair.

So we definitely enjoyed our time and so did Raegan & Hudson. While we were at my parent's house, I got to re-unite with my inner-woodsman - I got to drive my Dad's new Kubota RTV through the woods. I have to mention that because my Dad is very proud of it. But I must admit, it is really fun to drive!

This week Raegan is in the process of transitioning to a new room at daycare. That's tough for her and me. Also, this week Hudson get's introduced to the daycare - Hannah is taking him on Thursday for a short visit. Then on Monday, Hudson starts daycare fulltime and Hannah starts back to work! Lot's of changes!