18 month appointment

Ares is sitting at 23lbs 10 oz, and 32.5" tall.

He has gained a whopping 2 lbs since he turned 1. He is DEFINITELY his father's son. Something I learned this weekend, is that Adam crossed his fingers randomly when he was a kid (and still does, just like his father). Ares, for MONTHS has been crossing his fingers, and then points, or will just sit there and unconciously cross and uncross his fingers. I always thought it was weird, but never noticed Adam and his father doing it. I guess those Miller guy's genes are strong and get passed down very well. Now, I think it's cute that he does what his daddy and granddaddy do.

Ready to Get Crazy!?!

This weekend starts a whole lot of craziness for the Miller family.
We get to watch Baby Koa on Saturday, while his parents celebrate their wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, not everyone is as lucky as us to have family nearby, so Cristal and Paul have to drive 3 hours to get a babysitter. (Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to watch him). Adam, well, he doesn't care, as long as it's not another baby of ours. He's going through a 'baby-life-crisis'. (kind of like a mid-life-crisis).
Needless to say, Ares is going to be an only child. I'm none-too-thrilled about that, but at the same time, I think Adam would jump off a bridge if he had to wait another 2 years to get his life back to 'normal'.

After Koa, Sunday, Adam has Jeep skool, and I have to get ready for my trips by grocery shopping for them and doing laundry. I'll be in Atlanta Mon-Tues-Wed, Ft Lauderdale on Friday (day trip), then the next week Tampa Mon & 1/2 Tues where I fly into Philadelphia and go to NJ until Wednesday evening. Then, that weekend we're in Cincinnati. Phew! Craziness, I tell you!

My favorite pictures

Catching up on old posts/pictures

We took Ares to see the Orchestra play Disney music at Blossom. There was a video screen showing shots of the movies that they were playing. I can say, that I will pay any amount to take Ares to this each year. We sat in the pouring rain, for a good amount of time before it started, then the rain stopped (well, for the most part). Mom, myself, Janice and Gina were all soaked to the bone, Ares was in his stroller w/ an umbrella as well as the stroller cover, but we all had a good time still. He clapped and clapped and clapped. He stood up on my legs and faced the people behind me clapping with his arms above his head. A total ham.

After the concert were fireworks. He had never seen fireworks before, and WOW, did he LOVE them. he kept signing "more" after each one. He didn't cover his ears, or anything, just keeps saying "ooooohhhh" and "mo" (more). He cried when they were over, but then they had a few extra stragglers which he loved.

I have to say, I loved having him there, and he was SOOO good too. Normally we don't let him have his paci in public, but the concert STARTED at 8:30PM. We didn't get back in to the car until after 11, and he was still awake and just a great kid.

Grandma Venus sittin' in the rain (above).

(below) our very wet group

I was supposed to post a video here, but it doesn't seem to be working =(

Brandywine Falls

Thank goodness he has his daddy's smile!

"sickle sickle"

Ares got his very first tricycle this past weekend. Grandma Jean, Papa and Terri came to Cinci to visit and brought some really neat (large) toys with them. The tricycle is a hand-me-down from Braeden's collection, although, it doesn't look like it was even ridden once.

Every time this kid sees the 'sickle sickle' (how he pronounces bicycle, tricycle, motorcycle), he claps his hands and I think if he were able to jump, he would, with excitement. It is SOO cute. After we got home from Cinci, he rode it around for 20 minutes, in the cold and darkness of night. He can't reach the pedals yet (well, not enough to actually have them function) so I have a feeling that we're going to go through A LOT of shoes, because he has been pushing (and stopping) with his toes.

He has already learned how to steer, and likes going fast down our driveway. Unfortunately, we have to watch him VERY well, as he can't stop at the bottom of the driveway and will go into the street.

The weather was really nice for our visit. Saturday was in the 70's, and Sunday was closer to 60. Perfect for a sweater and a long walk. Ares took a walk with grandma and grandpa down the driveway.

"Speak softly and carry a big stick"... Well, he had the stick part down, but there's no speaking softly for Ares.

I think Ares will forever think "grandpa" when he is in a wagon. Grandpa Doug pulled him around for quite a while, just like Grandpa Keith does back home.

Where did the Summer Go?!

It's almost October. Where did our summer go? The weather is crazy. 65 degrees one day, 90 the next three days, and then down to the low 60's again. Why can't the weekends be the 90's and the week days be the 60's? Ah well.

Adam and I will celebrate our 6th anniversary this weekend. Aside from driving to Cinci to visit family and go to a Wedding, we have no plans. As usual. We've never really celebrated our anniversary before - well, twice we went out to dinner.

Ares now repeats everything we say. EVERYTHING. It's scary. Garbage can, grass, airplane, now most of these words don't sound right, but he still tries. My favorite word of his right now is "Jeep". When he says it, it sounds like "Bitch". I like that because Adam spends so much damned time with that Jeep, sometimes I think of it as his Bitch, *grin*.

He turned 18 months yesterday, I didn't see him once the entire day. I left work before he got up, and came home after he was sleeping. His apt isn't' until next week, so I'm not sure about weight/height yet. My guess is 26 lbs and 30" . Hopefully pictures will come after this weekend at Grandma/Grandpa's!

Traveling Mama

This is the start of the crazy season!
This morning, I booked my flight to Atlanta for a Price and Rate Making Seminar. This one I'm not traveling alone, one of our analysts is going with me. (And by "one" of our analysts, I mean "our only" analyst). That's going to happen in the first weekend of October. Then, the week after that, I will be in Ft.Lauderdale, Tampa and New Jersey. That's one hell of a trip to plan. I'll be in those 3 cities but only gone for 3 days. Not fun. At least it'll get me some more hotel points and airline points.

Ettiquette

We had some fun taking our family pictures for Ares' classroom. It's family month, so we decided that we'd take our second family picture (the first was when Ares was about 3 weeks old). Adam insisted it be in front of his nasty Jeep.

Here, Ares is giving us hugs and kisses. They NEVER get old.

We had fun at the park that day too. I think Ares ran grandpa ragged though.

• He knows it's proper to eat with a fork. He has a hard time with the kid forks, so we give him an adult fork. He does great.
• If he can't get the food on after the first few tries, he waits until you look away, and then uses his fingers to put the food on the fork. Most would use their fingers to put the food in their mouth, but not Ares, he puts it on the fork. Silly boy.

Yum... Tastes like Vanilla

All of these photos were taken this evening. Yes, that means, not only did he eat his entire plate of spaghetti, but he also ate my hamburger. Piggy! You'd think he weighed a ton! I think he's only 25 lbs! (Although, we'll see on 9/29, for his 18 mo. appt).

It's Been a While....

Sorry Ladies and Gents,

This has been one heck of a week/month. The weather has been beautiful, so we've spent a lot of time outdoors. Adam and I both got the Flu, so Ares spent a few days away at random people's houses (we got the Flu BAD) and I've been working late A LOT on forecasting and planning for 2011. It's rather tough predicting how people are going to quote and buy insurance a year ahead of time, not even knowing if we are going to increase or decrease rates. Even harder, is predicting losses. We'll see how I did tomorrow.

So, what you're all here for. Ares. He's a talking machine. He now says 'no' but also says 'yes', and he points to the pool and says 'pooool' like he's so excited. Too bad it's closed now. A new one we got today was 'chicken'. That one kind of shocked me. He also knows and can point out a lot of shapes, say 'circle' and today, he decided he didn't want to eat his food, but to sit on my lap and eat off of the adult plate with an adult fork. Of course, today was spaghetti, so we both ended up pretty messy. He did really well though, considering he had to slurp some of the noodles, and the fork was MUCH bigger than his baby forks.

If anyone needs ideas for Adam for Christmas: THINK JEEP!