Hot Diggety Fourth

The 4th holiday was actually our 5th weekend traveling...out of 6 weeks! We are definitely old pros by now at packing up the car, the boy, and the pup. The cleanliness state of our car, however, has yet to recover.

We had a great down-home Kentucky 4th with the Kahls. Miles got to start the fun by dancing to the tunes that Grandpa put together for the family reunion, featuring one of Granny's "kin."

We went to the Bowling Green Hot Rods Single A baseball game. What a nice little park! Miles enjoyed the game and had lots of fun saying "Hey Batter Batter Batter!"


They had fireworks following the game, which was a major shock to Miles' system! Being that the set them off on the field right in front of us, they were ridiculously noisy - even more so for a first-timer! Jason and I immediately put our hands over his ears. When I tried to adjust my awkwardly-placed hand a few minutes in, Miles clamped down on it with his hands and wouldn't let go! I think that three pairs of hands blocking out the noise probably did better than any set of ear plugs.

The next night's attempt at fireworks was much more successful. We decided to watch them from the state park, at least a mile away from where they were setting them off. On the way, we stopped at the cutest little kitschy antique store/ice cream shop/roadside attraction. Check out the Wiener family!


Miles did much better with the fireworks the second time around, and loved playing "ball" (bocce) with the boys and Ashley beforehand. He was also so impressed by the glow necklace someone gave him. This isn't his best picture, but it shows his elusive and adorable dimple:



The weekend ended on time for Mommy and Daddy, but Miles got an extended vacation out of it! Granny had the following week off, so he stayed and hung out more with the Kahls for a couple of days - the first time he'd slept away from home for two nights! It was also the first time that Jason and I had been in our house overnight without Miles - SO weird. We missed him way more than he probably missed us. We loved hearing his stories about the sprinkler and dancing with Grover at the Louisville Science Center.

It's been a great summer so far - lots of travels but the chance to hang out with so many people that we love. We're looking forward to a quiet remainder of the summer at home!

Days of Cousins and Daddies

With all of the birthday hullabaloo, I thought Miles might have a bit of a hard time sharing the spotlight. Thankfully, he's realized that other people can get cakes and presents and special days too.

Miles got to start slowly with Father's Day. Daddy picked bowling as his special day activity, so Miles got to throw his first bowling ball (with the help of a ramp and bumpers). His first time out, he scored a 55! He did great with Daddy's help:


(Sorry about the sideways version...too lazy and too slow of a computer to figure out how to turn it.)

Miles passed the true test of sharing when we celebrated his cousin Lyla's first birthday. He only had a couple of meltdowns when the other kids touched his toys, and it helped the there were so many other people there to keep him distracted. As it turns out, Miles benefited from lots of sharing from others. Lyla's cousin Isaac shared his squirt guns - perfect for such a hot day:


And Lyla even shared her brand new birthday present - a wagon for two (or three):


Some even better news - Miles will soon have one more cousin with whom to practice his sharing skills. Uncle David and Aunt Hilary are having a baby just in time for Christmas! Miles is convinced it's a boy, but we'll have to wait a few more weeks to find out. I've loved every minute of being an aunt to Lyla, so we can't wait to spoil one more.

I Ride That!

We had a great week on vacation up at the lake. Lots of trips to the lake, lots of walks, and lots of Nana and Papa time.

One of the highlights was our trip to Cedar Point, which turned out to be the perfect day. It was supposed to rain that afternoon, so we figured we'd go for a couple hours in the morning, then head home when the weather got bad. Well, it never did get bad! Cool, breezy, and no crowds!

We didn't have horribly high hopes that Miles would be into Cedar Point, after his luke warm tolerance last year. When we first walked in, it took about 30 minutes before he even wanted to get out of his stroller. Apparently, he just wanted to take it all in. Finally, we convinced him to ride the "Snoopy Cars", and he loved it!



He was so pumped full of adrenaline afterward, that he immediately stepped out of the car and shouted, "I ride that!". Of course, he was pointing to Cedar Point's tallest and fastest ride, Top Thrill Dragster. Jason wouldn't even ride that with me (that's not saying much though).

After that, he was unstoppable. We rode the swings, and he even dug one of those horrible spinny rides with Daddy:


We were lucky enough that N & P picked Miles up and took him home for his afternoon nap. That gave Jason and me some time to ride the big kid rides. The longest we waited: 20 minutes for Millennium Force. By the time we rode everything we wanted, we were ready to see Miles again. I think we had much more fun watching him ride things than riding them ourselves! Once Miles had his siesta, Nana and G-Grandma brought him back for some more fun.

We watched "Snoopy on Ice" and cuddled with the Snoopy statue:



He rode in about every type of vehicle you could imagine:




Our grand finale was a big step in the Cedar Point bravery development...for Daddy. Being afraid of heights, I could never get Jason on the Giant Ferris Wheel. Once we saw that the "thrill rating" for the ferris wheel was less than the thrill rating for some of the kiddie rides, I finally emasculated Jason enough into riding it. Surprisingly, he admitted it wasn't as bad as he thought! He even had his wits together enough to snap this picture:



The rest of the non-Cedar Point week was great as well. We went to the Marblehead Lighthouse a few times, and there were lots of naps. Miles stayed overnight with Nana and Papa and was a very good boy while we spend the night in the exciting town of Cleveland.



"If the whole world moved to their favorite vacation spots, then the whole world would live in Hawaii and Italy and Cleveland."

Toddlers Take Over Lake Erie

I think part of the reason why it's taken me a while to post is that I'm a bit overwhelmed by all the fun things we've been doing - good problem to have right?

So, baby steps, baby steps, baby steps...a quick one about the lake fun we had with the Kid Crew.

Becky, Cory, and Will came up first - it gave Will and Miles a chance for some male bonding over a soccer game in preparation for the World Cup.


Besides sports, what else do males bond over? Techie gadgets, of course! Here are Will and Miles, checking out cartoons on the iPhone (aka Crack for Toddlers).


Heidi, Darren, and Janelle arrived a little later, and that's when the real fun with three toddlers began! Sadly, this is best picture I have of all three kids together - eating breakfast in their jammies. We were way too busy to think about taking a group photo - we were occupied with breaking up fights, soothing temper tantrums, and stopping kids from pulling down their pants (that kid shall remain anonymous).


The highlight of the visit was our visit to East Harbor Beach. I had zero hope that Miles would go in the water, but he proved us wrong! He still preferred the beach and got a little miffed the couple of times he fell down, but he didn't totally hate it either.


Janelle and Miles eating fistfuls of Cheesy Poofs - and even bigger fistfuls of sand:


Janelle's dad, Darren, will not allow her to date until she's 35, so I can't refer to her as Miles' girlfriend. Photographic evidence may speak 999 other words:


What a great time with great friends!

Turning Two

After what seemed like months of pre-parties, Miles finally turned two years old on June 7.

While Daddy and Nana went to class, Papa and I got the privilege of taking Miles to the zoo.

Miles' favorite parts were the elephants, the giraffes, and - the tip of the top - the dolphins playing basketball. He rode the carousel with Papa. We're making progress - he didn't completely freak out, but this is about as happy as he ever got about the whole experience:

Miles cheered up after more looks at the dolphins and chatting about it over lunch.

We all took a nice long nap then headed to Incredible Pizza Company to continue the birthday boy's day. For those of you who haven't been to IPC, it's pretty much Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. It has all of your typical arcade games, plus Go Karts, Mini-Golf, and a Bowling Alley. We saved all of that for future birthdays - Miles was thrilled with the toddler games. Oh - and the plentiful buffet - Miles was in the mood for spaghetti that day:

Air hockey was his top game of choice:

He also really liked the little car rides:

The favorite part for the rest of us was watching him play Disco Duck, a kids' version of DDR:

Birthday Fever

Miles is now a beautiful, smart, funny 2-year old boy! He speaks in complete sentences and can count to 10 (or 20, if you don't count 13 and 19). He can recite his ABCs, although Q is K and LMNO is "eh-uh-eh-oh". He loves singing songs, playing with cars, and anything to do with sports. I continue to be amazed at what he can do. 

The extended birthday partying continued throughout the entire weekend leading up to Miles' birthday. The Kahls all came up to celebrate, and we started by going to Miles' first WNBA Indiana Fever game. Miles loved watching Freddy Fever's antics from afar, but he didn't really enjoy him up close:

He loved watching big girls Aunt Ashley and Hannah getting riled up and cheering, and he got excited when they brought out the balloons. Miles especially got a giggle out of bonking Grandpa on the head with said balloons.

Most of all, he just loved watching basketball, especially when he got to cuddle up with Granny:

The next day, Uncle David and Aunt Hilary came up, and we had one more cake - this time it was an ice cream cake. Miles never quite got the concept of blowing out the candles, so was good that the wind did it for him.

He got some cool presents, the biggest of which being a giant inflatable kangaroo. Thanks, Grandpa.

What a fun pre-birthday!

Long Weekend to Par-tay!

This past weekend, we went up to Nana and Papa's house on Lake Erie. Miles was so excited to see their house and was saying "I go Nana Papa's house" for about a week beforehand. We hadn't been there since he was 15 months old, so he probably didn't even remember it!

The main reason we made the trip was to celebrate Papa and Uncle Craigy's graduations. We are so proud of both of them! Because the whole family would be gathered for the Graduation Party, we decided to celebrate Miles' birthday a little earlier to save everyone the trip to our house.

Miles had been requesting that we sing "Happy Birthday to Miles" for several weeks, so he was completely overjoyed when about ten people did it all at once!

The crown jewel of realized expectations was the cake. A couple months ago, Miles started talking about "breakfast cake" after we mentioned it. Because his party was the day before the Indy 500, we told him we'd get him a race car cake. He was so pumped!

Then came present time! The first gift he tried to rip open didn't have a tag on it, so I asked him "Miles, who is that present from?" He replied, looking a little confused, "Santa?". Here he is, discovering that Uncle Bub got him a cool new fire truck:

The weather was beautiful, so we took about a half-dozen walks down to the lake. Lyla loved watching her big boy cousin in the stroller:

However, Lyla was the one that proved to be the most brave! She loved splashing in the lake, but Miles didn't want to have anything to do with it. He finally found a lake activity he liked when Papa showed him how to skip stones.

Sorry I have no pics of the lake - I kept forgetting my camera on our walks! We'll be returning next week for our family vacation, so I'm sure I'll have plenty of pictures by then.

In other news, we had Miles' 2-year doctor visit today, and he was (mostly) great! This is the first time he didn't act totally petrified of the doctor, and he even laughed a little when the doctor checked his belly. Too bad he threw a fit right after the doctor left. Miles wanted to leave the room, but we had to wait for the nurse to get his shots. The shots definitely gave him something better to scream about! We apparently have been remiss in teaching him the word "thigh" because he kept screaming, "My knee! My knee!" all the way to the car.

According to the doc, he's 29.5 pounds (70%) and 34.5 inches.  The doc said that height was in the 35th percentile, which seemed weird to me, especially since everyone comments about big he seems for his age. The about.com online calculator says it's closer to 50% - I think the nurse transposed the height and weight numbers. The predictions for his height as a grown man are between 5'9" and 5'11"...beautifully average like his daddy.

Birthday parties #2 and #3 are next on the agenda!