7 Things, Cont.

So I am a blogging idiot. I have just learned that while I can only upload 5 pics at a time, I can upload more within the same post. I haven't technically posted in over a year. That is my excuse. If you want to read the 7 things in order, scroll down for the first three and come back to this post. Sorry. Anyway, as I am sure everyone is waiting with baited breath to see what is next, here goes:

4) Designing and re-designing furniture. While I love decorating, I am very cheap and I can never quite find exactly what I want in the store, anyway, so I often make up my own stuff. I designed this and Jon begrudgingly built it for me and it is working out really well for us. It is still in my design plan for him to build three boxes on wheels to go in the cubbies underneath, but he is totally sick of working for me. As he built this over a year ago, I have learned to cope with the baskets. While I really like how this piece turned out, it is sort of a let-down to open it up and expect to see a giant tv inside, only to find our dinky little 27 incher. It is always my secret hope that the sneaky tv-fairies will spirit away our old set in the night and surprise with a beautiful, new, giant one.

5) School Pictures. I hate them. Or rather, they hate me. I always had the same feeling when school picture time would roll around. Excitement that this would be the year that my picture would be so good that the photographer would be forced to use it as an advertisement in all of their brochures and that all of my classmates would beg to have a wallet-sized momento. Maybe I wasn't an attractive enough child. I don't know. Anyway, these hopes were always dashed. I like to think that it wasn't my fault. Maybe it was the parent that volunteered to help with picture day sabotaging me. Using that little black comb to ruin my perfection of a hair-do. Who knows. Be that as it may, I have never taken a good school picture and I am very sad to report that my children are following in my un-photogenic footsteps.

Do you see what I mean about the hair? Even at the tender age of eight, I would not have left the house with a butt-part. Darn you parent helper and your disgusting comb that you used on every child in the class except for your own! How sad for me that I had two attempts in the same photo to get a good one. Sadly serious Jenny just looks really freaked out and smiling Jenny isn't much better.

This is Foster's misguided attempt. At least you don't have to prepay and they give you the proof so you can decide if the picture is worth buying. I like to call this picture "The Jack-O-Lantern." (His real smile is really much cuter!)

Yikes! What can be said? In an attempt to get a smile out of Maya, the photographer inadvertantly frightened away her upper lip. Time to choose my favorite smile. Hmmm, sepia, black and white, or color? So many choices. What to do? I know, save the 50.00 a package and buy none!

6) Hair Product. Love it. Can't get enough of it. Wish I could marry it. And yet, 13 days out of 14 my hair remains in a ponytail.

7) Holiday Decorating. How great is it to have an excuse to decorate every other month? Sorry about the picture quality. A photographer I am not.

7 Things

I have made it my new old-year's resolution to do better at blogging. As Jon posted our one and only contribution about a month ago, I will have doubled our posts with this one! Yay for lofty goals!

So I was tagged forever ago to post seven random things about myself. As I am a very random person, this will be very easy for me.

1) Decorating. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I obsess and plan and plot and do and start all over again. It is all-consuming for me. I so wish that I would've done design school instead of something so non-useful and boring and completely impractical as stinky old nursing school! I recently converted our playroom into Ella's room. Don't tell Jon, but the real reason behind the change was not that Ella wasn't letting Maya get to sleep at night and that Maya was waking Ella up way too early in the morning, but that I just really wanted to do a room like this:

I am not quite finished, but I am really liking how it is coming together so far.

2) Monogramming. I think it is the coolest thing ever! I love that I can take super cheap hand towels and for 5.00 turn them into something really custom. The kids' bathroom is the "M" bathroom and how cool is it that they can wash their hands and work on their alphabet? (Okay, so Maya and Foster pretty much have had their ABC's down since way before the time lapsed since my second to last post, but I love the concept, anyway.)

I dont' know if monogramming is as big in other areas of the country or if it is a southern thing, but it is big business around here. (Obviously, anyone that loves Pottery Barn loves monogramming though, right?)

3) Soap Dispensers. Janitors install them, school children use them, and who doesn't love them? I think that soap dispensers that go on the wall are so great and definitely far superior than their counter-sitting cousins.

Miller Family Updates

You've seen the Schwanoma for quite some time now and are probably getting a bit disgusted with the morbidity of the thing. To that end, here are some new updates on the Miller Family.


Maya Turns 8 and gets baptized.

Her birthday was loads of fun with both Grandma and Grandpa Foster here as well as Grandma Sue. Jenny took the photos for the invitation.

Millers and Fosters escape Hurricane Gustav by travelling to Dallas:

It was loads of fun and we finally got our family vacation in this summer. We spent a few days enjoying sights such as 6 flags and the acquarium. The funnest part was when we drove to Dallas. We arrived very late that evening (well after midnight). Shortly after we finally got everyone settled, the fire alarm went off and everyone was expected to evacuate. The frustrating thing is that we were among only 4 families that actually evacuated. We sat of the curb for about 15 minutes and nothing was happening, so we called the emergency in to 911 and the firetruck showed up, so at least the kids had fun looking at it! Photos to follow in a later Post.


Ella Turns 2!

A great time for all with a pinata and cake and family.


Jon leaves Samson to work at Intermoor!

After 4 years at Samson, it became time to try something new. The new company, Intermoor, was a customer of Samson's. Jon will be working in the Subsea division as a staff engineer. Best part of this new job is that there will be an opportunity to earn his professional engineering certification as there are professional engineers on staff at Intermoor and he will be working under one.

Not for the feint of heart

I decided that my first post, post-surgery should be my latest excuse of why I have not posted for awhile. (I tried to get in the Guiness Book of World Records for the most uses of the word "post" in one sentence but failed. If only I had had the beverage "Postum" during my recent hospital stay, I would've been able to put that in the sentence and I just may have succeeded. Maybe next time.) Anyway, there she is in all of her glorious splendor. My Schwanoma. (I have assigned a gender (girl), and am thinking of a name for my growth. Any suggestions will be duly noted.)

I suppose that I should give a little history for all that have not heard of my sad, sad plight. This is a tale sure to inspire, excite, and even make you shed some tears. On Sunday, September 23, I woke up having chest pains and difficulty breathing. Jon was already at Bishopric meetings, so I called him and he came home and took me to the E.R. (For those of you that want a play by play, not to mention reassurance that we didn't just leave our three sleeping children at home, we dropped them off at a friends on our way to the hospital.) I was mortified to be 30 years old and having chest pains. I figured that either the yummy food that I had been enjoying of late had caught up with me, or that the entire bishopric and our friend watching our kids had just been notified that I was a snively wuss who went to the E.R. at the slightest provocation. Anyway, when we got to the E.R. we got right in. (Something I learned to avoid long waits in the E.R. is always come in, complaining of chest pains. You get right in, at that point you can explain your real reason for going in.) To make a long story (and not even the most exciting part) short, they did a chest x-ray, saw something on it and then did a CAT scan to confirm. Apparently, there was a HUGE growth on my right lung. On Wednesday, I went to a Pulmonologist, who then sent me to a Thoracic surgeon, and I had a Thorocotomy (surgery where they make an incision on the upper back, cut through the muscles and spread the ribs. A surgery that they say is more painful that open heart surgery because of the involvement of so many muscles) on Friday morning. That's right. All in the course of less than a week. When they sent my little cantaloupe-sized friend to pathology, it turns out that it wasn't a cyst like they thought, but a tumor called a "Schwanoma." My doctors have all been amazed that I haven't had problems earlier because of the size of this thing. They say that I have, most likely, had this for a long time and it is not very often that they get this big. Yeay me for not listening to my body earlier! I have been having pain there for the past five or so years. I just figured that the pain was situational from sitting too long or something like that. Had I listened, they would have been able to to do the surgery with a scope instead of a big incision. Much less painful and much easier recovery.

So now I am three weeks out of surgery and am half-way through the 6-8 week recovery where I am not supposed to lift anything (including Ella, fat chance!). I am amazed at how quickly I am healing and know that I am being really blessed. My mom was able to come stay with us for awhile and left on Tuesday and we know that we have had a lot of prayers being said in our behalf. I have been very humbled through this process and have gained an even greater testimony of the power of the Priesthood and the power of prayer. We feel blessed to have such amazing friends and family that love us so much.

A funny little story about the picture. Maya inadvertently saw this picture while I was still in the hospital. She was very concerned (not to mention completely grossed out) and asked if they had "removed Mommy's heart." Then later when she came to visit me in the hospital, she stopped in the doorway before she would come in and asked me if my surgery was contagious. I told her it only happened to naughty little children, so I have been getting some mileage and quite well-behaved kids out've my plight. j/k.

The evolution of dance

I saw this on my friend's blog and thought it was fabulous. Mainly because it has given me great fodder. I am currently using this as a study guide and, if things continue to go well, I will have some super sweet moves in my repertoire by the time Maya attends her first Church dance at which time I will exhibit.

Mainly I just thought it was fascinating and it took me back to my own Church dance days and that bygone time of mediocre dancing and flowery-printed dresses and unfortunate hair.

First Day of School 2007

Okay, okay, so I would be perpetuating a fraud if I continued to mislead and make you all believe that these pics are really from the first day of school. It's just that I have never heard of someone publishing about the 19th day of school. At least it is still the first quarter of school. So to all of you moms out there that really took pictures on the actual first day of school: hats off to you, you're a better (and certainly more organized) woman than me.


Maya in her all of her favorites: Favorite hair-do (Kitty-cat ears), her favorite uniform shirt (red), her favorite jumper (blue), and her favorite shoes (pink sketchers which coordinate very nicely with the rest of the ensemble, I think. sidebar: there is P.E. everyday so they have to wear tennis shoes everyday. I think that some cute little mary janes would look totally cute but... )


Foster is actually wearing his teacher's favorite pants, as these are the ones that he can hook and unhook without assistance. He is loving kindergarten. We have all day, everyday kindergarten here so I was a little concerned about how he would do. He is definitely fried by the end of the week but is really enjoying two recesses, P.E. everyday, eating lunch at school, and naptime (okay so maybe he doesn't love naptime, but as he has actually fallen asleep several times, he definitely needs it.) I was also a little concerned about how he would do with the talking thing. Foster loves to chatter! Consequently, I received a note home about curbing the talking on the second day of school. He has since done much better. His words: "I learned my lesson." Apparently corporal punishment works. j/k. One funny story about Foster and meeting friends: He met a boy in the car-rider line (the line that the kids wait in for their moms and dads to pick them up after school). Foster has been really excited about this friend. He has described him to me in detail. I have gathered that he is a little older than Foster, really cool, has a Nintendo 64, and black. One problem: Foster has a hard time with his name. Upon hearing his name, Foster said, "Well, I'm gonna have a hard time with that. Can I just call you Evan?" Whatever works.



Our two little school-kids together. I love that they can kind of watch out for eachother while they're at school. I also love that they are really enjoying school this year, so far. (Maya really struggled last year.) I, selfishly, especially love how clean my house stays from the hours of 8am to 3:30pm.

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