Changes...

So, I've changed up my blog.  Do you like it???

Since Isla was born, I've felt that Miles of Smiles was kind of exclusionary :).  I didn't change the url, for sake of ease.  How do you like it?  Does the new title make sense, or is it stretching it a little too far???

And, I know there are many of you out there reading who never comment...so lurkers come out of hiding and tell me what you think!

Real Live Fire Station

Growing up, Ben has fond memories of visiting a fire station every year around Christmas and taking toys for Toys for Tots and taking a tour of the station. He wanted to start this tradition with Miles, especially since Miles dresses like a fireman every.single.day.

Miles is seriously obsessed with anything having to do with fire stations, firemen, etc. Our house has become known as The Fire Station, Ben's Highlander is The Fire Truck, my Saturn is The Ambulance, and everything he does is "like a fireman" (getting dressed, cooking, brushing teeth, etc). He is now the proud owner of two small fire trucks, an ambulance, and a ride on fire truck (thank you Aunt Christine, Uncle Cameron, and Cousins Peter and Moira!). Just about anything can be turned into a fire hose, fireman belt, etc. He wears his fire coat, fire hat, and fire boots every day...not kidding!

So, a few weeks ago, we invited Grandma Sara and Uncle Tyler to come along and head to the fire station with some toys for Toys for Tots. Miles was so excited when we showed up at the fire station.

Ben rang the door bell, and Fireman Dan let us in. He gave Miles a couple of Jr. Fireman badges, coloring book, and some stickers, then took us for a tour and to see the trucks.

Miles was completely mesmerized. For a while, all he would say was "yeah" over and over. Eventually he warmed up to Fireman Dan and started talking non-stop!


He got to sit in the trucks, pretend to drive, look at the hoses, see the ladder truck, peek at the huge axes, and ask where the non-existent fire pole was. Miles advised Fireman Dan that they should really get a fire pole :)

He told Fireman Dan how everything works (ie. the axes are for breaking windows and doors to get into burning buildings).

He told Fireman Dan about everything he has learned from watching a Barney visits the fire station movie we have. He was taking a mile a minute, which made it hard for Fireman Dan to understand what he was saying!



Miles also jumped around on different subjects, further confusing poor Fireman Dan :)

Miles had a great time visiting the station. He loves telling anyone and everyone about his visit to the "real live fire station" if you dare to ask! Needless to say, I think we'll make it a semi-regular outing. Fireman Dan said to come back any time!

Christmas Craft

Miles has been very interested in crafts lately. He loves to color, cut, glue, etc. Sometimes I muster the energy to put together a craft project for him, especially since he's not in preschool, so doesn't get any formal crafts elsewhere. I thought the grandparents might enjoy a handmade gift from Miles as much as he enjoyed making one. So after a little googling for ideas, I embarked on our Christmas craft with Miles.

He has recently become very serious about coloring. He actually tries to stay in the lines! First we started with collecting soup cans for a week or so, washed them all in the dishwasher, and cut strips of construction paper that would fir the cans.

Miles always enjoys adding his hand print to things, so we 'stamped" his hand print on each piece of paper using white paint. After it dried, I put faces and buttons on each of his fingers (except the thumb, which would have made for a laying-down snowman). Miles was responsible for coloring scarves, hats, and arms on each of the "snowmen" and coloring anything else he wanted.

Here, he is very diligently coloring scarves on the snowmen.

He was pretty excited about it! I was so proud at the attention to detail he put in. I have NEVER seen him color like this before! Usually it is just scribbles and he'll say "Look, I colored an elephant (or some other animal or inanimate object)". You could actually tell what he was trying to make!

This hand got a scarf across the palm and on each snowman :)

The finished product...a pencil holder!



And, one for each Grandparent...

Pretty Girl

One of my favorite parts of Christmas this year was dressing up my beautiful little girl in something special for Christmas Eve service. I didn't want anything too fancy or frilly. Nothing green and red plaid, tulle, or organza. Just something simple and sweet. It took a while to find, especially considering everyone was out of the specific jumper I wanted in her size....except one store! My mom and I (with Miles and Isla in tow) shopped for a few hours to find her outfit. I completed the outfit a few days before Christmas.



When I saw this black velvet jumper with a satin bow at the top, I fell in love. They had those cute shrug sweaters to go with. Underneath, she was wearing a cute cream colored onsie.

We weren't able to find tights in her size at any of the stores we went to and dress shoes didn't even enter my mind (why spend money on dress shoes for a 2 month old?!?!).

However, a few days before Christmas, Miles convinced me to go into a local consignment shop that sells gently used kids clothing. He likes to play with the toys there :). While he was playing for a few minutes, I looked through the girls clothes, shoes, etc, not planning to buy anything. Until I ran across these adorable black Patten leather mary janes with bows and an adorable pair of cream ruffle-butt tights (though in 3-6 month size).




Well worth the $3 spent! I could not get over how adorable she looked in her Christmas outfit. It was perfect!

After Christmas Eve service with my family, we went up to my in-laws house to stay the night and have Christmas morning there. It is a tradition in their family to open pajamas on Christmas Eve. These were the adorable pajamas Miss Isla got:



LOVED the tutu and sparkly snowflake!



She sported the pajamas/outfit all day on Christmas :). Girls are so much fun!

Christmas #1

Like I said in the previous post, Christmas came to our house yesterday. Since we headed up to both mine and Ben's parents for Christmas Eve and Christmas day festivities, Santa visited our house a day early. He's got to show up early at some people's houses...he can't possibly make it to all of them in ONE night....right?!?! Right!

Miles was very excited to find that the stockings were full. He dug right in!


He also helped Isla open her stocking stuffers.






Miles got the long awaited "inspension bridge" for his train set. He had to try it out right away, of course. Baby Isla got a new outfit (that doesn't fit quite yet), a rattle (of which she ended Christmas day with 3 of the same...they must only make one pink rattle!), and some chain links.

Miles' most prized gift from us was his last minute, $10, fire station. You see, the day before Christmas Eve, Miles sprung one on us. He suddenly started saying that he wanted a fire station with a bell from Santa. When we went to visit Santa the next day, this is precisely what he asked for. So, after we saw Santa, Ben took Miles to play in the play area at the mall and I took a quick, covert trip to the Toys 'R us store (they put a small Toys R Us in each of the malls, which was sure handy!). I made a quick trip (don't even think Miles knew I was gone) and scored a fire station WITH a bell AND a light. Needless to say, he was pretty excited about it.

Also, not pictured, he got a cool (in my opinion) dinosaur sweatshirt and matching socks :)

All in all, we had a great Christmas morning at our house! Miles thoroughly enjoyed it.

And, in case you noticed or were wondering, we did not have a tree this year...I know. Totally un-American...oh well. Next year, we're going the all-American route and cutting down our own tree again :)

Christmas Has Come to Our House!

I know it's a day early, but Santa has come to our house!

Yesterday, we started making preparations. We took the kids to see the man in red...

(yes, he wears that everywhere!)



The stockings are hung, and now filled with toys...

And the presents, though not under a tree, are stacked nicely on the sub woofer next to the tv!

Stay tuned for our Christmas morning, real Christmas day, our trip to the "real live fire station", 2 month old baby, gingerbread house building, and more!

Baby Smiles

Miss Isla has started smiling! She is still pretty stingy about giving them out, but she will if you try hard enough and she can get all her muscles moving the right directions. I've tried capturing a sweet smile on my nice digital camera with a very short shutter lag and have yet to get a good one. The other morning, after changing her diaper, she was smiling at me. I managed to catch a full face smile with my 1.3 mega pixel camera on my phone, which has about a 10second shutter lag (not literally, but it feels like it!).

So, here is a picture of her first real captured smile.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! A day late...but that's ok. Happy Black Friday to those of you braving the shopping world :) I may venture out myself to the craft store in a little while...we'll see!

Miles enjoyed his Thanksgiving, as we all did. We headed out in the snow to go up to Grandma Sara and Grandpa Tom's house. Uncle Danny is in town from college, which Miles was thrilled about! His girlfriend, Regin, also joined us for our Thanksgiving Day celebration. My parents also joined us for dinner and festivities. Miles was beyond thrilled to have all his grandparents under one roof and Uncle Danny and Regin around to play with! He ran and played all day with only one meltdown!

The day before Thanksgiving, Miles and I had a little prep work to do. You see, Miles wanted to make Thanksgiving cards for everyone. So, I busted out some serious crafting skills and we created...

Hand Turkeys!

Miles enjoyed coloring them, and most of all gluing them! He also enjoyed handing them out on Thanksgiving Day! One for each set of grandparents, Uncle Danny, and Regin. Plus one for Daddy (which isn't pictured).

I was also able to get a couple good shots of both kiddos early in the afternoon. Miles loves holding his baby sister.

And how he really feels about her... :)

One Month!

Time flies! My sweet baby girl was one month old on Sunday (11-21). I feel like it is flying by, which is both happy and sad, especially as we're 99% sure we're done having kiddos. After I had Miles, I missed being pregnant, missed having him in my belly, knowing he was safe and always with me. I thought for sure I wouldn't feel that way after having Isla. I was a fairly miserable pregnant lady this time around. I was so sore and exhausted, far more emotional (just ask Ben!), and ready for it to be over. As Isla grows and I think about leaving her (for any reason), I find myself wanting to tuck her back inside, just like I did after having Miles. I saw a pregnant gal the other day at Babies R Us and even felt a little sad seeing her cute bump... Yikes! Definitely emotions I was not expecting!

Well, our baby girl is getting bigger and older and there is nothing we can do about it, but enjoy it! She's getting slightly more interactive and spending longer periods of time awake. We're still waiting on her first "real" social smile, but we can tell it's coming. I just love the newborn stage (hence my career choice!), but watching her grow is fun too. Ben is certainly excited for her to be more interactive and play, especially since right now she is pretty much attached to me most of the time.

Growth wise, she seems to be doing great! I'm guessing she's over 10lbs now. Sadly, her newborn size clothes were worn for the last time last week...she's just too long for them! This week, she finally can wear her 0-3month clothing without looking like she's going to drown (though some of them already seem a bit short...I can tell this is going to be a problem in the future!). I'm proud to say that she has only breast milk (weather from a bottle or me) to contribute her growth to, but it still makes me feel like I cheated Miles because I had to supplement with formula. Damn post partum hormones and emotions!

Anyhow, on to the fun part...pictures!

Here is my dear, sweet Isla just moments (well maybe an hour?) after birth. Considering how much pain I was in, I don't look too horrible...


Here she was on her one month "birthday".

And here at 1 month 1 day:

For my baby shower, I got these cute stickers that you put on onsies, one for every month. I need to get around to doing that and taking a photo...you know, before month 2 rolls around!

Snow Day

Wow! We have had quite the winter weather to start off the holiday season! We have been dumped on by snow (about 8inches??? Haven't measured) and cold temperatures (currently 12 degrees F! with a low of -2 tonight!). We've also had quite a bit of wind, making for blizzard conditions. Absolutely crazy for this time of year. Usually this is January weather. However, Miles loves seeing the snow. I'm a little bit glad that we have some this year, but hoping it's not as much as two years ago.


Since it's pretty dang cold and windy, I wasn't about to venture out with Miles to play. Especially since I no longer own snow boots, pants, or proper gloves. The snow is a fine powder, so not great for making snowmen or anything. Despite the cold temperatures, Miles wanted to go play in the snow. So, I suited him up in his "new" snow pants, winter coat, fleece (not warm enough) mittens, and boots that are 2 sizes too small (he needs some new ones whenever we make it out of the house!) and let him out on our back deck with his little shovel. He had a great time, for about 15min, until he was too cold to play anymore. Since coming in, he's had hot cocoa and been in the bathtub/shower for over an hour warming up!

I think the rest of the day may consist of watching a movie, taking a nap, and drinking more hot cocoa!

Hanging with the boys

While Isla is very much a mommy's girl for the moment (I'm pretty sure it's because I'm the food source), she does enjoy her time hanging with the boys.

Isla and Daddy just a few nights ago. This daddy is quite in love with his sweet little girl. I have not doubt that she'll soon be a Daddy's-girl!

Miles, big brother, loves to hold Baby Isla. He also likes to "carry her to me", which freaks me out a little. He always wants to carry her to me and tries to pick her up. I'm afraid one day he'll actually do it and drop her. I let him "carry her to me" when I'm sitting next to them on the couch.

He really is quite smitten with her and has only hit her once (when he was mad at me). He's gone from worried/scared when she cries, to very consoling. He'll sit or stand next to her and say "It's okay, Baby Isla. It's okay. You don't need to cry." and usually puts his hand on her head (and once over her mouth!) to soothe her. He also feels the need to tell me when she's crying...like I can't hear her myself :)

Here are some morning brotherly-snuggles:

And, one of me and the babe, just for good measure :)

Tummy Time

Isla, unlike Miles, doesn't seem to mind "tummy-time". Sure she gets bored after a while, but Miles would just lay there and scream until you picked him back up, at least in the beginning. He got used to it and better at it. Isla has been more awake in the mornings and afternoons (for short periods of time) and we try to practice some tummy time.

Here's her practicing this past week.

In the boppy:

On the floor:

Whoops! She did "play" for a while. I was watching a show on-line and realized after a while (though I could see her breathing) that she hadn't been moving much. I took a peak and saw her fast asleep. Tummy-time is exhausting!

This was Miles doing some tummy-time at 1 month old:

And here at about 6-7weeks:

I have a hard time believing Miss Isla will look like this in just a few short weeks! They grow far too fast.