Lights! Camera! Action!

Aubrey can be quite the Diva.  She's extremely dramatic and has taken a liking to my camera.  I not only find random pictures on it, but videos as well.  Most I never even knew she took.  She takes random videos of all kinds of things and usually narrates and introduces herself.  She could be a news anchor.  I found these pics the other day when uploading the pictures from the camera to my computer.  They are from March 27th.  She's pretty good at taking pictures of herself.  I wish I was that photogenic.

Electromagnitism Honorable Mention

Zach's science fair project this year on electromagnitism got first place in the sixth grade at his school in January.  Which meant he was able to present at the Kern County Science Fair at Rabobank arena on March 29th.

He decided to make an electro magnet this time.  He cut 3 steel metals bars of equal length and wrapped them with insulated copper wire.  Then attached them to a battery to see how much iron fillings it would pick up.

Here is his abstract that had to be available for the judges:

Electromagnetism Abstract


Zachary Miller – 6th grade

Stine School

The objective of this project was to determine if the number of times a wire is wrapped around a metal bar would affect the amount of iron filings an electromagnet would pick up. A metal bar was wrapped 10 times with wire and then connected to a 16 volt battery. It was then inserted into a bowl of iron filings. The amount of filings was measured and recorded. The process was repeated using a metal bar wrapped 20 times and then again using a bar wrapped 30 times. The metal bar with 30 wraps picked up 2 grams of iron filings. The bar with 20 wraps picked up 1 gram of iron filings and the bar with 10 didn’t even pick up a gram. The hypothesis was correct. The more times a wire is wrapped around a metal bar the more iron filings it will pick up. Further experiments might use the same number of wire wraps around a thinner or thicker piece of steel or the same number of wraps around the steel, but varying the thickness of the wire.


Dan took the day off to accompany him to the county science fair.  I didn't go because I was watching kids and then working and I didn't think he would get any sort of award.  There are so many projects at the county level and in the 6th grade they are joined with the junior high kids.  His 5th grade project won first place as well and he went to county last year.  I went then and he got nothing.  The time I don't go he gets an award.  This year he got Honorable Mention in the Electricity category.  He was very excited and proud of himself.

The purple ribbon is his school ribbon and the white is his Honorable Mention ribbon for the county. 

collecting the iron fillings while the bar is connected to the battery

16 years!

 January 1995 during our engagement

Sixteen years ago today I was sealed to my best friend in the Salt Lake Temple.

Here we are 4 kids later . .  a family.

I look forward to the rest of our lives and an eternity together.

November 2010

Zachary 11 1/2, Aubrey 9 1/2, Jacob 4 1/2, Ethan 10 months

A SUPER Aunt!!

Zach on Christmas day with his new Superman cape

My kids have dress ups.  I'm sure all households across America have a drawer or 2 in one or more of their kid's bedrooms with some sort of hand made or store bought costumes.  We have our fair share.  I finally got rid of Aubrey's box because she's outgrown all of the adorable dresses.  She just dresses up her younger brothers now.  Unfortunately for Dan she usually does this in girl's attire.  My boys have their dress up drawer as well and it's over flowing so much that I can't fit them all in the drawer.  Some of them include a clone trooper, Superman, pirates, ninjas, and Buzz Lightyear.  And, much to my dismay, Jake and his little friends love them.  You'd think I'd get smart and hide the drawer, but I know they need their fun.  So, I don't and every day I'm having to put them all away again and again and again.  Sometimes they spend much of the time here in a costume.  I have to admit that it is very aggravating to go into Jake's room and find them spread all across the floor.

It's play day to day and we have Conner here and Michael.  Well, I have Conner every morning and Michael on Tuesday and Thursday mornings while his mom is at school.  Every Wednesday is play day with Jake, Conner, Michael and Ben.  We rotate houses.  It's my day today and once again they got into the dressup drawer to get all decked out.  Michael loves the muscular Superman costume.  We even have a real Superman cape.  When Zach was 2 my wonderful Aunt Sue sent him a sweet hand made Christmas present.  It was his very own Superman cape.  She made it well because it still looks new after years of wear and tear.  My boys and their friends have loved that cape.  I'm sure Ethan will get his use out of it as well.  So today when I was cleaning up the dressups once again I thought of Aunt Sue when I put that one away and was grateful for her and the thoughtful gift she made with love for my Zachary years ago.

Zach is a Deacon

Because Zach turning 12 always seemed so far away, him receiving the Priesthood seemed equally as far.
But, the next thing I knew he turned 5 and started Kindergarten and then I blinked and he turned 8 and was baptized and started Cub Scouts.  Then I made the mistake of blinking again and now he's 12.  Next thing I know he'll be 16 and learning to drive, then 18 and graduating from high school and then he'll be 19 and will be going on a mission.  Time keeps going by faster and faster as I get older.  Now he goes to Mutual on Wednesday nights.  He loves being able to do something just for him with his friends.  And I have to come to terms with the fact that he's growing up and not my little tike anymore.

Dan had another talk with him about the Priesthood and what it means in preparation for his big day.  We got him a suit, which is a little bit big, but he'll grow into it.  Because my sewing skills are not equal to the task we enlisted Grandma Miller's help to hem the pants.  She did a fabulous job.  He looks so grown up and yet so little at the same time.  That morning he was walking down the hall all dressed up in his suit and little Ethan mistaked him for daddy and started following him down the hall and crying.  It was very sweet.

Grandma and Grandpa Miller were there as well as Uncle Mike, Aunt Linda and Uncle Dennis, Tayler and Sadie.  Mike's girlfriend and her daughter (Gloria and Karla) came to sacrament meeting.  In the circle when he was ordained with the Aaronic Priesthood was his dad, grandpa, Mike, Dennis, Bishop Hunter, Ryan Phillips (Young Men's President), Bob Wren (2nd Counselor in the Bishopric), Bob Borland (counselor in Young Men's Presidency), and 3 of our priests Michael Ellsworth, Wes Hunter and Seth Green. 

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear the whole thing, but I heard Dan gave him a beautiful blessing during it.  Ethan had gotten woken up and wasn't in the best mood so I took him out, which made him mad.  Turned out he just wanted to open and close the door, which he loves to do.

After church ended Zach's favorite thing in the world (NOT!!) commenced: picture taking.  There's always just one more to be taken and after a while he decided enough was enough.  But we still got another smile out of him each time.

I'll treasure this one while I can.  It's not often I get a smile out of Zach in a pic with just his sister.  He's going through the annoying little sister phase.



Zach with Grandpa Miller, Uncle Dennis, and Dan

Zach is 12

Zach turned 12 last week on March 14th.  We can hardly believe that 12 years have gone by.  It always seemed so far away.  We had a party for him at the Peterson's on Saturday, the 12th.  He got to invite his friends and some family friends and our extended family came.  We chowed down on hot dogs and hamburgers, chips, and fruit.  Then we had some cake and ice cream.  I got lazy and didn't make a cake.  Instead he picked one out from Costco.  It was chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling and chocolate icing.  Then he wanted chocolate ice cream too.  I nixed that one.  We had enough chocolate.  Did I really say that?  Can we ever really have too much chocolate??!!!!

He got some nice things for gifts, but he loved the money the most, which he used to buy himself a beebee gun.  Of course, his dad has just as much fun shooting the cans as he does.  They enjoy spending time in the backyard testing their aim.

Our little friend Sierra.  She's 6 weeks younger than Ethan.

I got a quick picture in the middle of their game of Nerf flag football, which is what his brother and sister gave him.  Zach with all of our friends.

Cousin Tayler.  She'll be 12 on March 30th.  They are 16 days apart.

New addition

The best place for me to play catch up is with our most exciting news. I found out I was pregnant on last June. Just so you know those $1 store tests work just fine. I was very excited as we had been trying for a while. About a week later my morning (aka all day) sickness began. I felt sick to my stomach all the time and just plain icky. I didn't want to do anything or go anywhere. Story of my life for all my pregnancies. Although it gets better with each one. I found I was a lot more irritated and mean with this one as well. Usually I love being pregnant, but that wasn't the case this time. I don't usually have a ton of anxiety attacks or panic, but I noticed I was feeling a lot more anxious which was showing itself in the form of claustrophobia (which I already had). I remember watching a show one night about some people stuck in a car after an accident and that night I woke up during the night in a panic attack feeling like I was trapped in that car. I would periodically have more panic attacks.

New Year's Eve, about 34 weeks

I finally started showing a little after 20 weeks prego. But, I never got huge. I had an ultrasound showing a baby boy. I thought Aubrey would be really sad. She really wanted a sister, but she surprised me by saying she'd still love him and that it was ok. What a sweet girl. Congestion began to set in. I always get congestion during the 3rd trimester. I started having mild panic attacks about being congested. I also began NSTs (non-stress tests) twice a week at the hospital. When you're of advanced maternal age you get more tests. I just love saying I'm of advanced maternal age. It cracks me up.

At the NST on Thursday, January 14th I got a head cold and was all clogged up. That was the beginning of my downfall. Not being able to breathe through my nose wreaked havoc on my already increasing anxiety. I started on a downward spiral that turned from mild panic to constant panic 24/7. This was all new for me and the scariest thing I've ever been through in my life thus far. I was afraid to sleep and afraid of my room and I didn't know how I'd make it through the weekend. Now, many of you know how much I LOVE to sleep. It was weird to be afraid to sleep. And I didn't sleep. The congestion made the panic 100 times worse. I felt like I was going crazy. This is a very condensed version of what I went through that weekend. To make matters worse I was starting to resent the baby and wanted him out.

Through lots of prayer and help from a loving Father in Heaven and a patient husband I made it to Monday, which is when my doctor wanted to see me again. He pushed the appointment up because of what was going on. He didn't like the path I was headed down and felt my emotional state was more important than keeping that baby in until 40 weeks. With him born I had more options to help me relax. So, I was induced that day at 37 weeks.

The pitocin was started and then stopped to be restarted 8 hrs later. However, my baby boy wanted to be out and he kept coming without it. He came so quickly that the epidural didn't have time to take completely and I was numb everywhere but where I needed to be and felt EVERYTHING. I hadn't felt it since Aubrey. Yep, it still HURTS!!!

Ethan Scott Miller was born on January 18th. He was 6 pounds 1 ounce. We called and told everyone. Zachary said we should name him Martin Luther King Junior since he was born on the day we celebrate him. I decided that we shouldn't. :)

A couple of hours after he was born I noticed that the bottom of his hands and feet were blue. The nurse didn't know why and said sometimes that happens so I didn't think much of it. He also didn't cry much, which was just fine with me. After moving me to another room the neonatal nurses came in to check his vitals and discovered his oxygen level was too low. They took him to the NICU. I got a bit nervous, but was ok. When we called later we they told us that his levels were still low and that he had some sort of infection. So began our daily visits to the NICU.

After scrubbing all the way up to our elbows for 3 minutes we were allowed in to see our baby boy. It was weird to see him connected to so many wires. He looked so sickly. It made me sad to see him that way.

I checked out later that day. I wanted to cry when I left. I had never gone home without my baby before. I was still congested though and didn't want it to get worse. Thanks to our family and friends we were able to go to the NICU 3 times a day every day. We got used to being there and got to know the nurses. Two days later we found out he had pneumonia and an infection probably related to my having the Group B Strep bacteria.

Ethan began tanning sessions all day every day. What luck!!! People pay good money for those. We could only hold him for an hour at a time because of it. All the nurses loved him. They thought he was the sweetest baby and he rarely cried. Of course not, he was too sick to. And he looked and acted sick too. He would sleep most of the day and night.

After a few days he started to slowly wake up when we were there. And stay awake the whole time. We were able to feed him. He'd just stare at us. When he'd look at me Dan would talk and he'd ever so slowly turn his head to look at Dan. Each day he'd get a little better. He still didn't cry a lot. We thought this was a great sign and hopeful that would continue at home. Wishful thinking!!! The baby next to him cried a lot. I felt so bad for her.

Zach, Aubrey, and Jake were very anxious to see Ethan. We took a ton of pictures and video in the NICU and showed it to them each night. Aubrey drew him the cutest picture which is in the picture below. The nurses taped it to his bed.

He eventually started eating more and more and by 1 week later, Monday the 25th they called and said his lungs were clear of fluids and that he was getting his last dose of antibiotics. We could come and get him. That was the weirdest feeling. I was a little bit scared because he had been so sick.

We showed up at Janna's to pick up the kids that evening and brought Ethan in. Most of the kids were in the backyard. We wanted to surprise them. Aubrey looked through the back door and saw the car seat. Her mouth dropped and she came running in. Then all the kids came in. It was fun to see their surprise. That night they took turns holding him.

Finally our family was home together. Then the chaos began. Just kidding!!!