christmas day

we had a wonderful christmas day with miles. we started out celebrating as a family here at home. miles was more interested in the wrapping paper than the gifts themselves, so we kept his presents to a minimum. we figured this is the last year for that! we headed out to kyle's dad's house around 10am to celebrate and eat a delicious ham dinner. yum! miles was spoiled with many fun gifts and he quickly determined that they all passed the "taste test". around 2pm we packed ourselves back into the car and ventured over to my parent's house to celebrate with my grandma becker and cousin jerry and surprise, surprise - miles was spoiled AGAIN! for a baby who is clueless to gifts, he sure raked it in! papa and grandma becker gave him a beautiful new "big boy" car seat. he is riding in style and seems to be more comfy (mom and dad are more comfy without having to lug that other seat around too!). tinker & tessie were glad to partake in all of the festivities and even managed to get a few table scraps from each location. for some reason, we did not bust out the regular camera at grandpa randy's - so you'll have to check back for the updated video because I know we used the camcorder.

I have not had a chance to upload the movies from the video camera - so here's a quick slide show. I'll get the video edited SOON!

a greseth christmas eve

I edited the video...added a few more pics. I'm working on christmas day!

we spent christmas eve with my mom's family, the greseths. this year we did an "adopt-a-family" and all bought gifts for a family with eight children (the dad recently lost his job). it was so rewarding to know that we were able to share the christmas spirit with people who could really use it. it's something we did last year and definitely one of my new favorite traditions.

it was fun to get together with everyone, watch miles open presents, and (my favorite) EAT!! we always have some traditional norweigan foods - lefse, pulsa (a type of sausage), and meatballs - as well as some good ol' fashioned favorites - escalloped corn, cherry coke jello salad, green bean casserole, green jello salad, and mashed potatoes - my mouth is watering just thinking about it! everyone went to church first and then over to my aunt and uncle's house. miles made his acting debut when the little kids performed the christmas story and he starred as the baby Jesus. after lots of begging from nick and ellie (oh how I remember doing that too!), the kiddos exchanged gifts. miles loved every minute of it. then again, he's never one to complain about excessive attention :)

due to the sheer number of photos and videos we took that night...I thought I'd put together a little movie for you to enjoy!

a little pre-christmas photo spread

before the bombardment of christmas pictures...here are some of the fun times we are having with miles. as you can see, he's rolling all over the place and loving his tubby-tubs. for all of you out there who may not be experiencing a white christmas, we also thought you'd like to see the ENORMOUS pile of snow in our backyard. thanks to some balmy weather recently (in the 30s!) - this pile is significantly smaller.

fabulous friends

in addition to the countless family members we were blessed to be with this holiday season, some of our closest friends came to visit! our good friends, the maios, were in town to celebrate Christmas with sarah's family. their little peanut, genevieve, is three months old and cute as a button!




another exciting visitor was "auntie" laurie. laurie is my BESTEST friend and, let's face it, practically my sister. she lives in scottsdale, AZ and was here for a week. it was such fun to hang out with her. she was here in may to meet miles, but he decided that mommy's tummy was way too cozy and didn't make an appearance. darn. so this was the first time laurie got to play with miles. he thought she was wonderful (of course) and we can't wait to see her again soon. it's hard to say goodbye, but we promised her that we would post lots of pictures on the blog. these are just for you, laurie...we miss you already!

seven months old

miles turned seven months old on monday the 22nd. he is quickly deciding that sitting still is no fun at all! he's learning to crawl, rolls all over the place, puts anything and everything into his mouth, and has become quite the little chatterbox! he is a sweet baby who loves to read books, listen to mommy sing goofy songs, give kisses, snuggles into your shoulder, and sleeps like an angel. he recently began his journey to a solid food diet and is enjoying all of the new tastes. his favorite (so far) is a banana...he really is a little monkey!! enjoy the latest round of pictures:






that's quite enough sitting still!

merry christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

on the move

we officially have a mover on our hands! while he hasn't figured out crawling, miles is certainly all over the place. he has mastered rolling around and can quickly manage to get himself from one side of the room to the other or, occasionally, under the couch/crib/chair/etc. it's so exciting to watch him, but then I'm reminded of how quickly the time has passed. it really does seem like just yesterday that I was swaddling him and laying him in the bassinet. sniff-sniff...here are some fun pictures from the other day. we are so proud of him!

this is his new "turn my head to the side" look

practicing getting up on all fours...so close!

scooting backwards & under the crib!

he managed to roll over while under the crib to reach the chair...silly goose!

and now just for fun...

christmas through his eyes

santa baby

what I thought would be a semi-traumatic experience for our son actually went smoothly! you see, I was t-e-r-r-i-f-i-e-d of santa claus as a child. there is many a picture of me screaming at the top of my lungs and reaching desperately for my mom. miles, on the other hand, must take after his daddy on this one. see for yourself...

after visiting with santa, we made some cookies. this was helen's FIRST time baking cookies! geesh...where did we fail this girl?!? she enjoyed it and miles thought it was pretty fun too. I'm sure he'll be more of a fan next year when he can EAT cookies!!

our three babies

awwww!

and now a little sneak peek behind-the-scenes...

trimming the tree

fa-la-la-la-la...la-la-la-la! sorry...got carried away with the christmas caroling. I have been listening to nothing but christmas music for the last week and a half and will do so until well after new years. which, I might add, is kyle's LEAST favorite thing about the holiday season. anyway - the tree is up (finally) and mr. miles was able to put his first decorations on it. last christmas, my mom & dad gave us a sweet fluffy blue stocking for the baby (blue...who knew!?) and beth & seth gave "baby K" a cute snowman ornament. this year he's added to his collection and is already up to FIVE ornaments! I have oodles of them as it was tradition to receive a new ornament every year from both sets of grandparents. I feel fortunate to have wonderful memories of seeing my own decorations on the tree year after year. kyle and I are looking forward to making this a tradition for our family now too! miles is still in the "potted plant" stage (a.k.a. not yet on the move) - so the tree is safe from baby curiousity. he likes to look at the lights and feel the "needles" (I admit...we are fake tree folks). I should also point out that miles LOVES the christmas music too! [that's 2-1 if you're keeping score!!]

due to our lack of space, we bought a SLIM 7 ft tree and I spent 2 hrs making it "pre-lit"

early morning...so innocent

check out the ornament stash for the 6 month old!

helping mommy

inspecting with daddy

carrots

YUMMY! miles is experimenting with foods these days and decided carrots are delish. I am attempting to make most of the baby food, so I peeled, steamed, and pureed a big bag of carrots. I froze them in ice cube trays and voila! we have a zip-loc freezer bag full of carrot cubes. I'm sure I'll be fighting back the dinner guests :) the frozen carrot cubes also come in handy when using the mesh feeder. it's a little mesh bag on a handle that we can put whole food into and he can munch away. that was a BIG hit! on another note...rice cereal has not been going over so well, so we switched to oatmeal and miles is pretty pumped about that.

excuse me...what is THIS?
never mind...that was YUMMY...thank you!
how does this thing work?

a HA!

bragging rights

although this is my first go-round as a mommy, I'd like to think that given the numerous daycare and foster care children in my house while I grew up I've had an unusual amount of experience with little ones. therefore...I have to brag here for just a moment.

miles is a great little baby!

he sleeps like a champ - goes to bed around 8 pm and wakes at least 12 hours later, eats well - nurses 5 times a day, plays happily with a toy or two, and is extraordinarily content. he tolerates us changing his schedule and keeps right up with all of the crazy activity in our lives. we were out and about a lot this weekend. miles had no trouble going to bed at grandma and grandpa's house and then letting us wake him up to go home around 11pm or midnight. he smiled at everyone, fell back to sleep in the car, woke up when we got home, and then went right back to sleep. on saturday morning we finished clearing out my grandma's garage. miles rode around in the backpack for a while, sat in the van with nykki, and then fell back to sleep in the car seat. all while getting close to (or passing) meal time! what I have found most amazing is his patience and overall good-naturedness. there are many times when we are out running errands or out longer than expected and he should be "starving." he doesn't complain. he'll just sit quietly and fall back to sleep. both kyle and I know how incredibly blessed we are and we would feel this way no matter what...but we definitely feel like we "got a good one" :)
miles has decided that he likes to sleep on his tummy now...I tried to roll him back over...no go.