Miles gets Decorated

This weekend we dedicated Miles at church. It meant so much to us to have our friend and pastor, Jeff, pray for us and for Miles as we trust God with him. We can't believe that God has entrusted us with such an incredible little person. We can't wait to see how God works in his life.

We tried to prep Isaac and Delia for the event, explaining that we would be up front at church and we wanted them to come with us and try to stand somewhat still and explained why we wanted to do this with Miles. Delia's response? "Yeah! Miles is getting decorated!" and Isaac called it getting "decamacated."

After church I tried to get a picture of the three of them looking so nice... ha, ha, nice try Mommy. My camera ran out of batteries after five shots. Here's the result. These guys crack me up!!

Be Mine

Valentine's Day for a five year old means hard work- filling out valentines for all of his classmates. The past couple of years I've had to push Isaac to sign his name on cards for his friends, but this year Isaac was excited to work on his gifts. I was so impressed with his improving penmanship and the fact he sat for over 30 minutes to finish. What a big kid!

Miles at Five Months

Our baby is a giant! We can't believe how much bigger Miles is at this age compared to Isaac and Delia. Right now he is a super drooler, smiles ALL the time, loves to sing screechy songs, grabs everything (especially Delia's hair- ouch!), hates rice cereal and sleeping for more than two hours at a time, and is SO stinky! Isaac and Delia have taken it upon themselves to try to keep him entertained pretty much all the time with toys, stories, and words of wisdom. Good thing he's got a great big brother and big sister to look after him!

Hangin' Around

I realized today that I haven't posted in awhile... mostly because we haven't done anything exciting. We've been battling illness for weeks- Isaac had pink eye, then Delia, then me, then Isaac and Delia again! Matt and I have both had colds that won't go away. Thankfully Miles has been healthy, maybe because of my constant screaming, "Don't touch the baby!"

So we have just been hanging around the house. The kids got haircuts from Mom and Pop- I gave Delia a terrible haircut that she will hopefully grow out of quickly... It turns out Isaac is awesome at ping pong on the Wii... Miles is working on teeth... and Mojo has been especially vigilant at protecting the backyard lately. Are we fascinating or what?!

Miles at Four Months

At four months Miles is doing all sorts of fun stuff! He's started grabbing and holding toys, is trying really, REALLY hard to roll over, and sucks on his fingers all the time. I think he'll have his first tooth pretty soon. He loves to sing little songs for us and will laugh so cute if you tickle him or dance around. His sunny disposition is just the best. Sometimes people stop by the house just to get a Miles "fix"- it's better than Prozac. According to his four month check-up he's tall for his age and looks older than a four month old. We can't get enough of him!

Christmas10

Backing up a little to post about Christmas 2010...

We had a really nice Christmas this year- a little more low key which is nice since life is usually so crazy here! Here are the kids dressed up for church on Christmas eve. Somehow we avoided Isaac setting Delia's pigtails on fire during the candle lit service...The kids request from Santa this year- Pillow Pets! And Santa came through, hurray! Santa's Little Man outfit from Aunt Meredith for Miles- so cute! Matt and I made a bean bag toss game for the kids. Here they are enjoying it Christmas morning...And our annual Christmas morning on the couch photo. We had fun with the Fishers and a great trip to Monument this year, too (with a camera with dead batteries of course!) Hope you all had a great Christmas this year!

For Frankie

On Monday I had to put my cat, Frankie, down. She was the best little kitten and had a long, good life. I got her my senior year of college with one of my favorite friends, Sarah, and we had lots of great adventures. She let me drag her back and forth across the country and put up with my getting married, getting a DOG, and having three crazy kids! I will miss her so much- she was the best kitten friend and the monkey one, and I loved her a lot.

Cheers!

Happy New Years Folks! Hope you are having fun ringing in the new year. We toasted with sparkling cider and went to bed early. Good times in the Bong house tonight!

Christmas Card Rejects

Every year all I really want for Christmas is a great family photo for our Christmas card. Anyone with kids will know how elusive this is! This year we took about 200 shots... but I like what we finally ended up with. The 199 pictures that didn't end up at the printers are pretty amusing. Here's a little sample...

Keeping Busy

We've been busy little elves this month doing things for Christmas. I've been trying to stay sane by keeping things low key and fun! We have been listening to Christmas music in the car- Isaac's request: anything by the Beach Boys and "Rock 'n' Roll Rudolph" (this means Chuck Barry's "Run, Run Rudolph.") Delia's request: "Strawbie Daw" (this means "Feliz Navidad.")

The kids decorated a gingerbread house again...

It turned out beautiful, don't you think?

At church our family took a turn lighting the Advent candles up in front. The kids were great- no one cried or knocked over anything or lit anything on fire. Success! Delia is anxiously awaiting lighting the PINK candle at home.

I love watching the Nutcracker every year, but I think the kids are still a little young to sit through a whole production of it. So I recorded a production on PBS, and we've been watching it for the past two days. I love sharing this with the kids! So far I can't get them interested in watching White Christmas, though...

Isaac had his annual pre-school Christmas program this week. He did a great job singing and looked so sharp in his tie. I don't know how it happened, but we made it out the door with three children-fully dressed in nice clothes plus snow gear on top for the sleet that was falling, a crock pot full cocktail meatballs, platter of cheese and crackers, diaper bag, and camera with long lens and flash. And we kind of got there on time. We are amazing!!

What an angel!

We are hoping to take Isaac & Delia ice skating next week, and they can't wait to bake more cookies to leave out for Santa. Oh yeah- and more trips past "the crazy house." This is a house in our neighborhood with more lights than the Vegas Strip. Fun!

Hope you all are enjoying the season, too!

Miles at 3 Months

This kid is getting bigger, stronger, and cuter everyday! We all love making him smile and laugh- it's the best. Miles is pretty much happy and content for the most part. He's working on turning over and almost slept through the night last night. I didn't know what to do with myself- Isaac and Delia were both at least 2 before they slept all night. We'll see if he can keep it up, it's such a nice surprise for us!This picture is pretty uncharacteristic of Miles- he's not a big cryer. I think he still looks cute pouting like this!

Oh snow

We got our first snow last week, and the kids could NOT wait to get out and play in it. This is a rare moment of sibling harmony in our house lately!

Fa la la la la la la la la

Time to get decked out for Christmas...

This is the pink tree Oma bought Delia a couple of years ago. Usually we put it up in her bedroom, but this year she decided it was "the baby tree." And the baby tree needs it's mommy, so she put it up next to our big "mommy tree." So cute!Watching The Polar Express...

Miles slept though all of this, just in case you thought we forgot him. We could never forget him!