Fall Baking...

I love fall baking.  I am so glad the pumpkin is back on the shelves. (Mine and the grocery store,  but I really stocked up just in case...lol) I have already made pumpkin cake, pumpkin cookies and apple dumplings.  I am in the process of trying to decide what cookie to enter in the Dominion Post cookie contest.  I do this every year and all but one year I have been a finalist, which means I have to take cookies in to be tasted.  I've never won but it is a goal that I take very seriously.  I have now gone through all my tried and true recipes and am looking for something new.  Tonight I am baking Pumpkin Oatmeal cookies with white chocolate chips and cranberries.  They taste really good but I'm not sure the appearance is good enough for the contest.  I'll have to get some other opinions before I call it the "one".  I am really going to have to work on it since it must be turned in by the first of November, but I work well under pressure...lol.  Actually I usually do this, don't think I have ever sent one in early. 

After this last pan comes out I am going to decorate the butter cookies I baked for Kristen and Todd's wedding tomorrow.  I haven't done these in a long time.  Courtney usually does them for me but she has a paper to write tonight and clinicals tomorrow.  So I guess they will have to get what they get from me. 

It has been a wonderful week, weather wise and getting back into the routine of having Charlie home every night.  I'm looking forward to a great weekend.  Hope you all have one, too. 

Don't forget to leave me a message!  Thanks!

A Fun Afternoon!!

Did you ever feel like you had created your own evil.  Well, that is where I am at this afternoon.  I am a rocker.  I rock my babies.  I could have raised hundreds of dollars in my own little rock-a-thon because I love to rock babies.  The only difference here is my babies slept in their beds from day one and Jay'von didn't because of his severe reflux.  He had to be held on your shoulder to sleep.  Soooooo.....do you see where I'm going with this.  Jay'v just turned 3 and although he sleeps in his own little bed once he is asleep he still get rocked to sleep.  I still love rocking him, he is such a little cuddle bug.  But it is time for him to go to sleep on his own in his bed.  Hence the fun afternoon that I created for myself.

Yesterday I put him to bed and he just went right to sleep.  Today was another story. (I decided to start with the naps and then the night time will follow) He didn't get up or cry he just kept asking for another good night kiss or a drink or finally just asked outright to cuddle in the chair. After 2 hours of this I really needed to get some things done so I rocked him and he went right to sleep.  He said tonight he will go to "peep" in his bed.  I kind of feel like I failed this test and tomorrow may be harder because of it but I also know what I needed to accomplish today and it wasn't happening....lol. I really don't remember going through this with my kids so I am a little clueless how to proceed but I guess I will just keep on being patient with him and eventually it will work. 

On a positive note....lovin' the sunshine!!....lovin' having my husband come home by 6:00 every night....lovin' the baking I'm getting to do this week....lovin' having more of a routine again instead of what we have had for the last months.  Life is good and getting better.... :)

Fall!!

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted last. So much for keeping up with things...lol. It has been a busy fall so far but so enjoyable. The weather is absolutely fabulous. I love spring and fall weather. So mild and comfortable. I know most people love the heat but I don't. I can't imagine wanting to go to the beach and fry. Give me a nice cool fall day anytime.

Well, since I posted last we have had a few birthdays in our little family. On September 25 C.J. turned 8 years old. He has grown up so much this year. Still a little ball of energy most of the time but can sit down and have a very mature conversation with you. He loves school and is doing very well (so is his sister, by the way). I always give the birthday person the chance to choose the menu for their birthday dinner. C.J.'s was being celebrated on a Sunday so I asked him to tell me what he wanted most for dinner. He chose hot dogs and pizza with cheesecake for dessert. Since he was having a party with his friends on Saturday evening with pizza Danielle told him he should maybe choose something else. He chose Chicken Parmesan and garlic bread but still wanted cheesecake for dessert. We added a salad and had our "easy" Sunday dinner. Here are a few pictures of C.J.'s celebration.



C.J. with some friends opening gifts.


 
C.J.'s Sunday Birthday dinner.

We're so glad you had such a great birthday, C.J. We love you and hope you continue to have a fun filled year!

On September 29 Jay'von had his 3rd Birthday. Because of a schedule conflict and Courtney having clinicals  we celebrated his birthday on October 3. Since that was after his birthday we had a challenging time of not letting him know it was his birthday because he was so excited about his "birtday humin". I took him to Fairmont after Court was done with class in the evening for her to spend some time with him. She at one point couldn't resist and said "Happy Birthday, Jay'v" and he immediately yelled "Yay, Where's my toys? Where's my cake?" We had to squelch that real quick. He knew what was coming and thought he was missing it. I don't think we will do that again. Kids birthdays MUST be celebrated either before or on the day!


Here are some pictures of Jay'von's birthday party at Courtney's house.

This shows how fascinated he was with this cake.

Before anyone could sing "Happy Birthday", Jay'von sang to himself!!

Jay'von knew what he wanted, a "wick" of that frosting!

He was so excited about his birthday "humin" for weeks and would go look out the window and say "nope, birtday not here yet". We weren't sure what he was looking for but he seemed to think he would see it out the window. Uncle George went over on the day of his party and put balloons in the driveway before Jay'v was awake. When Courtney woke him up and told him to look out the window he said matter of factly "Yep, my birthday's here!" He is such a cutie with a BIG imagination!!

My birthday is the day after Jay'von's. Chuck and Danielle took me to Cracker Barrel since Charlie was working in Pittsburgh afternoon shift. They didn't think I should stay home alone and eat my Weight Watchers meal....lol. Court met us and we had a good time but I missed having Charlie and Care and George there. Maybe next year... :)

We had our annual hayride at Donnie and Carla Scharf's house on October 2. It was a success as always. The weather was beautiful this year. We all remember last year when the drizzle was almost snow and the wind cut like a knife. I'll post some pictures from that also.

This is the 4 girl cousins....(might be 5 in this pic, don't know yet). Jody (Miller) Mayle, Carolyn (Sherron) Cheriyan, Courtney Sherron, and Sarah Mayle.  Maybe at Christmas we will get a girl cousins pic with Jeannie and Kari.

One of three wagons they ran that night....The John Deere driven by Tom Johnson.

There they go....in recent years there are as many people staying to keep the home fires (and hot chocolate) going as there are ride the wagons. 


Charlie has had a week or so off since he finished up a job in Pittsburgh and chose not to go to another night shift job so far from home. He has gotten a lot of things done around here that were neglected while he worked out of town. He started today on a job in Morgantown. I won't know how to act with him working close to home during the day. He has done the night shift 2 hours away for so long.

That pretty much brings us up to date. There's still a lot going on. Kristen Poston's wedding is this Saturday and I am up to my ears in cookies and cake balls this week. But of course you all know I love to bake (only can't eat them) so I am having a great time. We have revival coming up the fist part of November then Thanksgiving and before you know it Christmas....LOL. I love this time of year just not looking forward to what comes afterwards. January, February, and March....Yuck. Except we can look forward to our new little bundle of joy in March! Maybe that will keep us going and make those long, cold, dreary months go fast.

We also enjoyed spending time with Gib and Ellie when they came to visit a couple of weeks ago. It is always such a joy to have them here. Ellie gave me a book I am reading right now. "The Kneeling Christian" by an Anonymous Author. It is a wonderful book. Maybe I will write a bit more about it after I am done. I already know it is powerful and every christian should read it.

Hope you all enjoyed our little review of the last month. Talk to me. Click on the comment button and leave me a message. I know it's not facebook but I miss hearing from you all. Have a wonderful week and hopefully it will be not so long before I post again.



UNSUBSCRIBE!?

I have just spent my morning "unsubscribing" to all the junk emails I acquired while doing facebook. It seems like everything you "like" has some kind of informative email they want to send you. The only problem is I never read them so they just fill up my regular email in box. It is so time consuming because you have to open each one and scroll down to the end of the page and click on unsubscribe. I know, hard stuff, huh! But time consuming, none the less. Why do we set ourselves up for this junk. There are enough junk emails out there and other things to waste our time without adding more. But now facebook is gone and I'm working on that in box. :)

Aren't you glad that God doesn't "unsubscribe" us. We send him junk mail everyday. Probably things he doesn't need to hear (he already knows, anyway)but we can still call on him with all our problems and not worry about being "unsubscribed" or "de-friended". And His messages to us everyday are always interesting and important and worth reading. I'm such a problem child but he has promised to "never leave me nor forsake me" and I can believe that and stand on it daily.

Until next time.....have a relaxing, fun filled Saturday!

Kind of Sad!

I posted about my computer problems a couple of days ago. Wellllll.....I did get my money back and have gotten a computer with a big enough processor to do what I need. That makes me happy.

What makes me sad is that I (through my ignorance) have lost a relationship I had with the computer shop. They have always done great work on my computers and I have had no complaints. I have no complaints now with what they did for me. They very graciously transferred my data from my old computers and had the new one up and running for me when I picked it up. It just wasn't the same size computer I am used to. I realize now that I should have done my homework before I went in and knew exactly what I wanted. They did refund my money, but I could tell they were not happy with me. There is such a thing as a satisfaction guarantee and I was not satisfied so I don't feel bad about asking for my money and I did pay them for the work they did otherwise. The only drawback is because of the attitude shown me when I went in I don't feel like I will be welcome to continue to use their services. That makes me sad. I am a peace maker and don't like to cause problems. But because I goofed, I did and can't fix it any other way. So I go on and chalk it up as a lesson learned. I guess we are never to old for the school of hard knocks.

I am happy so far with my new Dell. I haven't gotten to do much with it yet, but already feel the difference. I'll keep you posted on how it is going.

On another note:
I know I am really behind on posting pictures. I will try to get some up real soon. The kids have grown so much this summer. Breanna is almost as tall as me (I know, that's not saying much. C.J. and Jay'von have changed a lot also. They both have birthdays "homin" as Jay'v says. So do I, but we won't talk about that one...lol.

Until next time....have a great day and leave me a comment so I know you're still out there since I have been so lax in posting. :)

I THOUGHT....

I thought.... all my computer problems were taken care of....I was wrong.

I took the computer in to have the plug repaired. Seemed simple enought to me. They took a couple of days to fix it but I thought they just had a lot of work lined up. I didn't realize they were trying to get this plug to stay soldered to the mother board. I brought it home and it worked for about 6 hours and then nothing again. The only difference was this time I couldn't get it to connect at all. So back to the shop we went. This time they had it for a week. Still no luck. They priced a mother board for me but it was more then I should put into a dying computer. So they told me about one they had for sale. I thought....I was getting a good deal since they transferred my files from the old computers for free since I had paid for repair that didn't work. I thought....I was getting a computer that compared with the one I had (price wise it seemed close). I was so tired of messing with it I didn't call my resident computer geek and check. Now I have a new computer that is so slow it seems I am on dial up. This is the first time I have even been able to get signed on to my blog.

Granted there were about 16,000 (no exaggeration) pictures added from the old computers but I removed those to an external hard drive this evening and it is still slow. I checked the numbers and think I've been took...lol. So now...."I think" they had better have a plan to return my money so I can go get a computer that will work!!!

Talk to you again soon...hopefully on a NEW computer!

What a week!!

Sometimes it is good to just look back over the last little bit and see where you have been. I've just done that and it is exhausting...lol. Both of the girls have moved in the last couple of weeks. My computer quit working (I'm on Courtney's today). Courtney is pretty much settled. Carolyn just moved this past weekend and has to be ready for company this weekend, so we have some work to do there still. Hopefully we will accomplish that this afternoon. I spent the last couple of days in Canton where my brother was having surgery. (more on that later)

My last post was about my ever dying computer. I was so glad to have a voice mail yesterday telling me that it is fixed (better then ever) and the bill is only $90.00. That is a lot but not as much as a new one. I have complained for a long time that the battery was not right because it wouldn't hold a charge for more then 10 to 15 minutes but batteries are expensive and I hated to go there. Now after it totally died I find it was just a loose connection in the plug. Why didn't I have it checked sooner...I'm a Miller...stubborn...it had to totally stop working first.

My brother Rick just had surgery yesterday to clear a blocked carotid artery. He had been having warning signs for a while. Tiredness, numbness in face and arm, slow thinking, etc. But he's a Miller....it had to about get him before he got checked. By then he had already had 2 strokes and was in danger of more. The artery was 98% blocked. Thank God the surgery went well and they think he may come home this evening. But this was an Aw Ha moment for me. Number 1, I really need to get more serious about my weight loss. (I know, I go to weekly meetings and am serious but I mean REALLY serious.) Number 2, I need to remember not to neglect my body and the signs that something is wrong. I can do it for a computer if I wish but we only have one body and need to take better care of it. We Millers need to learn not to be so stubborn and self sufficient. I also learned that we stick together (even after all these years. There were about 30 to 35 people there waiting yesterday. Some came and went, most stayed all day. To some people we might not seem so close but let something happen to one of us and you have all of us to deal with.

While I was in Canton Courtney called to say Jay'von was sick with a stomach bug. Jay'v never gets sick and he wanted Nuna. He didn't understand what all this strange stuff was. After throwing up a couple of times he said "need to go doker later"...then he asked "what gonna happen me?" Of course I took my parents home from our trip, ran in the house for a couple of minutes and left again to drive another hour to Morgantown to spend the night with Courtney and Jay'v. After 1 more episode during the night he has now been sleeping good (along with his Mama who had a bad night the night before). Hopefully it is all done and we can proceed with our plans for the holiday weekend.

This has really been a rambling post. I know, I am good at those (like I said, I'm a Miller). But this kind of shows you where I've been the last few weeks. Our life is still crazy with Charlie working in Pittsburgh and only home on the weekends. We are hoping that is only for a couple of weeks yet.

This weekend is Labor Day and our Homecoming Sunday at Church. It is a very busy day but one we look forward to all year. I don't know if anyone reads this (since I still don't get comments) but if you do and you are in our area we would love to have you come spend the day with us. Rev. Terry Walker from Charleston, WV is our speaker for the day.

I think I have gone on long enough. I get my computer back today so should be on a more normal (lol) schedule after this.