I have a LOOOONGGGGG list of crafty "to do's" all thanks to my love of the internet site called pinterest. I have been very very busy trying to get all this done. We have had so much fun with all these projects!! Cinnamon Applesauce Potpourri Can I say, "OMG OMG" well, yes OMG OMG!! This is so easy, smells absolutely delicious & Zachary LOVED to cut the shapes. We will totally be doing this again! All it is: 1 C Applesauce, 1-1/2 C Cinnamon & 2Tb ground nutmeg. OMG OMG!! so so fun!!

Stringing Homemade Garland We have never taken the time to do this before. I think as a child I remember stringing something one time but I'm not sure what it was. I thought the popcorn would be easier than it ended up being- the pop corn cracked and it was very easy to poke yourself. Obviously we didn't want our 3 year old to string with a real needle so I just made a faux one with tape on the end of a string. And, we had a lot of debate over what type of food he could string easily...we initially looked for dry noodles but couldn't find any that were colored so we stuck with the good ole favorite cereal fruit loops. Zachary would string one and eat three. Cranberry

Zach's "needle" fruit loop string

upclose & personal

Mantel

Focus on the garland

Gingerbread House Poppi gave us a gingerbread house at Thanksgiving. We sat down one evening to decorate it. Zachary absolutely loved this!! It sits in the center of our kitchen table and we have a lot of discussion over who maybe inside (Elfie is the big favorite). Zachary looks so proud in this picture :))

Snowman Door. This decoration was so easy, and it's one of those ideas where I think to myself, "why did I not think of this?" I made this with just card stock & punches. And, I hand cut out the carrot nose. Zachary helped put the buttons on the snowman and after we were done he said, "our house looks like Christmas" Now that, is what I wanted to hear :))

Thanks for stopping by! Have a very Merry Christmas!!

Elfin Magic

Happy Holidays! We have been busy at the Miller household decorating & looking out for Elfin magic to show up around the house. This was our first year with Zachary's Elf (named Elfie). We thought we would share the Elf activity going on in our home. Day one, we found Elfie taking a cotton bubble bath in Zachary's bathroom sink.

One morning Zachary found Elfie making shapes out of q-tips! And, Elfie made the letter Z too!

Zip-lining!! OMG, Zachary was amazed to find Elfie had tied a jump rope from the shower to the sink and was zip-ling across the bathroom!

Elfie loves books, just like Zachary! We found him reading a book to some of Zachary's stuffed "pets" (Zachary's name for his stuffed animals)

While I was out of town on a girls trip Elfie brought Zachary a Christmas tree for his bedroom!

It was a nice surprise for Zachary!

We caught Elfie in our pantry sipping syrup straight from the bottle! And, he brought Zachary his first gift from Santa! Jake The Neverland pirate ornaments for his tree!

Elfie was a little behind on bringing the advent calendar to our home. But, Zachary enjoyed searching for 1-12 numbers and indulging in 12 pieces of (very mini) chocolate!

Elfie brings festive coloring pages...

We quickly inserted Zachary's Festive Artwork in the special frames in our hallway:

We hope you all are enjoying this beautiful, magical time of year!

This past weekend we did my 2nd 5K fun run at lake Lanier called, Lanier Under The Lights. I had a goal to run as much as possible. Unfortunately I underestimated the course. I was not prepared for the hills. I am very pleased with our time, I am just a bit disappointed that we did not get to run as much as I wanted to. I injured myself in the summer by running down a hill. Since then I only run when it is flat ground. We met up with a few friends and we all had a fun time looking at all the Holiday Lights even if sometimes my chin was pointing towards my feet :) Even Santa joined in the race!

Though we enjoyed the race I would say I prefer morning races. We arrived 1.5 hours early to check in then my nerves were getting the best of me! I was ready to take off by the time our group got to start the race!! I'm excited to try another 5K soon. Any suggestions on upcoming races?

As promised, though as usual a little late, here are some recent pictures of our Fall Adventures. Our Fall fun begins with our annual pumpkin patch & fair day with Poppi. It is a fun way to get the season started! Pumpkin Patch

At the fair Zachary & Poppi took off! It was so adorable to watch Zachary be excited over all the activity this year. Last year he had NO interest in getting on a ride. But, this year he was ALL about the rides! His favorite was the motorcycles. But, he also got on a flying fish & air planes. I was set on him playing some fair games too. So, he went shark "fishing" & duck picking. We had the time of our lives! It was a GREAT day!

Welcome back to our blog, we are glad you are here! I've got some scrapbook layouts to share with you. I have been busy working on the completion of our China trip. I think the scrapbook is going to end up being two very large albums! I've been focusing on it a lot lately because I am almost done!! I saved these pictures for the last of my scraping this trip because they are so important to me. I feel like they could not be perfect enough, no matter how hard I try. I put so much importance on the pictures that I may never be pleased with them.But I realized there has got to be a day that I scrap them and move on to more recent pictures that are quickly piling up, creating a different kind of stress :)) . Gotcha Day was one of the most important days in my life, I will never forget it. I hope to express my love in these pages for my son. SO, enough already, on with the layouts! Gotcha Day. The very first moments with our son. Wow, they bring back all the emotion!

Nap, Zachary quickly fell asleep in my arms on the bus ride from Gotcha Day to the hotel!

Page 2, this is the complimentary page to the nap above. It shows us getting off the bus headed to our room & then our first official family picture for the VISA.

Our Boy, this picture so reminds me of all our day excursions. Zachary would stay awake as long as he could. He would keep his eye lids open until he could no longer. No matter where we were he was happiest when we were out and about. And, he is like that even to this day!

Forever Family, these pictures were taken in the lobby of the orphanage. I was so wrapped up in my son I didn't even notice the wall. Luckily my Father directed us to stand under the Murial. These are some of my favorite pictures of Gotcha Day.

There is a certain joy from a warm homecoming! So Happy together. These pictures are absolutely precious to me. They capture the first moments that our entire family sees Zachary for the first time!!

Home of the free, land of the brave. This land was made for me and you!

USA, Let's go HOME!! Perfectly captured, us relieved to be in familiar surroundings and anxious to get home!

Hello & welcome back to our blog! It's Fall Y'all!! Just yesterday, we went on our 2nd annual fall day with Zachary's Poppi (Matt's Father). We had such a fabulous day. I have so many pictures still on my camera that I will download soon. But, I didn't want to waste any time sharing the pictures we have easy access to. They were all taken with i-phones, isn't technology great?! The top three pictures Poppi took with his phone & he texted them to me (thank you Poppi!). And, these pictures perfectly tell our story of a wonderful fall day together! First we visited Poppi's local pumpkin patch and Zachary picked out way too many pumpkins. Pictures will show up here soon. But, until then let me tell you about our afternoon at the nearby fair. Last year Zachary would NOT, even with all our coercing, agree to ride a single ride (well other than the carousel). He was content to just watch all the excitement. But, this year was VERY different! Zachary ended up riding 4 rides, feed the petting zoo farm animals, played 2 fair games, shared Poppi's beloved funnel cake, licked melting ice cream from his fingers & watched Mommy & Daddy both take turns on the mechanical bull! Zachary riding his most favorite ride, it's all about the Motorcycle! Interesting enough, by the time he was on this ride he looked absolutely exhausted and uncomfortable. I was very surprise to learn it was his favorite of all his rides. I supposed I shouldn't be too surprised because the boy loves his motorcycles!

Last year Matt rode the Mechanical Bull for the first time. And, this year it didn't take much to convince him to do a repeat performance. The concentration was written all over his face!

I did it too! Yes, I was able to gather my courage and jump on that mechanical bull. I told the operator this was my first ever ride and it also was on my bucket list. So, please take it easy on me. Thankfully he did! The hardest part was getting ontop of the darn bull. The only way was to use the cushion as a trampoline jump and propel myself. In hind site, I should have used the handle to help pull myself up. Live and learn! I lasted 61 seconds! And, only got off because the bull stopped. So, does that mean I won?! Well, not necessarily...because in the process of checking this off my bucket list I pulled my inner right thigh, have cramping in my right side bottom, my neck hurts & I hope I can walk in the morning. But, as a friend said kindly to me, all athletes ache after a performance! LOL, love it!

After the successful bull ride, I went on a shopping spree. I picked up this cow girl hat! I felt the butterfly was very fitting!

We had such a wonderful day & we are all simply exhausted! We can't wait to do it again next year! Thanks Poppi for a fabulous day! xoxoxo PS: my necklace says "Boo Y'all!" :)) Happy Fall!

a look back at May

I am continuing my stroll through the memories of the last few months to fill in blanks of our blog hiatus. Slip-n-slide 5K fun run

Mother's Day

UGA in June

Our Niece Caroline participated in Band Camp at UGA. And, we all went up at the end of her week to watch her performance. We are so proud of Caroline, she is the Drum Major at her High School this year!! Congratulations Caroline!! We look forward to watching you in action this season!

Also, I took the plunge and cut my hair VERY short! I haven't had hair this short since high school.

We have had a hot summer. And, we took every opportunity to go to our neighborhood pool or play in our back yard with the wading pool, water guns & water hose.

At this point in September, the weather is cooling down a bit. We are looking forward to fall and all that it brings us!

Stone Mountain

This Labor Day weekend we visited Stone Mountain and we traveled around the mountain on the Choo-choo train. Zachary had so much fun on his first train ride! But, the train whistle was a little frightening. As bravely as possible he would say "That's weak sauce" any time the train tooted it's whistle. Which is a saying his Daddy says to him often. During the ride Zachary practiced reading his park map to keep up with our location.

"That's weak sauce"

After the ride we met up with the conductor for pictures

We had a great day at Stone Mountain. We look forward to staying for the laser show once Zachary is older & can stay awake long enough to enjoy the show.

July Skate Party

We took a long break from posting messages on our blog (from Late April- Late August). However, our schedules were very full and we took a lot of pictures. And, after every event we thought this was going to be the next post on our blog...though it took us until August to make that happen. Generally it takes over an hour to create one blog on blogger. And, because of this we are researching other options in the blog sphere. Should we decide to move our blog we will let you know. However, if you continue to link us through our web address (www.mrmnjewel.net) you will automatically be directed to our new location. I thought I would fill in the blanks a little and make a few posts catching our blog friends/family up on our life April-July. I'll go backwards starting with July. Late July we went to our local Skate rink to celebrate our Friend Monica's 40th Birthday. It was Zachary's first time on skates and he impressed us all! When I was learning to skate they did not have a "crutch" to lean on. And, I realized very quickly that it was the best invention for new skaters! With out it I would not have been able to be on skates along side Zachary. I certainly would have been on the floor with my tennis shoes. By the end of the night Zachary was able to skate walk around the rink with out falling. And to my surprise, I didn't fall to the ground one time. However, getting in to the rink was the hardest part for me because of a single a step down from the floor to the rink. As you can see I needed a little help from my Brother-in-law.

Zachary skated the entire 3.5 hours!! I had to make him take a few breaks (mostly for Mommy's sake). We all had such a fun evening! We look forward to going back sometime, during the day, and Matt promises to put on a pair of skates with us!! I am going to hold him to it!