friends (feb)

We love when friends come to visit.  Especially Chicago friends.  It like merging our old life with our new life.  Our life in Chicago was Mike and I, and our life in Minneapolis has been about our new family, new house, new jobs.  So any chance get to merge our former selves with our new selves is awesome.  John and his gal Jill came to stay with us and we had an awesome time.  Mostly enjoying delicious food!

cold (jan)

Well, there hasn't been much snow this winter, but we have still had our share of cold.  Today we went for a walk around Minnehaha Falls.  It was cold.  Miles didn't mind.  He loved it.  Love to test out his new walking legs outdoors.  Loved using the stroller as a walker.  Did not love when we decided to pack it up and go home because it was too cold.

night night (jan)

If you say night night to Miles he lays his head down to sleep.  Cute.  Here is a pic of Mike and Miles going night night!

walkers (jan)

Oh, these two cutie potooties!  Check them out walking with their walkers.  This made for excellent entertainment.  They made laps from the living room to the dining room, around the table and then back at it for another lap!  Miles took his first steps over the winter vacation, and so did his friend Olive.  They are both still a little shaky on the legs but behind a walker they really can cruise!

Christmas

We had such a nice time being home for Christmas this year.  It was one of the first times when we felt we had enough time to see everyone and were actually ready and excited to come home.  In all our years living in Chicago our holiday was so rushed.  Too many people to see, too little time, too much time spent traveling.  We loved being able to relax and just enjoy our families this holiday. 

Miles really enjoyed opening gifts.  The best part is that he was truly thrilled with what was inside each present and he immediately took to playing with his new toys.  Our families treated Miles with some pretty cool toys.  He is a lucky guy. 

At church on Christmas Eve, Miles spent most of the time talking to a little girl sitting behind us.  He could have been the official greeter of the service, because I'm pretty sure he said "HI" to everyone.  Luckily the church was filled with beautiful lights to point at and joyful Christmas songs dispersed throughout the service to keep his attention.  If that didn't hold his attention we had just enough toys and cheerios.

The highlight of our holiday vacation was that Miles started walking.  He took his first steps in November and decided crawling was faster.  He didn't bother much with trying to walk after that, and got a little grumpy when we would try to encourage him.  Who knows, maybe it was the excitement at the Nagel farm, or maybe it was seeing all his big cousins run around, but Miles went for it.  Turning his small steps into many steps and walking back and forth between Mom and Dad getting a hug each time, and also cheers and applause from his cousins, aunt and uncle, and Grandma and Grandpa.  Maybe he was just waiting for a big enough audience to try out his new moves. 

oh christmas tree

Miles and I sat for a few photos under the tree once it was all decorated.  He loves to look at the lights and the ornaments, and amazingly he can do so very safely.  We taught him to admire things by only using his pointer finger to touch.  It worked perfectly, he would do a lot of oooing and aweing and pointing while we showed him the ornaments and then he would reach out and touch it with just his little pointer finger.  SO cute!!

holiday card out takes

We couldn't think of any grand plans for our holiday card this year.  But this card is pretty telling.  It tells about what life is like with Miles around.  He is so much fun, and he keeps us laughing all the time.  Things we used to obsess over, now have a much smaller priority.  Mostly we just try to get stuff done and not worry too much about the how.  So this year we hustled up and got a tree, got home threw some lights on the ground, pulled out the Santa hat and a few ornaments and clicked away.  They came out much better than we could have tediously planned the shots to be.  They are lot of fun and the good news is we got it all done before bedtime.