New York City w/ Uncle Kyle!

Our friend Kyle came to visit us this week and the first 2 days have been so jam packed, Gwen is loving it! She warmed up to Kyle after 1 full day and let him pick her up and carry her to the car...she loves him :). We got some great pics of our trip in to the city and Gwen even met her first celebrity, Vanessa Hudgens! Oh yea, she was so excited about being in the city and seeing all the people that she only napped 1 time around lunch and then stayed up the whole time until about midnight that day...it was nuts! Her and I did take the next 2 days to recover and today, being Easter, decided to have the whole house partake in the "Sweatpants Easter Day" so we all relaxed and ate great food...she tried Ham, too!

Here are some pics from the big day in NYC for Gwen. We went to the Brooklyn Bridge, Battery Park, Times Square, Ground Zero, City Hall, Wall Street, Midtown Comics, the Red Bus tour & the Night Tour...oh man, the list goes on and on...and tomorrow we are going in to see Liberty Island and Central Park and maybe even the HQ of Ghostbusters, HA!

Enjoy the pics!
















And here is Gwen's 1st celebrity experience...I think she was more interested in her hat than the camera, she didn't look, but Vanessa did lol. This was at the NBC Store.

Almost 11 months old

Well, we have had a busy beginning of Spring and it is flying by...she will be one soon, CRAZY! So I have not been blogging as much and I think it is because I don't have a computer in front of me every single day lately, HA! We have plenty to catch up on! Gwen now has 8 teeth! Just recently she has tried chicken and ham but she does seem to not want to chew new foods, but we are working on that. :) She has completed her 1st session of Swim Lessons at the Y and we decided that I can just take her and do exactly what they did during the class for this session b/c it was kind of pathetic...lol. She can get back into the lessons when she is a bit older and they have things they actually do. She is almost walking now! Very crazy to watch her go from crawling backwards to almost walking on her own in such a short time. We did purchase a walker off of craigslist for $10 and it has become her new favorite toy...she walks around the house following us into different rooms and running, it is hilarious. She has stood alone for about 5 sec or so without falling and walks w/ holdin on to things all the time. I bet she walks by her 1st bday, CRAZY!!! So here are some of her latest photos (9 mths and above) in no particular order, enjoy!

First time in a swing at a park!


Happy St. Patrick's Day!


Grandma Judy and Grandpa Steve bought me this for winter...I finally got to wear it...IN MARCH!


Just checking my email...she does this all the time, too cute!


Grandma Judy got this for me in Cabo Mexico before I was born, I am big enough to wear it...and I MISS HER, cant you tell!?


I LOVE the shower!





It was Blue day at daycare and I had to represent!


Gabby, Gwen's friend here in NJ just LOVES playing w/ Gwenie!



In case you did not see Gwen's Easter dress in the Bunny picture, here is the "Before" shot...note the cute shoes!




We have updated some parts of Gwen's room, here are some pics of it...really it is our room, but about 3/4 of it is hers, ha!







Oh yea, she has also learned how to say "Mum" instead of "Mom" and it is down right hilarious! She gets all into it and makes the m's long, I love it! She is warming up to people more as well and faster, good thing! She LOVES other kids and now when I go into daycare to drop her off or pick her up she is totally fine...go off and plays without even looking back at me! OH and she waves now!!! She usually does it w/ Hi, but she is learning bye bye, too. She does say "hi" too and it's just so cute. She had a week where she basically slept the WHOLE week and we thought it was here 8th tooth, but in the end we found out why. She had a growth spurt! How did we know? Well, at the beginning of the week she was fitting into all of her 6 mth clothes (yes at 9 mths) and at the end of the week-o-sleep she NO LONGER fit into ANYTHING. No joke. She grew out of her pj's AND her pants! I had to put anything under 9 mths away and then go out to Target and purchase all 12 mth clothes on sale that I could find! I am not kidding, it is visible! She is getting taller! So, the 12 mth clothes are a bit big, but at least she is not wearing high water pants and the buttons are not popping open on her pj's anymore, HA!

Easter Bunny Fun...ummmm

We took Gwen to the Easter Bunny and she did NOT like it, HA! I mean think about it...a 7 foot furry white blob with crazy glasses and HUGE teeth, not to mention those ears...I can imagine she would be scared! We took the picture anyway because it is such a great memory. We are sure when she knows more about the Easter Bunny and what he does and what great treats she can have on Easter...she will LOVE the Big White Blob! Enjoy the Pic, Happy Easter!!!

Gwen's 9 month pictures!

As promised, I finally scanned the images in and posted them! We didn't buy the CD this time because it was super expensive at FLASH Digital Studios, but the pics were great and like I said, we can just scan them in! We don't have as many to send this time either, but we will be sending out some soon :)

She didn't smile as much this time actually. We didn't really have time to be goofy with her after her little nap before the pics were taken...it was like, you got 30 mins, GO! So, Gwen was in "wake up/confusion" mode during this shoot but the pics we did get ended up being pretty good anyways. Even though it was Feb. 21st, we decided to go with the Spring themes and I think that was a great idea. Enjoy!!

It's been a while, I know!

Hello!
Yes, it has been a while. This past week was very odd/sad/annoying and I have not had the want to blog about much. But, that being said, I should probably inform anyone who does not already know...I got laid off this past Wed. Out of the blue and really shocking to me and the other woman they laid off as well. Just got promoted at the end of Jan! The company laid off 30% of it's team world wide because of the economy. This came to a huge shock to everyone and puts us in a bit of a predicament. But, hey, what can you do. Complain about it too much and you hold yourself down, ignore it and you don't get the release and great feeling from screaming about it!

SO, my screaming is done, lol and now I must move on and find something new. I am filing for unemployment, I get a 2 week severence (yea, thanks huh), daycare is giving us the difference of our money back b/c we had paid fulltime pay until May and we are switching to part time pay until May which is very nice of them. Gwen will still go to daycare for 2 days a week so she can socialize and I can go to any interviews I may have. I have insurance until end of April. I think then, depending on the job situation, we will be putting Gwen on some type of insurance, but not ourselves. Risky, but she is what matters.

I do have a few leads from jobs right now, but nothing solid. Honestly I don't mind looking for jobs, it is something I have usually been fairly good at and one of the reasons I actually took the job as a recruiter, to help those people who are not good at finding jobs themselves, get them!

I am selling Mary Kay - it WAS a second job, lol, but now it is a little more of a focus when not looking for something more fulltime. It is going pretty well so that is good. I do have a website so if anyone wants to purchase anything, check out www.marykay.com/stefmiller

I will update again tonight with Gwen's 9 mth pics and a few other fun things. Enjoy!

Some recent fun things :)

Gwen's first Swimming lesson! Daddy was at a comic book convention so Gwen and I went to her first swimming lesson this past Sat. She LOVED it. Next Sat. we will have better pics of her actually DOING the stuff, but here are a few of her wearing her suit standing in the locker room and then some after she went swimming and she was sitting in her towel on the floor. She did so much though, kicked, blew bubbles, went down the slide, played with the ball and the ducky, "jumped" off the side OH, and she even put her own face in the water 4 times, no joke!!! They do some really cute stuff like singing with them and doing the actions of the songs in the water with them. fun :)




The new way Gwen holds her bottle...one handed. She is so funny, no matter what the size she usually tries to use one hand to hold it...like she is too busy for 2 hands, lol.



She has gotten a hang of the sippy cup now. She actually gets that you need to hold it up and tip it back...she only kinda understands how to suck on the sippy nozzle, but hey, she is doing really good with it.



The next 4 images were of out triple date on Valentine's Day out to lunch at Charlie's Steak House and to the Book Barn. Just some cute ones :)






Gwen's most recent piece of art work from daycare...I SWEAR you can see a flower and leaves, CRAZY!!!



So Gwen's daycare has decided to make March the month of fun so each day they have a suggestion of a theme for the kids to wear. I will try and take a picture of each of the days that she participates, but I can't guarantee anything. How fun though!!