How about an update?  lol.

So the Miller family is plugging along doing fine.  We’re watching the kids grow and learn.  Zack is a smart little kid.  He’s doing addition, subtraction, and even some multiplicaton now.  Reads very well on his own.  I’m shocked at how many big words he knows.  He reads to me now.  We’ve started him on learning how to save, spend, and give money using Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace Jr. kit and books.  He loves it because he gets rewarded for doing things.

Mallory is also showing some impressive intelligence lately.  She’s saying a lot of words lately, and comprehends quite a lot that you say to her.  We’ve started handing her the phone when one of the relatives call so she can “talk” to them.  She has the greetings down, but just mumbles during the rest of the conversation.

Laura and I are investigating a new church lately.  We’ve really been disconnected with our religion for quite some time now.  Many factors came into play with this, but I think now that we’ve had an opportunity to see church done a different way, we’re going to be committing ourselvs a lot more to an area of our lives that has been a missing piece.  I’m excited to get involved with the church and some of the side programs they offer.

Other than that, nothing’s changed with our jobs.  I’m still working at Quicken Loans as an UNIX Systems Engineer, and Laura’s at a PT clinic associated with St. John Hospital working as a physical therapist.  We’re enjoying life and keeping things going in this tough economy we’re living in.

Well, the Christmas holiday is over finally.  And we have a LOT more stuff to deal with around the house now (translation….toys).  Luckily I have a LOT more shelving available in the garage to house stuff that’s not being used.  Actually, I think I’m going to call the new shelving “Garage Sale Storage Shelving” from now on, since it seems like most of what I put up there can be sold in a garage sale.

We’ve seen some interesting personality traits coming out in Mallory this week.  Lots of new stuff she’s doing.  She suddenly seems to have a little bit of an attitude.  Seems to be pushing Zack around more often, taking toys, crying and throwing tantrums.  Also I’ve noticed she seems to have more of an awareness of things around her, and a much better memory for things people have shown her and patterns she recognizes.  I can’t even begin to imagine where this is going to go next.

We’re off to a party at Uncle Shawn’s tonight, sort of a Miller family holiday gathering.  Then I believe we’re off to Toledo, OH tomorrow for a Schraw family gathering.  And then (is there any end to this!!?) I think we may be going over to my parent’s house on Sunday for another gift exchange and family gathering.  ‘Tis the season!

Decorations are going up, lights are starting to shine, gifts are being delivered waiting to be wrapped.  I got all of the lights for the outside checked out a few days ago, and Zack helped me to sort the extra light bulbs.  Should be hanging them up outside this week, although I’m really dreading doing it because it’s quite cold outside now.  I think I’m going to break it up into a few nights-worth of work.

I think our Holiday cards are going out over the next few days, so keep an eye out for a new family photo of us.

Well, we had another meeting with the ol’ friend The Croup with Zack again last night.  It’s been quite a while since he’s had an attack.  Just to refresh anyone’s memory that isn’t aware of the troubles we’ve had with it, Zack’s been in the hospital at least 3-4 times in the past few years to be treated in the ER for severe crouping cough.  He hasn’t been bad enough that they’ve had to intubate him yet…but we’ve spent the night in the hospital at least 3 times with nebulized steroid/oxygen breathing treatments, shots, and constant monitoring.  One time, I ended up having to be transported to a pediatric intensive care unit at the main hospital by ambulance with him where they kept him at the hospital for 3 days.

Well, last night’s attack wasn’t quite that bad, but I think I caught it early.  About 5am I could hear him breathing very badly, coughing, and crying.  He gets bad enough that he actually has stomach convulsions, and if I don’t calm him down he could (and has in the past) vomit.  We got him bundled up and brought him outside in the sunporch (it’s cold here in Michigan, so it helps a bit to breath in the cold air).  I went with him and we brought the Archos (portable media player) which has a copy of Wall-E on it.  I sat out there for quite a while with him, and between the cold air, sitting upright, and calming down with the movie…I think we avoided any further disasters.

Hopefully he’s better tonight.  Usually he has one bad night, and then maybe a second minor night with the cough/breathing.  He should be coming out of the stage where it affects him, though…I’m still shocked that it’s occurring.  I’ve read that after 36 months, kids should grow enough so that their not as affected by swelling of the airway.  He’s going to be 4 years old in March, so we should’ve already have seen the worst with this problem for him.

Well, our garage is almost ready for cars for this winter.  I’ve pretty much finished up the shelves that I wanted to build in there.  I could put more up, but for now I think it’s a huge help to have more storage on the sides and back of the garage.  Good thing too because it’s been lightly snowing up here the past few weeks.  Just need to get rid of this Dodge Charger so we can have more room in the driveway to move cars around, and everything will be much better.

She’s starting to get really goofy lately.  When I went to pick her up from daycare, she was jumping all around and dancing.  Looked like she hadn’t lost any energy at all throughout the day.  She was doing that when I dropped her off in the morning too.  And then in the car she was bouncing around in her seat waving her hands all over.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I wasn’t even listening to any music…I had a boring Heroes podcast on (well, boring for them probably.)

Not much went on this weekend.  Friday night was pretty much a stay at home night.  Saturday I stayed home to watch the kids while Laura was out and about.  Later on in the evening I had to work for Quicken Loans.  And then Sunday we went to church, I visited Kevin to do some work and play some games, and we each spent the night working on the computer.  I think I’m going to touch up the Team-Miller blog with a new theme and some sidebar stuff.  Then I probably should post in my other two blogs and of course keep one eye on Facebook since it’s been quite active out there lately.

Zack did something interesting tonight that he’s never done before.  We’re starting to get a lot of catalogs in the mail for toys for holiday shopping.  Zack picked one up off the table this evening and started thumbing through it.  He noticed there’s a lot of toys pictured in the catalog and became interested in seeing what they were.

Well, you all know Zack can read and understand dollar amounts now (amazing to me still, he’s only 3)…so he went and got his clear plastic bank with all his money in it.  The top of his bank has a counter that shows him how much money he’s put in it.  So he started to go through the catalog finding out which toys he could afford based on the amount of money his bank said he had.

We were amazed.  He needed some help on some of them, but he was able to figure out the prices and knew which toys he could buy.  I really think we should have another excursion out…more of a serious one this time.

I take him to the dollar store about once a month and we buy cheap toys for a dollar each.  Mainly just to get him to understand how it works to do something…earn some money for doing it…save your money…and then go out and buy something with cash.

So this catalog shopping thing was somthing new.  Can’t wait to see what else he learns based on the things we’re teaching him about money, saving, and spending.

Laura’s back from Chicago.  She went out for a few days to visit Jen Jenkins again, and to see Madonna in concert out there.  She tried something different this time…took a train there and back.  It sounds like it was very enjoyable.  She didn’t have to bother driving, and could take a nap, watch some movies, read a book, and enjoy some food in the food car.  It’s reasonably priced for one person, but I think if you had to take a family of four it’s still more reasonable to drive there in a car.

Team Miller is down to 3 for a few days.  Laura’s on a trip to Chicago to see a concert and Jen J. out there.  Dropped her off at the train station in Royal Oak this moring early.  So the kids and I are hanging out all day, and then going to head on over to Nonna’s for some dinner.