December 12, 2008

Serioulsy, so Awesome!!

TAMN over at Seriously, so Blessed! is giving away a mountain-load of prizes..
If you are not already reading this blog you should be because it's too hilarious!! All I can say is Pick Me TAMN!

December 11, 2008

Come Fly With Me

Our future aviator

The Fab Fam


Our fab family. Petey looks like he's ready to hop out Trav's arms here.

December 2, 2008

Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya??

In the Millet family, the men have a tradition of going shooting on Thanksgiving -- because sometime during the day they get kicked out of the kitchen. Trav didn't want to miss out on this manly event so on Saturday we went out to Utah Lake with Amber and my Dad. We had a blast, no one got shot and I think everyone hit a clay at least once -- including me! I know, shocker.

Amber and my grandpa's pistol.
Don't you think she looks altogether too happy with a gun in her hand?

The mountain man
You can't really tell, but to either side of us and all around were hundreds of other people out exercising their right to bear arms. We're just glad no one got shot.

Petey's new camo jacket and ear mufflers. The little man didn't even flinch when a gun was fired. Doesn't he look a little like Ralphie's brother here?

1st Haircut

Before

After

November 20, 2008

Little Boys & Leaves

When Petey and I went outside yesterday we were greeted with a perfect sight: a nice big pile of raked leaves right outside our front door. Well, Petey could not resist a satisfying romp through the crunchy leaves -- who was I to stop him? He crawled, squealed and even tried to eat a few. We had a great time even though I spent the rest of the day finding little leaflets in his socks, diaper(??!!), and all over the floor.

Shh... don't tell the landscapers that it was us who messed up their nice pile

November 16, 2008

Oh Baby


El Destructo.
Nothing is safe from little hands and a drooly mouth.

My two cute babies.

November 10, 2008

Biggest Fish of my Life!


Michelle and Travis are proud to welcome the newest addition to the family:
Flipper "Cutthroat" Millet
5 lb 2 oz. and 25" long

...we expect him to be served in a light lemon-butter sauce

November 5, 2008

All About Me

I saw these unique questions on my friend's blog and thought I'd give them a go. They're not your average blogtag q's so enjoy. Cause I know we all want to know more about the amazing person that is me.... (drumroll please)

1) Church calling you would HATE to have: I can't really think of anything I'd actually HATE but some that might not be so appealing to me are: enrichment committee or nursery worker -- but that's about it.

2) Saying you say the most often: Oh my goodness; ____ drives me bonkers

3) Saying you hate to hear other people say: What the heck/hey!; after someone say's they love something: Why don't you marry it? -- I hated this one when I was in elementary school and it still drives me bonkers

4) Most rotten thing you did today: Um, turned on a video for my baby so I could finish the last 20 pages of a book.

5) Explain the fourth picture in the fourth folder on your computer: I don't have a fourth picture in my fourth folder, but here is the second (& last). When I got married, my co-workers decorated my chair at work like they would a car. Streamers, tin cans tied to it and a nice big "Just Married' sign. It was really thoughtful.



6) A picture you have of people you don't know: This is some random Colts fan who has painted his head to look like a helmet. I think my dad or someone actually took this photo but somehow it ended up in my files too. And not only is this from any ole Colts game it's the 2007 AFC Championship playoff game - Colts vs. Patriots - which the Colts won (of course) and subsequently sent them and our family to the Superbowl! This was probably the best game I've ever been to in my life.


7) Secret dream: To become a book editor or reviewer. Basically I just want people to send me free advance copies of all the newest books for me to read. Ahh.. new books. However, if this were to become reality, I'd probably get too caught up in the reading part to ever get around to the reviewing part and I'd probably lose the ideal job. Sigh.

8) Favorite place to spend money: Target. I can wander around that fabulous store for hours and always find some great deal or just something I HAVE to have. Much to Travis' dismay of course.

9) Personal indulgence: Books, books, and more books. I spend waaaay too much time researching what I want to read next and reading people's reviews. Also, coats. I love me a new coat.

10) Girl crush: Stacey London, Miranda Lambert, Reese Witherspoon, Rachel McAdams .. I don't really know of any others.

11) 3 goals: 1 long term, 1 day to day, 1 silly:
Long term: Stay in contact with all my family and to raise a happy, healthy family.
Day to day: Try to get Peter to start sleeping through the night.
Silly: watch Step Up 2 with my ladies! we love our awesomely bad b-movies.

12) 3 things you collect or obsess over:
1) Books- Oh golly. Don't get me started again! Any type will do: fiction, non fiction, teen, fantasy, chick-lit, history, classics, contemporary, and I'm a sucker for a good love story. There is something so satisfying about finishing a well-written book that draws you in and makes you truly care about the the characters and plot.
2) GoodReads - This is sort of an extension of #1 -- it's my go-to, one-stop-shop for all things books. I can spend hours reading people's reviews and finding new things I want to read. I love that you can write your own reviews, make bookshelves, join discussion groups and above all that it isn't sponsored by Amazon! I must admit to being quite selective about my friends -- if I don't know you and you don't write reviews pretty regularly, I'm dropping you like it's hot. Cruel I know, but necessary.
3) Organizing - Every couple of months or so, I have to go through all my closets and rearrange everything and get rid of stuff that I think we don't need anymore. This drives Trav up a wall becuase he is a consummate pack rat. If I don't do this, I start feeling claustrophobic -- like stuff is going to fall down on me when I open up closet doors. Out of sight, out of mind doesn't really work for me.

November 3, 2008

RWWOR!!


RWWORR!!

We celebrated Petey's first Halloween by subjecting him to the time honored tradition of sticking him in a hot, polyester costume and then parading him around to all the neighborhood. Why is it that as a mom you spend the entire event thinking something along these lines: "Wow, my kid's way cuter than yours!"

We had a great time with the little man and Trav is already getting geared up for next year so he can eat all of Petey's candy again..
Happy Halloween!

October 27, 2008

Love those baby blues


Happy nine months Petey!!

As of 10/29/08 Peter is 16lbs 14oz and 27.5" long... and getting chunkier by the day!

Rise and Shout


On Saturday, we took the little man to his first BYU football game. It was wonderful to cheer our Cougars to victory against UNLV on such a beautiful day! Katie joined us and helped me keep Petey entertained as he had missed not just one, but TWO nap times. He got nervous every time they shot off the canon but thankfully, the poor fella was so tuckered out he ended up sleeping through most of the fourth quarter.

October 12, 2008

Spoon Me

In a baby's world SPOONS are good for:
1. gnawing
2. banging on hard surfaces
3. projectiles
4. security blankets (see photo)
5. swords
6. BFF (see photo)
7. eating...I guess

And just for kicks: the baby and his mommy cheese it up!

October 3, 2008

Choo! Choo!

The Deseret News published this interesting article about my bro-in-law Rob yesterday.

In honor of his retirement, here's one of my favorite Rob/football moments: When Tracie and Rob first started dating I didn't know much about football - we're a basketball family - and when he told me he was a linebacker I said (thinking he meant lineman) "aren't you a little small for that?" He just laughed it off. Then, when watching one of his first games I heard the announcer say, "Great tackle by little linebacker Morris." I called my sister thinking my opinion had been confirmed saying "see, other people think he's small too!!" After processing this remark a moment, Tracie said "Michelle, his position is MIDDLE linebacker." Oh. Lesson learned.
BTW - we are now a football family.

Trav says you have to read the comments section... it's the funniest part.

October 2, 2008

The Life and Times of Petey

Peter is now 8 months old and is the happiest little baby. We have so much fun with this kid. He's discovered that he can make a smattering of noises using that little mouth of his and is still trying to figure out how to coordinate arms and legs for crawling. He mostly ends up doing a type of reverse push-up. He loves to splash in the tub and especially enjoys any activity involving food. We love our little man and thought we'd share some recent photos.

Whasup home-skillet?!

Trav's little clone. Two peas in a pod.

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails..
Hang this kid upside down, throw him around and tickle his brains out and he'll laugh himself silly.

Two chompers and trying for more.
Let me also introduce Mr. Pig. He features often in Petey's adventures.

So, mom? When do we eat?


Walking before crawling...
Please notice the ginormous plant threatening to engulf our little house. Yes, it's only ONE pumpkin plant. Trav's Dad sent us special pumpkin seeds for a friendly family competition and I think we've blown everyone out of the water. We've already harvested one large specimen and have two others still ripening up. Roasted pumpkin seeds here we come!

September 19, 2008

Canned Corn

Yesterday, I saw this commercial on TV and I about DIED. People tend to believe most things they see on the old tube and it scares the patooey out of me that this new ad campaign is telling Big Gulp-guzzling Americans that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is basically the same as sugar and thus is not bad for you. Holy sugar-saturated fruit snacks Batman! Not only is this 30 second monstrosity an example of astonishingly bad acting, but it is also completely WRONG!! HFCS is in no way shape or form the same as sugar. Okay, sorry I guess they do have something in common -- they are both sweet. Thank goodness we have rules against false advertising...

So, I'm not a food scientist, but stay with me here: fructose (the sugar found in HFCS) doesn't stimulate insulin secretion. Insulin is the handy dohicky that helps us digest/absorb sugar. Thus when insulin fails, diabetes ensues. Icky. Still with me? HFCS also causes problems with our liver (where all that fructose gets broken down) leading to elevated triglycerides (the bad cholesterol) which can later lead to obesity and heart disease and death. Double ick.

Now I may be a little more sensitive to this issue than some due to my indoctrination as a small child that anything refined, sweet or basically good tasting is bad for you. But HFCS is like Big Brother -- it's everywhere. In our cereals, juice, candy, crackers, cokes, you name it, it's got HFCS. Why you ask? Because it is cheap (due to corn subsidies) and it has a long shelf life. Chalk up one more point for consumerism and Big Brother.

Now I enjoy a Cherry Coke as much as the next gal, but I imbibe knowing full well that I am not drinking something that is magically doing my body good. I know that this delicious concoction is chock full of chemically engineered sugars that my body will go into overdrive trying to digest. But I try to block that out because I'm trying to make up for all those cokes I didn't get to drink as a kid and by golly it tastes good, right?! Right??

September 11, 2008

I love the 80s

I am a child of the 80s. It's okay, I'll freely admit to wearing a side ponytail AND neon clothes while watching Fraggle Rock.

September 6, 2008

Peanut butter Chocolate Cake


I love to cook. Love, love, love it. However, sometimes I am also quite adventurous (meaning: I don't like to follow a recipe) and thus the final product doesn't always turn out as planned. (Think an entire pot of corn chowder that had to be thrown out because my 'dash' of thyme turned out to be a little much...)
Fortunately for everyone involved, this time I struck gold with the Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake. My Father-in-law came to stay with us on Thursday night and with his birthday this weekend, we decided to celebrate. And if you are in our family celebrating means food. So, I decided to make a birthday cake. I tried out a frosting recipe I got from those cheesy Kraft food and family magazines and unlike many of their other recipes, it got rave reviews so I thought I'd share. So here's the recipe for the best peanut butter frosting. Ever.

Peanut butter Frosting (this may ONLY be used on chocolate cake -- I guess you could use another type of cake, but why?!)
Bake a two-layer chocolate cake according to package directions (I used devil's food). Let cool.
Add one cup of cold milk to one package of instant vanilla pudding and mix for 5-6 min. Add 1/2 peanut butter. Mix.
Spread 1 cup of the mixture over one layer of cake and top with other cake layer.
Add 1 cup of cool whip to mixture and frost cake as usual.
Prepare for yummy goodness!!

August 27, 2008

New York, New York!

Welcome to the travelblog from our whirlwind trip to New York!

My best friend, Ashley, decided to get married in beautiful Palmyra, NY -- and the next week we got our economic stimulus package in the mail, fortuitous timing! Being savvy college educated individuals, we decided to do our patriotic duty and stimulate the economy by taking a trip to the Big Apple and all the LDS church history sites in upstate NY. So here's our trip, it's long, it's crazy, but enjoy!


Petey exhausted on the subway. We could probably do an entire post of Petey sleeping through everything we did in NY. But he was a champ and fared great on the plane ride and slept all the way to Palmyra!!


Hanging out in Central Park.


We took the Staten Island Ferry with Ashley and got a great view of the Statue of Liberty at sunset.


I love this picture of Ash and Trav laughing while on the boat.


Ashley just lives a few blocks down from the Bronx Zoo, so we spent the morning exploring the animal kingdom. We loved seeing the gorillas and the monkeys -- Petey's brothers -- but Trav decided to boycott the giraffes. Think high-mimicing Trav voice: "Look at me, I'm the tallest animal in the jungle!" Trav: "I hate those guys"! No one really knows why he doesn't like giraffes, he just doesn't.

Because they're tall, spotty, leaf-eating ladders with no rungs, that's why! - Travis



Being cheapskate college students we rented the cheapest car we could find, but by the time we got to Hertz right at closing time all the economy cars were gone. So they upgraded us to a 2008 midnight black Ford Mustang for free. Dang! I hate it when that happens. It wasn't really car seat friendly and the sound of the engine kept waking Peter, but it was worth it for the looks of jealousy and admiration from high school dropouts and 16 year olds.


Millet's roaming through the Sacred Grove. Beautiful.


I love this pic of Trav and Petey's in the Smith Frame home. I think because he looks so at home by this 19th century fireplace.


Niagara Falls! And yes, we made it into the Canadian side even though we had to convince a power-tripping Mountie we weren't trying to smuggle Peter in/out of the country because I had forgotten his birth certificate. Look at his face here, can you tell we missed nap time?


The majestic Niagara Falls.


Now we come to the real reason for the trip in the first place -- Ashley and Peter Bontorno's wedding. It was beautiful and I was so glad we could be a part of it all.


Me and the beautiful bride. Please notice the smart-looking jacket I'm wearing with my dress. I had originally had a friend help me make a beautiful cream colored jacket (same style) for my dress to cover up the spaghetti straps, but at the last minute I was worried it wouldn't look right with all the other bridesmaids. So like two nights before we left I decided to make another jacket. Not wanting to spend more money on material or spend the time to find stuff that would match, I simply cut out the dresses lining and made that into a jacket all by my lonesome! How McGuyvor is that?!

T Rex's got nothin' on me


Look closely to catch a glimpse of Petey's very first set of dinosaur teeth!

Payson Lakes

Annnndd....we're back!!

Two weekends ago we went on a family camping outing (the Lee's) up to Payson Lakes. It was so beautiful and we were able to share some good old fashioned fun outdoorsy family time. The only thing missing was Tracie.



Carter getting ready to roast those balls of fluffy goodness -- otherwise known as marshmallows. Notice that even David was able to make the trip -- dialysis free for the first night in a LONG time.


The Millet family tent. As soon as we got it set up, the kids thought we had brought a 'playground' especially for them. Trav tried to explain that it's for backpacking (thus small and light), but let's just say it was a miracle we got them out when it was time to go to bed.



Grandma showing off her skills on the horseshoe pitch. Rob kindly explained that in the official horseshoeing rulebook, yes, he read it; it states that a player can only receive two warnings for harassing the opposing team before being disqualified. There's a reason no Lee has ever made it to the American Horseshoeing Championship...


The kids (Carter, Peter, Brookie, & Cami) hanging out in the 'playhouse'. And yes, this tent did fit Trav, myself and Petey quite snugly.


Petey and Mommy enjoying the beautiful scenery.

It ended up being a long night for us however. Peter cut two bottom teeth that same day and after we went to bed, he kept waking up every hour or so and crying -- not like him at all. I thought his teeth might be bothering him so, like a good mom, I would nurse him a little each time to help him go back to sleep. Well, this went on until about 6am or so, when I snuggled up to Peter to help him calm down during his latest bout of wakefulness when I realized that the poor kid was soaked! Blankets, pjs, everything -- and it was about 30 degrees out!! Petey must have wet through his diaper and the poor kid had been freezing all night long, that's why he kept waking up! And of course, I had been feeding him more, making him have to go to the bathroom more -- not my best mommy moment. We were able to get him stripped clean (that did NOT make him happy when it was so cold out) but after we snuggled him up in dry blankets, he gave us the happiest smile and peacefully drifted off to sleep. Camping is not as easy as it looks with a baby.

August 10, 2008

.5 Years Old!

Happy half-year birthday Petey!



On the 25th of July Peter turned 6 months old (I know, I'm a little late) and he is just changing every day. At his last appointment, he weighed 14 lbs and 15 oz and was 24.5 in long. He's sitting up like a pro these days, only a few face plants here and there. We've also started him on solid foods, which he loves -- but then you know who his parents are.



He chews on everything he can get his hands on (no teeth yet though) and drools like he's trying to create his own river. My Dad says he needs to wear a raincoat whenever he's watching him.



Our little monkey is also starting to push up while on his belly -- when he gets tired of that, he'll stick his little behind in the air like an inch worm. We just have to coordinate his efforts and he'll be crawling in no time! But we're in no hurry..

Buddha Baby giggles



Peter is the happiest little baby. If someone is laughing he thinks it's pretty funny and will usually join in. I love his giggles!

August 2, 2008

Mon Pierre

This is what happens when you leave your kid with Grandpa...

July 9, 2008

Oh! This isn't my bathtub!



Monday was my nephew Carter's birthday and he had a party at the pool with about a million kids. We had taken Petey swimming a few weeks earlier and the water was super warm and he loved it. This time, the water was a little cooler and I don't think he got into it quite as much. We had a blast though and enjoyed a night out with our little monkey.

Oh, and nice tan baby.