Welcome to the World Elizabeth Jane Eliza Liza Jane EJ Bets Beth Miller

One of my amazing sisters, Brett, did the most incredible thing on Thursday night: she changed from being one person to two people! That's right, folks, there is a new addition to our family :)

This baby is ridiculously small. She's really not, actually, but she seems SO RIDICULOUSLY SMALL. I nanny a 5-month-old and change diapers daily, but I felt clueless with this tiny bundle. The entire family laughed at me while I tried to figure out how to rearrange her little chicken legs and fit that ridiculously small diaper on her while avoiding that weirdo belly button clamp. All mom had to say, "I am NOT coming to visit when you have a baby just to change diapers!"

When we came into town Ben and I took Cat and Jack on a car ride to St. Simon's Is. It was Ben's first time at the beautiful Georgia coast, and we had so much fun "practicing" with the two kids.

Cat dancing to MJ in the car with my extra bass turned on. She really dug it! you can't really tell from this pic, but she was sporting the serious frown and everything. That kid is amazing.

Cat gets her style from her fabulous aunt :) Go Sarah....

There is an awesome statue of a momma and baby Right whales on the coast at SSI which are so cool and the kids (plus Ben) love to play on.

We took a walk through the shopping village and people kept telling us how beautiful our kids were. "How did we end up with two blondies?!" we'd ask each other.

I made EJ a kick-awesome baby carriage cake last night and we painstakingly drove it to Georgia with us. This, in my opinion, was to be EJ's first birthday cake.

Funny thing is that when searching my mom's house for food dye (you HAVE to make homemade frosting. You just have to.) all she had were two boxes, one with green the other with green and blue. So green frosting it had to be! The second funny thing is that she also had a box of those food decorating frosting tubie things. Again, the only color she had left was green. Green accent, it is! Well.... did you know they also make food coloring tubie things? I didn't! Turns out what my mom had in stock was ANOTHER green food coloring, NOT the decorating frosting. I didn't realize it until after I'd applied the accent to the cake. I warned the rest of my family to be careful when eating the extra-colored pieces of cake, but somehow my two-year-old nephew, Jack, didn't get the memo....

Happy Birthday, Eliza Jane! You may now oooooooh and ahhhhhhhh.

Quotable Cat:

"Want to see a sparkly diamond?" -Ben, then shows my engagement ring

"No... that's a sparkly CIRCLE." - Cat

"Boys change diapers too. I'm not sure how I know that. I just remembered it."

"Every Michael Jackson song is my favorite."

While trying to avoid the water when running in the ocean wake:

"We don't care what happens! We're having fun!"

"This is my sister, Elizabeth. We call her Alex. I mean, Alexa..."

Happy, Happy Birthday Beeeeeeeeeeeen, Dear!

About 20 friends were at Krislyn's apartment to help me surprise Ben for his birthday.

I don't think our friends have ever participated in a surprise party, though. The lights were off when we came in and people were hiding, but no one was really sure when to turn the lights back on or to yell surprise or anything... That made it even funnier to me, though :)

What made him think this was MY idea?????

:P

It was a Curious George party complete with party hats, peanut butter n jelly sandwhiches, animal crackers, pinata, etc.! Just what every 27-year-old boy wants!

Krislyn, our wonderful hostess, lighting Ben's birthday cupcake candle! (Those cupcakes were homemade, and FABULOUS, by the way!)

Awwwwww... :)

I was really excited for Ben's Curious George pinata and thought the high high high ceilings in Krislyn's fantastic apt. would be perfect for it. Unfortunately, the ceiling was so high we had to come up with a clever way to get the pinata hung up!

Solution: tie balloon animal balloons together to form a long line with George on one end and a set of keys at the other end. Step 2: Fling the keys over the pipe at the top of the ceiling and hoist George up.

Step 3: Have Ben whack George until he breaks. Have entire party hide behind the kitchen counter because George is on a very long bungee cord and WILL fling out across the entire room as the baseball bat makes contact.

Step 4: Continue hitting George even though it sounds like the pinata is made of metal until body detaches from head because pulling "magic ribbons" doesn't work, either.

Fling George's body across entire room to spread the candy love, then realize the metal sound was bat making contact with lollipops and there are lollipop crumbs now strewn around the apartment.

Step 6: Act like a monkey while another friend interrupts the party to vaccuum up lollipop crumbs and a monkey head bobs from the ceiling... Possibly to never come down.