Bests of 2009

As 2009 comes to a close, here is my/our top 5 list of wonderful things that happened in 2009. . .

5. Summering in EP
This one is a my top five things (Ryan obviously did not live in EP this summer) but because of wedding plans and everything we had going on I chose to spend most of my summer at home in Eden Prairie with my parents and my sister. It was so fun to spend one last summer with my family and accomplish everything we needed to with the wedding.

4. Twins Opening Day
My parents have season tickets to the Twins and they could not use their tickets for opening day so Ryan and I took off from work early and went to the game. We went to a few more games this season but had fun being there for the final opening day in the Metrodome.

3. Celebrating Weddings and Babies of Friends
2009 blessed us with lots of great friends getting married and/or having babies. We love to celebrate with our friends and rejoice with each blessing of a new birth. Congratulations to everyone we know that had a baby or got married in 2009!

2. Financial Peace University
I think if you ask either one of us you will hear that this was by far the best choice we made this fall. If you have not checked it out or heard of Dave Ramsey check him out by clicking on his name. We have a vision for where we are going and feel more confident and prepared for whatever God chooses to send our way. We are living like nobody else so that someday we can live like nobody else!

1. Our Wedding/Honeymoon
(Shocking I know) Getting to spend time together every day and being married has been the best part of 2009 for us so far. We also had a blast in Mexico and someday would like to go back.

Things we are looking forward to in 2010 include: more weddings (7 at last count) and babies for friends, a possible move, a trip with the white family?, more adventures, and new recipes :)

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 was a success regardless of the HUGE snowstorm that left tons of people unable to get places and the Euken Farm without power. Christmas Eve I headed to Ryan's parents house in the early afternoon to avoid the snow and Ryan met me there later in the afternoon. We went to church and watched the Christmas pageant (super cute). Then we went back and opened presents. Christmas morning sent Ryan and his dad outside to push snow for a few hours and then Grandma, Grandpa, Grandma, Jim, Shari, and Josh came over. We ate TONS of yummy food and played some fun games. Saturday we headed to the cities (braving the YUCKY roads) to see my family. We had lots of fun playing games, meeting Aimee's new boyfriend (mourning the loss of fun), playing wii Mario, shopping, and just visiting. Thank you to everyone who made our Christmas so fun! We are blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful people and have such amazing families. We hope that your Christmas was just as blessed as ours.

Here's To You

Yearly Christmas pageant! I can't tell you how many stories I have heard about Christmas pageants going around school the last few weeks. Brings me back to this little girl wearing her dad's shirt backwards. . .

Frosting 101

A few weeks ago I baked my cut out cookies and (much to Ryan's dismay) put them in the freezer. (I have slowly been baking and freezing my cookies so that I don't have to do it all at once, he keeps wondering if they will EVER come out) Ryan was helping me (even though he informed me he would not ask me to marry him again. . .) pick out cookie cutters and we found the BIG gingerbread cutters and we decided that it would be fun to make a boy cookie and a girl cookie and decorate them. Here is a beforeand here is a during ( notice the tongue)Here is the after :)

Here is what we learned:
1. Ryan struggles with rule #1 frosting (your hands should never enter your mouth) and would never make it in Fran's kitchen.
2. Pink and blue do not make red like the box says, they make a ugly reddish brownish color!
3. Ryan really only wants to help to eat the little bite size cookies and appreciates it if you do one every three or four cookies so he is not "bored"
4. At some point you need to stop taking pictures and eat the cookies!

I am very very very thankful that my husband is so helpful! I could never have made all of the cookies I did to give to some of our friends if it was not for his help cleaning the kitchen! also, mom, I need a meringue lesson, mine are as flat as pancakes but taste yummy :)

DIY Redo and Christmas

So right after I blogged I looked at the pictures and decided that #1 my wreath needed more ornaments and #2 my tree was crooked and ugly. The wreath took about 5 seconds to spruce up, the tree on the other hand was rather putzy and if you don't look too close, it is kind of cute, if you look too close you see that the perfectionist in me did not win on this project :) I found some little ball things at the craft store that I was able to stick in there to fill the open space and a cute silver star to go on top.

We also got our tree up and decorated last weekend and I even got to bring some of my nutcrackers back with me to decorate our apartment. Here are a few shots of those too. . . Our tree does have blue and white lights on it, you just can't see them real well
Now I am working on baking cookies that freeze and still wanting to make christmas cards for people to earn a little extra money. As Dave Ramsey would say, I am looking to work in my strength :)

DIY Night

Fueled by the fact that I have no motivation to do any of the things on my list of things to do I have declared tonight do it yourself night. I started out the night at Walmart getting supplies:
wreath $2
3 boxes of ornaments $9 ($3 each)
Door Hanger $2
Grand Total: $13
(I had the other three boxes of ornaments that we bought last year after Christmas)and then proceeded to make this

and this. . . The jury is still out on this one, I think the idea is cute but mine is kind of lopsided and not cute, I am thinking I will get a foam cone and try again :)
Hmm, what will I think of crafting next. . .

Done and Done

The last few weeks at the Miller household have been what you might call "organized" chaos. Ryan has been crazy busy at work and every night that I have been at work late he has stayed at work late to just get things done add in a few car troubles and things get fun! This week was especially nuts with conferences and trying to decide on what kind of car to buy. Tuesday Ryan went in to work late and I did not have to be at school until 11:30 so we slept in (until 7:15 which is totally sleeping in for us) and went to test drive a car. We then went out for breakfast and decided to buy a Ford Fusion. So now conferences are done and although we technically have not bought a car yet we have made a decision! We are thankful to be happy, healthy, and surrounded by wonderful families that are able to help us out when we are in a pinch this thanksgiving and always! God is working in our lives and just continues to provide for everything we need. May you trust him this Thanksgiving to provide for all of your needs!

You're Not Gonna Believe This!

So we started out day at school today with a meeting of all 3-6 graders. We had a Veteran's day presentation where we said the pledge, watched a video and then talked about simple things like what veterans are, why they are important, and why we should thank them. About two minutes before we started the pledge I had a little girl in my fifth grade class come up to me and say "Mrs. Miller, I am not supposed to pledge." I honestly think my jaw hit the floor! I was totally speechless and mumbled something about well do whatever you need to.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?! Where in the world does a fifth grader come up with the notion that she does not need to pledge allegiance to the flag of the nation that she lives in and honor the commitment to our freedom and those who keep us free. I know that there is some sort of parent thing behind that but I was seriously appalled and I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of our veterans, thank you to everyone who serves our country in any way, who donates their time, keep us safe, and those who have given their life so that we can have the privileges and freedoms that we have with that said, I proudly pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation UNDER GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all!

When You Are A Fifth Grader. . .

Any opportunity to wear something out of the ordinary is exciting! Due to the need to be politically correct we are not allowed to have "Halloween" Parties so we have "Fall Festivals" and this year we were able to have a theme. Due to the fact that my class did not want anyone to feel left out by not having something we chose as a theme we picked 'hat and scarf day' so that all who wanted to participate could. Well here we are: Little did we know that it would start snowing at 12:30 and continue all afternoon throwing off any chance we had at accomplishing ANYTHING! Can you totally tell we are 5th graders?!

The next few weeks are crazy around here including things like deer hunting, conferences, work nights, and of course financial peace university on Tuesday nights!

Lots to say

So being that I have the next two days off of school I have a few lists of things I want to do (shocking, I know, that I would make lists). Being that I finished EVERYTHING on my have to get done Thursday list I figured that I could take some time and do some of the things on my would like to do list. I baked cookies, read a little, and then started doing something that I am getting kind of excited about. I am not sure how it is going to go but I am going to put it out there. For my birthday I got some really, really cool scrapbooking software and I can make all kinds of things on my computer now. I made things for our wedding like the save the date cards, table numbers, thank you cards, and welcome bag tags. I also played around with a couple baby announcements when some friends of mine had babies. The more I have been thinking the more I have been looking at doing Christmas cards. This is where all of you come in. . . I am thinking that it would be fun if I could make Christmas cards for some of you. I know it is October but if I start now it wouldn't be so crazy later. I took some pictures of Ryan and I and my family and made a few "mock-ups" that you could choose if you would like or I could make a custom one. All you would have to do would be email me a picture (or two or three) and pay me $10.00. I would then make up a Christmas card for you and email it to you to print at costco, target, wallyworld, wherever you can print pictures. I could do pretty much any size and you can tell me what you want it to say or I could be creative with it. Think about it, check out the samples below, and if you are interested email me at ljwhite07@gmail.com. You could also tell your friends that you think might be interested :) Think about it and let me know. Here are the samples:

Mel & Eric Teders

This weekend my friend Mel married the love of her life, Eric. I was blessed enough to be there the night they met and be in their wedding and celebrate with them. It was a beautiful wedding and we wish them many many many many years of happiness!

Mel and her dad

THE kissBuddies!

Mel and her nephew :)

My hubby and I

Wedding Pictures and Video

For those of you who have been waiting as anxiously as I have for the wedding pictures from the photographer and the highlight video from the videographer here are the links to both

The video is http://www.primaverastudios.com/index.html#/leanneandryan/

and the pictures are on Chelsie's Blog at http://www.chelsiekrafka.com/blog/

There will be more pictures but here are the ones we can see as of now. Enjoy!

Who Knew?!?!?!

1. Who knew that watching the sun rise each morning on the way to work would become one of my FAVORITE parts of the day?

2. Who knew that moving from an OLD school building into a brand NEW one would bring so many new challenges and opportunities all at the same time?

3. Who knew that a summer could CREEP by so slowly and FLY by so fast all at the same time?

4. Who knew that lasagna needs TWO jars of sauce?

5. Who knew that one awesome man could snore SO LOUD?

6. Who knew that a one stall garage could clear out one WHOLE room in our apartment and still have room for my car?

7. Who knew that we could make so many trips to TARGET to get 'one more thing?'

8. Who knew that a weekend with NOTHING planned could be so productive and relaxing?

9. Who knew that when your cell phone dies at 4:37AM it BEEPS really loud every 5 minutes until you find out where the noise is coming from, find the phone and plug it in?

10. Who knew that God would provide so many awesome surprises in such a short time and answer some prayers that have been LONG standing?

Wedding and Honeymoon

I don't have a ton of pictures to post but here are the few I do have. Everything went great even with the tornado warning :0)

Me with my beautiful flowers!


Ryan and I after our ceremony

Our Fabulous wedding party!



The view from our room at the hotel on our honeymoon.
We had so much fun and now we are back to reality and I am work work working on getting my classroom ready and at the same time trying to get our apartment together. It is a process but it will get there eventually! Thanks to everyone who made our big day as special as it was!

Life at the White House

9 days away from the wedding and things are coming together! My mom is fixing my dress for the rehearsal dinner, we are in the middle of programs and placecards, we got the tile from home depot, and Aimee and I found some time to go to the twins game. . . Here is my photojournal from the week Mom wanted Aimee and I to "hop in"

She needed a strap perfect!

LOVE the subway mini mascots

Aimee and I with my mom's souvenier :) The twistie tie from our kettle corn

Quotes of the game
"Aimee did you bring any money with you?"
. . . no verbal response, just a smile!

"Mom, Cole won't share his balls with me!"

Not gonna lie, I might not blog for a few weeks. . . a few things going on around here. Hopefully the next time I do will be with wedding pictures! Thanks in advance to everyone who is helping out with one thing or another, Especially my mom's friends, you guys are great!