Morgan – It’s amazing how time flies.  Morgan’s growing like a weed.  Amazingly it’s almost been a year.  She is crawling great and getting around everywhere.  She has started crawling up the stairs which we had to rope off   She has 4 teeth now, two front top and bottom.  She laughs and smiles all the time, except when you try and put a camera in front of her face   Other than that she is great!

Matthew – Is good.  Getting into quite a bit of trouble not listening.  Michelle thinks it has to do with the attention Morgan is getting, but I just don’t buy it.  He has always had issues with listening to us.  He can recite the Subway song or beer commercials non stop but as to what i told him 5 minutes ago, forget about it, literally.  He is a great kid, don’t let me fool you.  I just wish he would listen a little more

Vacation – For valentines day I surprised Michelle and Matthew with a trip to Disney World.  We will be staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge from May 9th through May 16th.  This will be our second trip to Disney and I can’t be more excited.  I ended up getting an all inclusive thing with food and the whole nine yards.  Michelle has since made reservations at various restaurants around Disney for almost every meal!  Most places you have to set up reservations well in advance.  Anyway, I almost wish it was closer because I am really excited.

Other than that not too much going on.  Our car has been in the shop for 4 days with a broken timing belt and some other minor ailments, as much as almost two grand can be minor.  Right now I am working from home looking out at about a foot of snow so i have to prepare after lunch to go out and get pelted by snowballs by my son who wont stop asking me   I have put some pics up, and I do apologize.  I can’t believe my last upload was before Halloween.  Anyway I think that will do it for now.  Enjoy the quick update and we’ll talk to you soon.

Scott

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All is well on the home front.  Morgan and Matthew are doing very good.  No issues to speak of other than Matthew’s not listening and getting in trouble.  Morgan’s getting pretty big   I think Michelle mentioned 16 pounds recently.  We have an official doctors appointment the 20th so can update you then.  Matthew is learning more numbers and letters everyday.  He just came downstairs and had a Pizza Hut magnet in his hand and rattled off the phone number and said “Daddy let’s call Pizza Hut, I like Pizza Hut for dinner.”  He’s smart, sometimes too smart   Also some new pics added.  Not much outside of our trip to the zoo, but a few decent shots.

Work is work.  Keeping me very busy.  The week vacation I had in October seemed to just disintegrate into nothing.  I have 4 weeks to squeeze into the last bit of the year and that’s not gonna happen.  I am taking a week after Thanksgiving and two more after Christmas, but the third is not going to happen.  I honestly can’t wait for the one after Thanksgiving.  I just want some time off.  Try and relax around the house and not think about computers for awhile.  But I doubt that will be the case.  Christmas we have plans to go see my family down at Bethany beach again.  Becoming almost tradition and I don’t mind it at all.  I love the beach.  Hate the sand, love the beach so the cold weather makes it great since I don’t have to get hounded for take me to the beach

I’ve got a couple of other blogs floating in my head, but just don’t feel like articulating them right now with the laundry and dishes to do so they will have to wait for vacation.  Hope that catches up for now and keeps you subdued for at least a few weeks.  Not much else to report.  Hope everyone out there is doing well.

Love and Miss you All!  Scott

P.S. before I forget.  Anyone wanting to know gift ideas for Christmas, Michelle’s dad is getting us a Wii, which I am grateful for since that was what I was going to get, so anything Wii related for any of us, since it will definitely be used by all of us   For Matthew he is in love with Star Wars, Spiderman, Iron Man, and Transformers.  Cars is still good, but he has pulled away from them quite a bit.  For Morgan, clothes would be great, 9-12 months.  And if you actually were thinking about Michelle or I, feel free to put anything towards the kids.  This year is gonna be tight for us with the two houses so I have no problem everyone neglecting us.

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Matthew - He is doing fine.  Think he is starving for attention, or at least he thinks so, now that Morgan is here so he seems to be getting in a lot more trouble for not listening.  All in all though he is great with Morgan and loves her, accept when she pukes then he goes running   He loves playing with her and talking to er and there really is a connection between the two.  Morgan loves to look at him and he makes her laugh all the time.  We have been watching a lot of the Food Network, I am dying for my DirecTV, and Matthew has been watching as well.  So anytime Michelle is cooking Matthew has been wanting to help.  Right now Michelle is cooking dinner and Matthew is trying to do anything to help her out, it’s great to see him taking an interest in some things as he gets older.

Morgan - Is doing great.  Growing like a weed and all.  We had our most recent doctors appointment on Tuesday of last week and she was 13lbs and 24.25 inches long.  She has one tooth coming in that has been coming in for some time.  With the tooth coming in she drools non-stop.  Michelle puts two bibs on her all the time because the first one soaks through in a matter of minutes all most.  Not only does she drool but she spits, or makes raspberries with her mouth which makes it wore as well.  Because of all the drool and such I have started calling her bubbles and Michelle calls her Rabid Baby, as you can see why below.  She is laughing a ton and talking as well.  Always smiling until of course she has to sleep then its all screams.  She does not like to sleep at all and at max can only stay down for about 3 or 4 hours at night.

Michelle and Scott – As if anyone is interested in us   Michelle is doing good.  Outside of lack of sleep everything is good.  Concern for family due to hurricane Ike, but that has subsided since we have had reports of no major damage from family.  I have been swamped at work as always.  Thanks to hurricane Ike I was watching over our Port Arthur office traffic from Philly and thanks to Gustav I was watching our New Orleans traffic as well.  All this while my number one guy Jose was on vacation on a cruise ship in the Carib being chased by Gustav and Ike   Outside of work there isn’t much else for me.  Come home and try and relax some before it all starts over again

Family and Friends – Hurricane Ike caused a lot of grief worrying about family and friends, but the good news is almost everyone came out with only minor damage.  I still have not been able to get in touch with my father, which I will be picking up the phone as soon as I am done typing to try and get him again, but that’s nothing new there so I am not that concerned.  If something were wrong I think I would have gotten a call so not too worried.  The one exception was Aliceson Haynes.  We just learned that their family took extensive damage to their home.  Aliceson and her family just sold their home and purchased their current home a little over a month ago.  Luckily their flood insurance kicked in the day the storm hit so they should be ok financially, but just thinking about all the memories and personal items that were lost that can never be replaced is heartbreaking.  Please keep Aliceson in your thoughts and prayers as they recover from the storm.

Vacation - Many of you know we typically take vacation around the time our company has our managers meetings because they are held in Houston and it’s easy for us to stay down there a week before or after.  We were setting everything up and got word last week that the meetings have been moved from Houston to Philly thanks to Ike.  So vacation this year looks to be ruined.  I still am planning on taking some time off just to try and recharge, but other than that we probably wont be doing much for the rest of the year.  After hearing Jose’s wonderful comments about his cruise I am really leaning towards going on a cruise next year as our big family vacation.  We’ll see how it goes.

Think that about does it for us.  That should keep you occupied on us for the past month or so.  Will try and keep you posted a little better but if you’re reading this you know me   Vacation is next week and I hope to get to the Zoo and the par a few days with Matthew at least so I should be posting quite a few pics, so keep your eyes posted.

Scott

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Morgan on the other hand, did not like the game   When Matthew went to the games he loved them, loved the lights, the sounds, the whole nine yards, even slept through a lot of it.  Morgan, just the opposite.  Anytime the crowd started to yell or the PA was loud she started screaming.  I tried to keep her quiet a little but Michelle ended up just taking her inside to shelter her from most of the noise.  You can see her tear stained eyes here.

All in all we had a very good time and the Phils ended up winning, so it was a good night.

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We were lucky enough to be invited by Gary and Shirley Bradford of Cape Henry Launch to a fishing trip on August 10, 2008 down in Virginia Beach so we took a road trip down to VA for the weekend.  I didn’t feel comfortable with Morgan coming so Michelle and Morgan were left behind and this was a guys day out for Matthew and I.  Right before we headed down all of us went to eat a late breakfast before the 1pm start time.  We had to go back to the hotel because we didn’t have a few things.  It was amazing, the sky just cracked open.  I have no idea where it came from but the wind started blowing and the rain just poured.  I was honestly worried about the trip the weather was so bad.  It only lasted about 30 minutes and ten the sun came out and it was beautiful, it was so weird.

Once we got onboard Matthew was having a great time talking to everyone and looking around, that was until we started moving.  This being the first time on water, he sure needed to get his sea legs under him.

Once we were moving though he started to get a little more comfortable, but he didn’t want to get too far away from me.

By the time we got out to our first stop though he was fine and so excited about everything that was going on.  Everyone was catching fish, but they all were pretty small.  I think the biggest fish of the day was just over a foot long.  I ended up walking away with a shirt for the second biggest fish, an eleven and a quarter inch blue fish.  At one stop everyone was catching skates, and I mean everyone.  I think we caught about 6 or 7 skates in that one place.

We had a very good time and I was very appreciative to take a mini vacation even though it was tough to pack it all in 3 days.  Gary and Shirley were great to invite us out and not only that but Shirley took great care of Matthew while onboard

I of course had to take a few shots of the vessel’s at anchor, can’t escape work for very long can I.  Here are just a few I took.

You can look at all the pics in our album here.

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So I am downstairs doing laundry and just put a load in so I sit down to follow up on a few things, start FireFox to view a few websites and ESPN.com pops up, my home page.  On the cover was a picture of Brett Favre.  No uniform or anything, just a head sho0t probably from one of his pressers this year.  Well Matthew caught a glimpse and looks at me and tells me “Brett Favre is back in football.”  I looked over in amazement because I had not told Michelle anything about Favre in a few days.  I can’t tell you how proud I was in that moment   He then proceeds to ask “Is he in Washington?”  Now bear in mind Washington was one of the teams rumored to be in the mix for Favre’s services but it hasn’t been discussed in awhile.  And no don’t get any ideas about Washington playing tonight and that’s where he got it from, No.  We hadn’t even discussed football being on tonight yet.  So not only did he catch Favre was coming back but knew a potential home for him.  Such love and pride came out of me at that time

Anyway just had to share the story.  As it’s been said many a time before…”That’s my boy!”

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     I weighed Morgan this morning and she is over 10 lbs.!  Hard to believe Matthew was 8 lbs. at 2mos., but theoretically he was about 2wks old when you factor in the preemie time.

Hope to get out this weekend and get some good pics (maybe going to a friend’s mom’s house with a pool and hot tub

Everyone have a great and safe July 4th and stay cool!

Michelle

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Vacation was tiring, doing things around the house and running around doing errands, that was about it. Matthew is doing fine and enjoying Morgan as well. I’ve uploaded a few more pics, but I haven’t taken too many just because she’s asleep most of the time   (Edit to say after I looked through I had more than I thought, here’s my favorite)

Will keep you updated!

Scott

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Matthew’s meeting with Morgan, went great.  I think Michelle and I both were a little concerned over the fact that there wasn’t much personalization for Matthew leading up to the birth, so I for one wasn’t sure how he was going to adjust to her, but we couldn’t ask for anything better to be honest.  Matthew loves on her all the time and wants to be right next to her and hold her and the whole nine yards.  It really is wonderful to see.  Two wonderful things that came out of yesterday though, I have to share.

Michelle got up to get the portable breast pump that the hospital left us to pump, more on that shortly, and she was rolling it over to the bed.  Matthew was standing next to me out of Michelle’s way and he looks over at her and says “Mommy, is that a gas pump?”  Where this came from I have no idea, but it was absolutely hilarious.  It was difficult for Michelle to not laugh to hard because it hurt so much.

Next as I was holding Morgan, Matthew was next to me petting her face and giving her kisses.  He looks up at me and says so matter-of-factly, “Why’s she not purring?”  I had to make sure everyone in the room heard that one.  Boy can you tell we are cat people or what   We later explained to Matthew that only kitty’s purr

So back to the breast pump.  Michelle is very much in favor of breast feeding and was adamant with me that she wanted to ensure whatever happened in surgery that she was to breast feed Morgan an hour after she was born.  So we got all finished and back to the recovery room and she was able to feed her, all was well.  I think she even fed her again once we got to our next room, but I could be mistaken.  Well of course as I go to pick up Matthew and take my mom home, a nurse comes in and tells Michelle that she can’t breast feed, there is an issue with her medication.  Now let me remind you we have seen umpteen doctors during this pregnancy.  We saw a regular OB, we saw a high risk OB, Michelle saw her Lupus doctor in Baltimore, she saw a Lupus doctor in Philly, she saw a psychiatrist in altimore, and I can’t even count the total number of visits.  But what I can count is the number of times there was an issue about breast feeding, none.  Michelle made it a point to ensure her vast medications would not in any way bother the baby in utero or afterwards during breast feeding.  Well apparently one doctor/nurse here at HUP got a hair up her butt about Wellbutrin.  So she said, was not a recommendation as they later tried to say it was, she couldn’t breast feed until more info was known and discussed.  So Morgan was given bottles of formula until the issue could be resolved.  Well after discussing with numerous doctors during the day and Michelle calling most of her doctors to get them to contact HUP and let them know there was no issue, they said OK, it won’t be a problem, but not so fast.  Turns out for whatever reason they decided that Prilosec was not the devil and she could not be on it and breast feed.  So now we had to wait 24 hours to get the Prilosec out of her system before she was able to breast feed.  Well one sympathetic nurse let Michelle breast feed her that night and she has continued ever since.  Problem with all this is, well there is too many to discuss in detail but, Morgan didn’t want to latch on in the beginning, nipple confusion as they say, but no arm no foul as she has taken very well to things today.

Michelle is doing good as long as they keep her percocet and Motrin in her.  Morgan is doing great.  She is one lazy kid   Sleeps most of the day and is the quietest thing in the world as long as you let her be.  The minute you try moving her around or uncovering her, she starts to wail.

Finally, barring any setbacks tomorrow is going home day!  We hope to be out of here by noon, but we’ll see how everything goes.  Nurse said they should be in in the morning to remove Michelle’s staples and there is nothing left for Morgan so after that we should be fine.  Will post again as soon as we get home to let everyone know.  Sorry no pictures tonight because I will be staying here and don’t have a memory card slot in this laptop.  But I will make sure I post some tomorrow.  Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, prayers, emails, the works.  It’s greatly appreciated.

The Miller’s!

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