A few weekends ago we packed up the clan and headed to Salt Lake for a very eventful weekend. We had an opportunity to get family pictures by the amazing Yan, which just happened to land on the weekend of my cousin Harrison’s homecoming.

The first day was a little hectic.. Family pictures are not a favorite among the Miller House (or should I say MR Miller’s house) so I knew I was asking for trouble when we scheduled for the same day we were driving up. It was chaotic to say the least, but I still think our pictures will turn out fabulous.

We all needed matching red piggies for our pictures 🙂

Notice Harlo in the background.. always the Diva.


Of course I had to stop in Beaver to get our traditional souvenir picture on the giant rocking chair.. still kicking myself for forgetting when we traveled up when Stella was a newborn! Even though Harlo’s face doesn’t look too happy.. I promise she was stoked about the big rocking chair 🙂 That’s just her signature look 😉

The next day we headed to Park City to meet up with my dad and Ali and Nancy and Uncle Jeff. Of course we met at the usual, Wasatch Brew Pub. We’ve been spending days there since I was a kid and I was happy to pass on the tradition to my little ones. They were SO well behaved at this lunch.. I was very excited about that! (This is also basically the only place we sat for long enough to get my camera out.. whoopsie!)

My little sparkly eye girl showing off her new tooth.

Love those Chippies.


Gramma Nance

Uncle Jeff


Auntie and Mama

It was probably my favorite part of the trip.

Oh! And My dad (of all people) taught Stella how to suck through a straw here. Funny little story…
I saw him trying to give her a drink and I told him she couldn’t suck through a straw and he’d have to hold the water in with his finger then let it go, ya know? Well later this day we went to Ikea and then stopped at my favorite, Chipotle, for some Miller-Family-Alone-Time and Stella got a hold of the straw and just started sucking away… total pro. I KNEW she couldn’t do it the day before so I was so excited. (and double excited that she had learned at Chipotle, my favorite)
Well, I got home to the little BBQ that was going on at Angie’s and told everyone how big Stella was that she just sucked through a straw for the first time!
My dad says, “oh yeah.. that.. I taught her that today at lunch.” I was like, “what?? You did?” and he says (as cavalier as ever), “Yeah, I just was holding it like you told me to then when she’d go to suck the water out, I’d hurry and put it back in the cup and she just kept sucking.”
haha.. so random, My dad didn’t even think to mention “oh look, she’s drinking from a straw” after I had just told him she couldn’t. Ohhhh that father of mine… I just told him “well, I guess we can never say you didn’t teach them anything!” 🙂 Thanks Pop!

For months now, my dad has called Stella “Baby Angela” and swears that she looks just like Angie did as a baby. (all my baby pictures got lost several years ago, so I can never compare my own with my girls) While we were at Angie’s, she pulled out a few of hers and we couldn’t believe the resemblance! This picture was kinda jenky, just taken with my phone so you can’t even tell as much, but it was like twins! We were saying that my baby looks way more like Angie than her own does, and more than she’ll ever look like me!

The biggest success was the sleeping arrangement on the trip. My girls are the kind of girls that like (NEED) their own beds to sleep in. Since Harlo was about a year, traveling has not been our “thing” simply because she cannot sleep with us, and she will not sleep anywhere besides her crib. The first night I thought was going to be HORRIBLE, but after a little meltdown from Stella (in our bed) I moved her to the pack and play and kept Harlo in bed with us and honestly never heard another peep out of either of them. I did get kicked in the face more than once, but at least they slept! The second night Stella konked early so we just put her in Tage’s crib that he doesn’t use yet and again Harlo in bed with us.. no problems!
Stella is just on the verge of the hard stage, so we’re going to make a conscious effort to let her sleep with us or in her pack and play every once in a while so she can get used to it.
So funny, we have the EXACT opposite problems with sleeping babies as most couples do. Usually you hear people not knowing how to get their babies OUT of their bed, not IN.

Any tips????

Of course there were high and low parts to the trip, but I gave it an overall success rate of 70%, and Brady gave it 75%. I guess that’s how it always goes, eh?

Thank you Angie and fam for hosting us! xoxo