** I've moved all the blogs of Miles first year, second year, and third year of life here, so this page does get too ridiculously long. **

Updated 2/17/12

We've survived three years! - 12/9/11
Miles 3rd birthday was certainly cause for celebration with some of his little buddies, cousin Tess, and gramma/grandpa Haas. There was lots of noise, presents, and cupcakes. He got plenty of fun stuff including a pretend-grill, a drumset (curse you Uncle Stinger!), more trucks, a remote control Lightning McQueen, and more goodies. That night we went on the Santa Express Train in Canon City. All the kids wore their PJ's and the train went to the North Pole, where Santa boarded and visited all the kids. Miles and Tess absolutely loved it. We made a couple more trips down to Manitou to play in the arcade and he stomped around in the snow when we recently got some. Miles has also started going to Zoo Camp on Wednesday's. When his buddies from across the street came over one day, they started a rock band with drums, microphone, whistle, and shakers.... they need to practice more before cutting a record. He also got a new pile of costumes that he's been running around in chasing bad-guys and putting them in time-outs.

Another New Year - 1/6/12
Christmas with a three year old is in-freakin-sane. Sensory overload with the presents, toys, and fun.... leads to no eating, no naps, and playing till falling over asleep. Santa brought Miles lots of cool stuff including some new board games, a space station and astronauts, a fire/police house, race car track, and lots of other things to step on in the middle of the night. While at Tess's house, the two of them were all about getting into trouble... they went outside by themselves (holding hands, atleast) to make footprints in the snow in the front yard in their socks, then snuck away from everyone so they could rip open presents under the Christmas tree, and I found the two of them in the bathroom giggling and holding up a dripping wet medal that they had put in the toilet! Miles was a big help taking the ornaments off the tree that were within his reach, and cleaning up all the pine needles after we took the tree outside. Greenland's New Year (8pm) was celebrated with the Eichmann's kids and with pizza and noise-makers. Their cat scared the absolute crap out of Miles when she hissed at him, he flew out of the room and up onto a bed! Chocolate chip cookies are his recent favorite and he is always finding new ways to convince Jean and I that he should have just one more cookie. He's really loving his new classroom with the older kids and all the science-type activities that they do.

Cookie Monster - 1/20/12
Miles has been finding new and creative ways to justify why he needs a cookie or two. He has also been telling us that he's "age 24" and whenever you ask him how many of something he wants, he's always answers "20". He caught a cold that wasn't too bad except for tons of coughing and sneezing. It sounded like he was going to explode for a couple of days! It was time for another haircut and he's as handsome as ever. We had a great time up at Tess' for her second birthday party, and the two of them were running all around pretending to be driving a truck and living in a house (aka, the hallway). Miles has been making up games lately with funny nonsensical names and they usually involve crawling on me in some new way. He has been real interested in reading lately and will sound out words on his own or spell them.

Exploding Miles - 2/4/12
Miles spontaneously combusted one day, purging everything from his stomach instantly while I was carrying him. It was a mess... and mashed potatoes with milk does not make for a pleasant clean-up. He felt better the next day, just in time for Jean to catch the stomach bug. We got him some new Lightning McQueen shoes and pants since he seems to be growing an inch per day. A couple new fish too, he named the "shoe" and "new". Miles had a dentist appointment and they were happy that he brushes twice a day and said a couple more molars are starting to come in. We sure don't miss the days of his first few teeth coming in! We went to Chuck E Cheese for the first time and it was pretty cool. Lots of fun stuff for the kiddo's to do, and pizza/beer for the adults. Miles had a sleep-over at Tess' house while Jean and I went to Ouray. They had a great time playing non-stop and eating lots of cookies. He says he's scared of the dark and shadows, but sounds like an excuse for Jean or I to sleep with him! A long overdue trip to the Dinosaur museum scared Miles from the stomping and roaring, but he came home with a dino-pillow-pet that he hasn't let go of yet.

Sleepover - 2/17/12
During the SuperBowl Miles had some of his little buddies over and they all played catch (amazingly, only one glass got spilled) in the basement and ran circles around the drumset while hitting the symbols. Miles started zoo camp again and this time they have been feeding meerkats and peacocks. He has been sounding out words that he sees, spelling quite a bit, and tracing the letters of his name. Occasionally he'll skip naps which usually leads to a 13hr night of sleep to catch up. For entertainment he has been climbing onto the arm of the couch and jumping off onto the couch, we tell him not to do it, but he does whenever we're not looking. Tess spent the weekend at our house for a sleepover and they had a great time together. Of course they had their little "toddle stand-offs" but had lots of fun. They both slept in Miles bed, at night Miles would whisper "Tesssssss, go to sleeeeep, stop wiggling" and in the morning he would wake her up by saying "wake up lil' Miss Tess!" We kept them entertained by camping in front of the fireplace, pretending to go on vacation by dragging suitcases around, and jumping up and down on pillows in the basement. I was brave enough to take them both to Chuck 'E Cheese by myself.... definitely much easier with two parents and one kid!