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As promised, here’s some pictures from our trip downstate for Greg’s brother’s deployment for Iraq. We had a fun time and so did everyone seeing how much Miles has grown!

The last few weeks seem like they’ve been pretty busy but we haven’t done a whole lot, really. Last weekend we had the excitement of waking up early Saturday morning to discover our furnace wasn’t working. Luckily we had some dry wood in the garage so we used the fireplace in our living room. It doesn’t put out a ton of heat but it was better than nothing. Thankfully, the repair guys had it running again by noon. It was a bad ground wire on the auto pilot but they also discovered our circulation pump was bad, too. This explained why it took so long to heat up the house and why our bedroom was one of the colder rooms. Now that it works it’s like night and day. Plus, we should be able to save money on propane. Later that day, Leah’s mom came for an overnight visit to see Miles and we had a nice Valentine’s dinner at home that night.

Last week it snowed some more and we’re getting really close to breaking the hundred inch mark for the season here in Skandia. Miles is also continuing to grow and change before our eyes. Today, he is 5 months old! It’s hard to believe he’s already there and we comment that he seems like a little boy rather than a baby. Leah will be doing a write-up soon of his accomplishments and other details.

Below are some pics from recent days. For Valentine’s, Leah gave me these cool custom M&Ms. (Miles looks like the Gerber baby on them.) This past weekend we went to the start of the U.P. 200 dog sled race in Marquette and Miles seemed to enjoy that. Then on Saturday we drove down to Nahma for the annual church fundraiser and stayed at Leah’s grandma’s house.  Miles is strong enough now to do the famous standing on Leah’s dad’s hand trick, a tradition for all the little ones.

Custom M&Ms from Leah & Miles

Miles at his first U.P. 200 dog sled race

Watching the dogs run

Standing on grandpa Russ' hand

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now, but Miles has started eating some solid food. So far he’s only had rice and oat cereal, and he’s still not too sure about either one. I’m only giving it to him about every other day because I’m not really sure if he’s ready for it. He seems really interested in what we eat, but when it’s his turn, he’s not really sure what to do. One day he’ll eat really well and the next day he acts like he’s never eaten before. So I’m taking it slow with him, giving him only a few bites and stopping if he’s not into it.

Miles eating cereal for the first time

Two weekends ago we headed down to the ski jumps. It was cold, cold, cold outside, so Miles was really bundled up. He was awake for maybe an hour and then fell asleep and slept the rest of the time we were there, all toasty warm in his sled. Greg got some pretty cool pictures, including one of my dad and Miles with Steve Mariucci.

Grandpa Russ & Miles with Steve Mariucci

Last Friday Miles finally had his shots, and I was worried ahead of time because of how upset he was the last time. This time was totally different. He only cried during the actual shots and was totally fine afterward. He slept most of the afternoon and was pretty sleepy all weekend, and also ran a mild fever on Sunday and Monday, but he seems to be fully recovered now.

Greg’s brother Steve came up on Thursday, though I think Greg will write about all of the stuff they did while Miles and I stayed home.

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Since Steve will be deployed in a few months, he decided to come up north for a few days to hang out and do some ice fishing. We headed out on Friday morning to Lake Independence in Big Bay (30 minutes northwest of Marquette) and did pretty well. The fish were biting pretty good in the morning and then picked up again later in the afternoon. We caught a total of 4 walleye and 2 northern pike and brought home 3 of the walleye for dinner. On Saturday, we headed to Negaunee for our little cousins’ (Jacob & Caleb) hockey game. Watching 6 & 8 year olds play hockey is quite entertaining. The older one, Jacob, ended up with 2 goals during the game and their team also won! Later that evening we headed over to their house to check out their homemade luge run through the woods. Pretty dang impressive and fast! On Sunday, we went ice fishing at Sporley Lake, which is about 10 minutes from our house. The weather was great and we caught 3 splake (lake trout/brooke trout cross) but none were over 15″ to bring home. In the afternoon we went down to the Skandia Township pavilion to play hockey with Jacob and his dad, Ken. After 2 hours of skating and playing 2-on-2 hockey, we were whipped. Steve headed back downstate yesterday but we’re hoping to make one more trip down below before he is shipped out. Miles also enjoyed Steve’s company and was even giggling for him.

Leah & Miles

Steve displaying the pre-cooked walleye dinner

Leah making Miles laugh last night

Last Tuesday night we headed down to Greg’s parents’ house for Christmas with his family. It was a lot of fun and I feel like I ate and ate and ate a lot of good food. Greg’s mom made cheesy potatoes because she knows how much I love them. I also ate way more dessert than I normally do, and it was wonderful. I love dessert.

It was Miles’ first Christmas, though he slept through most of the gift opening. I imagine we only have a few more Christmases until he’s waking us up in the middle of the night to see if it’s time to open presents yet. I remember waking up my parents, thinking it had to be time, only to find out that it was 11:30 at night.

Santa managed to find Miles, though, and he got some blocks, a baby photo album (that’s a photo album for him), and a GloWorm (I had one when I was little, so I told Santa to bring him one). He also got a lot of gifts from everyone else, including a couple of teddy bears, some cute outfits, and a cover for his car seat to help keep him warm. His Uncle Steve got him a Lions jersey with M. Kretovic on the back of it.

Greg and I got some wonderful presents, too. Greg is anxious to try out his ice fishing stuff, though I think he needs to wait a little bit longer before heading out on the lakes. I’ll be trying out some recipes from my new crock-pot cookbook. That will come in handy when I go back to work next week (I still can’t believe I go back next week already. Too sad.).

Miles, of course, entertained everyone. He was very good and liked meeting all of his uncles and his aunt. He was a little fussy during Christmas Eve mass because it was way past his bedtime and he was hot, so I had to take off his cute vest and just walk him in the back of the church until he fell asleep.

The weather was also pretty prominent on our vacation. Freezing rain on Christmas Eve caused a lot of local churches to cancel their services. We were supposed to head up to visit Greg’s grandma on Saturday, but the weather up her way wasn’t the greatest, so we ended up going bowling instead. When we headed back home yesterday, we ran into some pretty snowy weather. Between that and needing to stop to feed Miles, our trip back took 10 hours instead of the usual 7.

Miles also had a bit of a meltdown in the car just as we were almost home. He cried the last two hours of the trip, just tired of being in his car seat. I think we’ll be traveling at night with him in the future, because he was great on the way down. He fell asleep before the bridge and slept the entire way there.

Below are some pictures from the Kretovic Christmas. Thursday we’ll head down to my grandma’s house for New Year’s and Christmas with my family.

Here’s some images from our Thanksgiving weekend in Nahma. Miles got to meet quite a few cousins and loved all the attention. We ate a lot of food, watched the Lions lose to the Packers, played cards and jammed on Guitar Hero. All in all, a great weekend!