High Five!

So we had Teri, David, Willow and Wren over for dinner the other night. It's been really cool to see Wren and Merrick interact - or rather not really interact - since they're only 3 months apart. I've read that at this age they do more "parallel play" - which essentially means they don't really know how to play together, so they play next to each other. Having said that, I just happened to catch a cute interaction between the two of them on video, with Wren eating off Merrick's tray, and Merrick asking Wren for a "High Five"! Please excuse the obnoxious adults in the background....how do these kids put up with us!!

Endeavour Shuttle Launch

For the first time (yes, I can't believe it took us this long considering we've been in Florida over 4 years), we took advantage of being able to catch the Space Shuttle Endeavour launch. We didn't even have to go to Cape Canaveral, we were able to see it from the beach here in St. Augustine! It was really amazing - I can only imagine what it would be like to see the launch up close - we are going to make sure we do that before we leave.

Below are a few pictures...now mind you it was SUPER dark, and to top it off there was the challenge of trying to get 3 kids in the frame at the same time (a virtually impossible feat). Note the popsicles. I thought it would be a brilliant idea to bring popsicles along for the kids as a treat...the only thing I forgot? Something to wipe their sticky hands and faces. Popsicles and sand - not a good mixture. Yuck!

Creative Genius, or Just Bored?

You decide!

Miscellaneous - or Complete Randomness Thoughts on our 18 Month Old

Okay, this entry is a true "blog" in every sense of the word. Random entries about the things he does that amaze or humor me, and I'm so afraid these little things will be forgotten if I don't put them down! So a warning for those who do not wish to have their head spinning at the end of an entry - do not continue reading! It is a mind dump and has not been checked for grammar, run-on or fragment sentences, etc. :)


1) I am truly, TRULY amazed at how quickly Merrick is picking up new words and phrases. He is such a little sponge! He wants to know what everything is, and always asks "dah dah"...which we discovered doesn't always mean Craig, but rather - "what's that". If I sit down with him in the morning while he's drinking his milk and turn on the news, he wants to know who every person is. So lately, here would be the conversation.....M: "dah dah!" Me: "oh that's the CNN lady", M: "N N Lady!"; M: "dah dah", Me: "that's the big bad AIG CEO that wants us to bail him out", M: "bail out"....etc.


2) Some of the things he's saying - he's saying A LOT right now, but some of my faves:::


- "Deh der, no sir!" - translated as "Dexter, no sir!"...this is so funny, because we tell Merrick "no sir!" if he's doing something we don't want him to do. Apparently Merrick thinks he has this authority with Dexter, as well as our Roomba vacuum -- "Boomba, no sir!"


- "Deh der, go pie-eee" - "Dexter, go potty"....you really start to know what you sound like when you're barking out commands, because Merrick starts to say the same stuff.


- "Elmo pees!"...."Elmo please"...Merrick is completely addicted to Sesame Street's Elmo. He LOVES it and wants to watch the same Elmo video over, and over, and over. We let him watch for about 15 mins every morning while I'm getting his lunch together. Craig and I could LITERALLY recite the entire video for you.

- "Silly goose", "Awesome dude!", "Bless you" (when you sneeze)

- Counting to 10. I can't believe this one...one day I was watching Craig play blocks with him and he was counting to 3 with Merrick, except this time Merrick kept on going until he hit 10. I keep trying to get it on video but so far no luck. I'm sure he doesn't know 100% what counting is, but still very cool.

- There are certain books we read to him a lot, and when we get to a page he's familiar with he'll rattle off what's written on there. Not every word is there, but he says the jist of it!

3) The latest sleeping ritual. Each night when we put him down, he wants to know who else is sleeping, or as Merrick would say "peepin". So we got through it..."Grammie peepin, PeePaw peepin, MeeMaw peepin, Papa peepin", etc etc. Last week I made a veggie pot pie (what would you expect from a vegetarian mama whose turn it is to cook - which doesn't happen much in our house). Anyway, that night and now still when I put him down and make the rounds of who's "peepin", he asks "pot pie is peepin?" I'm not sure why he's obsessed with the pot pie, since he refused to eat any of it.

4) The latest response to getting in trouble. When, for example, after the 15th time you tell him not to throw his food on the floor, and the last time you say it perhaps it's a little louder with a strong hint of frustration, he looks at you sheepishly and with a wide grin says "hi".

5) He has an AMAZING memory when it comes to people's names. He'll meet someone once and continue to bring them up. And then if it's a group of names, if you say one of the names he completes it. For example, if you say - "remember Taely" (one of his cousins), he will say "and Ava, and Uncle Jens". Wow, he's only been able to see them a handful of times. Same with Aunt Heidi who he hasn't seen since I can't remember when...."Aunt Heidi and Uncle Ari".

6) Food - I still have a lot to learn when it comes to this area with him. He really just mystifies me sometimes! He's the only kid I know that refuses to eat pizza or macaroni & cheese. Just flat out refuses it. His favorite food right now, hands down, is raspberries. He just can't get enough of them! As for dessert, he really doesn't care for cake or pie or anything along those lines. He loves ice cream, pudding and popsicles. So, we give him some dessert from time to time if he eats a good dinner, but leave what's remaining from dinner on his tray. What's funny to me is he will actually alternate between his dessert and what's remaining from dinner! A little vanilla ice cream, then a bite of broccoli. More ice cream, then some carrots.

7) His imitation of blowing his nose and snoring. SOOOOO FUNNY!!

8) When he's afraid of something, he'll run to me and climb up my leg, then say "you're okay!". He must get that from Craig and I saying it to him whenever he's afraid of something. Right now he's petrified of vacuums and the riding lawnmower. At the same time though, he's obsessed with vacuums and the riding lawnmower. Go figure.

9) My all time favorite is he says "I love you"...we don't hear it that often, but when we do it just melts our hearts! That and the cuddle time we get in the morning. Wow, there's nothing that can beat that.

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time for Halloween!........

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Daddy Day at Curly's

On Wednesday - aka Daddy Day - Merrick and Craig tried to get to Curly's again. Finally it was open, and they had a GREAT time! You can see the pics/video below. When he saw the black & white spotted goats he thought they were cows. If you click on the image it will enlarge. On the 2nd video, you can see the goat jumping up on Craig...it was driving him crazy!

Temper, Temper!

Last Sunday we had a great afternoon planned for Merrick when he woke up from his nap. There's this farm - "Curly's" - where pigs, goats, chickens, roosters, geese and all kinds of animals roam free. There are also horses and cows - fenced in. So we hop in the car and drive about 40 mins. We get there and the gates are shut - CLOSED! ARGGHHH! Well we know Merrick also loves airplanes and Craig had a great last-minute idea to drive a few minutes more to go to the local airport where they have small planes. Merrick had a good time doing this, but he was OVER IT on the drive home. He started throwing a little fit in the backseat so I told him "Merrick, I'm going to take a picture of you throwing a tantrum so you can see how silly you look". Introducing - Mr Crab-apple!:

Bathtub Jazz

So a couple days ago, Craig took Merrick to the store and ended up getting him a toy saxophone. As soon as Craig removes it from the package and gives it to Merrick, he heads straight to the bathtub (??) and decides to play some jazz tunes on his new sax. Check it out below...the thing that cracks me up the most is he's pretending to play NOT with his mouth, but his nose! This video just cracks me up - he starts really getting into it about halfway through when he starts to dance while playing!

Labor Day Wknd in Minnesota

I've been meaning to post about our Labor Day weekend this year for a while, but I had to get all the pictures in order! We had such a great time in Minnesota with the Gernentz's!

For the first time ever, we finally got to see Jalen play hockey. He was AMAZING. I'm telling you he is a pro hockey player in the making. And Kailey is just the sweetest little girl ever. She wanted to play Mommy to Merrick all weekend, which made things way too easy for me! It was just so nice to spend quality time with them; we hadn't been out there since I was pregnant with Merrick.

Tracy and I got plenty of time to catch up, and the guys got in a little golf, plus we spent time at the MN zoo and the Arboretum. Chris of course had his camera everywhere we went and took the most incredible pictures throughout the weekend. THANK YOU! I loaded some up below - unfortunately due to the picture size limits I couldn't get all of them in. You will see that Merrick still had a VERY fresh scar from his fall on the sofa frame earlier in the week. All but 2 of these were taken by Chris. It will be VERY HARD to pick out the 2 pictures that I took, because I am quite good with the camera. Riighhht. :)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Swimming Lessons

For You Mom - Landscaping, Only 2 Weeks Late!

Okay Mom, I've been promising you these pictures for the last 2 weeks. Finally, here are the pictures of the new landscaping. I really wish you could see it for your own eyes, my lousy pictures don't do it justice at all (*hint hint*).

Our First Scar :(

It had to come sometime. He's such a little Weeble Wobble that frankly I'm surprised he's managed to get through without any major scarring thus far. The way he walks, you'd swear I'm spiking his bottle with SOMETHING.

Anyway, he had thrown some pillows on the floor by the sofa, and he wasn't paying attention to what was on the floor when he started walking. Sure enough he tripped on one of the pillows and his face went crashing down on the wood frame of our sofa. This resulted in a nice big gash over his right eye.

The cut looked pretty deep to me and I thought we might need stitches, but Craig is a bit less paranoid than me and thought he was fine. Merrick cried for just a few minutes and then went right back to playing. The next morning I was still a bit paranoid because his eye was swelling, and after all, it is his EYE! So we paid a visit to the Pediatrician, who assured us all was well other than a likely scar below his eyebrow. Poor little guy! I think the hardest thing was feeling so horrible when he did it, and knowing that it was the first of MANY accidents along the way. UGGH!!

E-I-E-I-O

Mom, since you guys can't be here to hear all this stuff in person, a special 'hi Grandma' for you at the end!

Vroom Vroom!

One of Merrick's favorite things to do is have us push him around the house on his tricycle (that's "gi-kikle" to Merrick). We'll push him all over and the faster we go, the more corners we screech around, the more he enjoys it. He just smiles and laughs and goes "vroom vroom!". Here's some footage of Craig taking him around the track. I love the part at the end where Craig stops and Merrick gets mad. Hee hee! :)

Mini Craig

Merrick looks just like Craig - there's no questioning it. They are just two peas in a pod! Not only that, but he has a lot of Craig's mannerisms. He's also always on the go - like Craig, always testing his limits - like Craig, loves musical instruments - like Craig, and I could go on and on. Now don't get me wrong, Merrick being like Craig is such a good thing!! But I've been wondering...what is it about him that's going to be just like Mommy?

Well I've discovered the first thing - he's my little book worm. In our living room we dedicated a shelf on our entertainment center that's just for his books. Next to the entertainment center is his very own little beanbag. He probably takes about 20 minutes everyday to go to his book shelf, pull down several books, and sits down on his beanbag to read. He loves it! So there you have it, just like Mommy! :)

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of him "reading"...

Dancin' Machine

Merrick absolutely loves music, and anytime it's playing he likes to do a little dancin'. Here's his latest -- boy is he destined to tear up the dance floor! :)

Catching Up...4th of July Weekend

We decided that for the 4th of July weekend we would head up to North Carolina to visit Dave, Adrienne and Eliza. The airfare was pretty pricey and there were no direct flights, and after all it was only an 8 hour drive and we had our Prius which make gas prices not too much of a concern, so we decided to go ahead and do a nice road trip.

Well let me tell you...Never. Ever. Again. We will never do that long of a drive again until Merrick's at least 5 or 6. Poor little guy was miserable, which of course means we were miserable too. I mean how can you blame him, being strapped against the back of a carseat all that time. Some friends lent us their DVD player for the trip so he could watch a movie. That worked for about 15 minutes, but he's not quite old enough to watch for that long before he's over it. It was still good to have the DVD player though, it was the best 15 minutes of the trip! I shouldn't complain too much, because all things considered he really was a trooper.

It's funny, when he was really little he would just sleep in his carseat and it was no problem, because he wasn't mobile. We just thought that was the way he was. "Oh", we thought, "we're really lucky that he will just sit there, sleep, and no fussing". Either our friends with kids were very cruel or very kind - I haven't figured which one yet - for not informing us that once they are mobile you can throw all that out the window. EVERYTHING CHANGES once they are walking.

Well, once we got to NC we had a great time. Dave & Adrienne live in Carrboro - which is this really nice town in the Raleigh-Durham/Chapel Hills area. We had a great time catching up with them, watching Merrick and Eliza play, going to the local restaurants, checking out the local farmer's market, and heading out to the country to get some of the best homemade ice cream ever! Unfortunately on the 4th of July there was a torrential downpour right around the time there would have been fireworks, so we didn't get to participate in that. That's okay though, with the kids being so young they didn't know what they were missing.

Here's a slide from our time in NC:

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Daddy Day

Since I started back at work in October last year, Craig has taken every Wednesday off in order to spend it with Merrick. It's "Merrick/Daddy Day". I know Craig LOVES this time, and needless to say it's probably Merrick's favorite day of the week. I'm so happy that we're in a place in our lives right now where Craig has the opportunity to do this! It's especially nice considering he has to work on Saturday, which is my day with Merrick, and then Sunday is family day.

Last Wednesday Craig had to run into his office to print out a few things, so he brought Merrick with him. Well of course he ran around the office wanting to get into EVERYTHING. Here are a couple cute pictures Craig's colleague took of the two of them. In the one on the right, Merrick noticed that Craig's picture was on the brochure so he kept pointing to the picture and saying, "dada, dada, dada?".

Bath Time - Then and Now

Merrick - 1 month old:

Merrick - 13 months old:

Why I Like Colorado More than Florida - Reason # 4,568

So, last weekend Craig went into the garage to get Dexter his dinner. He filled up the dog dish, turned around and what did he find right in his path?......................................

No, it's not plastic - yes, it's real!! It creeps me out just looking at the picture all over again. Mom & Dave were over, so while me, Mom and Merrick barricaded ourselves in the house, Craig and Dave somehow managed to get the snake out of the garage and into our yard somewhere. Ya, that's comforting right?? He's still slithering around somewhere in our yard!!!!!!

We did some research, as well as talk to our neighbor who is a self-proclaimed expert in Florida wildlife, and determined it was a King Snake and was not poisonous. Our house backs up to a preserve, which is really cool in the sense that we have no neighbors against our back yard, but really uncool in the sense that we can expect to see snakes and other creatures from time to time.

I SOOOOOO miss the days of Colorado where you didn't have crazy looking snakes, man-eating mosquitoes and other disgusting creatures. Uggh.

It's Been a While!!

Wow, time flies when you're having fun. I realized it's been a while since I've updated the blog. The last couple weeks have been SUPER busy! Over Memorial weekend we had my Mom & Roy, Heidi & Ari, Jens & Taely & Ava staying with us. To highlight how fun this must have been for everyone, we live in a 3 bdrm house....one is our room, one is Merrick's room, and one is actually our office. SO....everyone was a trooper and we had people sleeping in almost every crack and crevice in this house! It was so nice to have the family all together considering the travels from Colorado, Maryland, West Florida and South Florida.

Let's see, what were the highlights of the family week:

1) Everyone got to be here for Merrick's baptism. I am VERY disappointed in myself because we only got a couple pictures, and none of the whole family. But the good news is the family all got to be here. It was at Mom & Dave Sevison's church, so both sets of grandparents were there!

2) Taely, Ava and Merrick got to spend some quality time together. Taely is such a little girl, it's unbelievable. And Ava is growing up fast too...I can't believe just how sweet and precious the girls are, and they loved being 'mommies' to Merrick. We took the 3 kids to get professional pictures, and they turned out so cute!

3) Heidi's AWESOME veggie burritos. She's lucky she escaped the house...I was about to kidnap her forever and have her cook for us. It's hard being a vegetarian when you are surrounded by a bunch of carnivores...okay I'm sounding a little neanderthal...I'll give them the omnivore credit they deserve. Anyway, it was nice to have my two veggie cohorts to balance things out a bit (Heidi and Ari).

4) The all time, #1, unforgettable highlight was when we spent a day at the beach and Mom decided she was going to boogie board in the ocean. GO MOM!! The waves were actually pretty rough that day, and she took a couple good hits but kept right on going. That was such a sight and of course typical me I did not have a camera to catch it. Next time she's out here we'll have her surfing and wrestling alligators!

Below I put together some pictures I got over the week. I'm disappointed because I didn't get enough pictures of everyone, and for some reason Mom isn't in ANY!! :( I will need to update when I get pictures from Heidi and Mom.

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Jailbird - Also Entitled: Why on Earth are Mommy & Daddy Spending So Much $$ on Toys When I Clearly Like to Play with Things that Aren't Toys!

Okay, so I know this is not something new for most parents, and I may hear a lot of "I told you so". It really baffles me how we could have an entire neighborhood block filled with nothing but age appropriate toys - ones with flashing lights, silly songs guaranteed to stay in your head and drive you crazy for days, all kinds of knobs and buttons and other cool gadgets that the average person would never think of - and yet, Merrick chooses to ignore all that. (Sheesh, and you wonder why kids these days have issues with sitting still and paying attention...these toys are insane!)

He is FAR more interested in things like...oh I don't know....dog crates, empty cardboard boxes, ice buckets, the toy box itself (versus the toys in it - see above), food pantries, tupperware, my cell phone, etc. Here's Merrick playing with a few of his favorite "toys":

Dog Crate Jailbird:

Ice Bucket:

Random Cardboard Box:

Merrick's Birthday Adventure

Merrick was very lucky and got to celebrate his 1st birthday twice! First on Sunday, when we had friends and family over to hang out at the pool. It was lots of fun! Grammie made the COOLEST cake ever to go with the beach theme...check it out:

Aunt Tracy was so sweet and took TONS of pictures so Craig and I didn't even have to think about it. We'll post those soon! Speaking of Aunt Tracy, she came out the spend the entire weekend with us, and to meet Merrick for the first time. After the party we took Tracy to the beach for some fun. Merrick just LOVED his Aunt Tracy....we miss you!

Playing with Aunt Tracy

Doing what he does best at the beach - destroying sand castles!

Then on his actual birthday Grammie, Grandpa, Aunt Teri, Willow and Wren came over to celebrate again! We all had such a good time.

So, after two chances to have all the cake he wanted, he is officially the only 1-year old I know that didn't really want to have ANYTHING to do with it. You can see what he thought by the expression on his face in the 3rd picture. He finally gave it a little try, but that last picture is the messiest he ever got!!

Happy 1st Birthday Son!

To our son - this past year has been the HAPPIEST year of Daddy's and my life, by far! I never knew such a tiny baby could bring a world full of joy. Each day with you, when we think it's just not possible to love you anymore than we already do, you surprise us and we love you even more the next day! We treasure each milestone, each giggle, each cry, and even each tantrum as we know all too well this time with you will FLY by. We look at each other all the time and ask ourselves - "what on earth did we do to ever deserve you"? How unbelievably fortunate we are to be your parents!

It's amazing to see you develop your personality...you are such a HAPPY baby! You like to make yourself and others laugh all the time. Even those quiet times, when you're supposed to be sleeping, we'll catch you babbling to yourself and cracking up with laughter. You're also very observant of the world around you. You love people and interacting with others. I can tell you have a bit of a stubborn streak as well.

Your favorite things in this first year? You love music of all kinds (you get that from both sides of the family), the water, climbing and testing your abilities, the outdoors, and of course bananas. :)

We are so excited to experience your 2nd year and discover more about you, your likes and dislikes, and to watch and help you learn and grow.

All our love forever, Mommy & Daddy.

A Week of Milestones

Sheesh it's been a while since I've posted....we've been busy busy busy! I cannot believe that Merrick's 1st birthday is tomorrow. This year flew by way too fast...I need a couple more years of his first year. In the last few days we've hit a few milestones. Let's see....

Merrick finally decided he would move out of the puree phase and on to finger foods...yay! I seriously thought he'd be calling me for the next batch of purees while he was in college. Anyway, he used to hate bananas, but now it's pretty much all he will eat. Every morning when he wakes up he says..."nana, nana...mmmmmm". So cute! He's going to turn into a monkey, I'm certain of it! Here he is below enjoying his favorite food of the moment. See, he even looks like a monkey:

Next - he's had his first ice cream cone! I know, bad Mommy. But Aunt Tracy is in town and we had to celebrate with something yummy in this already-horrendous heat:

And last but certainly not least...we have a walker! While there have been a few steps here and there over the last week or so, as of yesterday he is officially walking! We have him below walking to Aunt Tracy - even since this video he's mastered it even more:

Merrick's Favorite Things

I can't believe Merrick is less than 2 weeks away from turning 1! In some ways I'm so sad about it - I want him to stay my sweet little baby forever. But in other ways I'm so excited to see what else we have to look forward to. Each stage has been so awesome.

As he gets older, he's starting to develop his lists of likes and dislikes. This is where I'm beginning to realize that he really is his own person. Some of the things he loves are 1) WATER - he just LOVES being in the water....whether at the beach, in the pool or even in the bathtub; and so far he doesn't seem to have any fears - I hope it stays that way! 2) Playing ball, 3) 'playing' guitar with Daddy.

Since we've already got plenty of beach pictures, I thought I'd share some pics of his time with Daddy playing guitar, as well as next to his favorite beach ball!

Bye Bye Gas Guzzler

It is with sadness and fond memories that we say goodbye to one of our SUVs. We had 2 in the family, and while they are immensely useful when dragging around dogs, kids, luggage, etc., wow are they gas guzzlers!

Let me step up to my soapbox for a moment...ahem ahem...I just can't stand the thought of me continuing to drive this thing, getting 18 MPG. I need to invest in a hybrid vehicle - I need to step away from my reliability on foreign oil for two reasons - first because I want to try to do my part in leaving a friendly environment for my son's generation. Second, I find it ironic and a little sickening that the very people from whom we're buying oil are the ones terrorizing the western world. I want no part of it! Okay, stepping down from soapbox...and by the way not meant to be a judgment on anyone else because I have NO room to do this - far from perfect in this area - however, we felt strongly enough that we wanted to do something about it.

Soooo...we went out and traded the MDX for a Toyota Prius. We've been averaging about 48 MPG. NICE! It is a little hard getting used to not having so much space available, but I have to say the Prius is quite roomy for a little car. It also got incredible safety ratings, so I don't feel like I'm driving around in a tin can. Merrick gives the thumbs up too. The only thumbs down comes from Dexter...he insists on riding in the other SUV! :) I'm really hoping that by the time Merrick is old enough to drive (God help us), he will think it's just crazy that we actually used gasoline to fuel our vehicles at one point.

Future Maytag Man???

Hmmm....so, what do you do when your son has an obsession with the clothes dryer? I kid you not. Merrick could sit in the clothes dryer for HOURS...I know what you're thinking - NO he's not in there while it's running! If I make any attempt to do laundry while he's awake, he stops whatever he's doing and crawls like mad to get to the laundry room...he likes to "help" me by throwing anything that's in there on the floor, and then he climbs right in there. Silly, silly baby!