Sunday, September 28, 2014

Random Tidbits

I apologize in advance that this week's blog is going to be a little random to say the least.  This morning I was looking through some pictures from the last couple of weeks.  I noticed that there were a few that never really fit in any blogs and so had gotten passed over.  I decided that now would be as good a time as any for a blog with no semblance of flow or order (but some really cute pictures), so here we go:

CC is kind of a picky eater.  At least she is pickier than I remember Merrick being at her age.  In particular we have a hard time getting her to eat protein.  I am sure it is a texture thing and given that she does not have many teeth, meats can be hard for her to chew (not that she will try).  Also, since she is allergic to egg that eliminates one protein source that was a staple for Merrick when he was her age.  One thing she does love however is sauce.  We have a much easier time getting her to eat if what ever it is is covered in sauce, marinara in particular.  This night I had made some penne with marinara sauce.  She was wearing a dress that I didn't particularly want ruined so we decided to strip her down to her diaper and let he go to town.  Go to town she did, I think she ate twice as much as Merrick (and that is really saying something)

The beginning of the month was Merrick's birthday.  In addition to more toys that I can count, he also was given some money, a gift card to Target, and one to Toys R Us.  He begged and begged until I caved and let him go pick out some things.  After a lengthy deliberation, he determined that what he could not live without was Octonauts.  He bought the "Octopod" and a few accompanying play sets.  He is in little boy heaven.

At preschool this month our theme is "Back to School" and this week we have been talking about school buses.  In the, now three, years I have run the preschool we have never done a snack craft so it is kind of a big deal that this week we made edible school buses.  Merrick enjoyed making his, but enjoyed eating it even more (my assumption is that the same is true for most of the kids, but I wouldn't know because we sent the sugary treat home for them to eat)  

Since the newborn days I don't think I have any pictures of Carrigan sleeping.  She is a fairly light sleeper so I never feel like I can sneak in and get a picture of her without waking her up.  One day this week, however, she had taken a late nap and I needed to wake her up so that she would still sleep that night.  When I went in to get her, she was uncharacteristically dead to the world.  I decided to take advantage and snap a quick picture of my sleeping beauty.

Last but not least, despite it officially being fall, we are still enjoying some summertime weather.  On Friday we went to the park across the street from our house.  The park is flanked by a small area of "forest" that has some short trails in it.  Typically I am telling Merrick to stay out of the forest so that I can see him and CC, but on Friday he really wanted to go explore, so we did.  On one of the trails we found this tree swing, and even though there was a park just a few yard away with lots of swings, this swing was way cooler.  He is still talking about it and planning when he can take Daddy over to see it.

So there you have it.  Random, hodgepodge, but happy memories nonetheless.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

He Did It!

The HUGE news this week is that Bar results finally are in and Jeremy PASSED!!!!!  Results were supposed to be posted online at 2pm Friday.  At 1:57 I could not wait anymore so I checked and they were there.  Jeremy and I huddled around the screen and braced ourselves.  The pass rate was low (only 65%) and when we saw that we both panicked.  After a quick prayer we once again regained the confidence to check.

Once we got to the "C"s I had planned to calmly look through the list but I found my eyes darting, searching frantically.  Jeremy had planned to first look for the name of "Clark" (a girl who he had gone to school with who was always immediately prior to him whenever they were in alphabetical order and whom he knew would pass) and then follow that down to his name.  The problem is when he looked below "Clark" he saw "Clayborne" rather than "Clifford" and he started to panic.  Thankfully, at that very instant, my darting had landed on "Clifford, Jeremy" and I started pointing and screaming.  The next hour was full of hugging, kissing, jumping, screaming, and calling and texting all those who were waiting for the news.  To say that it was a relief is the understatement of the year.

Once a bit of the adrenalin wore off we decided to go to dinner to celebrate.  Unfortunately, as Jeremy is fond of saying, we don't do big celebrations well.  We got stuck in downtown traffic for a long time, got stuck waiting for a train to pass, and once we finally got to the restaurant, it was closed.  We had planned a second stop for dessert so decided to head that way and find somewhere to eat nearby.  We ended up at a place called Pine Street Biscuits.  They make amazing biscuit sandwiches.  This is a photo I found online but it is what I ordered and pretty much exactly what mine looked like.  Jeremy and I really enjoyed it, but they kids were not huge fans.

The second stop was at the famous Salt and Straw for ice cream.  I had heard people raving about it for a long time, but we had never been.  Jeremy had sea salt with caramel ribbon, I had almond brickle with dark chocolate sea salt ganache, and the kids had apricot with citrus.  Despite the line it definitely did not disappoint.

After the we got home and the kids went to bed, Jeremy and I celebrated with an apple cider toast (in regular glasses because that is all we have and we are fancy like that).

We may not do big events well, but we were all on such a high that nothing was going to bring us down and in the end we had a great time.  And now with the Bar behind us we can finally breathe.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

School, Crash, Zoo

As you may gather from this weeks blog title, it has been an eventful week.  School started on Monday and Merrick just barely got to go by the skin of his teeth.  Saturday night, after his party, he woke up throwing up and threw up throughout the night.  Sunday he had a fever that he could not seem to shake.  About 6:30 pm we decided to call it and decided that he would not be going to school the next day and then at about 7 his fever broke, he was bouncing off the walls and wrestling dad.  While we cut it closer than I would have liked, we decided to got ahead and send him to school the next day.

Here is Merrick on his first day of school.  He is not the oldest in the class (a close second), but he is the tallest by a long shot.  I still don't know if we made the right decision to not send him to kindergarten early, but since that is the choice we made I will do my best to keep him engaged and challenged this year.

The second day of school for Merrick in many ways was a bigger day for him than the first.  Due to our preschool numbers this year, we are running a small class on Tuesdays that my co-teacher Lora runs without me.  This means that on Tuesdays Merrick goes to school without me.  I was surprised by how nervous he was to go, but as soon as we got there he was perfectly fine and ready to go.

Unfortunately his apprehension about going to school by himself was not the only trauma Merrick experienced on Tuesday.  That afternoon we decided to go on a bike ride/walk with Aunt Becca to pick Quincy and Colvin up from school.  Everyone was having a great time until Merrick raced down a hill not realizing Quincy was at the bottom.  When he saw him he swerved to miss him, but lost control and crashed, hard.  While he looked gruesome for a while, he has healed quickly and should not have any scaring. (I have a picture, but it is just too sad to post here)

The final highlight of the week was our family trip to the Zoo.  We recently bought a zoo membership and this was our first time going.  The weather was great and we got to get up close and personal with lots of the animals.










Sunday, September 7, 2014

Merrick Turns 5

This week Merrick turned five.  I feel like every year his birthday sneaks up on me.  The last two years we have moved right before his birthday and the last three years I have also had to juggle starting a new preschool year at the same time.  This year however, despite the aforementioned juggling, I was at least prepared with gifts.  A friend of mine had told me a while back about a really good sale they were having a Target. I had gone and decided to tuck some things away for Merrick's birthday.  Luckily I did because when I frantically went to check what I had for him at the very last minute, I blissfully discovered that I was prepared.  Note to self, I should do that every year.

This year his birthday fell on a Friday.  Jeremy had to work, but we picked up doughnuts on the way to take Jeremy to work.  They happened to have doughnuts with green frosting (Merrick's favorite color) and I told him they had made them especially for his birthday.  He ate that up, literally.  I tried to make the rest of the day as special for him as I could.  We went to McDonald's for lunch (something he begs for but we NEVER do) and he met a new friend.  They played really well together and had a blast.  We also had Brown cousins over to play and went to dinner at Merrick's favorite restaurant (Panda Express).  We ended the day with opening presents.  As he was going to bed Merrick told me he had the best birthday ever.  That made me feel pretty good.






The next day, Saturday, we had Merrick's birthday party for his friends.  I had originally planned on a small, picnic themed party, but due to a technology glitch (which I won't get into) and Merrick putting his foot down on the theme, we ended up with a much larger, Angry Birds Star Wars themed party.  The party was a huge success!  I had made light sabers for the kids to have a battle, storm trooper piggy balloons to defeat, and nearly four dozen cupcakes.  It was a hot day and we had planned the party at a park that has water.  They were able to play with their pool noodle light sabers in the water so it worked well.  I think all the kids had a good time and they were all really exited to get to take their light sabers home with them at the end of the party.












Overall I think it was a birthday that was almost as amazing as Merrick himself.  My favorite moment was on Saturday.  Despite the fact the his party was a 2pm, I was still working on cupcakes in my robe 30 minutes before the party.  I told him that I needed to go take a shower and get dressed.  He asked if that was because I was afraid people would laugh at me if I went to his party in my robe.  When I told him yes, he said, "I will tell them 'She did not have time to get dressed because she was working really hard on the cupcakes so you can't laugh at her.' And they will listen to me because it is my birthday". I am always amazed by how sweet and thoughtful he is.

Everyday I thank my Heavenly Father that I get to be the mom to this amazing little boy!  He has been such a blessing to our family over the last 5 years.  I can't wait to see what the future holds for him.  Happy birthday Merrick!