The Battleship Debacle

A few days ago I had planned on blogging about Jeremy's finals and how hard he has been working as that was the most significant occurrence of the week, but last night all that changed. We had gone to Ben and Becca's house for dinner. As was typical, Quincy was not eating dinner, but playing with toys instead. Last night he happened to be playing with Battleship. Eventually, Merrick finished eating and wanted to get down and play with his cousin. All the adults were still finishing dinner, but Merrick was within eyesight and I was not really worried about him.

After several minutes of playing Merrick started crying and came to tell me his nose hurt. I started talking to him about what had happened and Jeremy went over to talk to Quincy. Quincy was saying that Merrick bumped his nose and Merrick was not really clear about what happened other than to say "Quincy did". A few minutes later Merrick's nose started to run from crying and when I wiped it he started crying again. I thought something might really be wrong so I laid him down on the couch to take a look at it.

Even though I knew something was wrong I definitely was not prepared for what I saw. At first I thought I saw blood around the inside of his nostril, but very quickly it dawned on me that it was not blood, but a red peg from the battleship game. Instantly all the adults became panicky. We tried to rub it out from the outside and we tried to get him to sneeze it out by having him sniff pepper. Ultimately we decided that it was not coming out and that we needed to take him to the doctor. Being that it was Sunday evening our only option was the Emergency Room and a long drive into downtown Portland to the Children's Emergency Room.

All things considered the ER visit was as smooth as could be. They started by having me try a technique call "the mother's kiss" where I plugged the unobstructed nostril, put my mouth over his, and blew a quick puff of air into his mouth. This dislodged the piece, but he immediately sucked it back up. The doctors were worried about him sucking it into his trachea so they did not want me to try again. Instead they inserted a tiny tube with a balloon on the end up past the peg, blew up the balloon and pulled the peg out.

I was a wreck the whole time, but Merrick was so brave. In the end we are not sure if it was Merrick who stuck the peg up or if it was Quincy, but my favorite part of the experience was when the doctor asked Merrick if he had done it and he said, "No Quincy did it". When she asked who Quincy was he said "He is a quack-a-roo head". That is my boy, being a joker even in a scary situation.

Thanksgiving 2011- Part II

It has now been over a week since Thanksgiving. I had intended to get on here to finish my Thanksgiving blog days ago, but the days just slipped by and now I am faced with the dilemma of remembering what happened a week ago, which is a difficult task for me. I will do my best to write about events as I remember them.

Thanksgiving Day was a blur of cooking, eating, and rummaging through Black Friday ads. The food was of course wonderful and so was the company. We had dinner at my parent's house with my parents, Brendon and Rachel's family and Larry Capps, my dad's best friend since the dawn of time. As I mentioned, we did some Black Friday research and as a result, our Thanksgiving festivities ended at about 7:30pm so that we could brave the cold and crowds to score our deals.



Those of you who know me well know that if there is one thing that I love it is a good deal. This Black Friday we were after a special surprise for Merrick for Christmas (sorry I can't tell you what it is yet) and a new XBox for Jeremy (his got the "red ring of death" a few weeks ago and he wanted to use the money he got for his birthday to replace it). We were able to find deals for both items but that meant two stores, Toys-R-Us which opened at 9pm and Walmart which opened at 10pm.

Black Friday was a success and by that I mean that we got what we wanted, did not get trampled, and we were home just after midnight. I do have to give a big "thank you" shout out to my mom for coming with us even though she was not buying anything and to my dad for putting Merrick to bed and holding down the fort while we were gone.

Much of the rest of the weekend Jeremy spent with his head in a book studying for finals, but we did take time for one other big family outing. On Saturday we packed left-over turkey sandwiches and had a picnic at Multnomah Falls. Merrick's face was priceless when he saw the falls for the first time and his mouth fell open. I always feel the same way even though I have seen it many times.





I have said it before, but I just have to say that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love that it is all about family and friends and that it marks the start of the holiday season. We had a great Thanksgiving and I know it is just a sign of things to come.

Thanksgiving 2011-Part I

This week Ben and Becca were out of town so Merrick and I got to spend a whole week home together. It was a busy week with Thanksgiving and just catching up with all the things that fall through the cracks when I spend around 50 hours a week away from home. We did, however, manage to squeeze in some fun.

For me, one of the most enjoyable parts of the week was getting to spend some time with Brendon and Rachel's family. The kids were off school all week so they spent more time than usual over here and Merrick was able to enjoy lots of cousin time. They played puzzles and discovered all sorts of treasures in the playroom. It was also fun for me to spend some time with Rachel and my mom, Rachel, and I even "enjoyed" a guilty pleasure and went to see the new "Twilight" movie.



Prior to Thanksgiving, my mom, Merrick, and I were also able to spend a day at the Portland Children's Museum. I know I have posted about the children's museum in the past, but it is such a fun place I just have to recap our visit.

Merrick built a "light Lego" house with Nana


We played with clay


We played in Legoland


We played in the water



We played alligator dentist


And what trip to the children's museum would be complete without a trip to the grocery store?


It was a great week even before we got to Thanksgiving. Hopefully I will get around to posting about the rest of the week before too long. Check back soon.

PB&J

A few weeks ago I referenced the fact that Merrick likes to sing "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time". I know that my weekly blog is late this week and things have been crazy getting ready for Thanksgiving so for now I will give you some pictures of our version of "Peanut Butter Jelly Time".

Quirky Turkey

One of my favorite things about being a mom is watching Merrick's personality develop. He is so funny and cracks me up everyday. That being said as of late he has developed a few quirks to his personality that have left us scratching our heads.

The first of these quirks is licking. Normally licking would totally gross me out, but he does not lick like a normal person would. Instead he licks you like a dog would lap up water. It catches me off guard every time and I cannot help but laugh.

The second thing is that he has decided that he needs to eat Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast every morning. Even yesterday when we were running late for church and had to take something with us to eat in the car/at church, he insisted that he get his Mini Wheats in a bag to-go.

Merrick has also decided that many people in his life have assigned roles that they are obliged to perform. Papa is responsible for playing Angry Birds and watching Special Agent Oso. Nana is responsible for reading books, and Aunt Becca is responsible for "Sticker Time".

The last quirky habit that Merrick has developed lately is climbing into anything and everything. It started with a large pot that my mom has in the kitchen and moved on from there. Here are a couple of recent pictures (please don't call CPS)



I just love him and the new silly little things he does each day!

A Blog About Nothing

I started this blog about two years ago as a way to preserve memories and to keep out of state family up to date with the goings on in our life. Now, it is both a joy and a burden to keep it up, but my reasons for starting it are still valid so we just plug along.

In the wake of Halloween, however, this shaped up to be a uneventful week. I spent the week wrangling more children than I can count, Jeremy spent it studying, and Merrick spent it being his usual cute self (telling jokes and singing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time"). In the end, I don't really have much to say so I will just leave you with a picture of my two favorite boys.

Halloween 2011

I am sure you don't remember this, but last year I teased that I already had Merrick's Halloween costume for this year but that you would have to wait. Well, this Halloween is now over I guess I can let you in on the secret.

This year Merrick was a cowboy complete with the catch phrases "yee haw" and "Howdy Partner". Words cannot express how cute he looked and sounded (his "Howdy Partner" sounded oddly like Jackie Chan from "Shanghai Nights"). Since words are failing in this situation I will just show you.





On Halloween night all the cousins (minus Kai who we really missed) came to Nana and Papa's and we all hit the streets together. Quincy had the idea for their whole family to be glow men, but at the last minute decided he wanted to be Spiderman instead. Lauren was Paul Stanley from KISS, Julien was an angry bird, and Maude was Elvis.



Merrick was such a trooper, he kept up with his cousins all night and even wanted to keep going when everyone else was ready to go home. I will leave you with a few of my favorite moments from the night...

1) At our first house when the lady said Colvin could pick what he wanted, he responded with "I am allergic to dairy, corn, and eggs"

2) The lady who thought Merrick was so cute that he should have two full-sized candy bars

3) Lauren being the little mommy at every house, making sure the little ones took only what they were offered and always reminding Merrick to say his catch phrases

4) Quincy routinely asking if he could have two at every house