Not going there

This afternoon, Raelyn was feeling the baby kick. I told her the baby was about "this big" with my hands. I explained that the baby had to fit tight inside my belly. She asked if the baby had to sit in a ball shape to fit inside. So I decided to show her pictures of babies inside the womb so she could get an idea how babies fit inside mommy tummies. I went through a couple of pictures, giving quick explanations about them. We came across one picture and she said "Oh, babies sit upside down?!" My response "Yes, they have to sit head down so they can... Never mind I am going to stop there." I was going to say, babies sit head down because when they are born they come head first. I quickly realized that this is way more than I wanted to tell her. I don't want to get into how babies come out, not yet anyway!

Update on The Merrill Family

 This is our most recent family photo. We are all dressed up in our cute black and yellow Easter clothes. Don't we look so cute?!

Tom just started a new job with Apollo Education Services just last week. He is really liking the change. Tom has been a single dad while I have been away at school. I am gone most nights and he managed to keep a clean house, make dinner, and get the kids on a bed time routine! He recently did the 60 day Insanity challenge and now has enough energy to keep up with 3 kids. He enjoys racing Raelyn to the house from the park. Of course, Raelyn is on a bike and house a 20 ft head start. Tom's new obsession is (or maybe it always has been his obsession) guns. I think he mentions something about it every day. He just got an early birthday present from me, a new stock for his gun. Who knew something like that would make him so happy?

I have been in my first block of nursing school for the past 5 months. It has been the biggest challenge academically in my life! Exhausting and time consuming! I forget that I am even pregnant!!! Actually, I am in denial. I am now 24 weeks and 5 days, that is 6 months pregnant! Just this last week, now that school is out for the summer, I have finally started nesting. I had no time before. I was so focused on school, if not school then my kids. That's pretty much been my life for the past 5 months. Now that all my classes are done and I only have 2 Saturday clinicals left, I am feeling lost. What do I do with all this spare time I have? I mean, my shows have ended for the season so I have nothing to watch on TV. I wont start summer school for a couple of more week, so I don't have anything to work on. My girls are out of school so the Mom taxi is on vacation. I am just home all day hanging out with my kids!



Maelee just turned 4 last month!!! She has Mastered all her goals in preschool. The school created 3 new speech goals. She already mastered 1 of the 3. So it looks like she will be released from speech preschool by the beginning of next year. Maelee enjoys being a girl! She loves to do hair, her own, mine, and her Barbie dolls. She loves make-up, clothes, and shoes. She has a sense of style. She will tell Tom and I that she likes our outfit and shoes. She always notices when I am wearing something new. I was going to go to her school and she asked "Mom, are you going to wear your new sandals?" I replied "Yes, I am." She said "OK, good." Really, I have to dress a certain way in front of your friends. Just yesterday, Tom was looking at a little yearbook Maelee's teacher made. As they were flipping through the pages, Tom was asking about each child. When it came across a certain little boy, Tom asked "Is this little boy nice?" Maelee said matter of fact "Yes, he is my boyfriend!" She is only 4!!!

 Raelyn turned 5 in January. She just graduated from preschool last Friday! She is so excited to finally go to kindergarten! She will be attending Benjamin Franklin Charter School. She gets excited about every time we past by it. Raelyn is definitely the oldest. She tries to be a mom to Tyson all the time. She loves little kids. She often is trying to tell me what I need to as a mom and lectures me if I didn't do something right. None of this ever goes over well with me, I mean who wants a 5 year old telling you what to do?! She is so excited to have a new sibling! She is always talking about when the baby comes we can do this and that. She is going to be a great little helper when the baby comes! Raelyn loves to have things clean and organize. She will come and re-organize something after I did it or tell me how to do it. I am trying hard to let her do it her way, which isn't easy for me. But she is a girl after my own heart. She is SO much like me when I was a kid.

Tyson is our youngest, but our biggest handful!!! He is all boy! That is for sure. He enjoys wrestling and rough housing. He doesn't care how big you are, he know he has strength to keep up. He is now potty trained!!! He turned 2 in February and he was about 75% trained in March. Not too bad for a boy. In the last 2 weeks he has come a long way. He now tells us that he needs to go, instead of me taking him every 2 hours. He is finally pooping on the potty! I was getting tired of pooping undies and wet clothes from accidents from not taking him potty in time. He is often dry at night. We tried to let him sleep in undies last night, but that FAILED. He was wet by midnight. Go figure. Something even cuter has happen this week!!! He now pees standing up! We have tried teaching him that so when out in public we don't have to completely undress him to have him straddle the toilet. Which, BTW, is not fun when you are 6 months pregnant in a tiny stall. Whew.. I am glad I am diaper free for the first time in 5 years! Well, for a few months anyway. So back to Tyson, he is so naughty. He is always breaking something or hurting a sister. He takes up so much of my energy! But he is very sweet at the same time. Maelee was sick yesterday and asked for a blanket. He went and got her one and wanted to put it on her. If he sees anything pink he tells me "Rae Rae" or anything purple "Mae Mae." He is always getting 3 food items out one for him and one for each sister. He is always too bad.

The Baby

The baby is due Sept. 7! We are not finding out the sex of this baby! I want a surprise they day he/she is born! It is fun guessing what it will be and going back and forth on what we think it is. I am surprised on how many people are annoyed that I am not finding out! I don't know why it bugs them so much! I mean 25 years ago, they didn't have ultrasounds. No one knew what they were having.  I only found a few people who think it is fun to be surprised. Honestly, I was all about finding out the sex with the other 3. I made my appointment right at 17 weeks because I couldn't wait to find out. Since I already have 2 girls and a boy, it doesn't matter what I am having. I also had a hard time delivering Tyson, so I thought if I didn't know the sex that gives me a big incentive to push him out!

This is what is up with our family! I hope you enjoyed catching up with us!

Our kids

The Halloween Book

My first Halloween with child was just 4 years ago. I have since had two more children. I sit down and try to say what each child was in what year can just make my head spin! This year I put together a book of my kids in their Halloween costumes for every year. I had this idea in my head for a few years. I made sure to get a good picture of my children to put together in this book. I have fianlly made this photo album that I have set out so anyone can see how my children have grown on Halloween. On the back of each picture, I have written a little something about that Halloween adventure.

I bought this photo albulm at Hobby Lobby. The vinyl is from uppercase living http://katidiane.upercaseliving.net

This is Raelyn's first Halloween. She was an Angel. This is me and her and my tiny baby bump with Maelee inside.

This is Maelee's first Halloween. Raelyn is Snow white and Maelee is Tinkerbelle.

The little witch and the little Angel. Althought, the Angel didnt want to smile for the camera.

This is Tyson's first Halloween, He is a Garden Gnome.  Raelyn is a bumble bee and Maelee is a fairy. Noticed the last 3 Halloweens were all on the stairs. This was our last year at that house.

This is for this year. I took a picture, but haven't printed it up quite yet. Raelyn was a Go Go Girl. Maelee was Rapunzel. Tyson was a tacky tourist.

I will contine with this tradition until my kids are too old to be dressing up for Halloween. I am now working on a Thanksgiving Photo Album and then Christmas.

Disneyland

Monday the 17th of October we left for Disneyland.  Our first family vacation since Raelyn was 6 months old.  The six hour car drive was a dream if your definition of a dream is three screaming children.  Raelyn and Maelee seemed to do everything contrary to the other just to make the other mad.  I am sure I never did that as a child.  Some peace was found when they each played with their leapsters.  Of coures we only purchased two games and they always wanted the game the other had.  Go figure.  Though 30 minutes after arriving to our hotel Tyson decided to go all Michaelangelo and nunchuck Raelyn's leapster into a table leg.  Busted the screen and rendered the Leapster worthless. . . good thing we are at the happiest place on earth.

The first day at Disneyland was a blast.  First stop was the tea cups.  I pull the camera out only to find out that I left the battery charging in the hotel.  Of course our camera only takes the special Sony battery, so no pictures of the morning of Day 1.  Tyson loved the tea cups and carousel.  Raelyn loved all the rides, except the Matterhorn, and Maelee enjoyed Dumbo and the carousel.  After three and a half hours we breaked for lunch, Tyson and Maelee were beat and ready for a nap.  

In our three days at Disneyland we did meet Tiana, Ariel, Belle, Snow White, and Rapunzel.  It was so fun to watch Maelee interact with them.  I often forget how real these things are to the kids.  The two nights we watched Mickey's parade at the end of the day, Maelee could not stop waiving to all the princess'.  Even on the Ariel ride Maelee was waving to Ariel and Eric in every scene.

  

Raelyn loved all the rides, except of course Matterhorn.  Our first stop the first day was the tea cups, followed by Alice in Wonderland.  After that, Raelyn told me she wanted to ride a real rollorcoaster.  So we went on the Matterhorn.  I rode in the back of the car holding on to Mae, and Rae was all by herself in the front of the car (Kati stayed behind with Ty).  By the end of the ride Raelyn was laying down completely flat in car.  She did not ask to ride another real rollercoaster again and every time we passed the Matterhorn I had to hear both Rae and Mae say, "Daddy, I don't like the Matterhorn."  

Tyson absolutely loved the tea cups, Finding Nemo, and Buzzlightyear rides.  If you have ever been on the Nemo ride, you know between scenes bubbles blow up by the windows to block your view.  When the bubbles would block Tyson's view, he would lean over to look out Raelyn's window to the right, then Kati's window to the left just to make sure he was not missing anything.  He had a lot of fun on the Buzz Lightyear ride trying to shoot the evil emperor Zerg.  Not a bad shot for a little guy.  

The Ward Campout

We went to the ward camp out this weekend. It was in a beautiful spot just north of Strawberry. Tom and the kids love to camp, so it was nice to get-a-way for the weekend. It rained, which I thought was nice, and it was cold at night. We left 60 degree weather to come back to the dreaded 100 degrees. bleh.

 Look at these kids! They couldn't be happier! The just love to go camping. Seriously, the absolutely love it! That is our camping trailer in the back. We bought it a year ago, and it was the best purchase ever. I am all about camping if I don't have to sleep in a tent. It is a pop-up, so it is small to store and roomy to camp in.

Here are some pics of the kids having fun...

 It is so hard to get Tyson to look at the camera when I am taking a picture. He kept turning his head. He also won't hold still so I get a lot of pictures of him walking

 This log was the kids' favorite part! They kept asking to go play on the the log. The could play here for hours! We didn't want to stay for too long since it was far from the campsite and Tom and I are afraid of bears. (He brought his 9mm to protect us :0))

 I was trying to get a few cute shots. This is Maelee sniffing a flower

 This is me. I hardly ever have pictures of me. I try to make sure to at least get one pic of me. Seriously, this is the only one we took while we were there. I wish we had taken a more flattering pic. But, hey it's camping hair, right???

 Tom is all about camping wearing his cameo.

 Tyson's turn to smell the flowers.

 Tyson is so adorable! Tom put on his bandanna on Ty. He loves his only little boy. (Ignore the ASU shirt, since clearly Tom graduated from University of Phoenix and I am enrolled in NAU. It was a hand-me-down)

 The log

 It was so nice that there are so many small children in the ward for our kids to play with. We hardly had to entertain them. Tyson just loved being outside. He, like most boys, loves to get dirty. He loves exploring. He loves trying to act like a big kids with the big kids.

I love ward camp outs. They are always short and sweet. It is so much fun to camp with the ward members and get to know them better. It is also nice that it is only on night.

August 19-20, 2011

The Bunion

I have had these hideous bunion since I was 14 yrs old! Most people do not develop them at such a young age. Most people get them as they are older. I am just lucky I guess. So I decided it was time to get something done about this! I went to a Podiatrist and scheduled a surgery. The surgery is quick and was only 1hr long. The recovery, on the other hand, is 8 weeks!

What is a bunion? Well, it is your big toe joint that gets pushed out when your toe gets pushed in. High heels and tight shoes can overtime cause a bunion to form. In my case, genetics played a role. Not exactly sure how, it just sorta did it on its own.

Here is my before pic. This was taken just hours before my surgery.

This is my first follow up appt 4 days later.

(Caution: if you are faint of heart)

This is what it looks like today! It has been just over a month since my surgery. I still have 3 more weeks left wearing my boot. The swelling will go down in 6 months or so. I am feeling great and can't wait until the boot comes off and the cute shoes come one!

(Yeah, I know need to paint the nails. Gonna get a pedicure once the boot is off )