The Day After Thanksgiving

While all of you were up at the butt crack of dawn shopping yesterday, our family was embarking on our favorite Christmas tradition, hunting for our Christmas tree. We look forward to it so much because we wait until the day after Thanksgiving before we listen to Christmas music, or watch any Christmas movies. It is always so fun t hop in the car and blast our favorite Christmas tunes. (Shedaisy, Michael Buble, and my sweet Christmas mix my hubby made me several years ago)

Here is the whole clan just as we got into our gear while everyone was still warm and happy to be up in the mountains in the snow.
Here are my fellas, of course they were all stoked to be able to romp around in the snow.
Mojo on the other hand was less than thrilled to be all bundled up and out in the cold. Not that I blame her, the wind was very cold, but she made the trek to find our tree.
We forgot the boys coats, so poor William had to wear his cousins pink coat (we tried to cover most of it up with his jacket.) He decided that hanging out by the tree was more fun than getting cold in the snow.
The Bear was having a blast in the snow, he would run a few steps, then fall over because he isn't quite used to maneuvering around in his boots yet, but he wasn't complaining, he loved every minute and wanted to stay outside, that is until hot cocoa and lunch were mentioned and then you couldn't pry him out of the van. (and don't we just love KT Jane's new beanie styles, she is so talented and I love that she uses my boys for experimenting new styles:)
Mojo was much happier when we made it back to the van to defrost while Brian went back to cut the tree. She was all smiles while she was warm and in the Van.
Here is Brian and Mo with our prize. Sweet eh? For those of you who were expecting something a little more extravagant have not gone into the wild to hunt for trees, really full ones are hard to come by and when you are lugging around 3 little monsters in the snow, this one looked fantastic!

One Itty Bitty Pony

Brian was checking out little Mo's hair yesterday and was positive that she had enough for a little pony tail. So today, I humored him and Morgan had her 1st pony tail. I love it, you can barely see it so look hard! She is such a good sport. I love this, "what are you up to now, Mom" look that she has. I also wanted to post the pics of My cute pumpkin pie boxes that I did for the kiddos for thanksgiving. They are going to be filled with snacks for Thanksgiving day. It took me awhile to get the template right, but after a late night cutting and folding session with my hubby, they are finally done.

Did you know that a gathering of turkeys is called a rafter?
These poor little fellas won't even know what hit them.
Brian and I little tired of cutting and taping and cutting and taping, and there has been more than one time that Brian has wondered why he agreed to marry me, but I think the hunt will be well worth it.

A turkey, and.....a turkey!!

So, Greyson knows how to get comfortable. I'm assuming that he was dreaming about that beach in Hawaii that is covered in candy and toys. Next time I'll have to make sure he takes me with him. Brian went to check on him before we went to bed the other night and this is how he found him. Sometime I'll have to post pictures of Brian sleeping when he was a kid and you'll get to see where Grey gets it from.

Don't worry, I am not totally excited about Thanksgiving. I pictured this cute birdie in my head and I'm so excited because it actually turned out how I planned. I'm doing a design lesson tomorrow night and I'm going to show off this little critter. He's a preview of the thanksgiving turkey massacre at the Merrill house in a week or so. He is a box that will hold a prizes for the lucky hunter who nails him with the marshmallow guns.

Actually what makes me most excited is that when we got married, Brian forced that tradition on me that we do no Christmas decorations, music, or movies until the day after Thanksgiving. I'm realizing now it's just around the corner. "Snow, snow, snow, it won't be long before we'll all be there with snow" (AKA White Christmas, one of my favorites!) LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!!!

Sweet Bruise

By popular request I am posting a picture of Grey Bears sweet bruise. I should have taken the pic a few days ago, because it had nice color, but I just didn't think to do it. Now if we can get him to stop picking the scab so he doesn't end up with a nasty scar, life will be good :)

I need a bumbo chair.

Hey guys, I was looking to borrow, rent, or buy a bumbo chair if any of you out there have one that you are not using let me know. Little Mo just wants to sit up so bad and her bouncy seat just doesn't cut it anymore. I may just have to cough up the cash and go buy one, but just thought I would check to see what is out there. Thanks

Yeeooooowza!

It is a tale of brotherly love........not really. So this is how it went down. I have been dragging the kids around all morning trying to get some things taken care of for enrichment and we were at our last stop. Target. Whew, all I needed to do was exchange the boots I had gotten for Grey for a size for Will. Not to difficult right? I was also irritated because our van is in getting painted so I have the 3 kids in the back of our outback, which needless to say, it is a tight fit and a pain to get everyone in and out, and when they are in close enough a proximity to touch each other, there is never a dull moment in the backseat. So, I hauled all of the kids out of the car and into the rain. I always have Will hold Grey's hand while we walk thru the parking lot. Greyson of course, does not approve of this form of bondage and was running around the car away from William. Will gets mad and decides the only way to solve the problem is to shove his brother for not agreeing to hold his hand. What happens next? Well the rest is hearsay because I didn't actually witness the blessed event, I was pulling Mojo out of the car, but from the magnitude of screaming and the location of Grey's soaked little body lying in a puddle next to the sidewalk, I deduce that he smacked his head on the curb. Poor kid............this is what he looks like now :(
At least he was a good enough sport to let me take some pics, but I don't think that the camera does it justice. He created quite the uproar of sympathy in the store. Oh, and thanks to Mindy Collasurdo for checking on me and my cart of wailing children to see if I needed any help :)

The Beanie Styles are Ready!!!

It is official! My sister finally has her website up for her beanies and now has so many adorable styles and colors to choose from. If you are interested, I posted a link to her site, it is also under my family and friends list. theblackbeanshop.blogspot.com

The Bubble Beard

Morgan cracks me up! She loves to blow bubbles all the day long. When I looked over at her today, I had to snap a few pics because she is definitely perfecting the art of the bubble beard. Brian and I have not perfected the art of making good tear ducts and poor little Mo constantly has a goopy eye all day, it is so sad. We try to massage it and she just screams. We will see what happens, but Will had to have his fixed. I hope it goes away soon, or I am going to have to photoshop all of her pictures:)

Halloween II, The tradition lives on...

This may be a record for my longest post, but bear with me, the pics are worth it. And so the tradition lives on. The Merrill family has always been know for our bang-up Halloween parties and it may have been November 1st, but we were able to sneak in one heck of a Halloween Bash. The festivities included bat races, gummy worm bobbing, and Halloween bingo with sweet prizes, a haunted train ride through the corn................and we must not forget the manwich barbecue sandwiches with extra pickles with a side of homemade root beer!

Put a handsome devil and a Fairy together and what do you get? Spiderman, Elmo and a little funky chicken. The perfect family :)

I don't really do scary, so I went as a fairy. It was so fun, Katie curled my hair and helped me put on my fake lashes and let's not forget the florescent green tights!
Brian and our little funky chicken :)
Brian definitely married up :)
Yes, we torture our dog too. Our little Teenie Weenie is a true Weiner dog! I know that she hates us, but she looked too cute!
My Bro Ryan made this sweet train and every year he drives the kids through the haunted corn patch. My brother-in-law James always dresses up as the "Funky chicken" and chases train, he is always the kids favorite!
This is my best friend Tawnya from highschool, I was so excited that she was able to make it again this year. (I won that sweet hat in bingo!)
My bro-in-law James is the funky chicken, My brother Kavic and his wife Stacy are the Cowardly lion and Dorothy. My Mom and Dad are the jackelope and witch, and my nephew Michael is Beetlejuice. I didn't have pics of all the costumes, but they were great.
And last but not least My sister Katie and her hubby Jeremy were my favorite! Jeremy was Kip from Napoleon Dynomite and Katie was a "a football coaches wife from tremonton" I really didn't think she could get her hair that big :) Jeremy not only looks like Kip, but had his voice and manorisms nailed. I would laugh so hard every time I walked into the room and he would be doing a different Kip pose. We can't forget our little sad Cinderella. You guys rock!Nice Mustaches fellas! Since Jer was shaving his beard, and Bri was shaving his goat, they decided to take a few pics.
Boys will be boys.

Halloween I

Halloween was so much fun this year. Brian and his brothers had a blast spooking the local children in South Jordan while me and my sis-in-laws took the kids trick-or-treating. It was such a warm night and it was probably the most fun I have ever had trick or treating. The neighborhood we were at was awesome, they were handing out donuts, hot dogs, full size candy bars..... the list goes on, but it was so much fun watching the kids run from door to door admiring their loot.
Brian is the tall handsome devil in the middle and his brother Jason is on the right and brother-in-law Andy on the left.

This is cousin Zach and Morgan after trick-or-treating, they were very content, just lounging inside on the floor.
This is the crew out trick-or-treating
This is a very scary bunch!