~The Merrell's Brag Blog~: 2009

October 7, 2009

Definition of a 3rd Birthday

So 3 things defined Nolan's 3rd birthday this year.

1- Batman

2- Iron Man

3- Wonder Pets

Are you starting to see a theme? If you guessed super heros you'd be right!

I don't know what started it, or where in a little boys genetic code it says that around their 3rd birthday they are to become the family super hero, but we've been pretty happy about it!

It's nice having a super hero around when you need him. It was also particularly fun to plan his birthday this year.

It started off with Batman PJ's from Grandma Merrell...

Then came the Batman mask and cape from Grandma Whittaker...

Then of course the Iron Man action figure...

and Wonder Pets from Mom and Dad...

Which when put together with a make shift "fly boat" from the basement...

Leads up to the big Wonder Pets Birthday Party!!

(That'll have to have it's own post.)

Remembering September 16th, 2006

Nolan looked surprised to see 3 candles in his birthday waffles

...and so were we!

There is always some denial and misbelief when a child turns another year older, and this year was no exception. I still remember my adorable 4lb 14 oz baby boy being born on the first snow storm of the year on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 at 11:05 AM. Mount Timpanogos was just getting it's red fall leaf coverage and the storm from the previous night had left a nice white cap on top of the mountain.

He was born at the Timpanogos hospital in Orem, surrounded by LOTS of great doctors, nurses and family. He started out his life exceeding our expectations, and he continually does so every single day. It's ironic that his stay in the NICU may have been the longest 19 days of my life, but these last 3 years have seemingly just flown by!

We love our handsome little man to pieces. He has such a love for life and he makes each new day an adventure. He has a great sense of humor, loves to learn new things, loves to play with his friends, and especially loves his family. He is a great big brother to Audrey, and she adores him. He is super smart-we've always been amazed at how quickly he picks up on new things. He is definitely a gadget/techie kinda guy-give him an iPhone and he'll show you how to play any game on it. He also LOVES to play his "Diego games" on the nickjr.com website and navigates it entirely on his own discovering new games and challenges with very little assistance. Yeah, we know he's only 3, but they help us teach him his shapes, colors, math and letters a lot better than anything else I've tried! He's always been a ball of energy and keeps us going along with him. So here's to you Little Man! Our lives are 1000% better since you've come along!

September 23, 2009

Portraits

A few weeks ago we took the kids to Picture People in the mall to have their portraits taken. I had made Audrey a little black Tutu with "Tiffany blue" ribbons and had this vision of a little "Audrey Hepburn" portrait with pearls and such. This is the one that turned out the best, and actually ended up winning their portrait contest and it will be going on to their national competition. We have a few others of her, but I haven't scanned them yet. Kenny also had a little fun with photoshop and created this B&W image that is hard not to love.

As for Nolan-he was not a big fan of the whole picture taking idea and no amount of ice cream or candy bribes were going to change that so for now we'll just have to enjoy the ones of him that have been taken in the comfort of our own backyard.

Audrey's 4 month Stats & Photos

On Sept 2nd we had a visit to the Dr. to check up on our little growing girl.

Her stats were: Ht. 24.5", Wt. 14lb 4.5oz, & Head 16.5" -Generally she's in the 60th percentile. That kinda blows my mind...I don't think that Nolan has been any higher than 20th the skinny kid!

Some of Audrey's favorite things right now:

1) She loves to roll over on to her tummy and then back-I have to supervise her though cause she tends to spit up when she's on her tummy and then roll back over onto it...not a pretty sight.

2) She still loves her swing and that cute little girl looking down at her in the mirror.

3) She loves her bath time-she splashes like a toddler would and sometimes I swear that if we were in a pool she could kick her way across it!

4) She still doesn't really cry, her cooing and squeals just get progressively louder until you finally give in and let her eat or go to sleep.

5)She LOVES her Daddy. She has a special smile reserved just for him that can visibly melt his heart even on his toughest days. (I'm sure that will come in handy down the road)

6) She LOVES her big brother Nolan and will laugh for him every time he tosses a stuffed animal her way or comes to see if she's awake in the morning. She already has the patience of an angel when it comes to getting bumped or pinched when he is trying to play with her.

7)She has always like holding her feet together when she's laying down, but now she's discovered that she can get those little toes into her mouth to suck on. It usually proves to be pretty entertaining to watch since she occasionally misses and gets poked in the eye. But that makes her all the more determined to try again!

September 22, 2009

Nolan and Daddy time

Right now Daddy time in our house is quite a special thing. Kenny has been on his OB rotation since the middle of August and it has required numerous days of overnight call-which means he's gone from 5:00 AM in the morning until 8:00 AM the NEXT morning. It really hasn't been too bad, and it's actually almost over. It's just made Kenny want to spend some extra special time with our kids when they are all awake at the same time. A few Saturdays ago Kenny took Nolan to the Zoo and visited the "Wings from down under" exhibit where you can feed the birds millet seed from a Popsicle stick. He caught a few pictures with his iPhone camera, and I was impressed to see Nolan actually holding the birds on his stick-I thought he'd be afraid with them flying all over the place! They had a great time though and actually inspired me to take them again a few days later so that I could experience it with him. Here's a few pictures to document the fun.

I love this photo for two reasons 1) it shows my boy bravely holding a pretty little parakeet, 2) it shows that he's also grown a couple inches during the past few months because these jeans weren't so short on him this spring!

This photo is from when we went to the Zoo, by then he was very comfortable with these little guys.

Kenny also took this video of Nolan running through the sprinklers in our backyard on Labor Day. He and I had been getting soaked until little Audrey finally decided that she was starving so I headed upstairs to feed her while Kenny went down to supervise. Apparently Nolan thought he should join in the fun too!

September 11, 2009

Boerner Botanical Gardens

On August 24th we ventured out of town a bit to the Boerner Botanical Gardens since I've been desperately trying to suck all that I can out of summer and right now getting out of the house is essential to the makings of a 'good day' in our household.

It was quite a pleasant afternoon, the gardens were great, my kids enjoyed exploring somewhere new, but most of all Nolan LOVED this giant butterfly sculpture and we spent easily an hour hanging out near, on and around it. He'd agree to take little walks to go investigate new areas, as long as we ended up back at the butterfly. Right now, Nolan's imagination is really kicking in to full swing so the availability of a giant butterfly that he could climb all over and enjoy was a really exciting thing. We had a great time-I'm really grateful that there are places here that can actually make me feel like I am not just somewhere in the city. I almost felt like I was out in nature!!

Harrington Beach State Park

On Aug 12th we took a trip up to Harrington Beach State park with the Lindners and the Pitts. It was a great day to enjoy some sand, sun and sticks.

Jack, Lucy and Nolan had a great time gathering wood for the campfire (that was never started), and playing catch with their Dads in the freezing cold water (by Dads I mean Andy Lindner, he was the only one in the water-Kenny and Todd where happy to play beach patrol).

As for the little girls, Cassie loved the sand so much she probably ate several mouthfuls, Malia loved the safety of her parent's beach towels and had no interest in putting one toe on that gritty business, and Audrey was quite content taking little snoozes in her car seat and on a beach towel in that shade of the nearby strollers.

The parents had a good time too, it's always fun to get together and watch the reasons that we are parents explore the beach and share some funny stories about our lives.

Party time & Potty time

Happy 28th Birthday to Kenny! OK so he still spent his whole day in labor and delivery at the hospital, but at least he wasn't moving us in to a new apartment or roofing his in-law's cabin this year. He did get his mandatory strawberry trifle cake, and really that's all that matters to him!

Now on to potty time. We're potty training in the Merrell household, and Nolan is doing pretty good at it too. We've had a little help from the "Potty Watch" that Grandma Whittaker gave him, it plays a little song to remind him to head to the potty. He's also learned that wet Lightning McQueen underpants don't feel very nice and prefers to keep them dry. So hooray-we're on our way! I'm not expecting this to be the quickest transition ever, but hey at least he's interested and knows when he needs to go and what he needs to do.

August 20, 2009

This is the last time Kenny is allowed to do her hair!

August 17, 2009

Play time!

Nolan sometimes asks if he can hold Audrey. We usually do it on the couch with pillows, but I thought he would be able to hold her up for a quick photo. Thankfully it worked. She looks SO big here! Her thighs are as big as her brothers!! Ha ha!

He's also very enthusiastic about sharing toys with her-I'll sometimes find her buried under a pile of them, but this time they were playing "baby jaguars".

This is how I found Nolan, admiring his handy work with his little sister.

She didn't seem to mind...

I wish I could add a sound bite to this picture. Audrey loves to talk and squeal-sometimes she gets so high-pitched that it actually hurts your ears! She's also copy you if you stick your tongue out at her, and she'll ALWAYS smile back if you smile at her-we love it.

Mmm...chocolate Nutella toast! Kinda makes him look like the Joker don't you think?

August 8, 2009

"Tomorrow we'll go to the fair..."

I have this great album of lullaby's that I've played for Nolan during bedtime for quite some time, and one of the songs talks about how "The sooner you sleep, the sooner you wake, and tomorrow we'll go to the fair." Well, this last Thursday I finally made that come true for Nolan & Audrey. The WI STATE FAIR began and we were lucky enough to have Katie Lindner and her 3 kids invite us to join them. Turns out her husband loves big crowded public events as much as mine does so we were a perfect match to go together. It also helps that Nolan LOVES to play with Jack and Lucy, and Audrey and Cassie are pretty civil to each other so far too. Katie is also pretty great herself-she was one of my first friends out here in Milwaukee.

So after the mile or so walk from our minivans, we finally got in to the fairgrounds and entered a world of livestock, food on a stick, and all things Wisconsin. Oh yeah, and did I mention ALL OF THE PEOPLE!! We strong-armed our double strollers (oh and Katie also had a backpack with Cassidy in it-what a Supermom) in and out of the animal exhibits, between the lines of people waiting for their WI grilled cheese sandwiches, $0.25 cup of flavored milk, roasted corn on the cob and chocolate covered bacon on a stick...mmm sounds yummy right? But the best line of all to wait in was for the GIANT CREAM PUFFS! It actually went pretty fast for as many switchbacks as it had and soon enough we were finding a nice spot on the curb to enjoy the cream puffiness. A photographer from the West Allis newspaper apparently spotted us told us to "pretend I'm not here" and began clicking away with his fancy camera. Nolan was all too happy to oblige, Jack and Lucy however wanted to keep their cream covered faces reserved to just their Mommy's camera. The photographer took our names, told us what paper he was with and then told us to check online for the pictures. Sure enough we've made it onto the newspapers slideshow of opening fair photos. Yipee! You can check them out here. I love that I have more cream on my face than Nolan does in the picture...geez what a dweeb.

I didn't dig out my camera at all so here are a couple of photos that Katie took. We had a fun time, and we're glad that we can check that off of the list of things that we must do while in Milwaukee. Now I just need to figure out a way to let Nolan ride one of those cows that he keeps asking about...hmm maybe next year.

Nolan got a little cream on his face too.

Lucy and Nolan are 1 day apart in age, and this is one of many photos that I have of the two of them sharing a special little moment together. Ahh sigh, maybe someday we'll put this in their wedding video! He, he:)

Our Green Bay Staycation

Last week I surprised Kenny with a quick trip up to Green Bay to celebrate his upcoming birthday and just give us a fun new place to go explore. I got a great deal at a hotel in Green Bay and when he got home from taking his test from the psych rotation we headed out. It's a pretty quick trip about 2 hrs, or one Disney movie for Nolan. We had a GREAT time! We headed to Bay Beach Amusement Park and bought $7.50 in tickets (at $0.25 a ticket that's a lot of rides!) and were excited to give Nolan his first taste of amusement park rides. He started off with the helicopters with Kenny, then we made the mistake of putting him on the airplanes that make the great gun fire noises which he loved, until it started going up and down and kind of jerked him a little bit and totally freaked him out. After that he wouldn't go an any more of the little kids rides by himself...bummer.

Kenny and I both took a swing in the Yo-Yo, and then Nolan saw the giant slide. I told him that I could go with him so off we went, up a TON of stairs where we just kept getting higher and higher. I thought for sure he would freak out on me and we'd be headed back down in a matter of minutes. But to my surprise he was jumping and laughing and trying to push in front of the teenagers in front of us to get to the top. The first drop got his tummy (as well as mine) and he held his breath for each bump, but by the end he was laughing hysterically and jumped right up ran over to Dad to slap him a five and we were headed back up for a second ride. It was great. Audrey was a great little spectator-she's pretty easy going and up for anything really. We spent as much time as we dared on Friday night and then had to go back Saturday morning to use up our tickets. It was a great trip, if anyone around here is looking for something to do before the end of summer, we'd highly recommend it.