2010!

If pictures are worth a thousand words, then this is the most efficient way to catch up on 2010. Emma had a princess birthday party (technically this happened in 2009, but only by a week), Mark got Tasha an ipod touch (which everybody in the family loves), Mark had an awesome birthday party at Pirate Island Pizza, the girls got matching jammies for Christmas (also technically 2009, but so cute!), Mark and Tasha went to The Roof for dinner, and Emma started preschool!

The Many Faces of Annie

My Mother - What a woman!

Many of you who know me closely probably already know about my mom being diagnosed with ALS (more info about what that is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Als but be prepared to be saddened by what a terrible disease it is) about this time last year. Well, time flies and it's already been a year. I can't help but feel a little sad that I haven't done more to capture more of what makes her so amazing for my girls to remember. I think what makes me the most sad about this entire situation is that I know my girls (and future children) won't understand or get to see what an amazing woman she is. I cringe thinking about what that future will be like and it makes me sad enough that I just try to block it out. But it's like our shadow and it just lingers in the background and I know eventually it will be a reality for our family.

She has been there through every major life experience (college graduation below).

The disease is taking its toll on her body, but her spirit and mind are as sharp as ever. Her positive demeanor and attitude are still shining through despite the frustrations of losing the ability to walk or do some of the things we all take for granted on a daily basis. How I love and appreciate her. I am who I am today because of my mother.

I will hold in my heart and mind the images of her rocking my children (below is a picture of she and Annie). She has always loved children and has such a gentle touch to calm even the most troubled child.


Just this morning Emma prayed "please bless that Grandma Merrill know how much we love her." We all express it in different ways, but universally those who know my mother would echo this love that my sweet daughter expressed this morning. If you don't know her, I would say the best way to describe her can be said in one word: Amazing.

The painting below (done by my very talented brother) was one of the last pictures she and my dad had together before he passed away and is about the only image that brings any joy to her situation. But what a joyous reunion it will be.


I love you Mom!

Little Girl Haircuts

If you have little girls, you probably have been through the same cycle we have been in with our girls. They went so long being bald (and thus many people confused them for boys - seriously, what boy has all pink!?!?!?) and when they finally got hair we were just so excited that the first haircut was a hard point to reach. I will illustrate this cycle in pictures.

Finally has some hair to do something with...

Mullet stage...
Finally a haircut (basically just cutting bangs and back in a straight line)...And now Emma is in the real haircut stage. And it is adorable! Annie, it looks like it's about time...
And thus the cycle continues...

Blogger Guilt

I have had blogger guilt for some time now, but have been able to suppress it. However, I was just holding my sweet little girl Annie (not so little anymore - she's 17 months now) looking at our blog and she was almost entirely missing from it. There were a few baby pictures, but not near the amount of posts Emma got. We love showing Emma pictures and videos from when she was younger and it's so fun. I want that with Annie. So, I have decided to blog again. I hope you're okay with that (whoever you are out there).

And with that. I'll end this post with a couple of updated pictures and post a few more posts. My goal is not to catch up (it would be impossible at this point), but to give you short snippets. Thanks for those of you who helped in getting this guilt to where it is enough to get me blogging again. You know who you are. :)

Age and picture from about the time I last blogged...

Now....Enough said.

Random Fall Stuff

So, we had a lot of fun things happen this fall after Annie's birth. I want to devote an individual post to Christmas and to Emma's birthday, so here is the random catch up post from October and November.

Yes, this is a cactus. I get to work with the Young Men and go on lots of fun campouts.This fall we went down to a great campsite near Paul Bunyan's Woodpile. It's a really cool rock formation made of lava rock. At the very top I was trying to get a good picture of all the boys with the valley behind them. I was getting all ready when I saw a perfect little natural seat in the rocks, so I sat down......... On THIS!!!!!


Now, I'm not officially old yet, but I haven't moved that quickly in a long time. I shot up like a rocket and was stuck with tons of little quills. It was not fun. So, with all the boys and leaders laughing, I snapped this picture.

At least I got a good picture I guess. The boys still tease me about this one though.

Annie is growing way too fast!


First Halloween costume. Way cute! And Papa loves holding her and showing us his magic touch to get her to sleep or to calm down. It has been really sweet to see their relationship develop.


Emma loved dressing up like Mommy and Daddy & Grandma and Grandpa. The Flinstone's and Rubble's had a good time on Halloween.


We've both been really tired, so it's always nice when we get to snuggle and nap at the same time. We sure love our little Annie May. She is so much fun and has such a happy personality. We are grateful to have her in our family and look forward to seeing her grow.

Tutus and Moon Boots

It seems right that every little girl own a pink tutu at some time in their life. I picked this one up for Emma several months ago and it is well worn. She loves it and always finds excuses to wear it, even if that means with purple moon boots.

This is a vintage Emma face. Usually comes out when we've taken too many pictures or she's ready to do something else.


And there she goes!

Jamimas

Tasha has some great friends! The Jamimas are a group of girls who have been friends for a long time (some as long as Elementary School). There were so many of her friends whose names started with a J (Jessica, Jessica, Jessica, Jamie, Jenn, Jen, Jenilyn - those are just the J's, we can't leave out Tamara and Tasha) that one of the dad's decided rather than try to remember every name, he would be better off just calling them the Jamimas. Every once in a while they still have little Jamima night outs, and I was lucky enough to get to go to one of them (I want to go to all of them because I've become such good friends with them, but oft times I am left out).

Here are some pictures.



This is the 2nd Generation of Jamimas (and Jamimos). It's fun to see our kids play together and hopefully develop a strong relationship as their mommies have had.


It's most fun to see Tasha enjoy their friendships. She is such a good friend to so many, I'm grateful that she has good friends she can rely on and have fun with. It always brings back memories of crazier days and times. We love the Jamimas and hope that Jamima 2nd Generation will be just as good of friends.


We love the Jamimas!

Date Night

Emma and I try to go on dates fairly often. That being said it's pretty tough to find fun things for a 3 year old to do that won't get old. So, for this date we went to Wienerschnitzel for corn dogs and ice cream.
Then she said she wanted to go to "Mickey Cheese's" (Chuck-E-Cheese). Chasing her was like a whirlwind but it was a ton of fun. Between ski ball, air hockey, and bright lights we had a lot of fun and Emma was definitely happy to be out with Daddy.
You've never seen that cheeser smile before have you????

After Mickey Cheese's I asked her what she wanted to do next. She said, "Let's go to Robert's." Not many 3 year olds ask to go to Robert's, but it was her choice, so to Robert's we went.
Not sure why or what this picture is about, but I love it and I love this girl! She is so much fun. 10 minutes of walking around Robert's with her saying, "Oh daddy, we should buy this" and "Oooohhhh, lookie lookie." It was a blast. Emma Lou is so much fun and she's growing everyday. How grateful I am that I get to be her daddy and that she has such a great mom like Tasha to follow and learn from.

More posts to follow, I promise this time. :)

Annie May

Believe me, those cheeks are even more kissable in person.

(This picture was taken the day after she was born.)

A comparison

Emma and Annie at about 3 days old. Do they look like sisters?

Emma Louise

This picture captures Emma perfectly. The crazy hair, the bright eyes, even the chocolate around the mouth. She's a 2-year-old that's full of personality.

Here's a quick update on what Emma's been doing.

She loves listening to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. She even knows the words to some of the songs, and will correct you if you sing it wrong. In fact, she corrects Mark all the time.

She talks A TON. And she talks really well for her age. She says the funniest things.

A recent conversation with Emma:

Tasha: Emma, would you like an orange or a banana for a snack?

Emma: Well, we have donuts.

Tasha: That's true.

Emma: Mommy, would you like an apple or a donut?

Tasha: An apple.

Emma: But we have donuts.

Tasha: Well, maybe we could have both.

Emma: OK. Donuts first!

Another recent conversation with Emma:

Emma: Mommy, I want to play the Wii.

Tasha: After we eat breakfast. My tummy is saying "feed me! feed me!"

Emma: But my tummy is saying "I want to play the Wii!"

She's been sleeping on the floor for the past month. I don't know what sparked this, or when it will end. For now I just shrug my shoulders and conclude that toddlers can be weird, in an endearing sort of way.

She's recently gotten into princesses and looking pretty. Lip gloss is her favorite way to dress up.

She insists on dressing herself. But usually I let her because it's so cute, in a goofy-looking way.

Emma definitely livens things up around our house, and we don't know what we would do without her. We love our Emma!

"Bymastics"

Emma loves loves loves to do flips, jump off furniture, and just tumble around. This is her favorite somersault, complete with professional bow. She says she wants to do "bymastics" someday.

Annie ____ Merrill 09/06/09 7:14 AM - 7 lbs. 7 oz (Picture heavy post)

Today was a great day in the Merrill household. We enjoyed an amazing BYU game last night with some good friends and family. It was fun to see BYU be on the winning side of a close, important game after so many close calls and near victories over the last few years against higher ranked teams.

Well, I awoke at 2 am to Tasha tapping me on the shoulder asking me to help time her contractions. In my stupor, I grasped in the dark for a watch that had a digital timer on it (not that I actually needed to time how long they were, just how far apart) and began the ever important and intense task of deciding when it is actually time to go to the hospital. This has become a growing concern among pregnant women as they are often told, (not necessarily exactly this, but essentially) sorry, the pains you are feeling are not actual labor. Take some medicine, go home, and come back when you're really ready to go. This is maddening, because how are we supposed to know when labor is actually beginning. All I've been told is contractions hurt like crazy and when Tasha said let's go, I wasn't about to question my sweet wife. :)

After arranging for Tasha's mom (thank you so much Mom!) to come over to watch Emma we finished packing a few last minute essentials, helped Emma go potty (my big mistake here was telling Emma we were going to get baby Annie. Emma said, "But baby Annie is in Mommy's tummy." When we went to take Emma back to bed she cried because she thought we were all going to get Annie. My bad, so cute though.), and headed to Payson. The Mountain View Hospital in Payson is roughly (exactly) 22 minutes from our home. However, when that timing occurred it was neither a real simulation of a labor scenario, nor was it 4 am. So, our actual time was less than the 22 minutes and gratefully so.

We got to the hospital and went to the main entrance only to find the doors were shut. We went to another entrance at the Women's Center only to find the doors were shut. At this point, I felt a little dismayed as I had never actually seen a hospital shut its doors. Tasha was not the most comfortable (understatement of the post) and was relieved, as was I, when we went to our third entrance at the ER where we were actually allowed to enter the hospital. The first words said to us after we told them our intentions were: "So you are in labor, you think." (Notice this was a statement, not a question.) Feeling a little annoyed and wanting to defend the honor of my wife who knows her body and was amazing through this whole process, I let the woman know she was 3 days overdue and this was our second child (translation: listen lady, my wife knows when she's in labor and SHE IS IN LABOR!) :) Refer to the first paragraph to see why women are so gun-shy as to when to go to the hospital.

Well we got to our room and sure enough, Tasha was in labor. And over half way through it as it turned out. We both wanted to go back down and tell the nurse who checked us in at the entrance that she was indeed in labor. We didn't though as we had other more important things to attend to. Tasha progressed quickly and felt fairly good (minus every 3-5 minutes where there were intense pains that I could unfortunately do nothing about). Our first real nerve racking drama occured when our doctor informed us that we may be too late for an epidural, much to Tasha's chagrin. After some going back and forth (mostly by the doctors and nurses, Tasha was all for the epidural even if it only provided a small respite from the upcoming pain) they gave her the epidural. That slowed the labor process, but after some petocin things got going again.

After a few more intense moments (again wildly understated) at 7:14 our sweet daughter Annie was born. She was 7 lbs. 7 oz., healthy and beautiful.

The incredible feelings of this euphoric experience are beyond capable description. It was so amazing to see Tasha do so well and give so freely and go through so much for our baby. After having all day to reflect on this sacred time for our family, I feel such a gratitude for our eternal family. Tasha and I have both talked a lot about how blessed we are.

My sweet cousin Erin holding baby Annie.

Emma was so excited to see her baby sister. She asked to hold her several times and was so gentle and sweet to her. Emma told the nurses and anyone who would listen that she is a big sister now.
Tasha has been feeling great (she describes it as almost bizarre how good she feels). 2 hours after Annie's birth, Tasha walked to our room (the nurses had the wheel chair ready, but Tasha walked past those). We have enjoyed the day snuggling with our sweet baby, talking with family and friends, and mostly basking in the great joy that is ours to bring this sweet girl into the world.
Thank you for all the demonstrations of kindness and love. We appreciate all that has been offered and extended to us. We are humbled by how many kind words have been sent our way and are grateful to be surrounded by so many good people.

Emma was really sad to leave Daddy, Mommy, and mostly baby Annie.

This has been a great day in our family. Thanks for letting me share some of it. More pictures to come soon, I promise.