The Merrill's plus three

Family pictures...

2009-12-30T09:47:00.000-08:00

I wish I had seen what was so interesting that they couldn't look at the camera.

Are we done yet?

My sweet angels.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2009-12-23T11:05:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone. Sorry that I have been so bad at updating the blog lately. I have like 3 birthdays to put on here and Thanksgiving and soon Christmas. I promise that I will get these up as soon as possible. We love you all and hope that you have a great holiday with all of your family and friends.

The day I almost died...

2009-10-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Can you figure out why Paul wanted to kill me this day? I thought it was funny and its not like it was my idea!! Everyone was doing it. You should have seen the other little boy...

Southern Utah trip...

2009-10-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

Us at the Hoover Dam.

Bruce and grandpa on the motorcycle
Christian and grandpa on the motorcycle
We went to see Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D and had a blast, even though you can't tell by their faces. lol

High jump
Blowing bubbles
Loving the pool
Building an army to take over the world
Jameson and his cars...as usual
The boys playing swords

I took the kids to go and see my parents new house in Santa Clara. We had a blast! It is so nice to live so close to them. Here are some of the fun things that we did.

Best Friends

2009-10-11T14:16:00.001-07:00

These 2 kids are so stinking cute. They played so well with each other while Noelle was in town. They were inseperable. They kept calling each other "brother and sister". They hardly argued and if one got hurt the other would be so upset and they would try to make the other feel better. They were constantly hugging and playing and laughing. Its so funny because just back in December when they were here last all they did was fight. They both grew up I guess, lol. We loved having Liz and Noelle here even if it was for a short time.

Chillaxin'...

2009-10-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

They finally slowed down long enough to watch a movie. JJ and Noelle are having a blast. I can't wait for the other two boys to get home from school so we can all play. Poor JJ has croup but he is being a real trooper about it, happily playing and being adorable as always.

Pictures of the boys...

2009-09-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

That is little J climbing up that big slide all by himself!

Sweet Christian, such a poser.

Brucey at his best friends birthday party.

JJ at pump it up bouncing around.

Christian being a ham.

My little Linus!

I cant seem to be able to keep up with them and pictures. Here are some random ones that I have of them.

San Diego

2009-09-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Paul and I have become such groupies lately. We drove out to San Diego to go see one of our favorite bands, Weezer. We had a blast. We went with some of our friends, Tanya and Gary. We stayed in a beautiful hotel in downtown San Diego, ate some great food and then went to our show. The next day we went to Coronado and walked on the beach and went shopping and had a great time. We really missed the boys when we were there, San Diego is somewhere we all enjoy going to together. Cant wait until we can all go again, soon hopefully.

Jameson's 2nd Birthday

2009-09-18T10:40:00.001-07:00

Seems like only yesterday...what an angel.

He LOVES Thomas and my friend, who always makes my cakes, did an AWESOME job on this one!

He was way more interested in his cake then anything else. He didnt even want to open his gifts.

My sweet pea. He is truly a blessing and so sweet. Just cant get enough of him.

Our Trip...

2009-08-03T09:40:00.001-07:00

Paul has added a place to where you guys can all go and see our pictures for our trip. Feel free to look as much as you like while we are on our vacation!! Love you all!!

http://gallery.me.com/cozmonaut

Are we there yet?

2009-07-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

Paul and I have decided that we are WAY more excited about our trip then the kids are. He and I are always saying how great its going to be. I know that the boys are happy to be going but I guess maybe Paul and I need the break more then they do. We just LOVE going places with the boys. They are already really well behaved kids but for some reason when we are away from home they make us feel like we can go and do anything with them. They make it so pleasant and for that we are very greatful. Only about 5 more days and then we are off!! YAY!

The Phoenix Childrens Museum

2009-07-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm....

2009-07-20T10:10:00.000-07:00

Is anyone else noticing a pattern here??

So Far So Good

2009-06-25T10:31:00.001-07:00

Well, Bruce is still wearing his big boy underwear and not having any accidents of any kind!! YAY! It has been a few weeks now and we are so excited for this to finally have happened for him. Whats a little sad though is that he isnt even my stubborn child and he was very resistant about the whole potty training thing. We will have to wait and see about Jameson...not looking forward to that.
We have also formed our own band...our rockband videogame band that is. We all LOVE that game and seriously cant play it enough (sorry world of warcraft). The kids are so cute when they play it. We downloaded some kid songs, like the SpongeBob Best Day Ever song which is so cute to hear Christian sing. Look for us to be touring soon. =)

FINALLY!!

2009-06-06T19:27:00.000-07:00

We will now be saving money every month on diapers!! Bruce has decided that he is ready to go potty on the toilet like a big boy. We are so proud of our little guy! I can't even tell you how nice it is to only be changing one kiddo instead of 2 which we have been doing for 3 1/2 yrs! Our kids are growing so fast...

Christian's 6th Birthday and Kindergarten Graduation

2009-05-21T17:39:00.001-07:00

His cool new Darth Vader watch and clock!

Christian and his big birthday gift, his nintendo ds

My big boy getting ready to blow out his candle.

Mommy and boys!

Christian and his best friend Joshua.

Our sweet angel...

Where has the year gone?? I can't believe my baby is six and going to be in the first grade. So bitter sweet. We are sooooo proud of him and the person that he is becoming.

The Symphoney Orchestra

2009-04-14T12:57:00.001-07:00

Our night out...

We went and saw they Mahler Symphoney No. 4 on Saturday night. It was wonderful and we had a great time.

The Newest Member of Our Family!

2009-04-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

This is our new puppy named "Fly". He is an Australian Shepherd. He is such a lover. We had been talking about getting a puppy for a while and when Fly came along we couldn't say no. Paul and I fell in love with him right away. Bruce did the best with him and keeps telling me how much he loves his new doggy. Christian is a little more apprehensive and Jameson could take him or leave him. He is a great dog and once he is fully trained he is going to be even better. =)

Playdate

2009-04-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Bruce, Liam and Jameson

Dancing time!

Such big hugs...love it.

We always have fun when friends come over to play!

UPDATE...finally

2009-03-31T10:09:00.000-07:00

This is the best seat in the house!!

At the zoo...they weren't getting along too well. Could they be any further apart?

The boys sure love their grandma.

At the zoo last weekend. It was a beautiful day out!

He is such a little cheeser! Gotta love that little face.

I figured it was about time to update the blog. Sorry that it has taken so long. We are all doing well and enjoying being together. It is beautiful here and we are really loving it. We finally started on our backyard so that we can get it landscaped before the hot summer hits. We had our yard seeded and we are going to be getting trees put in soon. We are so excited. The boys are all doing great. They are getting so big. We just don't know where the time has gone. Can't believe that our babies aren't quite babies anymore...sigh...I guess that they have to grow up sometime.

Too long...

2008-12-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

WOW!! I can't believe it has been over a month since I have been on here to post anything. So much has happened too. I promise that I will post some pictures soon. Lets see, what has happened since Halloween...
Paul's 30th Birthday. What a good time. We went to Sedona where Paul's dad and siblings came down to celebrate it with us. We had such a good time seeing them all. LOVED Sedona and will have to do it again soon. It was the first time that we had been there. Beautiful red rock, trees that actually had color to them and lots of yummy places to eat. LOL! Thankfully Grandma and Grandpa Lee could come and stay with the boys so that we could do this. It was a little hard for mommy to be away from her babies for so long, a few tears while we were away but at least I knew that they were being very well taken care of.
Thanksgiving. YUMMY!! We were lucky to have my parents here with us and Paul's grandma to celebrate a time to be thankful for all that we have.
Black Friday shopping was next. What fun did I have. My first year doing this and let me tell you, I will do ALL of my Christmas shopping like this every year now. I went with my girlfriend and we had a blast. 3:30 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon.
Bruce...little Bruce. We had his 3rd birthday party this month. So hard to let that one get bigger. He is such a sweet boy. He is a big one though. We went to his 3rd year well child check up and his stats are 95% for height and 90% for weight. At least he is on the charts now. Maybe he will start to slow down. Everyone mistakes him for 4 or 5 years old. We had a great time at his party where he just had the best time with all of his friends.
Now we just are awaiting Christmas to come. Excitement is at our house while the little boys are waiting for the presents to be put under the tree from Santa. Can't wait!!
Then we get to have Liz, Steve and Noelle come and stay with us. We are SOOO excited there really just aren't words for it. It has been 8 months since we have seen them. YAY!!
We hope that everyone has a great and happy holiday right on into the New Year. We love you all!!

Halloween...

2008-11-11T07:44:00.001-08:00

Our little rat baby was ready to go home and go to bed.

Darth Vader and Indiana Jones in action...

Mommy's Boys...

2008-10-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is how they really are and below is the 1 second she had to catch them not being silly

Christian's Kindergarten picture

2008-10-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

LEGOLAND!!

2008-10-03T08:24:00.001-07:00

We had an AWESOME time at Legoland. It is a park that we could have taken a couple of days at to see everything that we wanted to see. Sadly we did this on the day that we drove home and they were only open until 5 this time of the year. It was so much fun though. We can't wait until we can do this again.

Mission Beach and Balboa Park...

2008-10-03T08:14:00.001-07:00

We went to Mission Beach to see the sights and let the kids play. I think that everyone's favorite thing there was the ice cream. They rode some of the rides and then we went back to the other beach to play.

On Wednesday we decided to go to Balboa Park and see how the kids would do at the museums. Surprising enough they had a great time. We went to the miniature trains museum thinking that we would have a better chance of the boys liking it. THEY LOVED IT!! Brucey especially...we thought that if his heart beat any faster he would explode. That kid LOVES trains. It was so much fun and the trains were amazing.

The beach...

2008-10-03T08:08:00.001-07:00

It was beautiful! We loved the water, sand, and seaweed. LOL! We had a great time and couldn't get enough of it. We would have gone more then we did...

Our San Diego Trip!!

2008-10-03T08:05:00.001-07:00

So sad to be home after such a fun trip with the kids. They make it so easy that we wanted to stay forever. This is on the drive there. A pit stop on the way to stretch our legs.

The Cool Kid

2008-09-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

My little stud Brucey!! Isn't he cute?!

Car trouble...

2008-09-03T09:27:00.000-07:00

Ugh!! So I get up, get all the kids ready, feed them all breakfast, get lunches ready for Paul and Christian, get the kids in the car...all I hear is "click click click" as I try to turn my car on. I get the kids all out of the car, back inside the house, call Christian in because I can't get him to school and try to figure out what is wrong with my van. Thankfully I have some great friends!! One called me because she didn't see me drop off Christian and said she was on her way to pick him up and take him to school AFTER she had already dropped her own kids off! What a sweetheart. He was very sad at the thought of not being able to go to school. He sat right down at the kitchen table and said he needed to learn. Most kids would have jumped out of their uniform and ran in front of the tv, but not Christian, he said to me "mom, I have to go to school, I need to learn things". Then my friend came back to see if maybe I just needed to be jumped. Neither of us had jumper cables so she went and bought some to use. Didn't help but isn't she great to go to all of this trouble. She even picked up Christian from school and brought him home. Stacy then called me this morning to see if she could take Christian to school for me. She was a HUGE lifesaver for me. I think that my poor dad had to talk to me about 5 million times yesterday. Trying to give me advice over the phone about what might be wrong with my van. I think that I used up all of his minutes for the month. Thanks to all of you who helped me out yesterday. You ROCK!! As of this morning it is now at a repair shop after getting towed there. I hope that there isn't too much wrong with it....

Jameson's First Birthday!

2008-09-03T09:11:00.001-07:00

He loves his new push toy!!

"Do you mind mom? I'm eating cake."

Jameson's first birthday cake.

He had a great first birthday. He got to have lots of little friends come over and see him. In our group of friends there were 5 of us that all got pregnant at the same time. There are 6 babies (set of twins) that were all born within a 4 month period. So Jameson gets to have little ones his age to grow up with. It was a blast. He ate pizza (minus cheese) and had cake (minus icing) and got to open his gifts and played with balloons. It was a lot for him on his big day and he took a nap about an hour into it. Oh well, we all know mommy always likes an excuse to have a day with her friends and eat cake. =)

Parent Teacher Conferences...

2008-08-26T09:08:00.000-07:00

We had our first official conference last night. It was AWESOME!! She had such great things to say about our little guy. Of course I already knew he was great but it is nice to hear that other people think so too. He had all out standings in all of his classes but he got an OUTSTANDING PLUS in his music class. I was excited to hear that. He is already above state level in his recognition of letters and numbers. She said that she hasn't seen a child with such enthusiasm to learn in a long time and thinks that he is going to do so well because of it. Side story, this last weekend he goes up to Paul and asks for some paper because he said that his "E's" needed practice. He sat down for like 30 minutes and over and over again wrote his E's down. Paul said it was the sweetest thing ever. Talk about dedication.

WANTED!!

2008-08-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

If you see this man anywhere please contact the authorities. He is wanted for numerous hit and runs in his walker.

I have SOOOO many bruises from this little cutie running me over. He is DANGEROUS!

My fish..

2008-08-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Brucey NOT swimming...

Christian swimming...

Christian and Bruce sure love to swim. They always have their lifevests on but they can go anywhere they want to go. I decided it was time for formal swim lessons. Christian did great. He is now vest free and I don't worry (too much) about taking him swimming. Brucey...that's another story. For someone who LOVES the water it was like trying to throw a cat into the water. It was awful. He SCREAMED and thrashed and just wouldn't do it. We only went to 2 lessons and then I had had enough. He will just have to keep wearing his vest for this year. Maybe next year...

May the Force be with you

2008-08-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

It looks like his brothers have already influenced him into loving Star Wars just like them...

Got to thinking...

2008-08-24T19:09:00.000-07:00

So I got to thinking as I was writing the "about me" section on this thing. I said that I was a SAHM and I thought to myself, for someone who supposedly stays home with the kids I am hardly ever there. I don't think that it is very accurate for those of us that are mom's full time to call us SAHM. I think that we should call us something different. We take care of everything around the house, drive the kids to where they need to go, the store and I know there are TONS more things that we do. Have I totally bored you guys yet? Did you stop reading about 2 minutes ago? Well, just so you know, I will be handing out my new business cards and they will say "Michelle Merrill, CEO of the Merrill Household".

Christian's First Month of Kindergarten

2008-08-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

WOW! I can't believe that he is already done with his first month of kindergarten. He is doing GREAT! I always knew that he was smart but it is sure showing in all that he does. He really takes after his daddy. We have our first teacher conferences tomorrow night, I can't wait.