The Mergenthaler Family

I am a little embarrassed to admit my stupidity here, but this is a pretty funny story. So, I'll give up a little pride so that you can have a good laugh. For those of you who know Ricky well, you know that he always knows where the treats are and how to get them. A couple of weeks ago at one of Emily's basketball practices, Emily's friend's mom (Kaye) gave Ricky and Makayla a sucker out of her purse. Since then, at every basketball event (game or practice), Ricky asks her if she has treats in her purse. I will pause the story here to emphasize that this in itself is embarrassing . I keep telling Ricky, "Stop asking Sister Wierda for treats! Maybe she doesn't want to share! It's bad manners to ask, anyway." Ricky replies, "Oh, she doesn't care! She tells me I'm the smartest boy she knows because I always know where to find the treats." I tell him, "That's not really a compliment." OK, back to the story. So, we're ...

My junior high years were spent at El Portal Junior High in Escalon , CA. I always thought that was a weird name for a school, but I thought of it when I was thinking of a creative title to this post. El portal, loosely translated from Spanish to English means the entrance . . . . we have a new front door. The old one was in pretty bad shape. We could feel the wind blow in the house on a stormy day and it was in dire need of a new paint job. Rather than investing the time, money, and energy in trying to make the front door solid and presentable, we invested in a new one. This is the old door from the outside. The previous owners had spray painted it green. The picture doesn't show, but the threshold has drops of green paint all over it. We tried to clean the paint off the threshold with no luck. Ironically, the paint was easily coming right off the door. The following picture is the door on the inside. Nothing special, but it was really annoying when people were at the door and I d...

We visited Ricky's pre-school yesterday and Emily's class for their class party. We also popped in at Makayla's class for a few minutes. Andrew loved the card Makayla brought home to Mommy and Daddy. Every year since Emily was little, I write special notes to everybody to find at breakfast on Valentines' Day morning. I save these notes in their journals. The notes are often accompanied by a little present. For the last couple of years Emily has added some really cute cards too. The kids were so excited they woke up at 6:30 a.m.--so much for sleeping in on a Saturday morning. Oh well, we have to take Emily to basketball practice at 9:00 a.m. anyway. At least we weren't rushing to get out the door on time.

Happy engagement anniversary, Rick! Can you believe that we got engaged on this same day eleven years ago? I think it was also a Saturday night. We knew we were going to get married--it was just a matter of when you were going to ask me. You tried to surprise me by asking me to marry you a week before Valentine's Day rather then on Valentine's Day. I have to admit, I knew something was up that night--I just wasn't exactly sure what. Here's the story: You took me out on a group date with some other friends. We went to the Fieldhouse (was it called that?) at Rick's to have couple Olympics. We had a bunch of Olympic-type events and relays. It was fun, but not very romantic at all. Then, at about 9:30 p.m., our groups went our separate ways. You said, "Well, I better take you home. It's getting late." I thought, "That's weird--it's only 9:30, but I didn't protest." That was when I knew something was up. When you walked me up to my...

Makayla had a fun birthday yesterday. We love birthdays at our house and I think we all had a fun day as we celebrated with Makayla. Ricky, Andrew, and I had lunch with Makayla at school. We also went to recess with her. Because the temperature was below 5 degrees (-15 with wind chill), the kids had indoor recess. We had recess in Makayla's classroom. Andrew loved seeing Makayla's class guinea pig, Squirt. After we had recess with Makayla, we saw Emily in the hall. So, we went to her classroom for indoor recess too. Later that night, we had the party. The kids got to watch Parent Trap while we were waiting for Dad to come home with the pizza and root beer (Makayla's dinner request). When Rick got home with the pizza, Andrew yelled, "Happy Birthday Daddy!" I can't tell you how excited he was about this birthday stuff. After dinner, Makayla opened presents. She got art supplies from Grandma and Grandpa Gudgel which she can't wait to use. Grandma Mergentha...

Happy Birthday, Makayla Bug!!! I want you to know how special you are today. You were born on Super Bowl Sunday 7 years ago. We were so glad to see you and were especially glad that you arrived healthy and well. There is a saying that goes, "When they put you in my arms, you slipped into my heart." For you, that is not really true because I loved you even before you were born. I loved you just knowing that you were there and waiting to join our family. I loved the thought that we would soon have another little girl to dress up in cute dresses and to play dolls with Emily. We really do love having you in our family. You are a wonderful little sister for Emily and a loving big sister to Ricky and Andrew. We love it when you are silly. You make us laugh all the time. You are fun to be around. You are good at thinking of fun games to play and you say funny things. Like last week, you guys were getting ready for the mini-dance marathon at school. You dressed Ricky all up in his ch...

It is a rare moment when the kids find something they want to all play together (without fighting) for a long time. But, on Sunday, they managed to keep themselves occupied for over an hour with their own Primary class in the basement. For those of you who don't know, at our church, the children ages 3-12 attend Primary. Primary classes are divided by age group and meet in individual classes for Sunday School lessons. However, for a portion of time each Sunday, the children meet together for singing time and another collective lesson called Sharing Time. So, on Sunday afternoon while Andrew and I were taking naps, the other children put together their own Primary with stuffed animals. They put dresses on the bigger dolls and placed them at the front to be the adults. The other animals were lined up by size (to simulate different age groups). Each of the stuffed animals had their own name tag. Emily led a lively discussion on the first paragraph of The Family Proclamation. They also...