The Mergenthaler Family

Oh, what do you do in the winter time when all the world is white?  (and cold) Really, how do we manage to keep busy children entertained through the cold winter months?  Well, honestly, they do essentially the same thing they would any other time of year--play outside. One benefit of living in  a winter climate is snow.  Playing in the snow provides hours of entertainment if the temperature outside is not too cold.  For my friends on the west coast, "too cold" means less than 15 degrees or "too windy" which makes it "too cold."  We have had a mild winter thus far, and we didn't really have snow to play with until Christmas Eve.  Since then, the kids have enjoyed sledding in the backyard, making snowmen, and building snow forts.  Best of all, they are old enough and independent enough to be playing outside in the cold without me.  I stay inside with Sean. A few weeks ago, we had perfect weather for building snowmen and snow forts....

We had a nice, quiet Christmas here in Eastern Iowa.  I admit I felt a little sad leading up to the holidays when people asked, "Are you going anywhere for Christmas?" When I answered no, their inevitable next question was, "Oh, do you have any family coming to visit you?"  I felt a little pang of sadness when I replied, "No, we're just going to have a quiet Christmas at home."  After our painful Thanksgiving week, I was due for a real vacation and the thought of another two weeks at home with the kids did not sound relaxing at all.  What I was forgetting, though, was that Rick would be well and hopefully the kids would be healthy too.  In the end, I liked Christmas very much even if we didn't go anywhere or have any visitors. Here is some of what we did: Christmas Cookies Christmas Eve began with cookie baking and decorating.  Since I don't love baking or decorating sugar cookies, Rick took on this activity with the kids while I gave t...

When Ricky was a baby and toddler, people would always say, "He looks just like his daddy."  Now that Ricky is older, we don't hear that so much about him, but the two things people say about Sean are:  1.  "He has such beautiful eyes!"  and 2. "He looks just like Rick."  If people see Sean with me and don't know Rick they say, "He must look like his Daddy."  I try not to believe that they are intending to say, "That handsome little boy certainly didn't get his good looks from his mother."  Instead, I believe they are saying, "You must be married to a very handsome man."  I am. Sean found Rick's glasses on the floor a few weeks ago.  We put them on him just for fun and he looked so cute!  I guess he really does look like his daddy! People may not comment about Ricky looking like Rick as much as they used to, but we often wonder where Ricky gets his busy, happy, energetic personality.  I'm ...

I have been anxious to write a new post so that visitors to our blog would not be frightened by the view on their monitor when they see me in that crazy wig, but we have been sooo busy and I have had very little time to call my own. The week of Thanksgiving was difficult, and I would NOT readily repeat the holiday (at least this year).  Rick was due to have surgery to repair a hernia on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  His surgery was an expected event, and I knew it would be challenging to carry the burden of everything on my own.  What wasn't expected was the timing of the stomach flu striking our house like a tsunami.  The Sunday night before Rick was to go into surgery, Ricky succumbed to the stomach flu that had been going through school and church.  Because Rick was afraid to get sick himself, I took care of Ricky all during Sunday night and into Monday.  Ricky's sickness brought the beginning of many days of laundry and bathroom san...

We got a little silly last Sunday and I ended up with a new hairdo . . .  Andrew liked my new look so much that he decided that he would like his haircut to look the same . . .   Makayla is still considering her opinion of the new hairstyle.  She was devoting so much thought to the idea that she required a "thinking cap."