The Mergenthaler Family

Since I was still overwhelmed with construction stuff, I let the kids do the decorating again (I think they have done most of the decorating each year since Sean was born). They're getting pretty good at it.  We are a good team: they get everything out and decorate and I clean up and put away the mess when they're done.  In the background of the above pictures, you can see the doorway to our new bedroom and window screens I had yet to clean and reinstall in our windows.  There is something magical about a Christmas tree. The lights and ornaments are peacefully inviting. It's difficult to walk by a lit and decorated tree without pausing to look or touch. The little ones are really good at touching.  I don't mind that they touch. We try to keep the ornaments we don't want broken toward the top of the tree, but ornaments do break every year. Usually, most of the broken ornaments are just the glass balls that we use as "fillers" to provide more color.  As Chri...

The night before Thanksgiving we went as a family to a University of Iowa basketball game. It's fun to have access to quality college sports so close. The boys like the free posters and game schedule magnets.  The team won and we had a good time together. I was only partially annoyed by the guy sitting by me who loudly predicted every play. He was wrong a lot, but when he was right he would clapand cheer like they were doing exactly what he told them to do. He also was ignoring his little boy who was asking him questions and making observations about the game because he clearly wanted to be a part of what his dad was excited about. I wish instead of shushing his kid he would have showed him some attention and shushed himself a bit.  But, I had a good time with the kids and probably need to mind my own business. 

The fun thing about being the littlest is trying on your big sisters' and brothers' clothes. They don't get mad because you're so cute! Makayla's shoes: Andrew's coat: Ricky's coat: Andrew's hat Sometimes she just wears her own clothes and tries to "match" somebody.  Winter weather provides a good excuse to layer.  Oh, look!  I have a few pictures of other kids too! That was when school was cancelled because of wind chills of 25 below zero. It was the first big snow of the season and the kids were desperate to play outside.  Brooklyn braved the back porch for a few minutes: She looks cold, huh?  But still cute. 

I didn't make it out of November with that last batch of pictures, so I will try again while I have a few minutes. This batch of pictures are a little more "artsy." Here's our budding artist or author. She mostly writes "W" and "O" and she has written on our walls and furniture way more than our other children.  The next pictures are at the library's fountain after story time. I actually took the little ones!  I used to go all the time, but now we probably only make it to story time once a year.  Little B being sassy in Daddy's glasses.  Relaxing on the couch watching Daniel Tiger.  Copy cat.  More later!

This is an email to my parents, but I thought that since I took the time to write out the whole thing, I could also save it here. Sorry there aren't pictures and it's kind of long, but nobody is making you read it . . . . Another week gone by with another set of adventures.  The weather was horribly cold and we had a big snowstorm on Monday afternoon.  School was delayed Tuesday, cancelled Wednesday, and delayed both Thursday and Friday.  The cancellation on Wednesday was actually fortuitous because the kids ended up getting Rick’s nasty cold/fever.  Everybody but Emily and Ricky. Rick was out of town from Thursday through Saturday night.  He went to the FASB conference where all the accounting smarties get together and talk about rules/standards/ how to record numbers, etc.  It’s an honor that he’s invited, and good for his job but honestly, I’m over him travelling all the time. So, of course, since Rick was out of town we had to have an emerg...

I need to clear some pictures off my phone, but first I thought I should upload some of the best from the past few months. Do I dare go all the way back to Halloween?  Why not? Well, that's up through Halloween, but there's still a lot of good pictures. Maybe on the next post I can get up to Christmas. 

We have had a lot of conversations with the kids about not only choosing the right, but also standing for the right even when it may not seem the popular choice. A couple of weeks ago, Andrew showed me that some of our teaching has sunk in. He had gone to play at a friend's house, and when I went to pick him up, his mom said she had a funny story about Andrew:  The boys were gathered in the kitchen eating a snack. Andrew's friend asked Andrew if he had ever tried the hot Cheezits. Andrew hadn't, so they pulled out the box and each boy got some. The other boys began eating their crackers, but  Andrew noticed some writing on the box that disturbed him. He quickly told the friend's mom, "I don't eat tobacco, so I can't eat these crackers."  The mom was a little taken back until she realized that Andrew was misreading the box which said, "Made with TOBASCO!"  She said, "We don't eat tobacco either, and I'm glad you let me know, but t...