The Mergenthaler Family

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to get all my pictures off my phone and onto my computer.  So, I'll share some with you before they're out of date. Andrew loves to read and loves to play basketball.  When the weather started to warm up, he would head outside with a book to play ball.  Our sunny front bench was a perfect place to rest.  Emily made muffins for one of her classes.  She is getting to be quite a foodie and convinced me to take her to the farmer's market last weekend to get kale for smoothies and lettuce.  She was hoping for squash and zucchini too, but it's too early in the season.  With teens and tweens around, I find a lot of these "selfies" on my phone.  For some reason, the blogger software stretched this picture to be a little wide looking.  Finding these pictures on my phone sometimes makes me annoyed, but usually makes me laugh.  I love naps.  Brooklyn had a fever for a few days a couple of months ago...

What follows is a post written by Rick--the first time he was written on our family blog!  I love what he wrote and share his feelings about our family.  I'm a lucky girl!! . . . . Seventh Heaven.   That phrase accurately describes the emotions I experienced when I learned that we are having our seventh child in September.   But others don’t quite understand why we have a large family.   In fact, some of my close friends have said things like “you do know how this works don’t you” or “don’t you have six kids already.” I try to respond with a smile and politely point out that Bonni and I are well aware of how this process works and that this decision is not in any way ad hoc or unplanned.   In fact, I’m just as scared as anyone else about this news.   You may think this is counterintuitive given the joy and happiness I mentioned earlier, but I worry about each one of my children.   I pray for them.   I want them to know how much I love the...

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!