The Mergenthaler Family

Brooklyn's personality is so fun. She seems to have found the perfect balance between social interaction and independent play. She loves to talk with people--especially if she is out shopping with me or at a doctor appointment. At her 3-year old check up, I hardly did any talking. She had a long conversation with the doctor about her likes and dislikes, what she eats, when she sleeps, and how she stays safe. Needless to say, there were no concerns with her ability to communicate. Though she handles herself pretty well in social situations, she is also happy and content playing independently. This has been such a blessing for me lately as she has suddenly given up naps. The loss of nap time is always an adjustment for me. Suddenly, those 1-2 hours of down time in the afternoon where I can clean and listen to my audiobook or pay bills or plan lessons is gone and I have to readjust how and when I do things. When the non-napper is good at independent play, this adjustment is a little e...

We love our baby boy. These pictures over the last few months show how fast he is growing and how much we love to snuggle with him.  He is the best cuddler!

Taking pics of our cute Christmas PJ's from Grandma didn't go that well. The pajamas are cute, the kids are cute, the kids' faces are not that cute.  Maybe our crazy pajama pictures are a good illustration, or maybe even a result of our crazy Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve Eve for that matter.  We had a very busy couple of days before Christmas.  We spent time with a lot of different families doing a lot of good things including shopping for families in need, doing baptisms at the Nauvoo temple, playing at the church gym, wrapping presents for our family and others, acting out the Christmas story with another family, eating meals with other families, and more.  By the time we got to bed at midnight on Christmas eve, I truly felt weary from good works. Dare I post a series of pics from our Nativity story?  It's about as crazy as the pajama pics. Even in the chaos and noise, there was a lot of joy and service. Merry Christmas!

It has been a long Sunday so far. Rick left for church around 8:30 this morning and won't be home until about 9:30 or 10:00 tonight. As much as the Sabbath is supposed to be a delight, it can also be long, stressful, and exhausting.  This afternoon as I was trying to encourage Brooklyn to put her clothes on (for about the twentieth time), I told her she needed clothes on to go to the church to visit Daddy. Right away she brightened. As she quickly got her clothes on she joyfully exclaimed, "Oh, Daddy!  I love my Daddy!  He's my Bishop!"   Having the Bishop as your dad or husband creates some interesting circumstances. Tithing settlement is one. We are scheduled for his last appointment of the night tonight at 7:30 pm. He will visit with us, talk to us about tithing and it's importance, probably give us a treat, and ask us if we are full tithe payers--all things any bishop would probably do at tithing settlement, except we have to make an appointment wit...

Both Andrew and Ricky had basketball tournaments today. Andrew's was 1 1/2 hours away at UNI. Just last night I was wondering if it was worth the sacrifice to our family to get up at 6 am and drive so long to maybe play. But Andrew was looking forward to it. Turns out it was worth the sacrifice. But it was still a rough, long day for me. While Rick, Andrew, and Brooklyn were at that tournament, I stayed home to help the remaining kids with their Saturday chores and take Ricky to his tournament which was only 15 minutes away. Ricky's team didn't fare as well. They have been practicing on Sundays, so Ricky hasn't even been practicing with them and was a little lost. Also, caring for a newborn at a basketball tournament for 5 hours is no picnic. Sean came along to keep me company while the girls stayed home. I was disappointed to find they didn't finish their chores while I was away, so I came home to a pretty scary kitchen. I was tired from a sleepless night, early mo...

I read some advice about journaling that I am hoping to apply to this blog and to my handwritten journal too. The advice is to write less than you want to write.  The reasoning behind the advice is that a person may write less often because they have so much they want to write about that they are overwhelmed and don't know where to start or finish and so they avoid writing at all. This is definitely my problem lately. I feel so busy that when I have a chance to write, it's usually only a few minutes and I'm afraid I won't be able to finish a coherent thought. So, instead, I'm going to try to just write a little more often--or put some pictures up here and there with the understanding that something is better than nothing.  Today, it's about Brooklyn.  Brooklyn walked the boys to school like this a couple of weeks ago. Saggy diaper, messy hair, horribly mismatched outfit (pajamas) with her jacket on top of her little backpack. But, at least she wasn't shirtle...

This is a testament to our difficult summer. The largest plant in my garden is that giant thistle. Those yellow things in the background were supposed to be cucumbers. They taste like it, but I didn't plant yellow cucumbers. We got only a handful of cherry tomatoes.  We have way more weeds than useful plants, and this was the first year in seven that we didn't get raspberries--not because the plants didn't produce but because wasps/yellow jackets ate them.  The strawberry plants were accidentally murdered by a helpful person who dumped pounds of dirt on them in the spring.  The only item in our yard that was a success was the golden delicious apple tree. We had a lot of tasty apples this year. We also had some zucchini, but I don't eat zucchini and I didn't get out there to pick it until they were ginormous. Rick always wants me to plant zucchini, but it overtakes the garden and he doesn't actually eat it. We are approaching the end of October and I am afraid I ...