Look at my loot!

E got so many great gifts this year.....

A new percussion set from Great Karen
He was pretty excited...he loves music

Some new (washable--yay!) markers and construction paper from Tim, Sarah and T.J.
That's his, "This is all fine and good, but, Mom, are you actually
going to let me play with these markers?" look


Checking out his new Big Picture Bible from Uncle Rog, Aunt Aimee, Luke and Olivia
(That's another one of his loves....books)

Brand new CARS bedding from Granny Franzi

(E had just opened Grandma MJ's Fridge DJ. He was quite enamored with it.)

I just love this picture--he was really enjoying opening his presents!

A new Veggie! Gideon, Tuba Warrior--from Grandma Nette and Grandpa.

(This is currently one of two new favorites in the house.)

They also got him the newest Veggie, Abe and the Amazing Promise!
A new dinosaur puzzle from Colin and Cameron

Another new Veggie from Tom, Jen, Brooklyn and Aiden: Tom and Huck!

(The second of the two current favorites)

Ah, and here we have the squishy, bouncy, hairy, light-up ball (from Pastor and Kathy)......

....which he and his brothers really liked.

The other gift from Pastor and Kathy?

A harmonica.

They're going to be wonderful grandparents, aren't they?

Just look at 'em giggling with glee in the background.

Such lovely not-at-all loud and obnoxious gifts they shower our children with....*giggle*

My little noise-maker musician was in heaven

This little puppy is currently the number one fight-causer in my home.

At any given point in the day, you might hear:

"Mommy! Colin won't let me have the 'woe-dah-ma-kah-ta'....."

{That's har-mon-i-ca for those of you who do not speak Cameron-ese.}

Lots of goodies.

Lots of FUN!

Gift opening sure can tire a little guy out!

Apparently.....Cameron prefers Mr. Lunt

Today the boys were watching one of their many Veggie Tales: Madame Blueberry.

It's an oldie, but a great-y. I love it.....it teaches the valuable lesson of having a thankful and happy heart with what God has given you, rather than always wanting more, more, more.

{We can all take a lesson from these vegetables, don't you think?}

We got to the silly song, and on came one of my favorites--the "His Cheeseburger" Song.

Trust me, it's worth it to click that link and watch. It's hilarious. And it just keeps getting funnier each time I see it.

Anyway, back to the video.

Here I am, buzzing around the living room (all around the boys, who are watching Mr. Lunt so intently) cleaning up toys and giving the room a general straightening up.

I start singing along. Loudly.

"Be back for you-oooo, he'll be back for you-oooooooooo......."

Cameron, from across the room, says,

"Mommy?"

I hear him--vaguely--but I'm into the tune. "You are his cheeseburger......"

Cameron again, louder this time:

"Mommy? Mooooooooommmmmyyyyyyyyy?"

".....his precious cheeseburger...."

So, Cameron walks over....and taps me on the leg. Ever so politely....

"Mommy? Excuse me, Mommy? Um......

I can't hear Mr. Lunt."

Hmmmph.

Every letter makes a sound, the "F" says....

Shane, who was playing the guitar tonight and trying to figure out a new song that has an unfamiliar "F" chord in it, says to me:

"The chorus is just a little hard....I don't know the "F"."

Cameron replies:

"The "F" says 'fffffffffffffff' Daddy."

There is no other word than.....SICK.

I believe....

that it is safe to call a morning diaper

a complete

blowout

when you are cleaning

p**p

out of your poor son's

ears

with a Q-tip.

And that was

after

his double-wash and double-shampoo shower.

Looks like I probably

won't be blogging birthday pics today....

I'll be washing disinfecting toddler bedding.

The end.

The first of what will probably be a slew of birthday posts

Last year, Ethan totally got jipped on his birthday.



(Is that how you spell that? Jipped? Gipped? Spell check offered me kipped, hipped, copped, cupped, and japed.



Once again, I digress. Back to last January.)



Ethan had bronchitis on his first birthday, so we had to cancel his party. *Poor 3rd child. Mommy never rescheduled....*



However, my sweet mother-in-law, on our family vacation in Wisconsin last June, decided that we were going to make birthday cupcakes and we were going to have an 18-month birthday party for Ethan. "What a great idea," I thought.



So, we donned hats, and started singing "Happy Birthday" to my sweet baby.

And, this is what he did:

I thought maybe it was the hat, so I took it off.

Nope.

Even cake didn't cheer him up.

I'm not sure why, but, at the sound of the Happy Birthday song, my son started having a slow meltdown. He really never recovered. I had to *force* the cake down him in order to get pictures of him eating cake. I thought it was a fluke.

Until this year.

Same song.

Same reaction.

(It's Cameron, by the way, who is the unseen blower-outer of the birthday candles *grin*.)

The cake worked this year, though! Ethan perked right up after the video, when I placed a giant piece in front of him and let him go at it....but I thought it was funny that he reacted this way to this song twice. (Three times, if you count his 'almost-cry' in church Sunday morning when they sang to him in Sunday School.)

Even though it wasn't the reaction I thought he would have, it was pretty cute. And it makes for a good story and a great video!

You guys are the greatest

Wow. I'm overwhelmed.

First, to my hubby, who stayed up way past his bedtime on Friday night to do his inaugural post: babe, you are amazing!

Though there were *ahem* a few grammatical--well--differences in your writing versus my writing, (and the spacing....oh, the spacing.....) I must say that, content-wise, yours was the best post ever on this blog. {Since it was so late at night and you were so tired and this was your first time ever using and trying to figure out blogger--just this one time--I will excuse them. Next time, however, please allow me to check everything over before hitting 'publish'.}

*grin*

Shane--I love you so very much! Thank you for this special effort you made to let me know how special I am to you, and how much you love me too! {By the way--this counts for approximately three weeks worth of "unexpected nice things you do for your wife."}

I think everyone would agree with me--you are welcome back here anytime!

To all of my family and friends--almost every one I know left me a comment wishing me a happy birthday! It was great watching the comments and well-wishes flow in. Not to mention Shane loved the fact that he blew my comment numbers out of the water! *grin*

I must say, I don't really know what I was expecting as far as turning 30, but my day was far more wonderful than I could have imagined. Though I had Ethan's birthday party to focus on and keep me distracted, there were still plenty of people reminding me that it was my day too, and wishing me well--both in real life and in blog land.

This post of Shane's (and all of your participation!) made my day that much better. And I want to thank each and every one of you who wished me a Happy Birthday. It truly was a wonderful day.

30 ain't so bad after all, y'all! I'm looking forward to what's in store for me this year. More to come soon on our weekend of festivities!!

Come one......come all...

Let me start by saying this, I was hoping my grand entrance to the blog posting world would be a more important topic than this.

Yes, this is Shane and I always envisioned something about early american literature, the rise and fall of the Ming Dynasty or maybe something more serious like am I really smarter than a fifth grader?! All great ideas....looking forward to really getting into the meat of all those subjects, but I have a small announcement to make.

It is Devin Marie's Birthday Today!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Big 3-0

For all of you who don't know, I am only a mere 28. You're right, I agree with you, I was taken advantage of, but I have moved past this with some long talks and some crying nights. Anyway, enough about me.

This is Devin's day. My sweet, funny, kind hearted, crazy, love of my life, marry all over again, love of my life friend to which I am eternally grateful that she chose me(or stalked me...as I like to think of). I thank God every day. I love you with all my heart, baby. I hope that today is so wonderful for you. You are more beautiful to me today in every way than ever.

So, Devin and I have this little competition between us to see who can get the most comments on a post depending on who the post is about. I am in the lead with 17 comments on the post about my mom's cabinet, and I think it would be great to see that post get blown out of the water today by you guy's wishing you're favorite blue eyes, brown hair, birthday today, junior mint lovin', not at all old blogger friend.

Warning to her little blog friends....no "accidental" double commenting will be permitted. I'm talking to you Julie, Kara, and Kathy--the influences you put on my wife.

I have no idea what I'm talking about; it's 1:30 A.M. and all I can think about is if the punctuation, subject-verb agreement, the past and present tenses, and overall grammar of this post is up to the standards of the regular postee( or poster?).

That's funny, right.

Anyway, gotts to go.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I LOVE YOU

Happenings, Part Six: Closet Makeover alternately titled: One more *thing* checked off the Honey-Do list

Wow. What a response. Did you all read the comments of the last post?

Hilarious.


The Munro Family's comment definitely had the most "Merritt Thought" put into it (and if you can't understand why on earth she would bring up a snake, you should click here); my sister-in-law Aimee's comment made both Shane and me laugh out loud; Steph's comment.....well, she obviously knows my boys pretty well; and I felt extremely well loved (as usual) by my buds Julie, Kara, and Kathy :-).



Most of you were on the same train of thought: Shane re-did our master closet.



Of all the projects we have done (and I have posted) this is probably--in Shane's own words--the least impressive on a grandeur scale; yet, for me, it is one of the most practical improvements we've done yet! We didn't do the whole knock-down-walls-and-make-a-huge-walk-in-master-closet or anything....but once again used what we had and added a few key improvements.


And I use the term we very, very loosely here.

See, I started with this:

Every single bit of clothing that both Shane and I owned had to fit on this one bar. We don't own a standard dresser like most people do, so we have less room for clothing right off the bat--and then you add a very non-functional closet on top of that, and we were really hurting! We have only one other piece of furniture in our bedroom, and that is an armoir with only two drawers. There's got to be a place for underwear and socks, so....you can see our dilemma.

One bar.

For two winters now, my sweaters have found their position on the side of my bed, like so:

{The type-A perfectionist in me did, not at all,

have a difficult time posting the above picture.}

Tsk, tsk. For shame.

So, after two years of grumbling complaining gently reminding my sweet husband of my problems in this area, like stepping over my clothes every night just to get in my bed, for crying out loud, a couple of days ago, Shane decided to quickly and efficiently tackle our closet and shut me up once and for all.

You know. In his free time.

He started by ripping one whole foot of panelling and framing off of each side of the openings of our closet, so as to widen the door by two whole feet! There is nothing worse than having to reach back into the closet behind a wall to try to get your hands on your clothes. It's just terrible visibility people. That's all there is to it.


Colin, of course, helped by *sawing* some wood of his own....
....with a hat that matches his Daddy's of course.


More cutting, and you can see the some of the shelving here as well!



And, about three hours later, I had this!

Glorious. Just glorious.

{*Doors to be added later, if you're wondering*}

Every single stinkin' thing I own (oh, yeah...and Shane's too) fits in here. Organized. Dressy shirts with dressy pants. Camis right next to sweaters and shrugs. T-shirts hung together and color-coordinated. Long-sleeved shirts separated from short-sleeved. Sweaters folded and in a spot that fits them oh. so. perfectly.

And nothing shoved on any floors. Anywhere.

I am a happy woman. And Shane wins husband-of-the-year. Hands down.

Are you wondering why every piece of clothing Shane and I own is out on our bed?

Any guesses?

Looks like I have a bit of work to do in the "teaching of the body parts" department

A conversation between Cameron and me today:

Cameron: "Mommy, I don't feel very good."

Me: "What's the matter, buddy?"

Cameron: "I have a headache."

Me: "Oh, you do? Well, where does it hurt?"

Cameron: "My tote."

Me: "Your throat?"

Cameron: "Yeah."

Me: "Where is that, Cameron? Show Mommy where it is you hurt."

Cameron: "Right here."

And.....he points to his belly.

*sigh*

A belated--but very special--Christmas gift

As I mentioned in my previous post, Shane and the boys and I took an impromptu trip to Chicago last week. Shane and his brothers decided at Thanksgiving that, for Christmas, they would get a corner cabinet thingy for Lynette, who has been looking for one for months and has never found one she liked. Roger and Jason would provide the funds, and Shane would provide the labor *grin* for the cabinet.



So, Shane spent several days designing, building, and finishing this cabinet for his mom. He is certainly not a cabinet maker, but he really went to town on this one, putting special curves and finishes on it--and adding his Mom's favorite thing--hearts--into the design. The corner was too tight to do one solid cabinet (and still be able to fit Lynette's microwave properly) so Shane built an upper and a lower cabinet instead of just one unit.


Shane's brother, Jason, who lives in Minnesota (and we don't see all that often) was in town for business last Thursday--so, it seemed like a great opportunity to head up, install his Mom's cabinet (that she knew nothing about, by the way), and see his brothers all at once.

We got there about 1 o'clock, and Shane began the installation: (The microwave cart that you can see in the background

to the left is what used to be in that corner)

Lynette walked in to find her boys and most of their families in her living room!

She had no idea, and was very surprised and very happy!
And then she walked into the kitchen....and spotted the cabinet.

This was her reaction:


Yes, there were tears involved....

And a look at her boys, as if to say,
"You guys did this?"


A hug to the builder :-)



And, basically, for the remainder of the evening,
you could find her doing this--just staring up at it!

It really was fun to see our family, and a great surprise for Lynette. She is a wonderful person and a great mother-in-law, and was very deserving of something nice for Christmas. Thanks to big Roger (Shane's dad) for helping us pull this off--we couldn't have done it without you!