Family, cousins, blessings and ramblings...

Here is my whole family. It was really great to see everyone this weekend. I love the new relationships that I have with my family members as we get older. If you were comparing pictures and counting cousins there is one extra kid, you are not seeing things. We had a little Papa stow-away sneak into the picture. We all got a kick out of it.

Look at all the Merrill cousins. They have such a great time together. I love that they are all close enough is age to play together. I never thought that I would have kids around the same times as any of my older siblings. Not that there are huge gaps between all of us, but I never thought that it would happen this way. But for the exception of the oldest, Megan who is a great leader to all the littler ones, all the other cousins have someone right in their age bracket. How fun!


We headed over to Queen Creek on Sunday to go to Paisley's blessing. It was such a special day. It is amazing to see the prayers of so many answered. It brought tears to my eyes to see this perfect little girl all dressed in white.

Potty training Bode has been going better than expected. Bode really likes to wear "unerwers". Today we went all day with out any wet messes and he pooped in his pull-up after nap. In the morning he gets up and all by himself strips down, pee-pees on the potty and asks me for his "unerwers"

I am getting really excited to have this little baby. I think that with Bode I was really scared and nervous about the prospect of become parents and having to take care of a child, that was all mine. I was afraid that we didn't get the right things, that the crib was wrong, we didn't buy enough clothes, the diapers wouldn't fit, I wouldn't know what to do with the little tiny thing. The other part was that I didn't know that you could have so much love for someone you didn't know before. This time I am a bit more at peace. I feel so excited for the new little spirit to come into our home. I know newborns are hard, but I am so ready to see what she is going to turn into.

Jeremiah's demeanor is different this time around too. Last time I felt like we bought everything like a month before Bode was born. It really stressed me out to not have all the things around me to prepare for the baby. This time Jer has been really sweet to want to get everything ready sooner. He keeps telling me to write down a list of the this we need to buy. We were talking about Christmas and I was thinking of all the gifts and things that go along with the holiday that you have to spend money on. Things like family, Bode, getting a Christmas tree and Jeremiah reminded me to put the new baby down on my list of people to shop for. It may not sound like a big deal but for me it was nice to know he is thinking of her.

I swear that she is not going to have a name. I can not tell you how many times we have stayed up late at night trying to think of baby girl names. It is really hard. We both go blank on girl names. I know that it is not that big of a deal to not have a name right now, but shouldn't we at least have a few that are at least contenders?

I know that this may seem a bit random, but here is goes anyway. I am a sucker for a good deal, always. I love finding things at yard sales, goodwill, where ever, and as long at there is no lingering smell, I fix them up. I have found a ton of things to decorate my house this way. Plus it is a great way to find gently used kids items. I have been yard sale-ing for a few weekends and have found some great little girl clothes and a bumbo for really good prices. I also and a sucker for hand me downs. I remember one time when I was little I got a big old bag of hand me down clothes from a lady in my parents ward and it was like Christmas in September.

Why am I writing all this down you may ask? Well with the impending arrival of baby girl Joncas (this may be her name if we can't find one, get used to it) I am starting to gather all the needed baby things. But I figured why not see if anyone has any baby things that are taking up space they wouldn't mind handing down.

Ok that is probably enough stuff for one post, by the way 77 days to go...