Giggle Monster

It's been a really tough week & I needed a little giggle. Hope it brightens your day, too.

(Sorry for the bad quality & the TV in the background!)

Surgery, Again

OK. There's just one more thing to post about & then I think I'm all caught up.

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Last Monday, Andrew had surgery to remove scar tissue & re-fix a hernia that he originally had fixed over 2 years ago. It's workman's comp, so thank heavens that he's going to be paid for some of the time he's having to take off, and we're all praying that this surgery will get rid of the pain that he's been dealing with since 2006.

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I HATE it when he has surgery because the meds do really crazy things to him. For instance, he just doesn't wake up from the anesthesia. Like, for HOURS he doesn't wake up. And morphine just about kills him every time, literally. His respiratory system practically shuts down, and the nurses are prodding him & yelling at him to "Breathe!!" When I came in to see him in recovery (3 hours after his surgery was over), his oxygen sats were UP TO about 85. He was about 3 shades of gray, and the nurses kept asking me to poke him to get him to pick up his breathing. Yep, lots of fun. Add into that a mommy that hasn't nursed her baby in almost 10 hours, and you've got a really fun day.

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But we made it through & now he's almost been cleared to go back to work. His incision is right across his belly button, so he's been having a devil of a time keeping the kids from hitting it. Frank especially doesn't understand why he can't just hurl himself into Daddy's lap & have Daddy catch him. I don't appreciate that he can't burp Jack or hold him when he's squirming or fussy. It's very true that we don't realize how much these men do for us until they can't. I have to take care of every chore, meal, fussy kid, phone call, and barking dog. (Andy kind of looks like a pregnant lady when he's forced to move off the couch.) And now Jack has mysteriously started waking up in the middle of the night for an extra feeding. So Mommy is sleepy all the time too, on top of everything else.

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But we perservere, and soon it'll all be better. Until the next catastrophe.

An Almost White Christmas

The morning after Christmas, we woke up to snow falling all over the Tucson area. But lucky us, we're quite a bit higher than the city, or even other parts of Vail, so we get blessed with more white stuff than most out here.

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It had rained so much before it started snowing that the ground was really mushy. So the next morning it was covered with 1/2 inch of pure ice. But everything else got a pretty respectable dusting of the soft stuff.

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Does he look like the kid from "The Christmas Story" or what?

Yummy!

I remember loving to break the ice in the dog's dish every morning during the winter. I guess the tree wells are just as fun.

See? We do have winter here in AZ!

But I must say that since this storm, it's been near 75 almost every day. In fact, yesterday it was 80 degrees! Eat your heart out, my snowbound friends!

Christmas Past

Wow. Christmas feels like it was forever ago! But since we haven't documented it yet, here's a quick rundown of our holiday.

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We spent Christmas Eve in Safford at my grandparents' house. It's a family tradition that goes back since before I can remember, and we drive down every other year to take part- it honestly just doesn't feel much like Christmas without Grandma Joy's enchiladas & dump punch. Santa also came to visit & brought gifts for all of the kids. We had so much fun seeing all the family, and stayed longer than we should have before we hit the road to drive home that night.

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Very few people seem to understand why we always come home on Christmas Eve instead of staying in Safford where all the family is from. But there's just something about having Christmas morning in your own living room that makes all the difference. Besides, we're still at the "how will Santa find us if we're not at home?" stage.

We made a quick pit stop at Grandmother Ford's house to collect some YUMMY chocolates & change into our Christmas PJ's before we headed home.

Santa brought us lots of cool stuff! A GeoTrax for Frank, a bike for Emma, and a crib toy for Jack. And a big THANK YOU to everyone that sent us presents & goodies. I never feel more blessed than when I look at this scene every year on Christmas Eve. We are so loved!I wasn't going to share too many pics of the kids & presents, but I just had to post this one of my big girl. Look how skinny her arms & legs look with the pads on! What a cutie.These were one of my favorite presents- Frank chose them himself!We passed away the afternoon with the gingerbread house & playing with all of our cool new stuff. I like to do the gingerbread house on Christmas afternoon because we're always bored, and then the kids have a limited time to pick off the candy before I pitch it in the trash. Emma actually ate so much frosting & candy that she up-chucked. Fun Christmas memories!Grandma especially enjoyed trying to build the ranch house out of Lincoln Logs. Christmas night we had our big party. We had Grandma & Grandpa, the Korn kids, Butch's family, and Robyn & kids. Thanks to everyone that came- we had a great time & some KILLER food.Jake, Hailey, & Eric. These 3 were acting like little kids all night long- tormenting & teasing each other. It was great to see, and it was nice to have Jake home from Montana for the holiday.I thought Sharissa was going to cream him, but Eric actually won! My little Christmas gift. Hi Aunt Robyn- or as Frank says, "Aunt Wobby."
Our holiday was fantastic, and we couldn't ask for better family or friends. A late Happy Holidays to everyone!

I'm Back in the Loop!

These last few weeks have been almost unbearable. Horror of horrors, we had no computer! Our processor fan went out, and after searching far & wide, we had to order one from our computer manufacturer. Then they sent us some little metal piece that only cost $11, but was the completely wrong part. Well, $60 and another week of waiting later, we are connected to the world again!

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I can't even believe how many times a day I have a thought about looking up something on the Internet, or go to check my e-mail. I feel like I've been living in a black cave with no clue as to what was going on out there where you all are! But the worst thing was that I do ALL of my money management & bill paying online. I knew that I had bills due, but I literally didn't know what was due when, or how to get it paid, because I don't get paper statements for most of my bills. AAAAHHHHH!! These last 2 days have been torture, knowing that I NEEDED to get on the computer & pay the people who so nicely provide us with water, electricity, and insurance. Luckily none of the bills were late, and after 2 hours on the computer balancing the checkbook (I had been putting it off over the holidays, and so it hadn't been balanced since Dec. 15!!!!), all is well in the Merriman banking world. I plan to sit down tomorrow & get everything down on paper so that this doesn't ever happen again. Ugh.

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And, since we're back up & running, I'll finally get to post some Christmas pics, and tell of our fun times lately. (Insert sarcasm here.) But that'll have to be tomorrow, I have the great need of some chocolate right now. C-ya!

The Big Trip

My little brother Tanner got married last week, on the 19th. And since that date also happens to be Emma's birthday, it was a VERY full trip from Tucson to Mesa, Mesa to Safford, and from Safford back to Tucson again.

[WARNING: This post is almost endless. Only read if you've got some time on your hands!]

We tried very hard to have an actual party for Emma's big #5, but none of the fam could celebrate with us at Matuku's Island or back in Thatcher. Emma was really disappointed that she didn't get to have a party with her cousins, but we tried to make it special for her anyways.

Matuku's Island is a huge family fun play area just off of I-10 in Gilbert. We heard about it from Gina & Bryce, and it was perfect for Emma's celebration. Since we were going to be too busy on the 19th, we drove up early on the 18th to have lunch there. At first I was disappointed because we were the only ones there, but after a while I was very glad that there weren't masses of kids everywhere. I never would have been able to keep track of my 2 crazy kids if this place had been crowded. Let me just say- AWESOME!!!

We all had fun climbing & exploring.

I have never felt so undignified in my life- and if you know me, that's really saying something! This slide was just barely short of dangerous- this is me shooting out the end. Don't ask me how little kids survive this thing.

Emma after going down the same slide. She refused to go down any more of the big slides after that. Go figure, neither would I!

I'm approximately 30 feet in the air at this point. Yikes!

The 3-story "curly slide." Intense!

Frank decided to stick to the little slides after being scared to death with Mommy on some of the big ones. Can't say I blame him at all!

After a few hours of playing & getting really worn out, we headed over to the temple for a session with Tanner's fiance, Amy. I would like to say a big THANK YOU to her for providing babysitting for us while we were up there. It meant so much that she would think of us so that us husbands & wives could both go to the session & sealing. Thank you! And how nice it was to get back to the temple. It's been ages since we've been able to attend, and it was wonderful.

After the session, we headed over to the temple lights & wandered around with Gina & Bryce Moody, who drove down to see us. It was nice, but Emma started running a fever & was coming down with a major UTI, so we headed off to find some cranberry juice & to get those kids into bed. Jack was so tired from his day that he actually fell asleep at 9:00 pm in his carseat at the temple and slept until 7:30 the next morning without moving an inch! Mommy was glad, because I was up most of the night with a fevering Emma & a Frank that kept falling off the bed. Kids!
The next morning Emma was miraculously healed, just in time to turn 5! What a kid- she got up & took a shower by herself so that she could put on her birthday dress & get her big day started. She was very patient as we ate breakfast, but was dying to open those presents that appeared sometime during her sleep.

A true Emma story:

3 presents sitting on the table.

"Which would you like to open first, Emma?" Mom asks.

"The little one!"

"Why, Emma? What comes in little boxes?" Mom wonders.

"Diamonds!" Emma exclaims.

(Where does she get this from? She sure doesn't get it from me!)

Anyways, she got a beautiful bracelet from Daddy, a camera from Mommy, and a game from the boys. Good times, and lots of smiles from our precious little birthday girl. After checking out from the hotel, we mosied on over to the temple & got the kids settled with the babysitters again. During a lovely sealing ceremony, we got to see Tanner marry his sweetheart, and it was beautiful. We are so happy for them, just like we were just a few weeks ago for Seth & Josylyn. So much joy in such a little time!

Some pictures on the steps. (I was wondering if Andrew & I were ever this young or beautiful.)

Some pictures on the lawn.

And off in the car for the long drive to Thatcher. All of the kids had finally succumbed to the exhaustion that they'd been fighting for the past 2 days & slept most of the way. All except poor Emma who kept waking up & asking if we were there yet. She was desperate to have some cake & ice cream, as apparently that's what constitutes a "party" to a 5 year-old. Thanks for helping us out with that, Grandma!

Finally, we blew out some candles & hit the sack. Whew! And to think the weekend wasn't even over yet!

Saturday morning dawned bright & beautiful- a perfect day for a reception. Mommy & the older kids went to the church to help decorate, and visit with family.

We DEFINITELY needed to take naps, and the kids hit the sack hard. We barely got them up & ready in time for the reception at 7:00 pm. Somehow I managed to not get 1 picture of Tanner & Amy at the reception. I could've sworn that I took a couple of pictures, but maybe they got erased or something, because they don't exist anywhere that I've looked. Maybe there's a few on Emma's camera. But rest assured that everyone was beautiful & we had a good time. Hmmm..... maybe I didn't take any pictures because I was so occupied with the chocolate fountain??? No, that doesn't sound like me at all!

I don't think that the drive home from Safford has ever seemed so long! But we made it, just in time to start (or finish) all of the preparations for Christmas. But that's a story for another post.....

Time to take a break!

Oh, man! If I could only explain to you how tired & drained we are at our house! The past 2 weeks have been filled to the brim with every conceivable sort of activity & trip. We literally have not had 1 day that didn't have a Dr's appointment, errands to run, or multiple projects scheduled. So now that the big stuff is over, I finally have a moment to sit down & just breathe for a few moments. After that, I'm going to attempt to document our craziness for all of you out there in blog-world.

My mantra for the past few weeks has been "One Day at a Time." After you read this, I'm sure you'll understand why.

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OK, I'm ready. But where to begin? We've had 4 Mondays so far this month, and a Dr's appointment scheduled on each one. Throw in one on a Wednesday, and that's over $100 in co-pays & a LOT of driving back & forth into town. Yikes! But nearly everybody is perfectly healthy, and Emma's asthma is well-controlled for now. I say "nearly everybody" because Andrew gets to have another surgery on his hernia that never healed correctly, so that'll be fun to go through all over again. We've made countless trips to town to finish up last-minute Christmas details, and have spent countless hours wrapping presents & finishing up all of our Christmas "projects."

Here's just a sampling of some of our projects:

Making hats & scarves for the whole family for Winterhaven & the temple lights.
Finishing up the kids' Christmas quilts.Mixing up TONS of chocolates for goodie boxes for family & friends. Add to this a little cinnamon candy & they were finally done at about 2:00 am on December 23.

Gotta do the Santa cookies!

We've also been gone from home to attend a wedding, had family & friends visit us here, made 2 excursions to Winterhaven, and made a flying trip to Safford for Christmas Eve with the family. Add in the festivities for Emma's b-day & I'm exhausted even thinking about it all.

So that's a small sampling of what's been going on. I'll try to go into more details in subsequent posts. (If I can stay awake that long!)