Thursday, October 30, 2008

Weekend with the Merrells

This past weekend my family came into town for a very busy, fun, quick weekend. On Friday night Me, Jared, Vince and Meagan, Annie and Russ, and Sasha and Jason all went to the Haunted Forest in American Fork. We were really lucky because there was an accident on I-15 that closed the freeway at the exit after ours. We weren't affected by the closure, but as we were leaving traffic was backed up for a couple of miles. The Haunted Forest was a lot of fun, and a great temperature outside (I really wished I hadn't brought my jacket), but I was hoping that it would be a bit scarier. Next year I will continue my quest to find a scary haunted house. The best part of the night was when two guys came at our group, one with a chainsaw, and the other with a lawnmower. Jason left Sasha behind and pushed his way through everyone else to get away. She had warned us earlier that he didn't like chainsaws, but we had no idea just how afraid he was. We all had a great laugh.



The next morning we all got up early and met at the park for family pictures. Kristi has the pictures and hasn't shown them to anyone yet, but I have a couple of the group as we were getting ready to take the pictures.


After the pictures we ate a quick bite of lunch and headed up to Frightmares!!! We could not have asked for a better day to go. The temperature was perfect, and the lines were really short for most of the day. I do have a confession to make...I am a horrible mom. There was a haunted house that we decided to go through and everyone in the family was going, except Chuck who was unable to walk. He kept baby Taylor, but that meant that the other four kids were going to have to go through it. They were fine until right before we got to the front, and then Kylie and Sadie started to panic. In our group I carried Brynlie who clung to me tighter than she ever has before, Kristi walked with her arms around Kylie, covering her eyes for most of it, and Jared carried Sadie, stopping often to show her that the scary things weren't really that scary. I've never walked so fast through a haunted house in all my life. I did feel a little bit better when we got out and TJ was crying...at least Sasha is a bad mom too. My girls actually came out tear free, and as far as I can tell there was no permanent damage done. No nightmares, not even a mention of the haunted house. Sadie went to Arctic Circle Monday to claim her ice cream that she was promised for going through the haunted house. She couldn't even remember why she was getting ice cream when asked. Sadie, showing Meagan that she finished her food...
Russ showing me that he was still eating...
The girls were so excited to ride the rides. Sadie was begging Annie to take her on a ride.
Kylie is now officially 46 inches, which means that she can ride almost every ride in Lagoon. She was in heaven! She rode the Wild Mouse twice in a row, the Scrambler, Tilt-A-Whirl, Odysea (twice again), and the White Roller Coaster, which she has been dying to go on since she first saw it. She has no fear at all! After she left that night I found out that she is even tall enough to go on Spider and Wicked...next year Kylie!

Our campsite...

The kids got to go trick-or-treating with their admission tickets...
After the hypnotist several of our group decided to call it a night, including Jared, who volunteered to take Kylie, Sadie, Brynlie, and TJ home with him so that I could stay and ride another ride. Me, Vince, Mickala, Annie, Russ, Sasha and Jason all rode on Wicked for the first time. I loved rides when I was younger, but after having babies my body doesn't like them. I get really sick and bad headaches. I usually will pick one fast ride at the end of the day and that will be my only ride because I am too sick for more. Jared used to get upset that I wouldn't ride more rides with him, but now he refuses to let me go on them because he knows just how sick I get. I rode Wicked and was surprised that it didn't make me that sick. It was actually a really fun ride and I wish Jared could have gone on it. Then I stopped thinking...my plan all day had been to ride the Spider. After Wicked Mickala, Carissa, and Sasha decided to go on the Spider, and I was stupid enough to join them. I should have known better than to go on two rides. If that ride had gone for another 10 seconds I probably would have thrown up. I was so sick! The ride home was torture and it took everything I had not to lose it in Vince and Meagan's car. If I had, I know that they both would have joined me, especially since Vince is a party puker. Two days later, on Monday night, we went to West Jordan Park for family night. Within minutes of leaving the house I was car sick and got an awful headache. The next day Jared and I went to Sandy and the same thing happened. I think that Lagoon really messed with me and I'm still recovering. No more roller coasters for me!
It is so much fun to get my whole family together, especially since we are spread out across the state and only all get together a couple of times a year. Thanks for the fun weekend Mom and Dad!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

When Daddy is the babysitter.

This is what happens while Mom is working and Dad finds the Halloween stuff...



Sadie's new haircut

Here are some of the vicitims of Sadie and her scissors...Can you see the chunk missing on the back right side? There is also more missing underneath...
Sasha doing her hair the morning after her haircut.
The view from the back, which looks much better when Sasha does it. I'm still figuring out how to style her hair.
Her hair turned out so cute. She is lucky...so am I!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

My children hate me

Family pictures are in only 3 1/2 days and Sadie has decided to bring "Sam" back...

What Kylie did during General Conference



Monday, October 20, 2008

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Motherhood Moments

Sometimes things happen in a mother's life that forever leave scars on her heart. Time may fade them, but she will always remain changed. I had two of those moments this past week, and both were involving my sweet little Brynlie.



I just received a calling to teach in the nursery again and Sunday was my first day. Brynlie loves this new calling because at 13 months old she isn't quite old enough to be allowed in there otherwise. A couple of times during the class Jared stopped in to check on us girls and I had joked around about having him take Brynlie, to which he always said no. There was a mother that showed up with her two sons at about noon and 5 or 10 minutes later her daughter came in with a problem and she left for a couple of minutes with her. She then came back to join us for the rest of class. Soon after I was cutting out the kids handouts while the other teacher gave the lesson. Just as the lesson was starting I looked around and realized that Brynlie wasn't in the room. I immediately panicked and started asking where she was. The other teacher hadn't seen her for awhile, but the mother that had joined us a little while earlier said that my husband had her. I was skeptical and headed for the door and looked down the hall but couldn't see her. The mother assured me that she had seen her out in the hall with my husband and said that she had a purple shirt on, which was correct. I sat back down, but there was a nagging in the back of my head that Jared wouldn't take Brynlie without telling me. There was still 15 minutes of class left and I had to hurry to finish getting all of the kids handouts cut out, but as soon as I finished I excused myself for a second and went looking for Jared. I looked in the priesthood room and couldn't see him so I figured that he must have been out wandering the halls with our baby. I came back to the nursery to finish out the last few minutes of class and a minute later in walked Jared, without Brynlie. My stomach dropped as I realized what I had already suspected, and Jared confirmed. The mother that told me that my husband had Brynlie confessed that she didn't know who my husband was. I was so sick, and scared, and upset, and angry at both the mother and myself for not listening to my gut. Jared and I took off through the halls searching for our lost baby. What he didn't realize at the time was that Brynlie had probably been gone for 20 minutes. Knowing class would be getting out in just a minute I started throwing doors open and glancing through rooms full of startled people. Horrible thoughts raced through my head. By the time I passed Jared for the second time I was almost in tears. Classes were pouring out into the halls making it much harder to search. After racing through the pews in the chapel I headed down the hall just as the other nursery teacher opened the door to the kitchen, finding Brynlie locked in, happily entertaining herself with some paper bowls. I was so relieved! Immediately I ran to find Jared. What a horrible experience to lose a child when I KNEW that there was something wrong. I hope that I never again ignore that feeling.


Tuesday night Jared headed back to Vernal. Right at 10:00 Sadie came running out of their room saying that Brynlie was bleeding. I jumped up to find Kylie carrying Brynlie out with blood streaming down her face from a gash above her right eye. Immediately I called Jared's brother Jeremy to see if he would come give me his opinion on whether or not she needed stitches. Minutes later Jeremy and Larkyn showed up and agreed that she probably needed them. Larkyn volunteered to let the kids spend the night at their house so I could take Brynlie to the hospital. And since I had a meeting at work the next day she volunteered to keep them the next morning too so that I wouldn't have to get up so early to get them ready and off to the sitters. A HUGE "Thank You!" to Larkyn for doing that for me. It took so much stress off of me to not have to worry about them that night and the next morning. I bundled Brynlie up and called Jared on my way to the insta care, which of course closed at 10:00, meaning that Brynlie and I got to go try out the new IHC hospital in Murray. Brynlie didn't cry when she cut her eye and she didn't cry when they were checking her vitals. Once we got in the room though she began to get cranky because she was tired. The doctor had me hold her in my arms and apply a cotton ball with some anesthesia on it. That's when my baby showed herself. She screamed, and screamed and screamed until a nurse came in and apologetically closed the door so others in the ER wouldn't have to hear her. Then the doctor came back and I saw what they were going to do to my poor little girl. Up until this moment I had been very calm about the whole thing. They have something they call a Papoose, which is exactly what it sounds like. They wrapped her in a sheet and then laid her down on the wooden "papoose". The papoose then wrapped tightly around her body and Velcro'd her in, making her unable to move. The nurse held her head as the doctor gave her a shot to finish numbing her up. She told me to please sit down if I felt sick. I told her I wasn't worried about fainting, but about crying. It was horrible to watch her screaming, unable to comfort her. Then at the worst possible time the doctor got a phone call from another doctor and had to take it. For 10 minutes my baby sat screaming while he was gone on the call. I gave her a bottle and she would cry, take a sip, start to nod off, and then scream again. I am claustrophobic and it made me sick to think of her unable to move. If she grows up to be claustrophobic I will blame it on this experience. Once the doctor was back in the room they were able to give her 5 stitches while she screamed the whole time. Near the end she stopped screaming "mamama" and move onto "dadadada". I guess she'd given up hope that I was going to save her and was now counting on her dad to show up. As soon as she was done I held my poor sweaty baby close and never wanted to let go. She slept on the way home but as soon as we were home she woke right up and was so happy! Even silly happy. She smiled and made funny noised and hammed it up for the camera. I think it was her way of letting me know that she was alright. And that WE were alright.