Happy Halloween

What a beautiful Fall evening to enjoy Halloween with the boys and neighborhood friends. We truly enjoyed watching Luke run with his friends door to door saying "Trick or Treat" and followed by a "Tanks" from Luke!
This morning Luke had a Halloween party at Ms. A's, and I wasn't sure how the whole costume thing was going to go. I started prepping him the minute he woke up. Thank goodness I had a back up costume on hand, because this morning Luke decided he didn't want to be Buzz any longer. Leading up to Halloween we kept asking Luke what he wanted to be, Buzz, Mickey Mouse, Lion, Cow, Horse, and the list goes on and on. His response "nope". So I went ahead and ordered a Lion costume. Well, last weekend when family started asking, he said "Buzz". Do in a mad dash I went and ordered a Buzz costume. We tried the whole week to get Luke to wear it and he wouldn't. I made the mistake of putting Buzz's wings on and pretended to fly around the house, thinking that would encourage him to do the same. Nope, he would run to the closet and insist I put on Buzz's wings. That is as far as they made it. So this morning, he was all excited to scare daddy...so he agreed to put on his Lion costume, and stayed in it all morning! He had so much fun at school today, and even more fun tonight running through the neighborhood with his friends. He wasn't so much into grabbing candy, he just liked to run down the sidewalk keeping up with the kids. Don't get me wrong, he got his fair share of candy!
We weren't quite sure how we were going to enjoy Luke trick or treating, and hand out candy at the same time. We left a bucket out on the front porch and thought for sure we would be back within a half hour, but much to our surprise Luke had so much fun we stayed out for an hour. When we got home, I put Ben to bed while Luke and Sean handed at candy to the rest of the kiddos. It was a gorgeous night! Sean and I had so much fun watching Luke this year. It was so nice to walk throughout the neighborhood, seeing so many families out with there kids having much fun together, and it was a great social outing for the adults, there were a few houses that had "kid baskets" and "adult baskets" handing out cold beers and glasses of red wine! We feel so blessed by all the wonderful neighbors!

My two animals...the cutest Lion and Monkey on the block!
Sweet Little Monkey! Ben enjoyed his first Halloween snug as a bug in his warm monkey suit, snuggled up to mom in the Bjorn!

Roooaaaarrrr! Our cute little Lion, with the sweetest little Roar!

Happy Halloween from the Merrick Family!

Little Pumpkin Butt Ben

with my two boys showing of Luke and Daddy's masterpiece

The two artists! Luke and Daddy had so much fun carving our pumpkin.

Luke having so much fun helping daddy! I think he had more fun crawling on the counter than he did carving the pumpkin!

"Yep Dad, I think you go it"

Carving our first pumpkin together, Luke and daddy

Sneak peek

We have been enjoying some gorgeous weather! It was a bit cold and windy last week, but the weekend turned gorgeous! We had some great friends in town this weekend to visit and enjoy Iowa's homecoming tailgate and game. The Darnell's and Irby's are great friends of ours that Sean went to high school with. It was their first time enjoying Iowa Football at Kinnick.
What's going on with the boys? Unfortunately Luke has come down with a horrible cough and cold. He has been battling a runny nose for over a week and it turned into a pretty rough cough yesterday. I kept him home from Ms. A's today's and we had a pretty low key day around the house. I did find sometime to get out an get a quick run in...yes, you read that right...I went for a run!!! ha! I have found my time is limited to get in a long workout so I started hitting the pavement last week.
Ben has been such a little sweet heart these past few days, well, he is a total sweetheart! The past couple of weeks he has been wanting to be held 24-7, as long as he was being held he was happy has a clam. Today he started taking naps in his crib, yay! Ben slept for an hour in his crib this morning for me, which was huge because I have been wearing him in the bjorn just to get him to sleep longer than 10 minutes. He still likes to be held, don't get me wrong, but we are taking baby steps, literally! He is a champ sleeper at night, going down around 730 p.m sleeping until 3 a.m and then up at 7 a.m. But for some reason, this boy doesn't like to sleep for long periods of time during the day unless he is being held. He is growing like a weed, outgrowing almost all of his newborn onesies and pj's. I have tried so hard to catch his adorable smile on camera but I keep missing it. He is smiling more and more each day and getting more vocal. He wants to be heard in this noisy house of ours too! His favorite thing to do is lay on the living room floor, look at the ceiling fan, and kick his feet like crazy. He is a strong little guy, holding his head up more and more, and he loves to stand up on my lap. We are really enjoying watching Luke interact more and more with Ben, it is so sweet to hear Luke say "Hi Ben!" Today Luke brought down two footballs from his toy room, one for him and one for Ben, how cute is that?! I told him one day Ben will wrestle and play football with you and he said "Oh boy!"
Below are a few pictures from our photo session with Auny Pole, www.aunypolephotography.com. She previewed a few pictures on her blog: aunypolephotography.blogspot.com and I can't wait to see the rest from our session last month! We took some family pictures, newborn of Ben, and Luke's two year pictures. She is so talented and really captures "in the moment" photos, which I love!
We are heading up to my parents this week for a few days to enjoy the beautiful Fall and harvest time. Luke is pretty excited to see his Bop and Nannie at the "Barn"! If he is lucky enough, he might get to ride with Bop in the combine while he picks corn.

Our sweet boys
Adoring our precious little Ben

Mr. B flashing a smile! (as good as I could catch on my phone)

Our week in pictures

Luke has really started playing so much more on his own. He plays with his tractors and farm endlessly, it is the one thing that keeps his attention and he is not running from thing to thing, he stays very engaged playing farm! Here he is playing with "Bop".
This afternoon Luke and I played tractors and he was very specific about what tractors I could drive and he had to load "stuff" in my wagon. I put a couple of blocks in the back of my wagon and he said "no mommy, dis" and he handed me a pig! I guess he wanted me to haul a pig to the barn!

Having some afternoon fun! Normally we spend our afternoon outside after Luke gets up from his nap, but today was a bit chilly and windy to be outside. It is really starting to feel like Fall.

Ben, snug as a bug, as we ran a few errands! He does not like his car seat very much so this was a milestone to actually have him sleep in it. He cried a little when we left the house today but after a few minutes he tuckered out.

I took this of Luke last Sunday afternoon. Sean was gone so I let Luke hop into my bed to watch Toy Story while I fed Ben. Luke snuggled up next to me and within just a few minutes I could hear him breathing real deep. Much to my surprise he was cashed out. I let him stay sleeping in our bed, Ben and I even took a little snooze. Luke must have loved our bed because he took almost a four hour nap! WOW! It was such a great lazy Sunday afternoon:)

Happy Birthday to my older brother Nate!!! We miss you lots but always cherish the times we spend with you! Nate and I are 18 months apart and I know we weren't always the best of friends, but we have some great childhood memories, he was always there for me as I adjusted to college life in Iowa City and I look up to him SO much, I can only hope for Luke and Ben to be the best of friends when they get older.

We celebrated Miss Judi's birthday last Thursday!!! She is such a blessing our family, we can't even explain how wonderful she is and how fortunate we are to have her love our boys with all her heart! Luke and I made cupcakes for Miss Judi's birthday...together they enjoyed a little birthday treat!

Last Saturday our dear friends, The Guess Family, made a trip down from Cedar Falls to visit us and meet little Ben. They brought us a delicious lunch that we enjoyed together, and as always, wonderful conversation! Thank you Nate, Kate, and Harper for your wonderful visit!

Harper turned 1 year old in August and just loved the bounce house, not one ounce of intimidation!
Luke & Harper having fun jumping!
The other morning I was snapping a few pictures of Ben and Luke hollared from the kitchen table, "mom, me cheese" So when I walked over and asked if he wanted his picture he whined "no" and gave me this little look! He is such a ham...pretending he did not want his picture taken.
Ben enjoying some morning tummy time. Ben doesn't get as much time on the floor because of his wild big brother always running crazy through the house. So while Luke ate his breakfast I put Ben on the floor to enjoy spending sometime on his tummy. At 6 weeks old Ben can hold his head up really well and when he is on his tummy he does a half roll over. He is such a strong little boy. Ben also started smiling this week. Sunday night Luke and I were talking to Ben and Luke made me laugh, so we both were laughing and Ben started smiling, it melted my heart! I forgot how wonderful that first true smile means. He has been showing us that sweet smile throughout the week, but I haven't been able to catch it on camera yet! Ben working on holding his head up!

morning fun & snuggles

Luke wearing one of his favorite PJ's. When I ask him what pajamas he wants to wear he will say "bike, ooo ooo ahh ahhh"
Ben just chilling out, enjoying some tummy time

Luke helping put Ben's pacifier back in his mouth, such a good big brother!

My boys enjoying a little morning snuggle

When I couldn't find Luke for a few minutes I walked into our bedroom to find this...

Silly little Monkey Boy!

Ben's baptism

God Bless Benjamin David Merrick, October 9, 2011

This weekend we had the great pleasure of celebrating Ben's baptism into the Catholic Church. It was a beautiful celebration, and equally beautiful day. Ben is a lucky little boy to have so much love and support surround him as he joined the Catholic Church this past weekend. All of our family was able to join us, with the exception of my brother and his wife, Nate & Debbie, who live if Seattle. They were back when Ben was born and will be back over Christmas. We enjoyed the weekend with our family beginning Saturday evening with out of town guests arriving, and celebrated Sunday after mass with a brunch at our home. It was a very proud day for Sean and I to see our son baptized into the love of God's Holy Church!

Ben being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and The Holy Spirit
With Ben's godfather, my brother Mitch (Ben's godmother is my sister in law Debbie)

Father Wally was the celebrant of Ben's baptismal ceremony

Our Family sharing this special day together

With the Grandparents

With my two grandmothers! Ben & Luke's great-grandmas (My Grandpa Hackman was unable to make it to church but shared in the celebration with us at our home)

Four Generations of wearing this baptismal gown. This gown has been worn by over 100 family members

Ben's aunts & uncles on my side

Uncle Mitch, Aunt Kate, and Uncle Bryan

We can't have a celebration without one of Yummy's delicious cakes:)

Opening Ben's gifts...

Family enjoying the beautiful afternoon

Kate working hard in the kitchen

This is my Grandpa Hackman who wasn't able to make the mass. He had recently fallen and broken his wrist in several places

Ben playing with his Godfather, Uncle Mitch while daddy takes a little cat nap

Beautiful week

We have been enjoying this unseasonably beautiful Fall weather here in Iowa. We have been outside nonstop, visiting parks, playing with the neighbors, grilling out, and making frozen yogurt runs! The boys had their first babysitter this week since Ben was born. For the record, this is Ben's first babysitting experience and it was pleasant. I told our sitter, whatever she did, she had the touch because Ben slept from 730 pm until 4 am! I was shocked, but so loving it! AND Luke slept through the night as well without any crying out for "mama"! The past couple of weeks Ben has been giving us random nights of 7-8 hour stretches, then throws in a random night where he wakes at 2 am and refuses to fall back asleep until 5am, like last night for example:) Luke has had some rough nights, wanting me to rock him or to come sleep with us, we think that he sees me rocking Ben a lot or knowing that Ben is sleeping in our room. So we are wrestling with both boys sleeping through the night. When I find myself being completely exhausted in the middle of the night or day, I just think to myself, there are so many women (and men for that matter) that would do anything to have a child to cause sleep deprivation, and it just makes me so much more thankful of the opportunity to be up at the wee hours of the night nursing Ben or soothing Luke back to sleep. I will have to say I had to get pretty creative the other night. Our neighbors have a little puppy, Lilly, that Luke loves to play with. So I told him that if he keeps crying he will wake up Lilly and she won't want to play with him tomorrow because she will be so tired! Overall, we are getting some sleep, just very inconsistent, but oh so worth it! Ben is eating like crazy, usually every 2 hours or so, and he loves to be held, especially during the late afternoon, early evening hours. It is very hard to put him down so I am finding myself using the bjorn A LOT! We are celebrating Ben's baptism this Sunday, so Wednesday after I dropped Luke off at school I wanted to get some cleaning done while Ben slept. Well, I wrestled with him for a good 30 minutes and finally just caved, put him the bjorn and within minutes he was fast asleep, so I got to cleaning and doing laundry! Here is a picture I took of Ben this morning from my phone, he is growing so much and becoming more and more alert during the day! He loves it when I rub his hands,he coos a little and smirks!
Monday after Luke was done with school I picked him up for a special little "mommy and Luke date". When I told him we were going to the mall for lunch and that he could ride the carousel, he said "oh boy, me n mom mall"! We had a great little lunch and then rode the carousel before we ventured back home for nap time. I have been trying to do fun little things with Luke on Mondays and Wednesdays when I pick him up from school. We have so much fun together and it gives me some time with just Luke which I adore!

This is Luke's favorite animal "buck" to ride on the carousel!

Today we met our Friday playgroup at the park for some playtime and a little picnic! I am so fortunate to have found a great group of mom's that have become dear friends to enjoy these Friday mornings with while our kiddos all play. The kids are all around the same age and get along so well. They can run around like wild kids and we can enjoy some great conversation and laughs. I just cant get over how wonderful this weather is! We will continue to enjoy it to the best of our ability.