My Crazy Alien Children!

Isn't that the cutest little smile!?

These are the other reasons why I have not blogged this past week! Look at what she's doing now!!! Sitting all by herself and pulling herself up on everything!!!! She's not yet 6 months!!! Holy Cow! What a mover! But look how happy it makes her! Crazy girl!

In this picture you can see the beginnings of Pink Eye in Hazel - Lovely!

And in this one Lilie is just getting over Pink Eye - it apparently spread to her hair! :)

It's been a crazy week filled with Pink Eye, ear infections, bonked heads and Rachel trying to get something other than blogging done! - Yesterday, I even spent about 4 hours raking rocks out of my flower beds (I'm not even 3% done with all there is!). Who fills their flower gardens with red lava rock??? It's nearly impossible to get out ---- BUT, so help me, I WILL get it out this Spring, if its the last thing I do!!!

My Sweet Sarie!

There are many reasons why I haven't posted anything in the past week and a half, but one of the main ones is that my dear friend, Sarah Jayne (Reg), came to visit us this past week and I have been enjoying some much needed girl time with a good friend!

Sarah said that she needed some time away from school and life - that she just needed a break. Truly her visit was as needed for me as it was for her. There is definitely something to be said for being around people who have known you for a long time - who have seen you at your best and your worst and still love you anyway! To be around them feels like home. Thank you, Sarah, for bringing me home this past week! :)

I have to say that one of the biggest tragedies of making so many friends while in college, is that most all of them leave you at some point! Sarah was my roommate throughout my Sophomore year of BYU-I and I miss her a lot! I am SO thankful to the Lord for the wonderful people that he brought into my life while in Rexburg and particularly while single.

By serendipity, I just happened to end up rooming with two girls that, to this day, are some of my very best friends, and I know will remain so forever! And Nels just "happened" to end up rooming with two guys that also are some of our very best friends (along with the lovely women they've married)! The six of us have remained close friends throughout the past 7 or so years. I am so thankful for these sweet friendships that we have!

Mike, Sarah, and Nancy - rockin' out in Nels's big, blue bus!

Beautiful Nancy!

Ben-deco, Nanc-in-the-Pants, and I.

Nels and Nanc

Each of these people held a major role in my own "self-discovery". In helping me become who I am and learn so much about myself! Thank you Nancy, Sarah, Mike, and Ben for all you are to me! For all the good time in the past and to come!

Good Shots are Impossible to Come By

Well, we made a sincere effort to get some good Easter pictures, but alas, either bawling babes or blurry pictures made this extremely difficult! However, you can get the idea, I'm sure.

The girls thought that standing on the heat vent was way fun - I just think that they are way cute! We had a fun Easter! On Saturday we had a little egg hunt with the girls. Nels hid the eggs, it was so cute!

Such a CUTE Skirt/Dress!

Last weekend while visiting family in Utah, Wendie suggested a few clothing stores that we looked at online. At Layersclothing.com I found the cutest skirt for FIVE DOLLARS on clearance (it is regularly $55)!!! I just got it today and tried it on, I LOVE IT! For anyone looking for a killer deal on a very cute skirt that can also be a dress, check it out!!! They only have Large and X-Large in Terracotta available, but the Large fits on my voluptuous bod just perfect, and it's a stretchy knit that I'm sure can be easily adjusted or stretched as needed. It's just SUCH a good deal, I had to share!!! If you follow this link they have several different pictures of it that show it off better, ITS SO CUTE!
www.LayersClothing.com

Yummy, yumm

So I've gotten several questions about what kind of cake it was that I made for Lilie's birthday. It is Angel Food cake, with blue colored whipped cream, topped with strawberries, kiwi, and mandarin oranges. Now, this is not a box cake. This is a recipe from my Grandmother. So for those of you who have the family cookbook, it's Grandma Merkley's Angel Food, for those unfortunate souls that do not, I will provide the recipe because IT IS SO GOOD! It tastes tons better than the boxed kind . . . just remember, no not grease the pan . . . poor Melissa! :)

(Hmmm...maybe I'll figure out a way to put our recipe book up online, so all can enjoy! I'll have to think about that.)

Grandma Merkley's Angel Food Cake

FOLLOW EACH STEP AND IT NEVER FAILS

1 3/4 cup egg whites (12-14 eggs)
1 1/4 c sifted cake flour (sift before measuring)
1 3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Step 1
Separate eggs while still cold, measure whites; pour into large bowl. Warm to room temperature about 1 hour. Sift flour and measure. Then sift with 3/4 cup sugar, resift three times. Preheat oven to 375.

Step 2
At medium speed beat whites with salt and cream of tartar just until soft peaks form when beater is slowly raised. Do not over beat.

Step 3
At high speed, gradually beat in 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until stiff peaks form when beater is slowly raised. With wire whisk gently fold extracts into white.

Step 4
Sprinkle 1/4 of flour mixture over whites. With wire whisk, using an under and over motion, gently fold flour mixture into whites, rotating bowl until flour disappears.

Step 5
Continue folding in flour mixture, 1/4 at a time as in step 4. With rubber scraper, gently push batter into an ungreased 10” tube pan. With knife, cut through batter twice to remove any large air bubbles.

Step 6
Bake on lowest rack in oven for 30-35 mins or until top springs back when gently pressed with finger. Invert pan over neck of bottle to cool completely. (important or it will fall).

MIGHT as well

So, I just showed Nels my post about his trailer (you know, to make sure that I got it all right) and he says, "Don't you mean 'might as well'?" Me: "No, Nels. I'm pretty sure I'm not an idiot. It's MIND as well. See, watch." Envision me typing "mind as well" into google. Here is the first description that comes up when you type this clever little phrase. 

This comes from UrbanDictionary.com:

1. mind as well:

a substitute for "might as well"....if you're retarded.

tags: might as well, moran, moron, stupid, retard

Thank you Nels, for pointing out that I am a MOran, stupid, retard.

Ta Da!

This is the trailer that Nels has made for the movie they've been working on for the past 2 years, called In Convenience!!! Hooray! It's awesome and I'm so proud of him! You will all LOVE it! He is so talented and I'm so excited for you all to be able to see it.



We're all really excited for the movie and Nels has worked really hard on it! Really, REALLY hard! Nels would really appreciate it if you all put links to the trailer or show it to EVERYONE you know! And I mean EVERYONE! If you don't do this within 5 seconds, you will be cursed with bad luck, bad breath, bad hair, bad attitude, badminton, bad karma, bad sex, and bad friends. While you're at it, you mind as well send all your passwords, social security numbers, account numbers and tithing to EVERYONE you know as well . . . or you must not . . . well, you get the point.

Here is the link to the website for the movie as well:
http://inconveniencethemovie.com/

My Baby Girls

This is a movie that Nels made of the girls . . . a long time ago. I think it's just the cutest little thing. I think this was in the Summer of 2005.



Just remember, the camera adds like 5 or 50 pounds - to me. ha ha! :)

Explanation . . .

For those of you who are NOT far-sighted, I just wanted to clarify what I was referring to in my maniacal post.
When you are far-sighted, you have the ability to make your eyes focus. You can force the muscles around your lens to constrict enough that it brings the world into focus, but it does take a considerable amount of energy, when you are as blind as I. Therefore, I can wake up in the morning and see just fine, forgetting that I don't have my contacts in, but as the day progresses, this effort slowly puts strain on me. As any one of my family members can attest, by halfway through the day, I feel a little high-strung and by the end of the day I can be pretty irritable. Imagine having a raging headache that gets worse throughout the day, but you don't really FEEL it - you just get the emotional effects of it. (I know that description doesn't really make sense, but that's the best I can come up with.)
So today. I kept thinking, Oh yeah, I need to go put my contacts in after I finish feeding Elsie - or after I clean up the jam on the counter - or as soon as we get home . . . I just kept forgetting.

(P.S. - Amber, have you had Jacob's eyes checked? Kids that are far-sighted, often have headaches.)

Happy Birthday Silly Lilie!!!

This past week we celebrated Lilie's THIRD birthday! I can't believe she's THREE!!! Despite her recent shenanigans, I love this little girl with all my heart! She is such a joy to me and amazes me everyday with her fun, happy, smart, witty, brave little personality. She has always been such a go-getter. She came into this world in a hurry (2 weeks early) and has been in a hurry ever since.

She was blessed with more wild hair than any baby deserves!

She was crawling at 5 1/2 months, walking at 8 1/2. Busy, busy, busy. Always keeping up with Hazel!

She is such a fireball! She literally loves to laugh in the face of danger and take on the world. She is so brave! --- Even when it's scary. When I watch her come across something intimidating, I can see her assess it with those pretty blue eyes, take a deep breath, and take it right on! Even her Teaser, Uncle Jake!

She loves her BD (blankie), the color blue, Nemo, and her sisters.


This kid loves to have fun! She has the most delightful laugh! She has always been my little monkey. She loves to climb on everything and is WAY to brave for her own good - in that sense. In the picture below, you can see the scar on her face from her first set of stitches!

She is such a meticulous little thing. She is extremely dedicated. Often she will come home from Nursery with her most recent picture she has colored - solid blue. Every single little dot of paper is blue. She can take an hour to eat a Skittle. This weekend, she sat on my parents' back patio "painting" each brick with water and a paintbrush. Slowly, meticulously. Last Fall, she pretended to be a kitty for probably 3 months. Nearly always talking like a kitty. Even she she would get hurt, she would come to me mewing like a kitten!

She has such a fantastic sense of humor! It's a little morbid (I think she just gets that from her Grandma Moon) at times, but SO silly! Last week she and Hazel were pretending to make food. She told Hazel that they were going to eat Nemo. They'd cut off his head and cook him.



I love this sweet girl! She brings me so much happiness! I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for sending her here to me. I LOVE YOU, LILIE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY BEAUTIFUL LITTLE 3 YEAR-OLD!

Maniacal Moment

Uggg. I have had a huge problem today. And I think my kids have too. Who knows who started it. It's been a long day. That's it! We're never leaving the house again. In fact, I'll never leave my children's sides again. I'm beginning to think that they need constant supervision . . . yeah, that's it! Super Vision! I think that would solve all my problems. --- And maybe a maid. --- Or. Maybe just two lengthy pieces of rope. ---- Maybe not so lengthy. ---- This was a day filled with a lot of self-restraint (too many moments of butt-kicking temptations) interspersed with a few nice moments too. We went to the Library. That was fun. We visited Clancy! That was great! I found out that my friend is pregnant! That's exciting (maybe now she'll stop trying to steal Elsie -- I love you Stef)! I'm probably overreacting and I really just need to clean my house and put in my contacts, but why do they feel the need to do these kind of things??? Lately it's been such a gamble to leave them alone at all. LOOK AT HER!!!
LOL . . . Oh. That darn kid. Look how sad she is. I'm a bad mom. WHY??? She's so cute. Why was she so difficult today? Why didn't I put in my contacts today? Am I a masochist? Why did she not only smear my pink lipstick all over her face, but also decide that my eyeshadow and blush needed to go swimming??? She painted her fingernails the other day . . . and her pants . . . and my front window.

The Scariest Moment of My Life!

This was a blog post that I put on myspace about a year and a half ago. I'm deleting my myspace account and therefore wanted to copy it to here and share, because I think it's hilarious. Remember, this was written quite a while ago, so I am not referring to our present home in this post...

.........................................................................................................................

First of all, our house is over 100 years old and therefore doesn't have all the modern conveniences - like screened windows. So early in the summer before we set up our air conditioner, we would occasionally leave our bedroom window open. On such occasions Gertie - our cat - would come and go at night as she pleased.
One such night at about 3:30 am I was rudely awakened to 2 fighting cats jumping in my bedroom window. Being the heavy sleeper that I am, being yanked out of sleep in such a manner is truly disorienting. Now, you would think that such a vicious awakening would be bad enough, but as soon as these hissing, yowling cats jump onto my window seal, Nels sits straight up in bed, grabs my leg in a vice-grip, and starts yelling! Not "AAaahhh!" like any normal person would, but more like, "AAAAaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!" for more than 5 seconds. Try it! It's totally not natural to scream like that for that long! I really think that had there been a robber or something in our house, Nels would have petrified them in their tracks with his reaction!

So today I would like to honor Nels for his instinctual bravery in frightening away the offending tomcat!

My little MUTANT!

She's almost got it!

In these videos Elsie is 5 months, one week. It makes her so happy to be mobile. My brother-in-law, Russ, liked to call Lilie my little freak of nature, as she learned how to do things so fast and Hazel was only slightly slower than her! So here's Elsie! Another little freak! I love my silly little mutants!

Ben Franklin's cruel sense of humor.

Have you even gone somewhere and sat down and just felt like something was wrong??? Like you forgot something? And you're trying to think, did I forget to zip up my skirt? What about mascara? Did I remember to put that on before we rushed out of the house? What is it???? 

So...

Today is the first time in about a two months that we've been on time to church! Amazing, eh? So by "on time" I mean within the first 2 minutes after Sacrament Meeting started. We go march up to our usual spot - the very front (it's always available), as the congregation is singing the opening hymn. "Scatter Sunshine" one of my favorites! Page number? Okay, pull out the hymnal, page number (whatever). Wait a minute! That page number isn't "Scatter Sunshine"! Those are the numbers for the opening hymn on the little board! Next hymn? No. That would be the sacrament hymn. They don't sing "Scatter Sunshine" for the sacrament hymn. Look it up anyway. Nope. That's not it. Look at the clock. Five after. Right. Someone messed up the numbers? Think, think. It's not the intermediate hymn??? They have NOT blessed and passed the sacrament in the first FIVE minutes of the meeting???!!! Look at the clock. What is going on? Look up the intermediate hymn. That's not it either!! This is NOT the closing hymn. Someone has a problem. Sit. Quietly. Not singing. *****GASP*****

Lean over. Look at Nels. Smile. Look at the clock. Self-incriminating chuckle. "Nels, would you like to know why they're not singing the opening hymn?" Nels - "They're not?" Me - "No. They're singing the closing hymn. Daylight savings."

AAAAaaaauuuuuuuggggggggg!!! 

Addendum . . .

Oh, by the way, Hazel's first outfit consisted of a t-shirt and boots. Thankfully she didn't make it outside before I instructed her to put something on her bum. Run outside. Next additional item = coat. Back outside. Second additional item = Lilie's sweatpants. I thought these were wise additions. 

My poor children. We'd better get a brother in the family some day, or they'll grow up with no sense of modesty at all. They walk around naked or in panties all the time (and YES I AM encouraging them to get dressed - even dressing them myself - it seems to make little difference as they regularly undress themselves anyway).

Cabin Fever . . . or the Polar Bear Club???

My crazy little children! Yesterday at Walmart I let them get a bucket of sidewalk chalk for $1. This morning at 7:15 Lilie wakes me up asking if she can go draw with her chalk outside. I told her no, it's too cold, and she started crying, so what would you do? I told her, "Fine. Go. Go have fun." She opened the door and said she needed shoes. (You think??) She tried again and said that she thinks she needs a coat. Hazel was in on this by then. They both proceeded to dress themselves in mismatched clothes and head outside. Lilie has been out there for about 20 minutes now, Hazel keeps coming back in and out. I asked Lilie how she was doing, she said her hands were cold. Does she want to come back in - NO. Okay. And the temperature, you ask? Oh not that bad at 7:30 in the morning. Just somewhere between -2 and 3 degrees! Not bad - if you've grown up in Idaho and been waiting 4 months to play outside with chalk!

Sweet Friendships

This weekend we had the chance to have a visit from my cousin Amber's family! It was SO wonderful! It was such a good weekend and so great to see them and get to know their kids better. The last time Nels and I got to see them (other than very brief meetings where neither of us have had our entire families) was when we went to Washington to visit them when their oldest boy, Jacob, was only 6 months old and I was pregnant with Hazel. Since then, we've each produced many more children. We each have 3 with all of them being born within a year of one another. Let me clarify that: Hazel and Jacob are 9 months apart, Lilie and Hannah are 9 months apart, and Elsie and Kaitlyn are 4 months apart.

It was such a GREAT weekend! I'm so thankful for families - for cousins. The kids just couldn't get enough of one another. It was really fun to play with children that are so similar to them in SO many ways. And I can genuinely understand their feelings! Amber and I lived across the street from one another until we were about 8 years old. I think it was the saddest day of my little life the day my best friend moved away. We've been able to stay close our whole lives and I feel as close to her now as my own sisters. I love her so much and I'm so thankful that we've been able to maintain that friendship through so many years and miles. Her friendship is such a blessing to me and I really felt that this weekend as we were able to talk and spend time with our families together. I'm so glad that she married such a great guy that genuinely seems to enjoy being with us as well! :) I hope that we can continue to get together occasionally throughout the years as time and money permits.

Getting 6 kids to sit still and look at the camera all at once is nearly impossible. Hopefully Amber had better luck with her camera.

Hazel keeps asking if Hannah and Jacob can come to her birthday party. I don't think she understands that Washington is a long ways away . . . as is September! :)


Jacob had a hard time leaving and the girls had a hard time seeing them leave. Hazel asked me, "Can you ask them to stay for 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 . . . " All the way up to 20 more days. Sorry Hazel. I'd like that too! :)

There are BONES in our WALLS!

Our upstairs tub has had some issues draining since we moved in. But over the past two weeks, it had gotten to the point where we could hardly take a shower in it because it would take about an hour for it to drain afterward. I don't like cleaning the tub and I was having to clean it after every use and with company coming, we finally got proactive!

Nels called in reinforcements. AKA: our brother-in-law, Alma. He and Melyni probably feel like we consider them our hired help after all we've asked them to do for us. They've helped us through 7 or 8 moves and several side projects and how do we pay them? A little pizza, an occasional game of raquetball or cribbage, and regular baby-sitting gigs watching our children. They feel so blessed. :) Thanks guys! With what we owe you, when you finally have kids, you won't even have to take care of them for the first 2 or 3 years! :)

Anyway, Alma's dad is an ex-plumber and we thought Alma might have some insights. Well he got a pretty good "in sight" of the walls and everything that had been washed down our drains for the past 20 years! He was a lifesaver for us!

While hanging out inside the walls, getting slopped in the face with the crud in the pipes, he and Nels made another exciting and disgusting discovery! Bones! In our walls! We've determined that they've been there for several years and therefore decided not to call the cops, figuring that the case was probably dropped long ago. However, I'm sure there is some forgetful feline out there somewhere in the world trying to remember where on earth he stashed them.

New and Improved

Since we moved into our house 8 months ago, we've been steadily working on things . . . a little here, a little there. We'd repainted everything upstairs except the bathroom. Last weekend I thought painting and refinishing the vanity would be a fun little weekend project. A week later, we finally finished! :) I'm so happy with the end result. I've still got a little painting left and we still need to redo the tub/shower, but I just have to post what we've done so far!

Here goes nothing!

Hooray! I think I did it! I posted a movie! The quality is pretty crappy because I took the movie with my still camera, and Nels hasn't yet showed me how to transfer video from out video camera, but it'll come.

Look how cute my bouncy little baby is! She's army crawling all over the place and really likes to do this little bounce - trying to figure out how to move her arms with her legs. She's getting it though - give her a couple of weeks and she'll be doing the real deal.

Some Cute Pics

Here are some recent pictures that I love and some of Nels' birthday that I forgot to post in my haste to tell how much I love him.



Lilie reading "Mr. Brown" to Elsie.


Isn't she a dolly-babe! What a cutie! She LOVES food more than any 5 month-old I've ever seen! And she can eat more too!





I was SO proud of this cake! After nearly 6 years of marriage, I have FINALLY made a cake - ENTIRELY FROM SCRATCH! I've made cakes before, but they always had little cheating things in them, like a cake mix ---- or a hand mixer.
Recently my hand mixer died and so I decided to make this cake by hand. I could have used my fantastic Bosch, but I had to mix about 4 different things for this Lemon Platinum Cake, and I didn't want to have to repeatedly wash my mixer bowl, so instead I stupidly used a whisk and several different bowls. Little did I know before starting this cake, that it's pretty much a lemon angel food cake. I whipped the egg whites, the egg yolks, then whipped sugar into each of them, then whipped them together, then whipped the cream, whipped in the sugar to the cream . . . you get the picture. This cake was truly a labor of love and . . . Pride. Halfway through the first whipping, I thought, "Oh my gosh! My arm is going to fall off! Maybe I should use my Bosch . . . no. I've gone to all this work, I don't want to dirty another bowl." I'm so retarded! I kept thinking this through all the different things I had to whip.
My arm was sore for a couple of days!


The other day Hazel was over at a friend's and Elsie was napping, so I set Lilie up at the counter to color while I painted the bathroom. I closed the door as I painted behind it and when I opened it, I could hear deep, even breathing. I peek out and find her like this at the counter. Fell asleep mid-color. Still had the pencil in her hand. Silly Lilie.