All I want for Christmas is my 4 front teeth

Poor Micaela seems to lose her teeth 4 at a time. Well, she has them pulled 4 at a time. She has plenty of room for those adult teeth to grow in now.

Before, baby teeth intact:


After, admiring her new space:


Also, in the past 2 weeks Micaela has gotten very into playing the piano and has learned a bunch of new songs. She practices (very briefly) at least 20 times a day. It's amazing what kids can do when they (all of a sudden, mysteriously) get motivated!

Crazy trip

Jason and I went to Europe! Crazy, huh? He had job interviews in Switzerland and Hungary, which we nearly missed due to most of our original flight plan being cancelled because of plane malfunctions, stupidity, etc. But we got everything rearranged and he narrowly made it to both interviews. It was a crazy few days, though!
In between red-eye flights and trains, we got to see parts of Zurich and Budapest. (Jason served his mission in Hungary and lived in Budapest for several months, so that was a fun little trip down memory lane.) My mom and sister were so nice to take care of our kids so we could take our first vacation alone since our honeymoon! (thanks, Mom and Holly!)

Here's a pic of us near our hotel in Zurich:

(you'd think I could have gotten someone else to take that instead of taking it myself at that great flattering angle..) :)

Our hotel sat on this lake:


This was the view from the train station in Zurich. Most of the buildings there looked pretty similar to this one:


And one of us in Hero's Square in Budapest:

10 times the Hollywood average!

Today is our 8th wedding anniversary! Eight years ago today we got married in the Mt. Timpanogos temple. It snowed every day that week except for our wedding day, and we had a beautiful snow carpet all around.. And a short sleeved dress purchased in June for a wedding originally planned for September. But we pushed it back to the Saturday when everyone could make it to the wedding and got November 11th, 2000. Check out how cheesy this is - on 11/11/11, it will be our 11th anniversary. That's the kind of cheese you can't buy in stores. So we like the number 11. You know, 11 carseats, 11 student loans, etc.

I'm kind of embarassed to admit that we didn't realize we were getting married on Veteran's Day until the day of. Didn't quite make it on the radar (we love and support the troops but are apparently clueless). Yesterday Micaela asked "Mommy, why is your anniversary on veterinarian's day?" Good question. "Because we love animals, Micaela."

Anyway, the whole day was amazing, and then we got to go on our honeymoon to the Bahamas! And that was the last time we had fun. No, just kidding! Pretty sure we've had some good times. :) Here are some pictures of the big day:





Here's our cake topper. We actually brought this home with us (to our little cabin in vermont) and when we unpacked it, the groom's head had been broken off. I thought that was pretty funny, but of course not at all applicable or appropriate to our situation...



Happy Anniversary! I love you!

You knew it was coming..

Our yearly announcement... ;)
A new Merrill on the way!
Disclaimer: Yes, we have a lot of kids. And we'll probably have more.

Now that that's out on the table, let's all take a deep breath and watch this little video of #6 coming next May!



We're so excited to welcome another member of our family!

Roar

I loved Andrew's dinosaur costume. His 2 year old roar made it soo much cuter, too.







And his sisters, in varying degrees of happiness..



I'm pretty sure their candy's already gone.

Helowen iz kuman soon

Maybe we should work more on spelling. :) I got out the Halloween stickers and the kids made about a dozen 'cards' - Lizzie made the one above. She loves that (creative) phonetic spelling.



Today we got to play in [our neighbor's] leaves. We kept trying to rake our own, but could only manage about a 6 inch pile of aspen leaves, so the kids were more than happy to help the neighbors (who have no kids at home) rake theirs. And then throw them back around the lawn again, of course.



And of course the (last-minute) pumpkin carving, always fun. Apparently up on top of the table.



These are the kinds of holiday things that I confess to dreading.. but then when they're over of course we all love it and build great memories and all that good stuff.

Good luck to all of us tomorrow...

Stand up guy

William is standing up and loving it! He can take several steps but is generally scared of walking still. (Mom's fine with that.)

He pushes himself up and stands there laughing, and then takes a step or two and sits back down. There's no falling - he just decides to sit back down. (I don't know where he gets that whole being conservative thing from...)

I love the arms for balance:


So excited!


Proud of himself.. or something..


A snapshot of life here - beautiful weather and colors! (And nearly constant dress up clothes)