Christmas Fun with Family...

This last weekend we met Pete's whole family and we bundled up and went to the temple to see the christmas lights. We stayed with Tim and Connie (Thanks you guys) and all the adult kids stayed up playing a board game "Settlers". It gets a little competitive, which keeps things fun and interesting!

Saturday we loaded up and spent a fun day shopping, then we caught a movie "Alvin and the Chipmunks"! It was a fun day for our little family it was nice haning out with no schedules!!!

A few snap shots...

Here are just a few little snap shots of our little family. I have given up on family pictures before Christmas so we are hoping we will be able to squeeze them in Jan. Melanie is full of wiggles lately and picture taking has been a real chore!

Christmas!

Megan was helping decorate and decided she could be a christmas tree for halloween next year... since then she has told me she is going to be Mrs. Clause, and even maybe Rudolph!

I understand I am not the only one in the world that has cute kids, who love Christmas, yet everyday thay make me feel like I am! They are so excited this year!

November and Thanksgiving...BUSY!

I will give you the cliff notes version about November...
Pete started his surgical rotation and is loving being able to do surgery 24/7 for 4 months!

The hours are much better and he is not on call anymore YEAH!

I was busy with school and finishing up the semester, which consisted of

3 research papers, 4 finals, and 32 hours of classroom observations.

Melanie enjoyed going to many playdates as I was trying to fulfill my observations! Thank you to all my SD friends who helped out and especially my mom!

Melanie has such a funny personality and is picking up big attitude words from Aunt Brooke like "WHATEVER!". Let's just say the "W" word is a forbidden word in the Merrill home!

Megan is loving first grade and her class put on a Thanksgiving Program which she volunteered to be an ear of corn. Maybe she was reverting to her Iowa roots! She looked so cute!

Megan and I shared a few lunches together at school as I was doing my observations and she loved having mom at the lunch table with her friends (interesting converstations)!

We went up to Pinetop for Turkey and enjoyed our long weekend up there visiting with family and going to the movies!

Catching up...

State VB was a fun and crazy weekend ...our little family was driving all over Mesa and Phoenix trying to follow two different tournaments. We were even changing our shirts in the car so we could be the ultimate fans! So we were cheering for the SD tigers for my sister and her team, and then we were sporting purple for Pete's sister Lee and her team the Blue Ridge yellow jackets. Neither team made it to the finals, but it was still fun to watch them play! Can't believe Brooke and Lee are Seniors! Brooke damaged her knee pretty good the last month of the VB season, so currently she is in physical therapy and sitting out the Basketball season. We are hoping she will be ready for track in a few short months!
As for Lee she signed with a Junior College in Mesa (I can't remember which one) and so we look forward to continue watching her play volleyball next year!