whoa...

...it's been a while since I've visited the blogging world. It seems like every time I do, my blogger hates me even more. It's totally screwed now. Argghhh! I hope to get this mess figured out soon and then I'll catch up one everyone's blogs. I can't begin to imagine what I've missed. *sigh*
Anyhoo, just wanted to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope yours was as good as mine (which was GREAT)!

loves, Gwendolyn

Why does Blogger hate me?

I cannot figure out what the crap is wrong!! It's so frustrating. I can't see my pictures when I upload them, all I see is a bunch of text. I can't change my font or colors of my font anymore. And it doesn't update on anyone's blog rolls!!! Ugghhh!! That's probably the most frustrating thing of all. I know I don't really need people's comments to help validate my dumb little posts, but it's nice sometimes ya know? And for the life of me, I can't figure out how to do a cute banner. So any help would be appreciated!! If anyone even sees this.... THANKS!

We watched The Wizard of Oz today, haven't watched that in a long time. The kids enjoyed if from the comfort of their couch "cave".



Karter's been making mustaches and beards lately. He cracks me up and he's so creative. Here are a few, I believe they are Captain Hook, Davey Jones, Jack Sparrow.


I've finally made time to scrapbook. Here are a few layouts I did about our little adventure to The Canyons to see Better Than Ezra.




P.S. I think I'm done with my lame project blog, I'll just post the very few things I actually get done here.

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme
TodaysMama (http://www.todaysmama.com/exclusives.php)and Provo Craft (http://www.cricut.com/holidaywishlist/default.aspx?utm_source=todaysmama&utm_medium=meme&utm_campaign=HolidayWishList_Today%27sMama&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
*A new house, or just a house for that matter. Puh-leaaassseee Santa!!
*Perfume, I’ve been out for a while and I miss smelling lovely.
*A new coat- I LOVE my current coat so much, but it’s going on its 5th winter and the down is matted and falling out of the tiny little holes in the arm seams.
*Pajamas- I have NO pajamas. Just sweat pants and I decided I want some real jammies.
*I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE all the stuff in this awesome giveaway!
2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
*I think I’ve only ever received one homemade gift for Christmas and that was a set of dish towels- with a super cute design for each month from my mother-in-law.
3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
* I was hoping to make cute aprons this year for all the women in my life but after the first one ended in disaster, I realize it’s just not going to happen.
4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
*My most memorable gift was a My Child doll and a Cabbage Patch Kid in the same year. They were all I wanted and I was so happy!
5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?
*Almost every single item in the ToysRUs catalog and pretty much everything they see on TV.
6. What is your favorite holiday food?
* Candy canes!
7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
*Probably nothing, I’m pretty short on time. :(
8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
* I love Christmas Vacation- makes me laugh out loud every time.
9. Favorite holiday song?
*God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings by Bare Naked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan and Christmas/Sarajevo by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (I totally had to look those up)
10. Favorite holiday pastime?
*Our new thing is going to Zoo Lights as a family and then hot chocolate to warm up. It's FREEZING being at the mouth of the canyon at night in the winter, but we love to bundle up and go have a good time.

Capture Today

November 8, 2009
Lazy Sunday.
Zachary got his robot (a decepticon?) as a late birthday present from aunt Teresa. And when we were cleaning out the playroom he found my old doll which he LOVES. The point of cleaning the playroom was to get rid of some toys to take to a shelter for kids who don't have any toys. I could not convince him to give it up and now he won't let it out of his sight.


I just love the mixture of toys here.


Karter in yet another pirate get-up.



Ready for church, so handsome.


Can you tell Zachary picked out his own clothes?

Bad Gwendolyn!

I am a terrible mother! I can't believe I didn't get ANY pictures of my kids this Halloween!! And even though I went to a killer Halloween par-tay (thanks Deb!) I'm setting goals right now to do things differently next Halloween.

Cooler decorations:



(I kinda want this shower curtain now.)
Funner snacks:



WAY cooler pumpkins:





And a much more thought-out costume:



I'm so excited already and I've still got a whole year!

Principal Karter

The other night I told Karter to go get in his jammies and when he came out a few minutes later, this is what he looked like: (black church shoes and all)

"I'm a principal."

Poor Karter...

Remember when you were a kid and you used to swing on the living room furniture? Resting one hand on the arm of the couch and the other on the arm of the chair, hoisting yourself up and swinging back and forth? Well, my children seem to think they have perfected this.... they have not. Numerous times, they've slipped and hit a head, hip or knocked the wind out of themselves by falling flat on their back. Do you think that would teach them? NO, of course not.
On Monday night, Karter attempted this yet again. I happened to be doing laundry when I heard they hysterical crying and didn't run out right away because..... well because it's not an uncommon sound in our house (having two CRAZY boys). Poor Karter, he came running back with blood gushing out of his nose (both nostrils) leaving a trail of blood from the living room all the way to the laundry room (I say that like it's SO far...). He had slipped from his swinging position and face planted it right into the wood floor. I gave him a washcloth and had him sit down while I went to clean up the trail. He kept screaming and screaming and at one point, I said "Karter, calm down. You're not going to die." To this he replied, "Yes I am Mom, I'm running out of blood!" He was pretty serious and upset so I had to try not to laugh at his response. But man, he was almost right- there was a TON of blood. That's always kind of a scary thing for a mom.
Anyway, we got everything cleaned up and Karter calmed down (sort of) and I had to take a picture for Dad. You can't see it very well, it hadn't really started to swell yet but it got huge! My poor, little, perfectly-symmetrical-faced boy-- I was afraid it was going to be broken. The swelling finally started to go down today so I took him to the doctor for x-rays and thankfully, it's not broken. Whew!!
I just love the poor, sad look on his face in this pic though:

Goodbye Thomas :(

Well, that was short lived.
Poor little Thomas was just not cut out to live in captivity. He wouldn't eat and I swear he was mad at me- every time I turned him toward me, he would turn away. Anyway, I was afraid he was starving to death and I just plain felt bad for the little guy so yesterday we took him down by the river and let him go.

Here we are heading down the trail. I love living so close to our little trail by the river.

The kids saying goodbye.

I'm not sure if you can see him or not but there is our little Thomas heading back out into the wilderness. :)

Goodbye Thomas! We'll miss you.

Thomas the Frog

Dick went hunting with his brother this afternoon- DUCK hunting. So imagine our surprise when he brought home a...... FROG! The boys were so excited!! Now, I've never wanted a pet of any kind but this little guy is so cute, I immediately found something to be his home (instead of the mountain dew bottle he was in) and we're headed to the pet store tomorrow to get some food for it. Friends, I present to you Thomas the Frog:

date night

Yesteday Rich's sweet sister Erika offered to have a sleepover with the boys so we could have a date night. She's fun aunt Erika and they boys LOVE her- they were so excited to sleep over at Aunt Erika's. So I took the boys down to their work so she could take them from there and Rich and I could head out for our date night. I got there expecting to do dinner and a movie or something and instead my dear hubby suggested we go shopping!! That's right, shopping. Are you so jealous? I know of no other man that will go shopping willingly, let alone suggest it. Wow!
So we visited his favorite stores- TJ Maxx and ROSS. I'd like to consider myself a bargain shopper but I'm not a digger, which is usually what you have to do at these types of stores. (Let me point out that I'm not a snob, I just don't have the patience to have to dig for something I like.) But we had a lot of fun, I sorta felt like I was in high school again. We goofed around and just hung out childless for the night. Rich got some sunglasses and I got a super cute running jacket for the upcoming chilly runs. (I did get this comment though when I told him he needed pants more than I needed this jacket- "you need to go running more than I need pants." Wha?!!! Jerk. What he meant was that he knows I want to go running and if the cute jacket will inspire me to do that, get it. So he claims....)
But by far, our best find of the night was a pair of adidas that were size 20!!! They were so awesome!! I put them on with my other shoes still on and walked around for a bit and got a few laughs, a few looks and a couple comments. I felt like a little kid in adult shoes- I didn't want to put them back. These pictures don't even do them justice:

Anyhow, then we stopped by a local burger joint (Burger King :)) and got burgers and fries. Yum! When we got home, I took a lovely bubble bath and we slept until almost 11 this morning!! I don't remember the last time that happened. Thanks Erika!!

This is Halloween...

We LOVE Halloween!! And we love decorating for Halloween! Now, we may not have a nice, big, fancy, schmany house (in fact, far from it) or lots of big, cool decorations but we had so much fun decorating our humble little abode. The kids were going crazy! I could barley pull the stuff out of the tote! And now it's done, wa-la!
My cute haunted house that I covered with orange lights (something I never thought I'd buy- I used to think lights were just for Christmas) and cob webs- cute! At night though it just looks like a big blob of orange lights- oh well...

I love my little jar (between the pumpkin and the hat). It's extract of bat wings!

My sister-in-law made me the cute boot for Christmas. It's my favorite!

Well, "this is Halloween" at the Merrill house!

The World Through the Eyes of Karter and Zachary

My boys love taking pictures and when I'm in a good mood, I let them. :) This particular day (09/26/09) we were leaving the Dinosaur Park and they went nuts with the camera:

I think they got a couple of cute ones. :)