The Walkers

Saturday, July 30

{summer}

Here is a recap in pictures of what we've been up to the last few weeks.

The park with Court and the boys. Love them! (It was naptime :)

My handsome boys all ready for church.

2011 Merrell Family Reunion!

I absolutely love my family! We have all grown up and don't get to

see each other very often but it's such a treat when we all get together. And the older I get,

the more I understand what a support and blessing my extended family have been to me over the years.

They mean so much to me.

My cousin Rach and her kids. Jack is only a couple months older than Crew. Look at all that hair!

Janeal just had her baby

This little man is not just walking, he is pretty much running everywhere he goes

Next we had a wedding BBQ for our friends Ben & Tash who

got married in California. Ben & Lance both work for RPM

so we had all the RPM guys and their wives.

They even fed each other cake

Ha! Love these two.

Keith and Tash.

After dinner & games, we ended up having an aiming war with roman candles.

Definitely thought the cops were going to be called but we successfully had a blast with no tickets :)

The 24th of July weekend was an absolute blast! Kirstin was in town for a cousin's wedding.

We went to Draper days, the zoo, La Caille for the wedding, singing in church with Lance's family,

Avie's 2nd birthday, and fireworks with cousins to end Sunday evening. SO much fun!

These two acted more like brothers than cousins.

We've had a busy and fun summer so far! Lance is busy training for his 206 mile bike ride in

September and I've been busy working on my website.

We just love summer.

Thursday, July 14

$50 giveaway!

So in an effort to get the word out about my new site and blog, we are doing a $50 giveaway! And since only a handful of people have entered, you'll probably have a good chance of winning it :)

The winner will get $50 worth of cards or announcements on the new site. This means getting ALL of your Christmas cards and shipping paid for plus some left over! Or whatever you would like to put it towards. If you have a sister or friend getting married, put it towards their wedding invitations! And they show up right at your doorstep.

Even if getting 50 free dollars doesn't sound appealing to you (really? :) I would love the help getting the word out.

www.whimsyplaceblog.blogspot.com

Saturday, July 9

{Website Launch!}

Why do I always believe that summer is going to be a break? Don't you do the same thing? Then summer ends up being so much busier than the rest of the year! But it's lovely and we enjoy every moment of it :)

Here is a quick overview of what we've been up to, then some exciting news.

We went to Stadium of Fire with Lance's family. It was wonderful! It's my 3rd year, but it was the rest of the family's first year and we all had a blast. The fireworks were spectacular and we enjoyed ourselves at the street dance afterwards. Crew was sleeping soundly at home with grandma and grandpa Merrell.
My cousin Jonny Murphy who was 16 years old passed away suddenly last week. He had a headache for a couple of days, went to the hospital to find he had a blood clot, then died a couple of days later. We are all so saddened by his passing. He is really going to be missed and was such a good boy! We traveled to the funeral in Boise and it was such a beautiful tribute to him. Everyone just knows he his happy now and going about doing good in the spirit world.
We have been doing a lot of swimming this summer. Swimming lessons for Crew once a week and Seven Peaks season passes.
Lots of BBQs and hanging out on the patio with friends and family. Gotta love these perfect summer evenings.

And last but not least, I have been spending a lot of time getting ready to launch my new website! And it's finally ready. I still have a lot of work to do over the next few weeks but at least it is at a place I felt comfortable announcing it.

I really have had almost no feedback on the site and I would love for you to take a look and let me know what you think: good or bad! I want to hear it all. I promise you wont hurt my feelings, I just want to make it better! :) Pretty please?

www.whimsyplace.com

Friday, June 24

{Crew's 1st Birthday!}

It's hard to believe our little Crew guy is already a year old. His 1st year stats are 25th percentile in weight and 50th percentile in height. His growing has definitely slowed down. He is officially walking and gets braver every day at how far he will go on his own. He has been right about average with his physical development but his language development is off the charts! The doctor was shocked when I told him Crew has a vocabulary of about 17 words. At his age, it is normal to know mama, dada and one or two other words. I have been teaching him sign language since he was 6 months and I think it has made all the difference in the world. He realized very quickly that he could communicate what he wanted and it has just snowballed from there. His newest words are grandpa (bampa), all done (ASL) and apple.

We celebrated his birthday with Lance's family in St. George then had a small BBQ with my family on Monday. It was very low key, just out on our patio in the evening, but absolutely the most perfect party I could have imagined. We had everyone there, even Austin's adorable girlfriend Kitsy.