Personalities Apparent in Hot Dog Roasting?

Personality differences came through loud and clear when we were roasting hot dogs up Monrovian Canyon in October.

Gabe (with Grandpa Merrell), intense and focused with a scrunched face for the camera, probably with a huge smile and some jumping when ketchup was put on his plate...

Naomi (with Grandma Merrell), allowing someone else to do most of the work while she poses and gets a slight taste of the experience before she moves on. I would bet money she didn't finish roasting that hot dog!

Naomi is a princess through and through, condescending to allow others to serve her. I can't count the times I've asked her if she wants to finish a craft project, picking up some toys, etc. She'll look over at me, consider it for a moment, and say, "You can do it.", as if she's allowing me a great privilege.

We love them both!

Felt Car Mats

My latest project (well...one of my latest projects!) has been to compile a box full of activities to keep the rugrats entertained on our trek across the country. That's right, folks, it's close enough that we are gettin' ready for the move to Atlanta!!

Matt thinks the portable DVD player will be sufficient. I think you can only stare at a tv screen for so long before getting wiggly and fussy. Thus the "Travel Activity Box". I'll do a whole post on the contents later (because I'm super excited about it!!). For now, I wanted to show off the felt car mats. Everything had to be tray-sized or smaller so the kids can balance it on their trays or laps.

I saw some car mats on Serving Pink Lemonade's blog and decided to use their templates. My kids drooled over these the whole time I was making them, and Naomi is already talking about when we can pull them out of the Travel Activity Box on our drive. So hopefully the mats (accompanied by a few cars, of course), will keep them entertained for a few minutes here and there.

Also, I'm using this post as a huge THANK YOU to my cousin Sarah. I actually have never met Sarah; she married my cousin J.D. and I've communicated with her through blogs and Facebook. But that's it. I posted on Facebook how I couldn't find yellow felt anywhere (can't have car mats without yellow lines down the roads!), and within minutes she offered to mail me yellow felt. And she did.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Sarah! You saved me a few more trips of trooping into craft stores with three children to see if they had a stinkin' 29 cent piece of felt in stock. A fellow mother of three young'uns can commiserate on how much pain that is saving me!

Random November pictures

Some random November pictures...

Naomi "assisting" Andrew with tummy time

Andrew himself!

PICNIC in NOVEMBER...I'll definitely miss this aspect of Tucson!

Tinkerbell and nightshirt-boy entertaining (or mauling) Andy.

Andrew's newest habit...

Andrew has discovered his fist, and he enjoys trying to cram the entire thing into his mouth. After deciding that doesn't work for him, he opts for the middle and ring finger, as seen in the pictures below.

He's 2 1/2 months now, and he's a sweetie!

Naomi's fashion sense (or lack thereof)

Naomi put these clothes on yesterday. Normally I give her outfit options, but she threw these on before I got around to showing her some options. And I decided it wasn't worth a fight.

Her pose of choice...

And this is what I got when I asked for a smile...sigh.

I'm okay with this outfit. If I saw someone else's child wearing this, I would think, "Oh, the kid picked out their own outfit". And I would smile and laugh. So I did the same with my child.

The Merrell boys

We've got some good looking guys are here. Check out Andrew - he is sooooo long!

And a post is never complete without a "cheese" grin from Gabe. We went to a very fun birthday party, complete with a fantastic balloon artist. He made this motorcycle at Gabe's request.

Matt is also devastatingly handsome. I just didn't have a picture of him to stick in this post. :)

Naomi the Hoverer

...or perhaps we should call her Naomi the Smotherer. She loves her baby brother, and the only protection Andrew needs is not against frustrated or jealous siblings...it's against siblings trying to give him lots of loving!

I am happy to see Naomi holding Andrew more, though (with supervision!). When she first came to meet him at the hospital, we put him in her lap and he cried. It took a lot of talking and reassuring before she would hold him again! Now she loves it.

Naomi

Sarah!

We did LOTS of fun things in Utah. But I am dedicating my time right now to other projects (translation: I don't want to sort through all the pictures just yet!), so I won't be doing mega-posts on our trip.

I did want to post this picture, though. We got to go visit my friend Sarah from my working days in Provo...it was so much fun to see her and her three little girls!! Love you, Sarah!

(Sarah is holding Andrew in the picture, lest you were wondering...)