A little this, a little that

 Trying the jumperoo.  She dug it! 

 Drs. Luke, Langley and Michael Merrick

 Langley checking out Woody.  Not sure what to think.

 We've been doing lots of fort building this winter.

 Luke on top of a huge snowpile at the end of our driveway after the blizzard. 

Langley tried peas for the first time and did not approve.  This is one second before she blew chunks everywhere.  Sorry if you're about to eat.  

But then she was this happy a few minutes later.

This was our Valentine's snowman.  I helped with the decorations in case you were wondering.  :)  Wishing you all a Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow.   

Telluride

I'm sure I'm just beating a dead horse, but the weather around the country lately has been crazy!  Last Monday Michael came home from work very concerned that we may not get to fly out to Telluride on Wednesday as planned because of the impending blizzard.  I was so glad he thought ahead enough to have us look at flying out a day early because the blizzard proved to be a real doozy.   The kids and I flew out Tuesday morning and met my mom in Montrose after a crazy long day spent in the Denver airport.  Then we just hoped that Michael and my dad would be able to meet us out there the next day.  

Unfortunately Michael didn't ever make it out there because by the time the blizzard passed and flights resumed he didn't have enough time to make all of the travel worth it.  It was such a bummer and we sure missed him but the kids and I were glad to have such a special week with DeeDee and Billy.

Luke tried skiing for the first time.  He was very proud of himself and did pretty awesome considering he's only 3! :)  

DeeDee and Langley matching

 Me and my little snow bunny

 Billy and Luke went sledding a couple of times. 

 Me and my buddy wearing matching helmets

 We love DeeDee and Billy!  

Thanks for loving and spoiling the three of us all week. 

Sweet cheeks

Since we were stuck inside pretty much all weekend with insanely cold temperatures I decided to pass a little time by taking some pictures of my littlest munchkin.  Don't worry it was nice and toasty inside, but  by insanely cold I mean -8 yesterday morning!  I'm pretty sure that was my first experience with sub zero temperatures and I have to admit I'm definitely missing Texas' winter right about now.  :)  Not a fan.  But I am a fan of this little girl.

Sibling love

I got this video of Langley laughing at Luke last night and just had to post it.  She LOVES her big brother.  Luke loves her back but also LOVES the attention he gets from her.  I get teary every time I watch it thinking about what great friends they are going to be.  :)  

Luke is 3!!

Three years ago today our little Luke was born and I'm not really sure how it's possible to go from this:

to this:

in what seems like a blink of an eye.  

We had a fun filled Toy Story party with friends that I'll post more about later but for now...Happy 3rd Birthday to our little buddy.  

Texas time

Because I can't seem to get caught up on here I thought I'd just go ahead and do a couple picture posts of what has gone on since Christmas:

We went to Texas and spent a fun filled week with The Merrick side of the fam on Lake Livingston...

Papa is fun

Nanny and Grandad made a special trip down from Ardmore

I got to hang out with my new "sister in love," and Michael got lots of brother time

Luke went fishing with Daddy 

and finally caught his first fish

Our sweet friends, Michelle and Paul, came to see us at the lake

Luke "played" his first 9 holes of golf

We got to see our Langley side too and had bunches of fun with them...

Billy and Luke had a movie date and watched Bolt in 3D.  

Gigi joined in on the fun too.  I'm so sad I didn't get any pictures of Gigi meeting Langley for the first time.  We loved getting to see her!  

Langley tried on some of Aunt Val's baby clothes

Our time with family always goes by way too fast, but I felt like we packed a lot of fun in this trip.  So grateful for such wonderful families.  

Our Michigan Christmas

So it's been quite a while since I got on here to blog but it's not for a lack of pictures or activity.  We had a wonderful Christmas and New Years and are finally getting back in to the swing of things around here.

We spent Christmas here in Grand Rapids with our little family of four since Michael had to work.  I have to admit I was a bit sad leading up to it about not being with our extended family, but it really was special to start some of our own family traditions this year.

 We made cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve and both little helpers seemed to enjoy it. 

 We went to Christmas Eve service at church and attempted a picture before. This is the best we got. 

Christmas morning Luke was up around 5:00 but we convinced him to go back to sleep so Santa had a little bit more time to come to our house.  ;)

We got to see what Santa brought first thing. As you can see Luke was pretty excited!

Then we took a break to have "Happy Birthday Jesus" cinnamon rolls.

And the rest of the day was spent opening and playing with fun presents and of course Skyping with both of our families!  Thank the good Lord for Skype!

Langley loved her first American Girl doll from Nana and Papa who looks strikingly similar to her I might add,

And Luke loved it all! He was so overwhelmed we had to take a break for a while so he could play with each thing as he opened.  Pretty safe to say we were all spoiled by our families.

Michael was on call Christmas night but thankfully didn't get called in until pretty late which gave us plenty of special time as a family.  So thankful for our little and big (extended) family and most thankful for Jesus - Emanuel.