Thursday, December 31, 2009

Our Crazy Christmas!

Christmas is always busy around the Merkley household, Justin is just getting use to the idea that Christmas is celebrated for a whole week in Vernal, but I have to say I think this year may have topped them all. The "normal" Christmas festivities alone are plenty but this year we thought we would just throw in a Graduation surprise party (for Jesse) a Mission farewell (for Nate) Family Pictures, an Amazing Family Race, and Swimming, Sledding, and Movies (for the kids) needless to say we had a "CRAZY" Christmas this year!

just singing a few Christmas carols (this was a new tradition my aunt started this year, not sure if it will make it in next years schedule but A for effort Aunt Lisa)...
The boy cousins...
The girl cousins...

Barsie and I getting our craft on...
My Dad making the worlds BEST fudge (I know everyone thinks that about their recipes, but really my Dads is the best :) sorry!) He gets serious about the whipping process if you can't tell, in fact I would not be surprised if occasionally one of the secret ingredients may be a drop of sweat...
Christmas morning....
(this makes me laugh, it always feels crowded at my moms house but this picture makes me realize just how crowded it really is)

The Amazing Race...

Our new favorite tradition, thank you Alisha for all the work you do to make this so fun!!! I had no pictures of this night so I had to steal these from my cousin Melissa, and because I could not have narrated this any better (I just stole her whole post, and am hoping it's okay with her)... so in her words.......

See we Merkley's can be quite competitive and so rather than getting our competitive aggression out during a game of Family Feud or Uno we had an Amazing Race the day after Christmas.

These are the 9 teams that competed and raced all around Vernal, Utah with it being, like, 2 degrees outside. Literally 2 degrees.
Don't we all just look like the nicest people alive? You wouldn't guess that the arguing began even before we could all get out the door!

Jodi and Jesse were the Grey/Blue team and were the winners of the game.

Makall, my Dad (Melissa's), and Aunt Lisa were the Black Team. At one point they were calling me asking where I was headed, and I thought they were trying to cheat so I faked faulty cell coverage and hung up on them. Turns out they were just trying to help. What a nice daddy I have.

Autumn and Alex were the White Team (here predicting that they will come in second, which I think they did. Second or Third). From what I hear Autumn is a little scavenger who stole mine and Michael's house of cards after we WHOOPED everyone at that challenge.

Justin and Ashley
were the Green Team and although we were SUPPOSED to follow all traffic laws, Justin was a little speed demon. I should know....I was right on his tail. Hehehe

Nate and Barsie were the Orange Team. Since Nate was SOOOO intimidated by us, he had to try to slow us down by trying to block our car in at every challenge, BUT YOU CAN'T TRAP ME NATE!

Aunt Julie and Uncle "not the first born" Terel were the Red Team. One of our clues sent us to Grandma and Grandpa's "first born's" house. I headed off to my dad's, even though the clue meant for us to go to Uncle Terel's. That is where Michael and I lost the game! But I can see how everyone thought Uncle Terel is the older child, he is much more mature acting than my dad!
Sid and Michelle were the Yellow Team. They call this their game face, I called it their "mad they know they are gonna lose face"
Meg and Jeff the only team who actually knew what color "red" brick houses were!

Michael and I were Team Purple. And we came in dead last! But you know what they say... save the best for last.
and a HUGE shout out and thank you to Alisha for planning this whole thing and to her hubby Dave for helping her out. They did so much work and planning for this and it was seriously awesome.
What FUN night!

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Lights at Temple Square, and an early visit from Santa himself!!!

We took the kids to the Christmas Lights, they loved it! Jett was so excited all day, I don't know why we had never taken them before but it was a great experience!


So yesterday, Jett came upstairs dressed in two different top and bottom P.J.'s, black snow boots and a hat and asked me if we had some black gloves, I just thought he was getting in something warm to go outside so I said Jett, you are NOT wearing that outside...He replied saying: No, Mom, I'm being Santa Clause and I'm going to put presents under the tree for our Family (he has been watching " The Santa Clause" oh, about 3 times a day for the past few days and I guess thought it would be fun to reinact the movie!) I had to make him take a few pictures and he then proceeded to place every toy in his "Santa bag" under our tree! (I'm just not sure which to give Taya and Lincoln, they all kinda looked like ones for him ;)



Thanksgiving Activies!

This year we spent Thanksgiving at Justin's Grandma's, I forgot my camera so I had to borrow these from Justin's cousin's (thank-you) Just some random Pic's of the activities for the day!
Lincoln and his olives

Just a friendly little game of poker

....and some solitaire frenzy

Taya and Halle playing!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 23, 2009

"Deck the Halls" Boutique

All us girls decided to get a little crafty a couple weeks ago and do a boutique in Vernal, we made everything from watch bands, to blankets, to bows, home decor, and tutu's. So fun, especially just to get to hang out with everyone...
Michelle, Jamie, Jillie, Me, Jillian, Autumn, Alisha and Megan

Oh, and if any of you are needing any of these things we do have some leftovers we would love to get rid of :).......

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Jazz Game!!!

My Bro-in-law and new Sis-in-law invited us to a Jazz Game game, complete with a free dinner at the terrace in the arena before the game and nachos and snacks at half time, we felt like VIP's... Kelli LOVES sports (lucky Tyson) so they do a lot of games, for their honeymoon SHE wanted to go to a Baseball game, all your husbands are jealous right now (I know) maybe she can help me a little. Anyway, it was a really good game until the fourth quarter, the Jazz ended up losing :( We still had a great time though, Thanks Kelli and Tyson for a fun night and great company!!!


Kelli & Tyson




D'will's ,wife, cute new baby, and brother, because obviously I spent more of the game people watching than actually watching the game :)

Monday, November 9, 2009

Halloween 2009

This year it felt like we celebrated Halloween for about a week. We were crazy busy, with church carnivals, pumpkin walks, school parties, kids parties, adult parties, trunk-or-treating, trick-or-treating, etc., etc., etc... We had a lot of fun but got a little tired of taking on and off Halloween costumes and make-up, every day for a week. Taya was a 50's Girl, Jett was a Sky View Bobcat football Player/Optimus Prime, and Lincoln was a Pirate/Robin the boys couldn't decide what they wanted to be so they were both (depended on the activity of the day)!

Da da, da da, da da, da da... Batman (and Robin, of coarse)


Look at those two football stars...and in full character of coarse. (Jett and his friend Braden Alder)

Lincoln's new favorite part of Halloween...


My kids went to the Pumpkin walk with my sister and brother and their families, Justin and I couldn't go. Of coarse, Justin was just devastated that he missed the pumpkin walk this year... it is like his favorite thing :) (not really) Thank you for taking them Alisha and Dave!



Happy Halloween!!!