A Wild Rumpus

Happy Birthday, Merrick Wilder! Yesterday was our little man's 1st birthday. It was such a fun day...kinda bittersweet, but so much fun. I remember waking up at 3:30 am thinking "this time last year I was in the recovery room after my crazy labor/emergency c-section". Merrick was completely worth it, and I'd do it all again. He's such a precious gift, and this last year with him has been the most amazing of our lives. He's grown so much, and taught us so much in the process. We had a great day with him, and with so many of our friends and family, who were able to come to his birthday party! We threw him a "wild rumpus" as we called it...after the theme of the book "Where the Wild Things are". When I was pregnant with Merrick, Billy started calling the two of us The Wild Things. (Merrick was a VERY active baby, and Billy had been calling me "Wild Woman Austin-Lea Girl" since we were in high school...so it seemed fitting.) We had a blast, opening presents, eating pizza and cake, and trying to avoid the inevitable 1-year-old over-stimulated and over-tired meltdown. :) He did great, considering he chose his birthday to NOT get very good naps. Go figure. I begged and pleaded with God to MAKE this child nap...some things are just not meant to be. :) (If there is anything I've learned over the last year...it's that children LOVE to do exactly what you would rather them not...) Seriously, though, we are so grateful to everyone who came and celebrated with us, and are thrilled to have each of you be a part of our lives. We are looking forward to what this next year holds for us as a family! Hope that each of you had a great Halloween. I commented to Billy this afternoon that this Halloween is the first of Merrick's second holidays...I'm sure that each one of these holidays will be just as wild and blessed as the first. :)

Did I mention I love Fall???

Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all. ~Stanley Horowitz

*Here are some pictures from a walk Merrick and I took this afternoon*

Dancing with the Aunts

I don't know what is more hilarious about this video...Merrick dancing, Ali singing, or Ali's striped socks. Haha! :) Dancing with the Stars has nothin on these guys.

VID 00058.3GP

Who knows? Maybe he'll be a runner like his mommy! :)

Not-So-ScareMare

Well...not in my opinion. :) We went to Scaremare with our youth group this past Saturday night. I happen to be the world's biggest chicken, and so I was very much dreading it all day before. I decided to be a trooper, however, being that kids half my age didn't seem to be so scared. I can handle this right? I mean, Liberty Students aren't so scary. :) So we headed out to Scaremare and went to CiCi's for dinner before. CiCi's was VERY crowded...but all 25 of us managed to eat and get back in the vans in time. We had signed up for the LineSlashers deal, so we didnt have to stand in line. (Kinda nice, but I have lots of fun memories of standing in line at Scaremare from when I was an LU student...therefore I didn't get any pictures of the kids in line) We went straight through the house, and had a great time. I was holding on to the back of Billy's hoodie for dear life, and had several screaming high school students, and my sister Amanda, climbing on my back. I nearly lost clothing and limbs several times, and was knocked down some stairs, thanks to Amanda pulling on me. It was a lot of fun, though, and we didnt lose anyone, which is always a plus when we take the youth group out in public. :) Merrick was left with Grandma for the evening, and was thoroughly spoiled as usual. He was awarded the priveledge of crawling on the table while he was eating, something I assure you he is not allowed to do at home. :) It's been a very busy, but fun, week around here. We are glad to see what this week has in store, and hope this finds everyone doing well. Here are some pictures of the kids from CiCi's...