Mercy Joy turned 1!

My beautiful girl is already 1 year old. I can't believe she's been with us for a whole year now, and yet it's hard to remember life without her in our family. Mercy truly is a joy to us all. Her birthday was July 19th, and she is well on her way to not being a baby anymore. I keep telling her to stop growing up, but she's not listening to me. :-) Mercy is babbling a lot, trying to formulate words in her own way. She can say the important ones like mama, dada, and ge ge (older brother in the language here). Her smile lights up any room and everyone can't wait to see her every morning when she gets up. The feeling is mutual as she is delighted every morning to see her brothers. She gets very excited and happy (kicking her legs, waving her arms, and giggling) every time they come running to her room. She enjoys playing with brothers (especially playing with their toys!), "helping" them with their puzzles, and being pushed around on her new riding pony.

Mercy's not walking yet, but it won't be long now. Her mobility began with the salamander/army crawl and has progressed to normal hands and knees crawling. She will start crawling to get where she wants to go, but when she sees something she really wants she gets down on her tummy and she shoots off super fast! She's pulling up on everything, and if there is something nearby to reach for, she will take a few steps while holding on to something. She's pretty confident in getting up and down and has even climbed up on the couch while pulling up on my leg. She loves to point to people and has recently started blowing kisses when she's being extra sweet. She has learned a few signs to communicate with us, which is really helpful particularly at meal time. She is still sucking her thumb(s), but only when she's really sleepy. She prefers the right thumb, but will take the left thumb if it's more accessible at any given time. Because she's much more squirmy and mobile now, her snuggles are short-lived, but I take whatever she's willing to give me. We have all SO enjoyed having a little girl around, but maybe I've enjoyed her the most. A friend of ours mentioned to us that she totally rocks the bow, and she does it well. With all these boys around here we want her to be a girly-girl for sure. She handles their tough love quite well and will probably be quite the handful herself. We all love her so much, and we're so glad God blessed our family with our little Mercy girl!


We kind of celebrated Mercy's birthday twice since our summer friends left the day before her birthday. Her actual birthday was on Tuesday, but we did the cake on Sunday so the friends could celebrate with us. We had strawberry cake with strawberry icing so that everything would be pink (remember the girly-girl stuff here). I made two cupcakes for Mercy, one for Sunday and one for Tuesday. She wasn't too keen on the cake the first time, but on her birthday she tore it up. Well, she tore it up literally on Sunday, too, but on Tuesday she actually ate it. Check out the fun cake pictures...


Yes, we took the kids back to the fun place for Mercy's birthday, too. Usually Mercy takes a nap in the stroller, but this time she actually got to go in and play! Here are some pictures of her enjoying the fun place...

We found a Nathan's Famous restaurant in the mall and had awesome hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch that day. Mercy actually had some yummy jars of baby food, but we all enjoyed our meal out. This is Mercy in the restaurant with the New York skyline behind her. :-)

We had a great day celebrating our baby girl. Who knew having a little girl around would be so much fun for us all?! Thank you, God, for giving her to us. We love our sweet Mercy!

Catching Up on Mercy Pictures

My plan was to sit down right now and write a blog entry about Mercy's birthday. But it's been so long since I wrote about Mercy that there are too many pictures for just one blog entry! So I will update you on the last few months of Mercy pictures in this post, then I will post again about her birthday. Either way you get lots of pictures - so enjoy!

Bonus brother picture!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures of my sweet Mercy girl. I will do my best to get her birthday post written soon!

Swiss Family Robinson

Last week we watched a movie together as a family. The boys were so excited that we all did it "together". You can imagine our entire family piled up together on the couch complete with all their blankets (thanks Great-Grandmother Tynes!) and pillows. They wanted to turn all the lights off and have a "real" movie atmosphere. So, just watching the movie together was an experience. But the movie itself was terrific! A few months ago I had read a short version of Swiss Family Robinson to the two older boys and they really got into it. Daddy remembered watching the Disney version of the movie when he was a boy, so we decided to let the boys watch it and see if they would like it too. Now, remember this movie was made in 1960. But it was GREAT! The boys were way more into it than we thought they would be. They absolutely loved the pirate fight at the end of the movie and couldn't wait to watch it again and again. In the movie there are only 3 sons, so our boys renamed themselves according to the boys' names in the movie. Fighting pirates, catching tigers, and defending their home and their women-folk all speak to little boy's hearts more than I will ever be able to understand. The thing I liked about the movie is that it had all those things that boys love but without being too scary for little eyes. It allowed the boys to experience the thrill of a fight, good winning over evil, and just lots of fun exciting things that boys love, but didn't expose them to things they're not ready for yet. Loved it. They love it and Mommy loved it. SO glad we got it for them! It was a great family memory that I hope they will cherish. I know I will!

Micah is 3!

July 7th was the long-awaited 3rd birthday for my Micah. He couldn't wait to turn 3! And now he's already talking about how he's going to be 4 on his next birthday. We told him he was going to have to just enjoy being 3 for now because it was going to be a while before his next birthday. He's ready, though. :-) Micah is a fun-loving, talkative, courageous, smart kid with an infectiously great laugh. He loves trying whatever his brothers can do, but he can keep himself occupied just fine when they are not around. Entertaining Mercy is at the top of his list of fun things to do, though he sometimes gets a little carried away and forgets that she's just a little baby. Being the 3rd born doesn't keep Micah from being heard in our family. He is quite articulate for a 3 year old and can express himself very well. Some of his cute sayings right now are "It's just that...", "What I'm trying to say is...", "I can't know" when he doesn't know the answer, and "I'm on it, Dad!" when asked to do something. He is a Daddy's boy through and through as he loves to be with and do things with Daddy. His very favorite color is green, so anything that is green he thinks belongs to him. He really enjoys playing with his Little Einstein toys and carrying around either Leo, Jesus, or Mickey Mouse at all times. In fact, whatever little toy he's been playing with he will be sure to set on his dresser at night so that first thing in the morning he can pick it back up and carry it around with him again the next day. He's almost always the first boy awake in the mornings, and he likes to come out with his hands full of his little toys to play with. He will fiercely guard anything that belongs to him, but will also share when the occasion calls for it (most of the time, anyway). He loves to sing songs as most 3 year old's do, but he also likes to make up silly songs. The last few months he's been showing off his amazing puzzle skills, completing large 60 something piece floor puzzles as well as multiple 25 piece puzzles at the table by himself. Even more recently he's starting drawing a lot (taking his cue from his brothers), and his art skills are pretty impressive for his age. When people first meet Micah they think he's kind of quiet and shy because when he's around a lot of people that he doesn't know, he does become more reserved. But once you get to know him, quiet and shy are not adjectives that you use to describe my sweet Micah. He really is a fun kid, and we're so glad he's a part of our family!


Micah's special day was spent celebrating with all things green as well as the Little Einsteins. I did my best to combine the two "themes" in honor of Micah. We started the day with birthday donuts, of course. His first present that morning was his new green shirt and shorts, which he absolutely loved. The rest of the family wore green just for the occasion as well.

Here are the boys reading some of the Curious George books that the Morriss cousins sent.
After a fun morning at home, we took the kids to one of the local "fun places" in town.

Then that evening we had a few friends over for dinner to celebrate Micah together. His choice of birthday supper was blueberry pancakes and green eggs. He loved it! He was even licking his plate to get all the syrup off of it. :-) He's very thorough.

Decorating the cake was a little stressful as when I was working on it, the icing started to melt and slide off the top! I ended up putting it in the freezer for about 30 minutes before I could finish it. So, I was just completing the cake decorating when the friends starting arriving. Thankfully, our summer friends were still here then so they cooked the pancakes and eggs for us. It was a fun time together, and Micah enjoyed his big day.

We sure do love our awesome Micah boy!
Congratulations on turning 3, big boy!