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Happy Happy New Year Friends! I don't know about you but I'm ready to clean the slate and start this new year off on the right foot! Don't get me wrong, 2012 was great, full of wonderful opportunities and new additions (such as our very favorite, this little bug shown here) but I just love me some time to reevaluate, make some changes and get pumped to start up again. Don't you? And to do so we always choose a theme as a family for the year. I like to do this so that if some of my specific goals fall through the cracks, say oh about a couple weeks after I make them, then I always have a simple theme to fall back on...one that is easy to remember the entire year through...and one that will hopefully guide us through until the end of December.
I'm also big on alliteration. I find this helps me remember my theme even when it's July and starting fresh and goal making is not so much at the forefront of my mind.
Some past favorite themes have been:
- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Relax (remember this one?! still a fond favorite)
- Creation and Compassion (tried to focus on creating more and consuming less and then reaching beyond myself and showing compassion to those around me)
- Friends, Family & Fun! (this one might seem like a no brainer but for a workaholic, creative hermit like myself I needed the reminder that the most important things in life are bonds you form with those around me. I needed the push to put my relationships in life first. And to have FUN doing it! Turned out really great.).
- Last year was all about Thriving...thinking this year might be a bit along those lines as well. Can't wait to nail it down!
What about you? Any resolutions? And what do you do to try to keep up on them after the will power to make it out the door to the gym subsides?
We are all still a bit sick around here and so much is going on (including good stuff for Mer Mag and the blog!) so it's been a bit crazy trying to get up the posts I had planned for this week. One such post was a recap of this little man's 4th birthday party. Here's just sneak peak of our little O on his happy day. I bet you can guess what the theme was (and has been every day since!). We'll be sharing the entire reveal with you next week. (I know, you're starting to question me and my promises for Mer Mag posts. Guess you'll just have to check back in next week and see if I follow through!)
Hope your late fall is just as gorgeous as our is (just without all the sick bugs!).
xo
Mer
Sweet Baby M turned three weeks today and we are all head-over-heels smitten with her. I was hoping to have her birth story up on the blog last week but with four-year-old birthday parties, sleepless nights and grade school coughs and sniffles, things have been a bit "congested" around here. I do however have plans to share it this week if all goes well. I also have a slew of costume round-ups from years pasts to share as well as more Halloween fun!
Hope you have all been enjoying one of the most magical yet fleeting times of year. We've managed to have a few romps through the fall leaves (bringing baby M along for the fun...what a trooper) and have plans for pumpkin patches and cider sipping nights. Can't wait.
happy monday!
(baby M pictured above in our DIY hand stamped swaddle blanket. It's been soo great!)
My talented friend Meta, of One More Mushroom (killer new blog about desiging kids spaces that you will just die for), was so nice to help me out with an impromptu photo shoot involving myself and the boys and a few of our crafts that we have worked on. I realized that I didn't have any recent shots of myself and the boys and thought it would be fun to do a few before our family dynamic changes forever - with a new little lady on the way and all (which we are of course SO thrilled about!).
Now let me tell you, posing for a photograph at seven months pregnant is NOT my idea of fun. We tried a few shots revealing the baby bump I'm carrying around and I just couldn't get it right (Meta was great - my modeling on the other hand was less than inspired). But I think these ones with the boys in front of me are a great solution. And the boys look good no matter what they are doing, belly showing and all!
But I need your advice. Which of the three do you like best? I'm sure I'll use a few for promotion and I'm just not sure which one I like best. I like the interaction of me with the boys on the last two but then again I really like the first one with Little O interacting with our interlocking cardboard castle. What do you think?
And thanks again Meta for being so willing to do this last minute! You're an all star!
Mer Mag crafts featured in photos: animal box masks with duct tape; interlocking cardboard castle with duct tape; easy breazy kiddie scarves; diy triangle tshirt
As usual we had a fabulous time at my family's Fourth of July reunion in Colorado and as usual, we went all out. This year we decided to go with the birth of America, 1776 theme and the end result was nothing short of amazing. My mother created a lovely patriotic environment complete with homemade lanterns out of tin cans, cuddly quilts to lounge on, a perfect thrifted fabric for a photo backdrop, red white and blue treats to bring with us to the fireworks show and so much more!
 Our summer has been rather busy so we decided to just reuse clothing and
costume items that we have created and utilized in the past. My sisters however,
well they took this theme and ran with it, making darling dresses for their girls...and even themselves (you can check out my sister Lorajean's pin board for the event here)! My older sister Daryllyn made a gorgeous yellow gown for herself and topped it off with a fabulous white wig. Her little darlings were just as impressively decked out.
 My mother sewed all of the little girls cute little white bonnets and my
sisters adorned their hair with ringlets. Everyone just looked so
great.
 In fact, everyone was asked to pick a particular person on early
American history and not only dress the part, but come up with a mini
skit or an informative piece of sorts sharing a bit about that
historical figure. So we had a Davy Crockett, a Danial Boone, a Betsy Ross, a Paul Revere, an Abigail Adams, and more! It was extremely hot this year so aside from dressing up, we didn't do a whole lot. Typically we have a number of games and activities but after dressing up, eating and take a number of festive photos, we all then ditched our warm costumes in favor of swimsuits and my parents pool. Because of the number of fires in Colorado this year, all personal fireworks were banned. Our local communities larger fireworks were also cancelled so we traveled to a near by town to see a few overhead fireworks there. It was a great ending to a fun and festive day!
 We did miss having Jon along for the trip and many mentioned missing his playful, actor, "life of the party" contribution to to the reunion. But aside from missing Jon, the boys and I had a fantastic time. In fact, the Littles have had a hard time transitioning back to our day to day summer life without a mob of cousins to run and play with.
Oh and I discovered that the secret to getting a moody "Count of Monte Cristo" look from my 6 yr old son is to pull him away from all the fun and ask him to pose for the camera for a few minutes. And oh will he stare you down...barely blinking...and refusing to crack even the slightest of grins... I have to admit, I was sort of impressed with his resolve and had to try not to giggle when after at least 10 clicks, he didn't budge at all. I'm seeing stubborn teen in a number of years...Oh boy. But man do I love that kid! 
We had our annual photo shoot whilst on vacay, as is now the tradition, and what better backdrop than my parents out-of-service barn? We've used this fond location before but this time we decided to venture on inside and we were delighted with what we found. Not only was there a delicious amount of woodsy debris, but right in the midst of everything, was our vintage blue wooden rocking horse made by my father (he made this for my older sister when she was a little girl and we've all had a turn on it at some time or another whilst growing up). Honestly, it was perfectly placed in the middle of everything and all we had to do was put the boys on it and click away. Totally kismet. (Oh, yes, and Little O made sure that Woody came along for the fun...so very like him. If you notice, Muno came along for the pirate pics. He's pretty much never without a famous friend of sorts somewhere near by).  The above pic is the best one we got of Little A. He's apparently, at the very "old" age of 5, over his parents and couldn't wait to get back to all the fun with the cousins. I think it was something short of torture for him to be pulled away from it all, if even only for a moment.  The below pic is my favorite. I like the playful nature of it and Jon is such a cutie, don't you think?  And I had to get a pic of me with my little sister, Lorajean, our resident family photographer. I love her vision she's a natural behind the camera.
Thanks so much little sis' for letting me pull you away from the fun for a bit of photo mania! 
Happy 2011! I hope all of you are rested and rejuvenated after spending time with friends and family and ready to take a on a new year. I love this time of year...it's a great time for change, for renewal and for reflection. And don't you just love to look back and reflect on the last year? When putting together my 2010 Christmas cards I just couldn't believe how much time has flown. My boys are getting so big and life is speeding by. This year I really want to do all I can to slow down and simplify - so that I don't miss the most important things in life - such as taking more moments to really spend quiet time with my littles, enjoying their individual personalities and cultivating their unique talents. Having said that, I've found myself entering the new year with a very full plate. I've got a number of exciting projects already in the works that will keep me pretty busy this month, but I'll do my best to stay up to speed here on mermag, and check in when I can.
Thank you all for a wonderful 2010 year! Here's to another one ahead!
Good times were had at our family Christmas card photo shoot this year...and, thanks to the ever fabulous Jordan, the pics turned out great too! I'm a little late on the family and friend Christmas card front this year but I'm happy to report that we have little A's teacher cards completed and sent out (check that off the list!).
We went with simple origami Christmas trees made from pattered paper which we then adhered to blank white cards . Little A signed them and then we topped it of with possibly the best photo from the family shoot...
...that of Little A lounging with his feet up, chillin' on our chairs, hanging onto the Christmas wreath... Knowing his personality, his teachers will be sure to get a kick out of it.
Now on to the rest of my Christmas cards! (If only I was ambitious enough to do origami trees for all of these...)
(oh and I'll share more from the photo shoot later...after I've got my Christmas cards out :)).
I was asked to put together a Halloween photo booth for a trunk-or-treat after-party at our church this year. Being a fan of the photo booth movement, I was of course totally on board. I had grand plans for this but as the clocked ticked closer and closer to Halloween time seemed to melt away and the day of the trunk-or-treat arrived all too quickly. Using all of my available sheets for this ghost costume I was in need of a white back drop so I raced over to JoAnn's, the morning of, and managed to luck out with some great white vinyl home decor fabric on sale for $2.99 a yard! I gobbled up about 4 yards, grabbed a few sheets of black poster board and some wooden dowels and headed straight for the check out.
Upon arriving home, I got to work straight away. Jon helped me by finding some great font inspiration for the speech bubbles and called up a friend with photo backdrop equipment so that we could hang this thing. I quickly painted some spooky silhouettes in decorative frames, using both black craft acrylic paint and black tempera paint (the only kind of paint I had on hand for this). I then found an old rubber stamp and began stamping a wallpaper look behind the frames (with proper planning you could do this a lot better than I did and actually put the background pattern on before painting the frames...just a thought...)  It was hard to keep the Littles feet from dancing all over this but I somehow managed to get it finished just in the nick of time (just don't look too close!). Little A was delighted to see each scary creation come to life in the frames. His favorites were the googily eyed monster and Dracula (whom I was surprised to find him familiar with...)  While letting the backdrop dry I popped in Charlie Brown's - Great Pumpkin Halloween movie, to keep little feet from tromping all over everything, and I began work on the speech bubbles. I used some of Jon's font choices for "BOO!" and "EEK!" and just hand lettered the other titles. Little A was very excited to be able to read "EEK!" and "BOO!" so these speech bubbles naturally became his personal favorites.  We made it to the trunk-or-treat a little late, pulling up just in time to see a portrait of a queen come to life and suddenly reach through her frame to deliver candy to the startled trunk-or-treaters (totally awesome). Jon took the littles around the parking lot for round one while I went on into the gym to set up the photo both. Phew! I somehow managed to put it together with enough time to do a second round of trunk-or-treating with the boys.  When it was time to close up trunk we all headed indoors for donuts, homemade root beer, pumpkin bowling, pin the mouth on the bat, Halloween fishing and of course costumed photo shoots. All in all I think it worked out...and can I just say...so glad to have this all ready for next year!
OK, I know your thinking..."Um, Mermag, I'm sipping hot apple cider in a chunky sweater and curling up inside with a good book, thinking of my final Halloween preparations...so why are you posting about summer?" Good question readers! All I can say is that this is the last summer installment and we are off to more appropriate spooky and chilly subject matter. I promise!!
So...moving right along... It's sort of become a tradition for us to have a little family photo shoot during our themed 4th of July festivities, and this year was no different. Following a sort of vintage Hawaiian (meets I'm not sure what?) we hammed it up in front of the camera. My little sister and her artist husband were kind enough to take a few shots for us in the middle of a misty drizzle and various children running this way and that. Thanks guys!  The above pics is one of my favs as it shows life as it really is: Jon and I trying to blissfully ignore the tormenting and fighting that goes on daily between my sweet littles. And speaking of littles...my baby is 2 today!!! I can't believe it. So I'm off to celebrate the rest of the day with him and family!
...Oh and I'll be back soon with Halloween goodies...and hopefully a birthday party wrap up!
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