A Letter From Sparkle, Our Elf On The Shelf

Dear Merback Family

YOU’RE LEAVING ME TODAY!  HOW EXCITING TO BE ON THE ROAD AGAIN TO YOUR PARK CITY CABIN!  I WILL MISS YOU ALL, EXCEPT FOR YOUR DAD WHO I AM GOING TO STAY HERE TO HANG OUT WITH.  I’LL HIDE SOMEWHERE WHERE I CAN WATCH ALL OF HIS MOVIES!!  I LOVE MOVIES!

IT WAS ANOTHER GREAT YEAR, WATCHING YOU FROM AFAR AND A GREAT MONTH WATCHING YOU CLOSE.  BOY YOU HAVE BOTH GROWN UP SO MUCH.  I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW TALL GEORGIE HAS GOTTEN AND HOW MUCH ISAAC HAS LEARNED.  AND JULIET IS SO CUTE;)  SOME OF MY OTHER ELF FRIENDS WISH THEY WERE ASSIGNED TO YOUR HOUSE BECAUSE THEY THINK MY KIDS ARE SO COOL!!  AND THEY’RE RIGHT.  I SPEND MY MONTH WITH SOME PRETTY COOL KIDS.

ISAAC, YOU ARE SO SMART.  I LOVE WATCHING YOUR FACE WHILE YOU READ.  YOU’RE SO INVOLVED WITH WHAT YOU ARE READING.  KEEP IT UP.  BOOKS ARE THE KEY THAT OPENS UP THE ENTIRE WORLD.  KEEP WRITING YOUR OWN STORIES, TOO.  YOU HAVE STORIES TO TELL.  AND YOU LOVE YOUR SISTERS.  I CAN TELL THAT YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THEM.  I HOPE THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS STAY CLOSE TO THEM BECAUSE THEY CAN BE YOUR BEST FRIENDS.  YOU ARE ALSO A VERY THOUGHTFUL BOY.  WHEN YOUR MOM WAS SICK, AFTER THE REST OF THE HOUSE HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN THAT SHE EVER FELT BADLY, YOU REMEMBERED AND ASKED HER HOW SHE WAS FEELING THE NEXT DAY.  I WAS VERY IMPRESSED.  7 YEAR OLD BOYS DON’T DO THAT!  BUT YOU DO, ISAAC! 

GEORGIE, YOU REALLY ARE 5 ½!  AND SOMETIMES YOU SEEM LIKE YOU ARE 6!  I’VE RARELY SEEN A CHILD SO HAPPY AND SO COMFORTABLE WITH WHO SHE IS.  YOU REALLY LISTEN TO YOUR HEART, YOUR MIND, YOUR FEELINGS AND AREN’T AFRAID TO SHARE WHAT THEY ARE TELLING YOU.  KEEP LISTENING AND BEING PROUD OF ALL THAT YOU ARE.  I LOVE WATCHING YOU FORGIVE OTHERS.  NOTHING CAN KEEP YOU DOWN FOR LONG.  YOU’RE ALWAYS READY TO LOVE EVERYBODY, NO MATTER WHAT AND YOU’RE ALWAYS READY TO LAUGH.  AND YOU WANT SO MUCH TO BE OF HELP TO YOUR FAMILY.  DON’T WORRY IF SOMETIMES YOU BREAK THINGS.  YOU’LL GET BETTER AS YOU GET OLDER.  JUST KEEP BEING HELPFUL…IT’S GOOD FOR YOUR SOUL!   

JULIET, YOU ARE CUTE.  THERE AREN’T MANY BABIES CUTER.  I CAN TELL THAT YOU ARE GOING TO BE SMART AND MAYBE EVEN WISE.  TIME WILL TELL.  YOUR FAMILY LOVES YOU.  YOU ARE ONE LUCKY LITTLE GIRL. 

IT’S HARD FOR ME TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU, KNOWING THAT I WON’T SEE YOU FOR ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR.  BUT YOU ARE ALWAYS WITH ME.  ALL YEAR LONG AS I PLAY WITH REINDEER AND PREPARE FOR CHRISTMAS I THINK OF MY DECEMBER FAMILY, THE MERBACKS.  I HOPE THAT YOU KNOW THAT AND THINK OF ME FROM TIME TO TIME TOO.  I’LL BE HAPPY TO SEE YOU AGAIN IN ITALY.  I’VE NEVER BEEN THERE AND SANTA HAS TOLD ME HOW LUCKY I AM TO HAVE A FAMILY FROM AMERICA THAT GETS TO LIVE IN ITALY FOR A WHILE.  HE SAYS THOSE ARE TWO OF HIS MOST FAVORITE COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD.  I LOVE YOU ALL.  MAY CHRISTMAS BE WITH YOU ALL THROUGHOUT THE YEAR!!  BUON NATALE

    i

  Sparkle

It's Official

We're Moving To 

ITALY!!

I was laying down with the kids one night when Joey came in and quietly but urgently said, "When you get done I need to talk to you."  "Ok" I said.  He immediately changed his mind, "I need to talk to you now."

I got up and went out into the hall.  He was beaming nervously.

"I just got an email saying that our assignment is waiting for me on my office email address...I can't check it here, should I go up to the clinic?"

"YES!!"  Was he really asking me this question? 

He almost literally leapt for his shoes and coat and flew out the door.  I posted something about it on Facebook (of course...I'm such a dork;) and waited for his phone call.  The phone rang once and I picked it up before the ring could even finish.  "Hello?"  I said.

"YES"!!  was all JOey said, followed by a huge giddy giggle!  We talked for a few brief minutes and he headed for home.

I ran into the kids room and literally jumped up and down cheering.  "We found out!!!  We're really moving to ITALY!!"  They jumped out of bed and ran to give me hugs, jumping and giggling themselves.  I grabbed the camera as quickly as I could to capture the moment we'd all been waiting for for almost a year now.  I'm sure the kids were taking their cues from me but here we are just the same, sincerely, totally and completely excited, together!:

So it begins...our Italian adventure.  And it really has begun.  We're studying Italian, reading Italian (okay, Joey is, not the rest of us;), researching travel recommendations, cooking Italian, applying for passports, shopping for new luggage

.....SO IT BEGINS!!!

Georgie

First of all, Georgie is training wheel free...has been for a few weeks now.  And she's pretty proud:

Here she is with the man who helped her with the job, 

and her sister who always tries to steal the show:

 Joey had to push Georgie quite a bit to get her out there initially.  Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday that we were in town over the course of a couple of months he worked with her for a couple of hours.  She was scared, didn't want to do, was happy with her training wheels yada, yada, yada but she actually made the switch fairly easily.  

 She still prefers her scooter but at least she knows she can do it.  I love this picture;)

She also had her Kindergarten program recently.  Sunset has an annual Chili Supper where the Kindergartners sing for entertainment.  It was pretty cute;)

 I had Georgie's hair pulled back in two cute pigtails for the performance, out of her face so that we could see her singing face.  As they marched onto the bleacher/ platform she decided that she wanted l it down.  Okay, whatever, no biggie.  But, in the middle of the performance she starts flipping her hair/head upside down and flinging it back again quickly over and over and over again....I couldn't stop laughing at her...I didn't know if I should be proud at how cute she was or totally embarrassed at how WIERD!!  

This is Georgie's latest hobby:

 She has a Tangled wig with a braid that extends to the back of her knees.  But that's not long enough for her.  She ties scarves, belts, blankets, ribbons, whatever she can find to the end of it so that her hair trails all through the house.  This is her favorite toy.

Lastly, here are a few shots of Georgie's first fall party.  Juliet and I went to hang out and bring cookies.  

YAY for OU!!  (I had no idea that Georgie even knew what OU was!!)

Ashley's Triathlon

I was officially called out on being a crappy husband the other day. I was checking out my brother Jake's family blog and I saw a post about Jake completing his first sprint distance triathlon and his wife Ashlee completing her first olympic distance tri. Other than there being a paucity of pictures of my stick-in-the-mud brother, I thought it was awesome and commented on it to my Ashley. That's when I got it: "you forgot the camera so I can't even post about my triathlon"!  D'oh!

This is it - the only picture we have of her entire event. Women, feel free to gaze all you want and envy her rockin' body in all of its muscle-definition glory. But men are limited to one glance - thou shalt not covet my hot wife.

She had left early in the morning, as the start was at 0700 (the event was on the air force base, so all times will be given in military format in this post). I got the kids ready and made it to the pool in time to see Ashley swimming her last few laps of the 1 mile swim, but I made the rookie mistake of forgetting the camera. Standard olympic distance is 1500m, and this race is 1600m so she was already 100m ahead of the game. She looked great in the water and seemed to be feeling the same during transitition #1.  She finished 1600m in 31 minutes.

She used my titanium Douglas road bike but hadn't gotten used to the aero bars, so I just took them off for the race. Thankfully she is a pro with her Egg Beater clipless pedals. After she left the transition area, I loaded the kids in the van and hustled to our first spectator spot. The bike was three 7.1 mile loops around the base, which means the 21.3 mile course was about 3.5 miles shy of the standard olympic distance. We trucked it back and forth between two places on the course where we could see her race by. She looked great on the bike, but would definitely shave some minutes off her time if she could get comfortable in the aero position.

At transition #2, she still felt fine and was ready to tackle the 7.1 mile run, a full mile longer than the standard olympic distance. Personally, I would much rather bike 10 extra miles than run one. After she left T2, I had the assignment of getting Georgie to a birthday party and Isaac to soccer practice before Ashley made it to the first spectator spot so we could still cheer her on. I was a little behind schedule, but Juju and I caught her soon after she had passed it and drove alongside her for a few hundred meters. Then we went back to the party, which was near the run course, and waited to spot Ashley again. She was really moving well and passed us before I had even realized it. I hustled the girls back into the car and we cheered as we drove alongside her again towards the home stretch.

At the finish line I asked Anna Harter to take a picture of Ashley to try and salvage something from my camera failure. She came around the last corner still looking strong and ended up in second place of all the females with a time of about 2:48:00.  This was her redemption olympic tri that came two years after her first attempt, aborted as it was by the homicidal dog incident. I was so impressed with her ability to train and be a full-time mom, all while accommodating my ridiculous training schedule (my Aquabike was two weeks after her tri) and all of the times she had to come rescue me from heat exhaustion and mechanical failures. Way to go, Ash!

Hopefully Aviano Air Base in Italy has a base triathlon so that Ash can continue her meteoric rise in the sport. Better yet, hopefully we can find an Italian nanny to teach our kids the language and enable both of us to train. Don't hate us - join us.

Halloween 2011

Halloween is our second favorite holiday around here (that does not include Joey).  It's definitely mine and I'm trying to brainwash the kids into making it theirs too;)  I think its working!

Here they are on Halloween night, itching to go trick or treating.  Isaac is a Ninja, Jay from Lego Ninjago to be exact.  Georgie is Rapunzel (shockingly she was one of the only Rapunzels we saw all of Halloween...I expected her to one of 100's!)  Juliet was a black widow spider who's costume you can't really see in the pictures.  She was pretty cute:)  and I was a spider web, so we co-ordinated.  I know...cheesy!

 This is Georgie's idea of a pose.  Ha!!

 Isaac put the Ninjago symbol and his name that he drew and cut out all by himself on his back.  And there's Ju-B's black widow mark.

 Our first time decorating our trunk for the trunk or treat.  Isaac was so proud!

When we ran out of candy to hand out, Isaac started handing out his.  I kept telling him he didn't have to do that but he insisted.  "It's stuff I don't like anyway, Mom."  LOL!

 Georgie wasn't giving away ANY of her candy.

 Here's Ruth who always inspires me with her costumes.  She owns Halloween every year!!

 This is Ninja business,

 On a sugar high after the trunk-or-treat, faces painted, full of songs!

 Lookin' spooky....

Here they are with "Spooky Jack" the jack-O-lantern that they carved and

 named earlier that day with Dad.

And this is such a Ju-B face, I had to include it....shock and awe at the black bird perched on our railing.

 With DC and Ruth on Halloween night, ready to knock doors

 Ruth and I stayed on the porch and passed out candy.  

Joey took the kids around the neighborhood.

And this little spider lasted all night trick-or-treating, happy as a clam lapping up 

sucker after sucker all the way.  

Happy Halloween!!

Joey's Tri Weekend

Our 2/3 Iron-Man

Last year, Joey did his first half Iron Man at an event called the RedMan in Oklahoma City.  He was made aware while there that doing a full distance Aqua Bike is also an option at this event.  Baring a hatred for running as he does Joey knew that he had to sieze this oh so rare opportunity and sign himself up.  So here we are, late September one year later for another Tri weekend in Oklahoma City for Joey to do his Full-IronMan-minus-the-run Triathlon.  That's a 2.4 mile swim and a 112 mile bike.  Pretty impressive if you ask me!

The kids and I dropped him off at the start around 6:30 am and then headed back to the hotel for some more Z's.  We got back in time to catch him coming out of the water (above) and then we headed back to the hotel for yet another nap and then to do some shopping (TARGET!!).  

Here they are waiting for Daddy to finish up his bike.

Tiger Jump Castle to entertain all the athlete's children...cool!

and done...6 hours later.  

According to him he felt pretty miserable at the end but we couldn't tell it.  I think he was definitely glad to have it over with since it seemed to cause a lot of stress for him these last few weeks.  But we were all so proud.

The next day we headed over to the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum which was a beautiful and touching experience.  This museum is so well done.  If you ever have the chance to see it, please do.  What a tragic tragic event.

The glass chairs, memorializing all who were killed.  168 people, 19 of them children.

They had a kids area there were children are encouraged to write messages in sidewalk chalk.  I love Isaacs!!  So cute;)  If you can't tell, thats a heart with the state of Oklahoma inside and the heart is broken. 

This is Georgie's version of a tiger.  

This was her drawing that she did before she got wind of Isaacs less abstract pictures.  I wish I knew some handwriting analyst that could tell me something about the adult that she'll become by analyzing these bazaar nonsensical drawings that she does ALL the time.  I've never seen a kid draw like this.  Let's just hope its doesn't reveal her to be a mass murderer or something...but that's off topic.  Sorry.

I love this picture of him...shows off his great trademark smile;)

And this is Isaacs second drawing, also very sweet.  It's a hand and each of the fingers "represent something", he told me.

Be Nice

Follow Your Heart

Be Helpful

Care

and lastly,

Have Love

And that about sums up Isaacs heart! 

 Love that boy!

On the outside of the memorial was this chain link fence where people can hang momentos.  There were some tragic things hanging up there.  I was particularly touched by a series of poems that a father wrote to his 24 year old daughter who had died in the bombing.  Her picture was there in the middle of a Christmas wreath.  That had me in tears.  

Anyway, Congrats lover (Joey)!  Thanks for giving cause for a great weekend in "the City"!

xoxo

Juliet: 13 and 14 months old

Juliet:

13 /14 months old

Juliet is getting bigger and 

it's about time for a report;)  Here it is:

Juliet is cute.

Juliet loves having her hair brushed.  I've made a habit of commenting, "Oh so pretty," the whole time I'm brushing her hair.  And she grins from ear to ear.  Every time that she hears the word 'pretty' she pats her chubby little hands over her curls, smiles and looks at me knowingly.  She's taken, lately to brushing her own hair.  She loves to wear shoes mainly, I think, because it makes her feel big like the rest of us. She smiles and waves at everyone that gives her any attention.  She likes people especially when they don't try to pick her up.  Then she gets fussy. 

 Juliet gets into everything.  

Wherever she goes, there's a trail of ransacked cabinets and drawers or empty bottles trailing behind her.  ANd the bad thing is, I encourage it.  If she's entertained than I can get my jobs done.  Empty drawer with contents scattered all over the kitchen?  I'll take it!  Because it beats an empty dinner table;)  In this particular picture I gave her the bowl lined with whipped cream that I had just finished icing a cake with.  She was lovin' that.  I never would have given something like that to Isaac...

 Juliet is LOUD. 

I've never heard a child's voice that carried the way that Ju-b's does.  She yells at us incessantly, particularly at the dinner hour and we don't know quite what to do about it because she's too little to reason with.  She'll squawk at you so loudly and her whole body will stiffen, her face as well, eyeing the goldfish, cookie or water bottle (she loves sport/water bottles...sippy cups get thrown to the floor after about two sips making for a frustrated mommy!!) and when she finally gets what she wants she'll look at you with her adorable little brown eyed face and say, "tank oo".

Juliet says:

"No" (her first word)

"Mam-eh" (mom)

"Dadde"

"Tank-oo" (thank you)...

strangely this was honestly her fourth words!!  So cute!!

"Na-na" (banana)

"Baby"

"Hi"

"Ni-Ni" (night night)

"bye bye"

Juliet loves her bed.

Juliet is still taking two naps.  And she needs every one.  When I tell Ju-B that it's time to go "Ni-Ni", she smiles and says "Ni-Ni" in this peaceful, soft, almost breathy voice.  As soon as I walk her into her room after telling her its time for ni-ni she insists on being given her paci.  If that doesn't happen she yells at me.  I tell her to talk quietly and she yells at me again.  I make her say please in sign language and then I give it to her.  What else should I do?  (that is not a rhetorical question.  If you have any advice, please give it to me.)  At bedtime (not nap time) we're trying to make a habit of having her give kisses to everyone before she goes to sleep.  She LOVES that and Isaac and Georgie love it too.  She says "ni-ni" to everyone and then opens her mouth just a tiny bit for a kiss. (I love that!!)  We go into her room, promptly give her the paci and then she chooses a book from her shelf.  She LOVES to be read a story at any time of day.  I would say books are her most used toy.  After a story, 9 times out of 10 the routine goes like this:  I try to rock her and she resists, arches her back, yells at me, or whatever so I put her in her bed, hand her her baby, tuck her blankey around her and she smiles from ear to ear.  Sometimes she giggles.  Once I saw her roll over on her tummy, giggle and stroke her sheets.  She was in pure heaven.  Then I walk out, close the door and she promptly starts yelling at me.  She wants to have her cake and eat it too;)  But I'm not falling for that business;)

We love you, Ju-B!! 

xoxo

Soccer Begins!

Isaac ♥'s Soccer

Soccer season began on Saturday.  Isaac was REALLY excited!  Every season, at every game I tell myself, "I'll bring the camera next time."  And then I never do.  So this may be the only shots we get all year...and that's cool too.  But I had to document Isaac doing his "thing".   This sport is really growing on him.

 Joey is his assistant coach this year which Isaac was pretty excited about.  He did a marvelous job the first game, if I don't say so myself;)  He was so patient and enthusiastic with all the kids.  I think  this coaching thing is going to take;)

 After many failed attempts at getting some "in action" shots, Ju-B quickly became the center of my cameras eye;)  Look at that face:

 How could she not!!

 She loves her big brother (sometimes more than others).

In this particular moment Isaac had just scored 2 goals and stopped by to visit us during a water brake.  He was feeling pretty confident and she was really loving him.  She looked so content, perched there on his shoulder!  Happy Soccer season, Isaac!  
We'll be cheering for you!

xoxo

mom