First Haircut

So after a year of letting Nolan's hair grow to its untamed glory, I finally decided that it was time for a haircut. He was starting to look like a little hippy! So we purchase a new quieter set of clippers and let Kenny do what he'd been telling me he could do for weeks. We kept Nolan entertained with a bouncy ball and the results turned out quite nicely. Good Job Kenny!

Before the cut...

Nolan is sad to see all that hair go!

What a handsome little guy!

Lights on Festival

A couple of friends, their kids, and Nolan and I started the Christmas celebration off a little early this year with Milwaukee's downtown "Lights On" festival. It was on Nov. 15-the week before Thanksgiving-but we just couldn't resist the idea of bundling up our little ones and trekking into a downtown park full of people! It was really rather fun, even though we spent most of the time trying to keep mittens on and blankets wrapped around the kids. There was a program with local talent and then a pretend Santa Claus and his sleigh made the descent down to the stage at the culmination of the "Santa Claus is coming to Town" song. We tried to overlook the fact that the cable system that he was on hung up a few times and proved to be a rough and slow ride for Santa but when he finally arrived he set off a huge fireworks show that was quite impressive!

Kristin & Adam, Echo & Nolan

Shandra & Amy

Trick-or-Treating @ MCW

The Medical Student Spouse & Significant other Association (MSSA) and the medical school hosts a great trick-or-treat party at the school every year on Halloween and it is quite impressive! At 3:30pm the administrative offices pretty much shut down and open their doors to all of the wives, kids and friends of the medical students. They had great decorations, mock spook alleys that were kid friendly and handfuls of candy, crackers, toys, pencils, playdoh,more candy, fruit snacks and just about anything else you could think of, stashed around the four different floors of the medical school. It was so much fun to see all of the other kids and parents and the med school employees were so nice and had so much fun with the kids. Luckily the anotomy lab that Kenny and our other friends were in got finished just in time for them to join us for a few more stops and the party in the cafeteria. We will definitely look forward to this every year-sure beats walking around in the cold!

Testing out the costume in the back yard.


I dressed up as a Zookeeper-pretty accurate I thought. Notice the Tootsie Pop tightly clutched in Nolan's hand-he had his chest and hands pretty sticky by the end but he sure loved it!

Kenny showing off the little monkey to some friends.

The great candy haul-most of this was fruit snacks and goldfish which was great because then Nolan could actually enjoy most of it!

October was Awesome!

We had so much fun this last month and took so many fun pictures that we can't possibly post all of them but here are a few of the highlights!

Nolan and Abby at the Family Farm in Grafton, WI

Last year Nolan was too small to take to the pumkin patch-but not this year!

Playing in the fall leaves

Workin on a car with Dad at the Children's Museum.

Collecting golf balls and takin them for a ride.

Getting ready for the Murder Mystery Dinner w/Mom.

Inspecting the "murder scene" for clues.

Rocco Scarfazzi (Kenny), Tara Misu (Echo), and "La Sparenza" Waiter (Nolan) at the dinner.

Bringing the appetizer to the table for the younger guests.

Dippin Oreos

Let it be known that on October 17th, 2007 sometime after dinner, Nolan Kenneth Merrell dipped his first Oreo in milk and and he ate it and declared that it was good. Which he made known to us by a satisfied "Ahh" sound that he made after each finger that still contained Oreo bits was dipped in the milk and sucked clean off...well almost clean.

1 Yr. Portraits

We had Nolan's pictures taken while we were in Utah in September just a couple days before his birthday. Just wanted to share a few of our super handsome little guy.

Happy 1st Year Nolan!

Here's a few pictures from Nolan's first birthday parties -he actually had 3 of them by the time his real birthday was over.

He really enjoyed opening his presents, mostly taking little bites out of the paper once it was removed from the gift.

He also had two cakes, a Lego one that I made for him in Utah while we were visiting, and Strawberry/Vanilla Birthday Trifle which is now a family tradition, since that is Kenny's favorite dessert and has that every year for his birthday. Nolan definitely liked the idea of having something plopped on his tray and encouraged to use both hands in.

This one's for you guys....

So as I'm looking through pictures from the last 3 months it kills me that I haven't been able to keep this blog more updated. We have some awesome pictures from parties with friends, and family that I think I'll dedicate this post to.

We had a great vacation in Washington for a week with Kenny's family, then we had some fun "farewell for a while" parties with our pals in Utah and a BBQ with my family that also doubled as a pool party. That is actually where our last pictures with Grandpa Farnworth were taken-so that will always stand out in my mind.

So on to the photos...since that is really all that anyone likes to see anyway right?? :)

Grandma Merrell gets a "kissy face" at the airport.

The "K-Train" becomes the caboose! Naomi & Nolan appreciated the push though! This was at the Merrell farm in Moses Lake, WA.

Echo, Val, Debbie & Naomi watching the swimmers, sliders, rope swingers and canoers in the pond. What a great place!

Family photo with Grandma & Grandpa Wing

Photos from our party with Nate & Tera Gibb & Mandy, Steve & Jonah Forsey:

Our friend Nate and Nolan makin faces at each other.

Jonah and Nolan 'ruff'-housing with Steve

Whittaker-Farnworth BBQ:
Marianne, Shiloh and Nolan

Swimmin with Uncle Jason

Grandma and Grandpa Farworth on Aug 5th-Our last photo with Grandpa Farnworth-we're so grateful for all of the memories. Grandpa passed away one month later on Sept.6th-We love him THIS much!

Nolan's New Experiences

Nolan has been developing at such a rapid pace it's incredible the things that he does every day. I just wanted to post a few of the fun photos that I've taken since we've moved here so that you all can see how big our little guy is getting.

He's discovered the "take it out" game so I've made sure to leave a box of old tupperware out so that he can help Mommy "unpack", however when I hear him grunting I know that he's reached for something just a little too far down in the box and needs some help getting out!

We've made some new friends with some other little kids and it's been so fun to watch how he interacts with kids close to his age.

He spends his days actively moving from one toy to the next, cruising along the couches and standing up next to my little asian end table and trunk-they are just the right size. He's playing with his shape sorters and his tent and the little corner over by the fireplace are his favorite things right now, but they might change by tomorrow.

Our little guy is doing great and we're loving every minute with him.

Hello Wisconsin!!

Hi Everyone!

I know that we've been forever in getting a post, and our friend Steve Forsey has been sending me "polite" reminder emails about an update so here's a quick one to bring us somewhat up to date!

We got here on August 9th and Kenny spent his 26th birthday (the 10th) unloading our ABF UPACK truck into a big 'ol Uhaul truck and then uloading the Uhaul truck into our 2nd floor duplex! He had some help from some great guys in our Branch here in Milwaukee, thank goodness for friends in the church! We also need to thank my family for helping us pack up and especially Dad, Lance & Jason for all of the countless hours that they spent getting us loaded from one trailer, to another and getting our cars repaired and ready for the drive out here. We love you guys and can't tell how much we appreciated it!

The first weeks here were fun-however very hot and humid-we were not expecting that!Kenny started Med school orientation, and David, Debbie and Brittany made the 1460 mile treck across the country to visit us for about a week. The white coat ceremony that the school held to honor the first year med students was awesome and really made us feel great about finally getting to this point in our lives!

We were so grateful to have David, Debbie and Brittany here-it made the adjustment quite a bit easier for all of us!

We really like our new house and are making friends quickly. There are about 10 LDS guys plus families in Kenny's M-1 class alone, and a lot more in the M-2, M-3, M-4 classes as well. We go to the City Branch and are really liking it a lot-we expect to be getting some new callings soon and look forward to getting to know the church members and missionaries in the area.

We're settling in really well to the area and look forward to the new friends and experiences that will be coming up for us. We do however miss all of our family and friends back at home, we think of everyone often.

But for now we've got a lot to keep us busy, Kenny has got lots to study at school, and I've got a crawling, climing, curious little boy to keep me on my toes. Life is pretty great right now.