robbie is officially gone.

gosh, no one can quite prepare you for letting someone go for 2 years. especially someone that you love so much. I waned to bawl my eyes out and convince him to stay, but I know he’s doing exactly what the Lord wants, and what he needs. I couldn’t let him go.  I still can’t let him go.  there is going to be a huge, missing gap at our family dinners, our nights out, and just getting random texts from him throughout the week. 

I’m going to miss his hugs.  he might be the only sibling that hugs the other siblings when they walk through the door. it comes to natural to him. he has so much love.  I’m going to miss his music. he always had the best music.  I’m going to miss him laughing.  he was always laughing at everyone’s jokes.  I’m going to miss his humor. after we dropped him off, all we could do was think of all his funny jokes and sayings.  even after he’s gone he will keep us laughing just thinking about him. I’m going to miss him. everything about him. I hope he knows how much our family loves him, and how long we sat there crying after he walked away for 2 years.

temple square.

 they never get old.  we somehow have a craving every single year to go see them.  even though every bulb is in the exact same place every year, the thrill of walking around with all the people and getting hot chocolate after is a tradition i hope never ends.  more people, the merrier i say!

i’m as stuffed as a turkey.

all that food preparing and longing for the holiday, then after 15 minutes of eating, it’s over just like that.

• I’m so thankful for 2 families that love to talk and laugh around a dinner table.
• I’m so thankful for a mom in law that gets teary eyed in the middle of ikea at the thought of all of her boys and their families being able to be under the same roof.
• I’m so thankful for twitter, pinterest, and facbook that kept us entertained while the finishing touches were being done.
• I’m thankful for not feeling pressure to eat one vegetable the entire weekend because of all the turkey and rolls that are leftover.
• I’m thankful for sleeping on the couch closest to the door with brad, and in the middle of the night over hearing my sister and her boyfriend say the cutest things to each other as they were saying their goodbyes. (I’m sure they thought we were asleep)
• I’m so so so thankful to have both families care so much for their kids and take hours and hours to prepare such wonderful meals and desserts just for our satisfaction.
• I’m so thankful to feel so full. full from all the limitless food.  full from all the laughs had with siblings from both mine and brads family. full from feeling so much love.  full from feeling so blessed from a loving and merciful Heavenly Father.

we got our family pictures back from fotogenix.

my mom sent this in an email asking what we thought of our family pictures.

i can't even tell you how hard i was laughing.

WHY ON EARTH?!! those kids are going to LOATHE their parents when they grow up.

they deserve every ounce of ridicule.

thanksgiving thought-i'm thankful for people like this.

fotogenix.

do you remember fotogenix? the place where they have actual backdrops? the place where they make you sit with your back profoundly straight? the place where, you can't wear blue or else you'll be drowned out with the tie-dyed color of blue and white thats placed behind you? well, our family sure does. i can't tell you the jokes that were flying when our large family walked into fotogenix.  thanks to my mom who still appreciates a good old fashioned photo session at fotogenix. we all had a good laugh when she announced where to meet up for our pictures.

after we hit up some ice-cream as a family and just enjoyed being together before robbie leaves next week. that's all we can do these days.  just be together and enjoy having rob.

a byu game in black and white.

we owe a huge thanks to scott and lyric for a fantastic saturday night! front frow, hot chocolate in hand, and blankets smothering our bodies. not to mention great conversation with lyric while the men were cheering.

please can we do it again? please bless....

half sleepovers are the best!

is this not the cutest picture? we hung out with richy and jax the other night and had a blast.  obviously me and brad were the only ones who had the blast, ha. jokes, but it was funny because we were watching orange county and at the first of the movie, we were all laughing, then before we know it me and brad are the only ones still laughing at the scenes.  we look over and this is how we found them. my plan was to not wake them up so we could force them into having a sleepover with us.  unfortunately, they woke up and my hopes were shattered. here's to hoping for a sleepover in the near future!!

hunger games.

my little brother plays football.

saturday was my little brother’s state championship football game. we were watching him play, having a ball, freezing our butts off. it felt like winter saturday, I’ll tell you what. we had so much fun despite the weather.  we were screaming so loud, and making gentle josh dance for us to keep us occupied from the weather.  and he did just that.  I can’t wait to show you the footage, ha. he danced throughout the whole game.  half of the bleachers were enjoying it too because they were all laughing just as hard as us.

after we hit up in and out to get warm with salt and fat. there’s something about burgers and cold weather. they go great together. then me and jax drove up to park city to shop and we ended up in a major blizzard. I loved it. we were going 30 miles an hour the entire way up. we chatted it up and blazed music.  she likes her music just as loud as me, so it ended up being a major bonus to have her with me. we even got asked if we were twins at j. crew. I was gleaming. I would love to look like Pocahontas…….tall, dark and hot.

later that day…

my dad, “carson don’t forget to take out the garbage!”
carson, “dad…..champions don’t take out the garbage.”

p.s. i joined twitter.  promise i love it. truly. please let's be twitter friends. @melerm.

smile for the camera!

I remember growing up, right before heading out the door for church, my mom would line all 6 of us kids up and take our “sunday” picture. she would always stop us and say, “oh you guys look so nice all dressed up, let me take your picture really fast”.  then gather us all together.

I came out of the bathroom from doing my final touch-ups for church and brad was standing there waiting for me to finish (like always…it’s not fair he takes 6.3 seconds to get ready) and he looked so cute all dressed up with his scriptures in hand. so I pulled a mona and gathered us together to take a “sunday” picture.

most random.

here’s some random pictures for you. because I’m about to share some random updates that have been going on lately…

• brad got a new job. I’m so proud of him.  I should say more like a new career.  we’re adults now. true, blue adults.
• we hung out with kelley and candice marsh.  we played a loud game of yahtzee, then we had a spelling bee.  it was hilarious. the boys would give me and candice words to spell out, (we had to stand up and everything with our arms to our sides), and then we gave the boys words.  they won. try it sometime. it’s hilarious.
• I’m pregnant.  haha, just kidding, but I bet I gotcha. no one will believe me when I actually am because I say that joke almost daily.
• we still love costco with all our hearts.
• I bought a pair of shoes with my mom in law at payless.  I haven’t been there in years. then me and her bought tampons at shopko.  another place I haven’t been in years. I loved hanging out with her.
• me and brad went on a date to red rock.  I got a pear, blue cheese, and walnut pizza. my breath hasn’t been the same.
• brad learned how to play christmas songs on the guitar. he’s hot when he’s behind that guitar.
• we watched theeeee scariest movie called the fourth kind, and I see this woman’s possessed face in my mind every. single. day.  mostly when I’m going to work at 6:00 in the morning and it’s pitch dark outside. I get so scared.
• brad’s literally buzzing his head right now in the kitchen. 
• life has been good to us and we're happy, and we're so grateful. so so grateful. 

how the majestic sleep....

this is how robbie sleeps now that he has his mission call. 

promise this was not set up.  he literally fell asleep like this the night of his farewell. 

and us sisters couldn't have been more happy that we had our cameras. 

he's a true stallion at heart.

baby calebs’ blessing.

you guys my camera sucks.  I apologize. I think it’s about time christmas lists were being made for the soul purpse of knowing I can start shopping around for a new camera.

this weekend we all headed down to provo to listen to the beautiful blessing of brads new nephew. ryan and liz’s new boy, caleb.  I got all choked up thinking of that little boy looking up during his blessing.  he would see 5 uncles, 2 great grandpas, 2 grandpas and his dad who all watch over, protect and love that little boy. what a blessing for him.  it was the first time I thought about that during a baby blessing. the vision of inside that circle and what the little baby would see. I’m sure it’s a powerful thing to actually be in the circle. the priesthood is such a miracle don’t you think? i felt so much gratitude for the priesthood during that blessing.

i also felt gratitude for the gourmet food liz made for everyone after the blessing! she's a powerhouse.

lib and jeff are now living in idaho, so it's been fantastic being able to see them so much. aside from the fact that breena always calls me a weirdo:). she is quite mature....

we made it a cozy day.

saturday was wonderful. and by wonderful i mean it felt like christmas in our apt.  there's something about the snow that makes it perfectly ok to stay inside and cozy up.  brad made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from a real pumpkin we grew in the garden, i finally lit my apple/cranberry candle that filled our place like christmas glory, we let our sufjan stevens christmas music play and just hung out in our slippers.

 

i'm literally ready for christmas. the only thing missing is a fireplace.