Name and birthday

More fun with ice cream

After dinner last night we went out for some ice cream. Mercer picked purple cotton candy flavor with Gummy Bears. The ice cream was actually pretty good, but Mercer enjoyed it most of all.

Mercer pouting bc he can't have ice cream

This came from Mommy's Blackberry.

Ice cream at the diner

Mercer loves ice cream. He probably has a separate pouch in his body just to hold ice cream. He loves it so much that he practically ignored Brobee, who was maybe 2 feet away from our table, for a good 20 minutes just so he could concentrate on his ice cream. He'll use any method of getting it into his mouth: spoon, hands, or even direct mouth to cream action. His favorite flavor is strawberry.

A visit with Brobee

Mercer was primed for Brobee's visit to the Ossining Diner last night. He brought along his Brobee doll, along with Muno and Plex, just in case. The restaurant was packed with loud kids and their overprotective parents.


Mercer sat patiently and anxiously for his turn to show Brobee his Brobee doll.

At last! Brobee!


True to form, Mercer clammed up when it was time to smile or interact with Brobee, but we managed to squeeze in a photo. Mercer gave him some high-fives, too.


Bye, Brobee. In the next entry, we'll explore how much more interested Mercer was in his strawberry ice cream than in Brobee!

Giving Kitty a nap

Mercer gave his stuffed kitten a nap yesterday afternoon. Here he is reading it some books.

Mercer is sick.

Mercer has been feeling a little under the weather lately. He has spurts of energy here and there, but for the most part he's clinging on to Mommy in between drawn-out bouts of coughing. This morning has been filled with cartoons, lounging, and bacon. We'll try to venture out later to stave off cabin fever, but for now, it's rest for little Mercer.

Thanks to Jon and Meredith for Mercer's great new sleeping bag!

A wild week.

Mercer got his first bloody nose yesterday at day care. Apparently, he was jumping and he hit his nose on some kind of green container. It wasn't bad and the bleeding stopped pretty quickly.

This capped a pretty wild week for Mercer. He was feeling a bit under the weather the past few days and it showed. Symptoms? Terrible bouts of Mommy-separation anxiety, moodiness, whining, and misbehavior. Still, at the end of the day, he's a great guy. He eats OK (not without a lot of prodding), sleeps amazingly, reads books, plays with his robots, and so on. His speech and thought processes are developing rapidly, too. It's hard to keep track of it all because it happens so fast, so you'll have to trust us.

Mercer and Sydney

Anyone want to get me a camera with image-stabilizer?

New Year's Eve with Aunt Alyssa

We braved blizzard-like conditions to drive out to Sunbury, PA for Aunt Alyssa's annual New Year's Day family party. The normally mundane 3-hour drive turned into a dangerous 5+ hour snowfest, complete with cars in ditches and jack-knifing tractor trailers.

We arrived safely, however, and the fun began. Though I have no pictures to prove it, much food was eaten and many laughs were had. But I think I'll remember Mercer's relationship with Aunt Alyssa's dog, Murphy, the most. If left to their own devices, I have no doubt they would've burned down the neighborhood. Most of the tomfoolery was initiated by Mercer, who ran around yelling things at Murphy like "Sit!", "Eat your food!", and "Stop chasing me!" Murphy always thought Mercer was playing and would jump up to lick his face. This always resulted in Mercer saying "Lookit Murphy! Lookit Murphy!" Sometimes, we'd be yelling at both of them to calm down and we'd mix their names up to create "Murpher."

Partners in crime.

Taking Murphy out in the morning with Aunt Alyssa in his PJ's.





Of course, this wasn't Mercer's first interaction with Murphy. Here is what the daring duo looked like last year:

Christmas Day 2009

Santa Claus came!



Mercer has been anticipating the Batman Castle for weeks. He was so excited.

A rocket ship!

There's always time for a pussycat break.

Movies!

Mercer got the hang of Wii pretty well.



Mercer shows Hanna how to use the drill safely.

Christmas Eve 2009

Mercer had a fun Christmas Eve. After a prime rib dinner at Aunt Becky's house with Uncle Toby, Matt, Chris, Papa, MeMa, and Hanna, we headed over to Grandpa's house for festivities there.

Mercer opened up his new pair of Christmas PJ's. Green and white stripes with red trim! Here, Mercer watches the new angel chimes trying to work.



Hanging his stocking by the cabinet with care.

Reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas with Mommy and Uncle Quinn.


Posing with Cooper the kitty cat by the tree.

Uncle Quinn helping Mercer prepare cookies for Santa.


iWhat will Santa bring?