It's the Merritts: 7/1/09

Vermont

This picture sums up Vermont, laughing -who knows about what, a little bit of chaos, and kiddos with their grammie and great grandparents. It's been a part of our summer for years now, for the past 8 with Ben and 3 with Linnea. The time has changed quite a bit over the years as everyone gets older and we added another of generation kids to the family. We feel incredibly blessed by every year the Lord gives us the opportunity to spend time with grampa and grammie, we learn from them, they encourage us as Christians, as a couple, and now as parents and as an extra they also happen to live in an incredibly beautiful place.

Our second attempt at a family photo, the first was so bad we won't even post it. Maybe by Christmas we'll manage to get one with everyone looking the right way, smiling, and not trying to jump out of the picture.

And yes the frog and lizard did travel to Vermont with us and grammie decided that Linnea needed a whole bunch of baby lizards so now our population is totally out of hand in our house! At least they provided entertainment for a little girl, who has one incredible giggle when you get her going.

The Barn

Grammie with her two oldest grandkids. It seems like we can never get a good picture with both Linnea and Liam smiling.

This guy on the other hand was very excited to check out grampa's tractor.

He really likes his Papa's tractor.

Linnea liked sitting on the bales of hay.

Ben enjoyed the rope swing

and so did Rosalie.

Here's some hay.

Big hay loft little kids.

The ladder didn't intimidate Linnea, she wanted to explore.

Liam at the Gate

Rainbows and Waterfalls

You can barely see it in the picture, but there was a beautiful rainbow over the farm.

It rained a good bit while we were in Vermont so Bradford Falls were quite full.

Linnea Loves Vermont

Linnea was in her element being able to be outside and around animals.

The black sheep were tame enough for her to get close enough to pet and it thrilled her to no end to be able to touch them.

Her first popsicle in over a year and she demolished it and asked for seconds.

She loves her daddy, is extremely strong willed and can be Miss Contrary somedays!

She started exploring the minute we arrived at grampa and grammie's.

Linnea was fascinated by the sounds her Papa could make with grass.

If you get on the floor you are Linnea's horse!

Besides being Linnea's horse her grammie also taught Linnea the names and locations of a lot of states while we were traveling. Linnea can tell you that we stayed in Pennsylvania, then went to Massachusetts before we went to Vermont, and then will tell you that on the way home from Vermont we stayed in Pennsylvania again and that is where she lost her Old MacDonald toothbrush in the toilet. We are casually potty training, she doesn't get it isn't totally interested, but we are encouraging her as much as possible, as far as the toothbrush we aren't too upset that it had to be thrown out. What we thought was a cute idea in June, a toothbrush that plays Old MacDonald, quickly turned into a great annoyance as it was played over and over all day, so we were sort of happy that it ended up in a watery grave!

Last but not least, she was addicted to the backpack. Poor daddy!!! It's not easy carrying around a 32lb girl on your back!

Benjamin in Vermont

I just love the chub.

He loves watermelon!

He's our little sweetie, he put on at least another pound during the month of July, up to almost 19 lbs he's making up for not growing too fast the first part of the year. At the beginning of the month he started saying dada and then mama and we thought we might have even heard a thank you in there. He sits up like a champ and can pull himself up to a standing position when you give him your hands for support.

Benjamin with Family

Everytime Benjamin saw Travis, he wanted to go to him and wasn't happy until he was sitting in his lap.

Benjamin with his great uncle Bob.

Benjamin with his Papa.

Where's Liam?

Liam was running beside the pond and tumbled into a hole...

we all laughed, grabbed cameras to take pictures, and then helped him out.

How to Eat a Cupcake

Lick the frosting off

make sure you get it all over your face

have Mimi clean you up

and then snuggle into her for a nice hug and kiss.

At the Pond

Every summer we head up to the pond to roast hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire. It's one thing that we always look forward to and love the time spent with our family eating and hanging out in an incredibly beautiful place.

Benjamin loved all the dogs. In fact he didn't start walking forward holding our hands till he had a dog to chase, up to that point he would only walk backwards.