I have not written in forever.  I feel like our whole world has shifted and I am not even the same person as I was before.  It is crazy how our life trials and experiences can do that to us.  I am starting to come out of the for and have realized I have missed a lot of my great experiences and should be writing them down.  It is crazy how the more time that passes the more my brain try's to change the stories as they were.  Even after a few hours of some experiences they seem cloudy and I start to doubt they ever really happened.  So many things have happened, we have been through a world wide shut down with covid 19, which was completely ridiculous and that is a whole other topic.  We have gone so many years without talking to or seeing my brothers Brad and Greg.  Our Merrill family has been torn to pieces and we really don't understand any of it.  It all started with a divorce.  Chris and Cindy got divorced and then shortly Brad and Sara also got divorced.  It is so hard on families to go through all of the things we have and even harder to see the kids go through all of it.  

Brad and Sara when they first decided to divorce didn't want anything to change and wanted to stay friends, but that didn't last very long at all.  Things went sour very fast and got very ugly.  Sara is one of my very best friends and is truly a sister to me and because I do not hate her and didn't stop talking to her, Brad and Greg told me they can no longer be family with me.  They have made it very clear that they didn't want anything to do with me and have done the same thing to the rest of my family.  It has been a very hard four years with fights and fears and so many unanswered questions.  I may write about it later but there is just so much that I don't know if I ever could write it all.  None of it really matters anymore. 

This Christmas Brad chose to end his life.  His girlfriend Stacy had died 7 days prior from a drug overdose and he didn't think he could live without her.  It has been so hard to get a handle on things and I just feel emotionally dead inside, and very numb.  

I was helping Sara by taking Tate for a couple weeks and he has been struggling very badly.  It was nice to have him here and he was pretty good while he was here.  He and Max have a lot of fun together and they had a lot of good times.  There was one time while we were driving home from logan and Max and Tate were in the back of Ryans Truck and they just laughed the whole way home about anything and nothing.  It was very cute and it reminded me of when Liz and Mya were little and we would call them little giggle butts.  

After Tate left I had an experience that I am still processing but the more I think about the more my brain is changing and telling me it isn't real.  That is why I need to write it down before I forget it completely.  

I was laying down and Ryan had just told me goodbye and left for work.  I was not asleep but kinda in the middle of dosing off.  I started to hear static noise in my heard like a radio static and then I heard Brads voice as clear as day.  I have tried to recreate it and and do it again and every time I do it is never his voice, and it is always in my voice.  It was so crazy how it sounded like the old brad that was my brother, and I felt his old self in that voice. 

He called me a name and I think it was beefcake or something like that.  Which is what he would call me when I was younger.  He then said that it has been a really long time sense he has heard Tate laugh like that.  (my mind went to Max and Tate in the truck).  He then said, thank you for taking care of Tate, and then the static was a lot louder.  I tried really hard to keep hearing him and he was saying he was really sorry for everything.  And then a few seconds later he said he loved me.  And I felt love.  I don't know how to explain that but just a warmth and swelling in my chest.  

After the sound was gone, I layed there and I didn't want to open my eyes.  I tried to stay in that state of fall back into a somewhat of a sleep but I couldn't.  So I opened my eyes and just layed there and cried.  And then started to doubt the whole thing and say it couldn't have really happened.  

But like I have said, I have tried to make things happen or replay it and even in a dream the voices are never the same of what I heard.  It was so clearly Brads voice and I could not see him,  but I could feel it.   I am still wondering if it is real but it is also something I can not deny.  

It did mean a lot to me to hear him say that he was sorry and even more to hear him say that he loves me.  That is something I have wondered about sense we were kids.  We have not been the closest of siblings and have not had a whole lot to do with each other.  But no matter what we still have a strong bond of being family.  And no matter what, I will always love my Brother Brad. 

I have to write this down even though I have so much catching up to do way before this.... I have been horrible but I am wanting to get back into it and keep the memories of our family.  I always say I need to write this down so I don't forget, but half of the time by the night I can't remember.... so here is a funny from Max today.  It is kinda a risky story, but I from the words of a little innocent 5 year old it is cute. 
We were watching conference today and a speaker was black.  He was cuddling me and says, "hey mom, is he black?"  I said yes he is.  Then he says, "is that something we don't say?"  I told him it is something that is different about him but it isn't bad and we shouldn't say it to him because he might not like it.  Then he thinks and says, "should we just say that he is brown then?" 
He is kinda a thinker and he says things everyday that makes me laugh or smile.  I need to be better about writing it down.  As I am writing this he is talking to me and I am not answering and he says.... "what the helk is wrong with you?"  ha ha
All my kids do and say things that are so funny so I am going to try to do better. 

So many things have changed and happened in our family.   I feel like things kinda went to pot for a while, but now we are coming back on top.   We all struggled so much after our little angel Halie died.  Then just a few weeks after that we had some of our family friends die in the airplane crash.  We felt like our family could not take anything else.  But then we had something else hit us so hard and knock us down even more.  Our sweet Mia was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis.  It is a disease that attacks your own organs and there isn't really a cure for it.  She has had it for probably most of her life and for the past five years when it was getting really bad she had just learned to live with the pain and not complain to much.  She is for sure one tough girl!  But in 2017 during the summer she started to get really bad leg cramps and had stomach problems that the doctors just kept saying it was because of gluten.   When she would get a leg cramp it would put her to the floor and she would cry and no one really knew what was going on so we all just thought she was being a drama queen and would give her some meds and tell her to be tough kinda.  She had a bad summer with them but played and had fun anyway.  She wasn't herself and we thought she was just turning into a teenager.  Elizabeth and her are best friends and even they were not giggling and playing like they normally did.  Mia wanted to sit around and was really tired and they just didn't do much.  WE kept making them go do things and she would.   She even went to a byu volleyball camp even though she was in pain and did not feel good at all.  After the summer she was home and sara took her in and told them to run every test.  It didn't take them long to see that her liver levels were crazy and they got her into Primary Childrens fast.  It was all a whirl wind from there.  She had been living to the last point that her little body could take it.  Her liver was shot and doing nothing it should, she was lucky to be alive.  Most kids are diagnosed much earlier, and Mia really could have been if the doctors would have looked into her instead of saying to change her diet.
She was in the hospital for a while back and forth and they were put on the list for a liver transplant and given loads of pills to take.  Family members all volunteered to be a liver donor and they had started the test on Sara and her sister Ashley.  I was on the list but was never called in to do the test.  While they were doing test they had a couple calls that ended up falling threw for a liver but then one call that did.  It was such a miracle and just amazing how everything fell into place the way it did and when it did.    I don't know how much longer mia could have gone threw what she was and she was getting so bad.
I had gone to st george and had stayed the week to help sara paint.  Lizzy came with me and was hanging out with Mia and Lizzy kept telling me that Mia was being weird.   I kept kinda getting mad at lizzy and telling her, "I know she is sick and you need to be nice, just go hang out with her and be nice"  but then I had asked Mia what time it was and she said, "40 o clock" and i just laughed and thought she was being silly.  But then a little while later lizzy came to me and was almost in tears and said, "mom, mia is acting really weird"  Brad went in to talk to her and she wasn't making any sense and kept saying she wanted to go home.  She started to throw up and do some other things that we knew something was wrong.  Sara called Primary Childrens and they said to bring her in as soon as we could.    So I was heading home anyway so they all jumped in my van and I started to drive.   Mia kept doing weird things and would fall asleep for a second and then sit up and flop back with trying to say something.  She kept doing it again and again and it was very scary.  Sara called the hospital again and they said that she was having HE symptoms where the disease was attacking her brain, and we needed to pull over if she had a seizer and call 911.  We were close to Cedar City so I just went as fast as my van would go and we got to the hospital and they were waiting for her and had everything she needed ready.   It was such a blessing.   After we looked at what was going on we figured that her head flop she kept doing and her eyes rolling back was her way of having a seizer so she was very lucky to not have anything happen on the drive and to make it to the hospital safe.    It was one of the scariest things I have done and watched.  
Mia is such a different kid this year.  She feels better than she has ever remembered feeling and she is so outgoing and happy.  She is such a good girl and just a sweetheart to everyone.  She has a heart of gold and wants to help everyone.   I am so thankful that things went the way they did and that she was able to get a new liver when she did.  I am so thankful for organ donors and for what it has done for our family.  

50's dance

So it has only been two years sense the last time I wrote in this but I guess now as as good of a time to start back up.  I don't know why I have not been keeping up with my "journal" but for some reason I have been in a little rut and have had a hard time getting out but I am starting to feel like me again and I hope that I keep getting better.  So Alexis is now 16 years old and time is flying by me.  She is such a delight and I love her.  She still has her moments that I can't tell if she really likes me at all, but I think that is the normal teen age thing.
She had a fun girls choice dance that she went to with Garrett Ward and they had a good time I think. She had me put together the date and do a scavenger hunt that was a photo hunt and then they had to text me the pictures.  They all did such a good job and the pictures were pretty fun.  Then they went bowling and lunch and then home for the hours of getting ready for the dance.  Saige Meek came over and got ready with Alexis and i helped her with there hair and makeup.  They both looked so cute and rocked the 50's look.

 Elizabeth was our helper also and she was so great to help with makeup and get things together for us.  She is 14 now and is such a good girl also.  I have been so lucky to have such a great group of kids and I am so lucky to be their mom.   Lizzy was even invited to help with the dinner and was a little server girl.

I think it was  a good night for all of the kids and they had a lot of fun.   Alexis was even home at 11:45 which was a big surprise to me cause we said 12.... but I think with a whole day of going and going she was pretty worn out.  She is such a great girl.  So thankful for her example to the rest of the family.  I know that sometimes I catch her saying that she hates being the oldest for that reason and that she feels like she shouldn't be the oldest but I think it is great just the way it is.  She has always been a good leader and when she puts her mind to something she can do anything.  She just needs to work on having a little more faith in herself and believing in herself.  I just wish that all my kids could see themselves thew my eyes and know how truly amazing they are.  

Took a little to long

So I took a very long break from life and have not done a thing with my pictures or my blog in about six months so I am going to try and just catch up a little.  

Max is growing up so fast and has become a big boy!  He now wears unders and is now potty trained.  I am not sure how long it has been or when he did it, but it has been sense we went to Park city... so I am not sure when that was.  I think before October  Anyway, he has been a good boy about it and is doing good with it.  He is so sweet and will still give me loves and cuddles. 

I took alexis shopping with me and she discovered she doesn't love Home depot.  She was so tired she kept trying to sit and lay everywhere.  It was funny when she saw a bin full of a ton of fluffy pillows and then when she tried to sit on them she realized they were not as full as she thought they were. 

We were able to go to Lagoon this year.  Alexis went with her school and we got her tickets from a few of her her friends and went back a little cheaper as a family and Sheena and her kids came along also.  It was a lot of fun.  Elizabeth was planning on coming with us, but then Sara called the day before and said, um can Elizabeth come to Canada with us?  So I let Liz choose what she would like to do and she said she had never been to Canada so she had better go..... Lucky girl

Alexis was riding a ride that goes upside down a lot and she had her iPod in her front pocket... she bent her phone and it shattered... still worked for a while but it is dead now.  The funny thing was that the ride had a sign up that said, "this ride will eat your phones, please put them in safe places"  so she was warned.  

Adison loved all the rides and went on all that she could.  She had a ton of fun going on the fast roller coasters. 

she loved the wet rides also

Alexis took two of her friends and we didn't see them for most of the day.  But they did make some new friends while they were there.  ha ha

Adi was so tired on the way home and cold.  She put her sweater on as pants to stay warm.  She said she was hungry and then fell asleep before she even got her food. 

This is Lizzys pictures from her trip to Canada.  She had a great time with her bff Mia on the trip and made great memories.  

we are having way to much fun with the snap chat filters.