Sariah's Birthday Song

Grandma Myrick sings Twinkle Twinkle little star to Sariah for her 5th birthday! (with the help of Keira)

Earth Day!

Today Sariah and I had a garden project. We planted some flowers in the front of the house in honor of Earth Day! We put in yellow and orange marigolds, alyssum and also pulled some weeds. Unfortunately, the sun was very hot and Sariah quit on me very quickly. She prefered the "shade" of indoors. I finished up without her, swept the walk and went inside myself. What good green project for Earth Day!

*side note: these are NOT the flowers we planted today. These looked nicer for the photo shoot though, so that's what you get to look at!

To Jonah

Happy Birthday Jonah!

Love,
Grandma Myrick

Happy Birthday Jonah!

Jonah turns NINE years old!! I know, we can't believe it either! Apparently time passes while you're not paying attention.

The long awaited day has finally arrived, Jonah is king for the day, crown and all! The day started with a special request for a family favorite, rice patties, for breakfast along with pizza for lunch and finally burritos (without tomatoes) for dinner. All week we prepared for his party, gift bags, game prep, guest lists and errand running. It was finally time to greet guests and have a great time!
As the guests arrived we shuffled them out to the backyard where Jonah entertained them for a few minutes while everyone got there. Our first activity was a relay race balancing and transfering a chalk egg from spoon to spoon. Jonah was tickled to be on the winning team twice. The next activity was a bit more active. Each child partnered up and tossed water balloons back and forth. Before he knew it, Jonah was the target of all the extra water balloons! He ran away fast, but he was plastered still the same. His dad threw a few at him and amazingly he caught one! In the end Jonah was quite wet and his friends celebrated their success!

After a very yummy pizza lunch it was time for cake. Jonah blew out the candles and ate his cake with gusto. I could tell he was having a wonderful time. As the kids ate their cake, I chatted with one of the moms. She told me it was so nice to see the kids having fun at such an 'old fashioned' party. I was amazed she thought our party was old fashioned!

With time running short and parents starting to arrive we whizzed through presents. Of course the unpredictable makes for the best memories, as you see Jonah here peeking out from gift tissue that was dumped on his head shortly after all the gifts were opened!

Efforts to be Acknowleged!

I just wanted to let everyone know that Jonah is officially done with his Wolf! He will be receiving his Wolf badge as well as another silver arrow point and 6 belt loops at the next pack meeting. As soon as we get his Bear book, we'll get started! We are really proud of our Cub Scout!

Happy Easter

This year with early morning church, our easter egg hunt happened a little later than usual. But that didn't hinder their spirits at all. The kids had a really great time, even Keira who got the hang of hunting eggs very quickly. With very few 'hey she's got more than me's" the egg hunt was successful. Katie John, Keira, Jonah and Sariah pose for a quick picture with their candy bounty.

Egg Coloring

Sariah and Katie John show off their egg coloring skills!

Jonah is getting to be a pro egg colorer. If you look closely you'll see he mixed colors to make very unique eggs.
Keira spilled the green color on herself very early on, so she had to finish egg coloring with only her diaper on. All the kids had a great time, each coloring 8 eggs to perfection!

Katie John has a Party!

Finally, we scheduled Katie John's friend birthday party. If you recall, her birthday is Dec. 24th. She has been waiting for months to finally invite friends and have them all sing happy birthday to her. The theme was princess and the party was great! John and Jonah decorated the house with pink and white balloons and streamers while I decorated her cake. The guests arrived in princess attire and the festivities began!

After some dancing and games the girls were ready for lunch and CAKE!! The controlled chaos soon ended and our house was returned to it's pre-princess state and we all relaxed.

Dancing Girls (and boy)

Traditions continue! My sisters and I used to swirl and twirl in our dancing dresses to this same music, but on vinyl!

Today is rainy, so entertainment is limited. The girls love dressing up and dancing so this was their chance to do their thing with the music turned up loud. Jonah assisted Keira's twirling because she kept tripping on her dress.

What a cute group!

Our Garden is In

Today we put in our garden. John tilled the dirt as the kids picked up rocks and prickly balls from the neighbors tree out off the ground. Now that the dirt was all ready to go we got planting! In this picture you see the swiss chard from last year doing great along with the newly planted radishes and green onion patches.

Here you can see our bush beans, pole beans, watermelons, the gazillion bell pepper plants and of course tomatoes. What you can't see are the zucchini and summer squash area. I still need to plant cucumbers and pumpkins. Because of course we will have that Giant Pumpkin Win this year for sure! After a long day of planting and watering we were ready to relax! John BBQ'd hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. Afterward we all had a big marshmallow roast for dessert. Toasty roasty marshmallows are the best!

Dinner Talk

As we were sitting and eating dinner tonight, Sariah & Jonah were conversing about random things and Sariah piped up with this nugget:

"When I grow up I am going to be a Karate teacher, a Gym teacher or a Wrestling teacher!"

Who could have guessed? John and I both had a chuckle about that. What a funny girl.

Happy Birthday Grace!

Last night we all went out to celebrate Grace's birthday. What a fun event with a genuine 'Aunt Sherry' cake. The kids jumped on the trampoline (or jumpoline - as Sariah calls it) for more than an hour, played racketball with Uncle Jonathan... AND helped make a 'will it fly' video for Uncle Troy's birthday. What a fun day!

Happy Birthday Troy!

Check out our super cool video!

We made this especially for you Troy! Happy Birthday!

Duathalon

Jonah, Katie John and I participated in a Duathalon today. It consisted of a 5 or 10 mile bike ride and a 1.5 or 3 mile walk/ run.

Jonah rode more than the 5 miles and I walked more than than the 1.5 miles. I of course was untrained for this event, but wanted to support my friend Gina who organized this event. I walked with a group of gals that kept me going. Katie John was sad before the event even started because her bike tire POPPED on the way there. She had her heart set on riding. Instead she went on the walk with me but soon left me behind, keeping pace with Hunni, a gal from our ward. Hunni has legs that are twice as long as Katie John's so I'm not sure how she was able to keep pace with her. Jonah rode his bike well. He kept pace with his group, though he was wishing he had a bigger bike. He is working hard at earning the money to buy one soon.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Sunday after church we went over to my mom and dad's house for a birthday party picnic. The party started with a yummy hotdog BBQ lunch. John's potato salad was a super hit as always. No one knows how he does it.... but the potato salad is always delicious! After lunch we played a game of whiffle ball. Grandpa was the pitcher for both teams. Jonathan and I were team captains, each picking awesome runners like Paul, Sariah, Grace and Max. We had a few heavy hitters on each team like Joseph, John, Jonah & Mason. As a typical whiffle ball games goes, the rules are always in dispute which of course makes the game all the more fun. Halfway through the 3rd inning a literal wall of rain had us all running for cover. The game was called due to rain with Jonathan's team ahead 3-1.

Check out this fun video of a card my dad got. After cake and ice cream we all sang happy birthday one more time! Happy Birthday Grandpa!!

A few of us played a Settler's game later in the evening. Of course we were all playing our hearts out... but in the end, Katie (Shaun's fiance) won the game. What a great time!