Six

I just plain cannot believe it.

This little dude has now turned six.

  

Six, I tell you!

Last night, as soon as I got home from picking Adi up from dance and right before dinner, I made him throw on some decent clothes and dragged him to the wash that runs behind our neighborhood to try and get some decent shots of him.

So very graciously, he gave me a myriad of his adorable expressions.

His super-fake smile...

 "Excuse whilst I clean out my teeth" expression...

"I am deeply deliberating over the nation's current economics" face...

"I'm really getting tired of having my picture taken inside of this tree that has ants crawling all over it" look...

"I'm trying my very most hardest not to smile" grin...

And finally, an authentic Porter Grant Merrill smile.

Boy oh boy, how I love this little stinker.

  

I am not feeling very author-y today, so I am merely going to list a few things about my little PG that captures who he is right now.

• Blue.  Blue what, you may ask?  Blue everything.  That is his favorite color and everything must be it.  I was pretty stinking lucky to get him in a green shirt for these pictures.
•  He loves going on bike rides with Dad.  He and Dad can go as fast as they want, as far as they want, and they generally end up by the golf course that's just north of our house.  They sit, drink some water, and watch the golfers swing.
• He is going to be a miner when he grows up.  Just like Dad.  As he tells it: he'll probably start off driving the big equipment, like the loader or dump truck, but then he's gonna be a supervisor just like Dad. 
• Porter's current favorite outdoor activity?  Going shooting with Dad and his friends.  
• If you can't tell, Porter is a little obsessed with his Daddy.  Orrin is el numero uno in his book.  In fact, the only way I could get a real Porter smile in these pictures is by saying.  "Hey Orrin, look at me.  Oh wait, you're not Orrin... are you?"  I made his day.
• Sorry kiddo, you may want to be the carbon copy of your Dad, but you look exactly like your mom.  You even have the lion share of her personality.  I do apologize for that. You like the snuggles and the tickling, you have a tendency of talking A LOT, your great impatience, even your frustrated growls and stomping to your room in a huff... mine, mine mine! 
• You do have a few traits from your Dad: you can do pretty much anything if you're shown only once, you like to know how everything works (tiring for your parents, but also a point of pride), your ability to conquer your fear of everything and to try new things.  Pretty neat stuff, I must say.
• Porter pretty much refuses to take a bath every single night.  Once he gets in, however, he refuses to get out.  He's been known to take a pair of goggles and his plastic shark in there and not come out for an hour.
• He has super big muscles, see?
  

• Porter and I are currently making our way through the Mouse and the Motorcycle trilogy.  Every time I pick up the book to read it, he groans and asks, "Can't we read about volcanoes tonight?"  I have a minor tendency of being stubborn, so I begin reading.  He then ends up begging me to read "...just one more page, please Mom?"
• He loves making people laugh.  As long as your not laughing at him for mistakenly putting on his sister's uniform polo.  Then he will burst into tears and hide in his room.
• Porter will do three times more work trying to avoid cleaning his room than he would actually have to do if he would just do it already.
• He adores his big sisters... mostly The Pips, but that's because she has no problem playing army men and spies with him.  Adi believes herself to be too mature for those childish games.
•  Little Wyatt follows Porter's every move.  And Porter is starting to like it.  He really likes having someone that will play Miner with him out in our dust bowl of a backyard.
• His favorite breakfast is a pancake with sugar on top, his favorite lunch would be hot dogs, and his favorite dinner?  Salad bar.  Weird, right?

I could go on all day, but I'll never be able to capture this kid with mere words.  His smile melts my heart, just hearing his laugh makes me giggle along, he loves with all of his heart, and is always up for playing with anyone.He is the bestest little six year old boy I could ever have asked for.  You are amazing.  You are kind.  You are practically perfect.

Happy birthday, angel boy.

Working, working

Lately I've been a-working. You know, on this new house of ours.

I am like an artist creating a masterpiece on a canvas.

Or I am merely a Mom trying to get a house decorated and painted.  But the artist one feels more magical.

And it is a slow-moving project.

And a very time-consuming one at that.

Eventually, I got to this:

 

Have I mentioned that I got my lovely hubby to build me this ginormously huge shelf? It must be true love, baby.

I'm not quite finished styling the shelf (I have my eye on the perfect clock for the end right there).

I'm slowly repainting the entire house (well, almost the entire house) this gorgeous Revere Pewter color.  There are, of course accent walls.  Actually, have you seen my chevron wall?  If you are super-cool and follow me on Instagram, you would have seen it.  If not, here's a pic for your viewing pleasure.

Please ignore that little extra blue spot on the white that isn't supposed to be there.

So wish me luck on my painting endeavors.  I am not quite finished with the main floor, and I still have the upstairs.

So, so many bathrooms to go.

Patty's Day

Let's do a quick run down of the holiday. 

Because, really, who wants to hear a ton of explaining about St. Patrick's Day? But since this blog is my strangely-public family journal, I feel I must post about the holiday.

The girls and Orrin set up the trap for the Leprechaun (Porter was sent to bed early for locking Orrin out of the house... and then not letting him back in).

Let's be honest: this trap was probably the least impressive of all the traps we've made before. 

The Leprechaun obviously didn't care for someone trying to trap him, so he pulled a prank on the Merrill kiddos.

He strung their undies up downstairs for the world to see.  And he left a trail of underthings down the hallway and stairs.

Silly Leprechaun.

He also did his annual walk across the kids' faces.

There was the normal St. Patty's breakfast feast.

That night we had the annual Shepard's Pie feast.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A Pretend Hike

If you are familiar with the great state of Arizona, then you know that now is the time to live in the sunshine state.  This is the time to brag about this state.  To rub our weather in your freezing cold temperature's face. 

It is gorgeous, it is blue skies and never ending sunshine.  No jackets, no sweating.  The temperature stays around 85 degrees.

It is perfect.

Of course, in about two months, I will be melting and planning vacations to much cooler states.

But for now, I must brag.

So here are our pictures from the pretend hike we took through the Gilbert Riparian Institute over Spring Break.  Please notice how beautiful the weather is in every picture.

What is this Riparian Institute thing that I speak of?  It's a 110 acre land reserve in the heart of Gilbert.  It's full of birdies and turtles and native plants.  It is lovely.

And what a beautiful walk-hike we had.

Wyatt loved being able to roam free.  Once we showed him the Prickly Pear cacti and told him they were "owies" he stayed far away from those. 

Although he did almost fall into the reclaimed water rivers about twenty times. 

Orrin blessed his children with his Arizonian horticulture knowledge.

Miss Pip really, really loves this outdoor stuff.

Even though Adi looks like she's having a wonderful time, she continually screamed whenever she thought a bee was buzzing around her (a situation her siblings took full advantage of, yelling "There's a bee!" off and on the entire time).

 And Porter-Pot enjoyed exploring and hanging with Dad.

   

 

   

 

 

There were also cement wall thingys for the kiddos to climb all over.  And since climbing on things are my kids' favorite things to do, they loved it.

 

Now, go explore the Riparian Institute for yourself!