This girl.

This girl just turned nine.  Nine, I tell you!  And what an amazing, sweet, loving, caring, beautiful little angel she is.

Some things about my Practically Perfect Piper:

-She rocks pink about 90% of the time.  I am not exaggerating.  

-She can say every single line of Teen Beach movie.  And can do all of the dance moves.

-Piper really,  really loves these shoes.

-About to totally brag here: this little lady is s-m-a-r-t.  Smart!  Not only did she earn Principal's Pride every quarter last year (all A's people), but her aim's scores were out of sight.  Did you kind of throw up there from all the horn-tooting?  Good. 

-Piper is very in tune with other people's feelings.  She can sense when someone is sad, or mad, and she immediately is trying to fix the situation.  Usually this is her baby brother.  And she is usually refilling a sippy cup, getting cereal, or yelling at Porter to give Wyatt a toy.

-She saved up over $200 for very own iPod touch.  Which she has now lost.  

-She wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up.  And a dance teacher.  And a fashion designer.  And a mommy.  And a farmer in her free time.

-Pipes loves to cook.  Recently she made Kraft mac & cheese by adding the raw noodles, butter, milk, and cheese powder into the cold water and set it on the stove to boil.  It didn't really turn out.

 

-She is extremely photogenic.

-She dances her way through life.  Literally.  She dances when she wakes up, she dances down the aisles of the grocery store, she dances in the bathtub.  She's always grooving.

-I look forward to seeing her every single morning.  Mostly because of her outfits.  Piper's flair and enthusiasm always leaks into her clothing.  She never just wears a shirt and jeans, even when she is told to.  There is always a ribbon tied somewhere, a neon colored belt, a homemade bow pinned... something that just screams Piper.

-And her smile?  It's my most favorite thing about her.  She doesn't just grin with her mouth, never.  She smiles with her whole body.  It fills a room, brightens a cloudy day, makes you smile through tears... When Piper smiles, the world smiles back.  Always.

She is my saving grace, my tender mercy.  Piper is always trying to help, trying to better.  And yes, even this sweetheart has quite a temper (I'm talking red-faced screaming, stomping around, rolling eyes, and angry looks), but it is so rarely seen that when it rear's it's ugly face, it's more humorous than upsetting. 

It is a privilege to be your mom, Miss Pips.  And I cannot wait to watch you blossom into the beautiful woman that I know you will be.

And now, his actual birthday...

On the morning of his birthday, Porter came down to his gloriously decorated celebratory table.

And, of course, his birthday chair.

Since the theme of the day was army-stuff, PG was given his very own dog tags.

Aww.  Look at that bed head. 

And his big gift?

I don't know who was more excited, Orrin or Porter.

We are most definitely crazy.

His sisters gave him a bunch of homemade things (a bunch of rainbow-colored pre-folded paper airplanes, a bug jar... things of that sort).  And a random sweatband.  I still have no idea where that came from.

For his breakfast feast, Porter Pot chose birthday cake pancakes smeared in a gooey glaze.

And because he is such a spoiled brat, he got McDonalds for lunch.  And got to eat there and play on the play place.

For you special birthday dinner?

Salad bar.

Yes.  This kid is so stinking strange.

Peanut butter and chocolate rice krispie roll-up for your cake (you love frosting but hate cake).

Happy birthday, my little six year old.

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.

It has now been a decade

Yup, an entire decade since this little lady came into this world.

She is now obsessed with mustaches and wearing waaay too many elastics on her wrist.  I'm beginning to think that if you take them off, her hand would disconnect from her arm.

 (thanks goes to Pipes for the awesome bracelet)

She also loves homemade cinnamon rolls and, every year, uses her birthday to get her mom to make them for her.

Last year I had declared that ten is the magical age where we no longer have friend birthday parties.  As the kiddos get older, the parties are getting way longer guest lists, waay too hard to plan, and waaay too much money.

So this year, Adi got to invite one of her bestest friends over for a late night (we don't do sleepovers).

But if she invites Savana, her other best friends would feel left out.

 

And as long as Adi was inviting a few friends, couldn't Piper invite a friend?

And why not our cousin who lives a few houses down?

I realize that the shimmery curtain makes it look like a party.

IT WAS NOT A PARTY.

Since Adi is completely obsessed with Ms. Taylor Swift, and we had so many of her posters lying around, I might as well hang a few of them up in the loft.  That way they could sing T-Swizzle songs into Adi's karaoke machine and watch her music videos all night.

And, well, they'll need some snacks.

And I got this chandelier thingy on clearance from Walmart for 75 cents.  May as well throw it up too.

And the girls really should get some screaming-red lipstick to wear, just like Miss Swift.

I repeat:  THIS WAS NOT A PARTY.

No invites were sent out, no singing of "Happy Birthday", and no candles were blown out.

So there.

After school on Miss Adi Nae's actual birthday, she finally got to break into this little jar of goodness that she's been saving for quite a while now.

We brought the Merrill Family Zoo to Target, and Adi finally got to buy her iPod touch that she's been saving up for (she went half-sies with Mom and Dad).

We had some fam over for dinner, sadly-misshapen cake, and ice cream.

Happy Birthday, my little Nae Nae.


**As a side-note: Adi's birthday is February 4th.  I am so very behind in posting, but I stopped wanting to do anything with my favorite online photo editing site, PicMonkey, wanted $4.99 a month for me to use my favorite features.  Are ya kidding me?  That's 60 bucks a year!  No stinking way!  So I just stopped blogging.  Lucky for you, Orrin loves me oh-so-much and bought me Adobe Lightroom to make my pics look pretty.  Oh how I love it.

Coincidentally, I did not edit these photos.  I have gotten so far behind in my posting, and have so very many more pics to post... I knew that if I didn't just get them on here, I would probably just abandon my bloggity-blog forever.**