Annie at 8

Annie campaigned long and hard to get two things for her 8th birthday: bangs and pierced ears. 

The bangs in particular took a lot of persuasion because I knew I would have to trim them- but I do think they turned out adorable, and Annie loves them! She does her own hair now, and it consistently looks much better than when I was in charge of doing it. 

Here's Annie with her doppelganger, Brooklyn. I think a lot of people were relieved when Annie got bangs- it's a bit easier to tell them apart now, even on the many days that they find themselves wearing matching outfits. 

Annie was a champ when we got her ears pierced! We went to a place called Straight to the Point. Annie was nervous and had lots of questions but went right into the chair with no hesitation when the time came. She's been doing a great job keeping them clean and has been begging to shorten the recommended wait time for being able to swap out to other earrings for weeks now.  

Annie's greatest passion these days is gymnastics. She was born with muscles so tight that her pediatrician had me moving her head from side to side to stretch out and loosen her muscles when she was a baby. She worked HARD to learn how to to do the splits... and cartwheels... and handstands... and and back bends! I have a vast reservoir of videos on my phone of her doing her gymnastics tricks. She likes watching the recordings to see how she can do better. It's awesome watching her work so hard at something she loves. It's also a bit dangerous around the house because if you don't watch out, you could get kicked in the face by Annie flipping into a headstand and not noticing you were nearby. She spends a substantial amount of her waking hours upside down. 

She's getting pretty strong!

Annie remains the social butterfly of the family. She frequently gets off the bus and ends up going to a friend's house. She reports that she is in the "grape" reading group at school, which is the only one that is reading chapter books. She's an excellent reader, but sitting alone with a book is usually low down on list of things she likes to do. Her younger brothers adore her- Felix is always talking about "Nana" and although sometimes that means "banana," usually it means he's thinking about her. She's always looking out for Isaac and will help him say his prayers or do "Isaac School" with him. She's curious and likes talking about new ideas- she asks great questions, and it's delightful seeing the moment when things click into place for her. She signed herself up for a solo in the Primary Program and brought me to tears when she absolutely nailed the last line of "My Own Sacred Grove." She's up for anything and a great person to have around!

Annie's Birthday

Annie's birthday fell on the Saturday at the end of Fall Break this year. It was an action packed day! The morning started with the oh-so-important event of Annie's Baptism!

 

Annie is beautiful inside and out. She is kind, loving, and brave. 

We are all so proud of our gal and were glad to be there to support her!

Of course we needed a picture of the Kimberlies! Mimi showed up with a wagon of tablecloths and floral arrangements for the room. 

The program was lovely. Breezy and Grumpa gave the talks, and Casa Johnson folks and I put together a day-of musical number. It is overwhelmingly sweet to see Annie with her Daddy in the baptismal font and receiving the Holy Ghost. She had lots of friends from church there to support her- and also her best friend Ellie and her teacher, Mrs. Miller!

A few hours later, we transitioned to party mode! Annie had a KPop Demon Hunters birthday party. 

The plan was to watch the sing-along version of the whole movie while eating bottomless popcorn. They ended up being too antsy to watch the whole movie, so we moved downstairs for games, pizza, and ramen. 

Follow-the-leader dancing is a staple at any Annie birthday. Isaac was so eager to get his turn doing his famous Isaac style dance with all the kicks and punches. 

Aaron agreed to be a human pinata again this year. We branded it as him being a demon they had to slay while "Takedown" was blasting on the speakers. In retrospect, this needed to be done at the park because there were far too many kids. They cornered him with their sheer numbers and he didn't want to knock them over, so he didn't get to do any of his cool jumping on counters moves. 

Happiest of birthdays, Annie!

Fall Break at Rocky Point

I love the tradition of spending Fall Break in Rocky Point. October is the perfect time to go- it's not crowded at all, and the weather and water are still nice and warm. This time we hit some unexpected traffic getting into Mexico- it took almost 2 hours to cross the border! There has never been much of a line at all getting into Mexico, so this was highly unusual. It was a bummer, because we were starving by the time we picked up our Pollo Lucas dinner and Walmart groceries and made it home to eat around 8 pm. 

Mimi, Grumpa, Max, Morgan, Breezy, Blake, and our fam was the group this year. This was our first time staying at Playa Encanto, a stretch of rental houses in a gated community even farther from town than the Las Conchas community we usually stay at. Our house was beachfront, which was SO nice. The kids could walk themselves back if they needed some inside time with one of their resting relations. We are truly spoiled by the ratio of kids to adults that love them on trips like these. And you can't beat eating ice cream on the back porch while watching dolphins jump in the distance. 

The sunrise gang! It was nice that we could avoid waking everyone up by eating breakfast on the patio and hanging out at the beach. 

Felix is a natural beach baby

Splashing, knocking down our sandcastles, finding shells - he loved it all!

It only took him one day to learn not to eat the sand. 

Felix got plenty of quality time with his best bud. Grumpa had the immense pleasure of introducing him to many new popsicle flavors.

Beach Isaac is my favorite version of Isaac. He was one happy dude the whole time. There was ice cream to be snuck, stargazing with Breezy at night, and plenty of space outside to dink around. He also tried snorkeling for the first time and had a great time spotting fish!

The only thing cuter than his Pokémon hat was his glorious beach hair. I'm actually obsessed with this picture.

Annie quicky determined that soft sand is perfect for gymnastics. 

And more gymnastics. 

And more gymnastics. Annie was glued to Mimi most of the time. They were dedicated to hunting shells. We found the best ones ever! This beach is so empty - there aren't people there picking over everything daily. We found lots of sand dollars and beautiful snail and clam shells. Mimi brought a shell painting kit, and we took some home to mount in display boxes. 

Look at these beachy buddies!

The Oat is very talented at hanging out at beaches. He was a key contributor to the more ambitious construction plans orchestrated by Blake and Max. He was also my main snorkeling buddy on the day we went to the spot in town by the Reef. He gets to stay up a bit later than his siblings to play a round of board games. 

Shout out to Blake for being a good photographer! This was Aaron's favorite night- we walked out into the low tide at sunset. There was an exposed sand bar that let us walk super far, the water was nice and warm on our feet, and there was a gorgeous super moon to light our walk back. 

Other things to remember:

We stayed in a room with 4 queen bunk beds. The kids argued over who got top vs bottom, so we had a nightly rotation of beds. 

Entertainment included general conference weekend, old Arnold Schwarzenegger Movies, a rousing round of fishbowl, and a 1,000 piece puzzle.

Bye-bye now!