Academy Award

Nominated for this year's "Best Picture", Roadtripocalypse

• Characters in this charade: Niece and Nephew, Allie and Zach and two monkeys named Jo-Jo and Jo-Jo, respectively.

• Nomination for best supporting actors.
• Allie dominated her role as pee-pee-er and van-stopper. Her routine requests for potty-breaks and drinks were long remembered after the movie ended.
• The audience loved Zach's fear-filled dialouge entitled "Consequences to Bad Choices"

• Ari: This little 14 month old who poops more than her weight per day... and eats three times as much.
• Nominated for Best Soundtrack, including her debut single: "Hi". Ari's joy and spirit shined throughout the movie and one can pity her dire straits as you listen to her squawking and cries for more cheese.

• And introducing, Ella Grayce Myrick, first time nominee for Best Actress. Adorable, lovable and so sweet. We'll be seeing much of her in the next few years.

• And here she is in her red-carpet attire. Ella Grayce arrived earlier than expected for this year's Academy Awards but her debut was magnificent and worth the 9 month anticipation.

• The final scene where the new mother and her two sisters talk of ice-packs and fear of walking closes Roadtripocalypse with such meaning... making the 19 hours of mini-van torture all worth the score.
• We'd like to thank the Director, Mitch, for his amazing role and courageous spirit throughout the filming process. His generousity and goodwill should be awarded.

22 weeks

Well, we're twenty-two weeks along and that means: [morethan] HALFWAY! Oh snap... I just realized that.

I've felt pretty good so far. I am eating a lot more protein than I did with Ari and I am feeling much less hungry... which is fantastic. I have been eating a lot of Plant City strawberries and trail mix bagels from Panera (very specific cravings...)

The baby (which is a girl, if you didn't hear via facebook or my parents/inlaws or someone else who is proud of another Haller girl!) is around 10 1/2 inches and weighs around 3/4 of a pound and is moving around and kicking all the time.

We're pretty excited about this next baby, our family is going to be so different. Ari's clueless but I tell her often that she's going to have a baby sister to help take care of and she just smiles.

Two Special Birthdays

Happy Birthday Grandpa!! You are one loving, special, funny guy and we really appreciate your generosity, kindness, encouragement and friendship. Enjoy your day!

Happy Birthday Aunt Katie!!! You are a beautiful, talented, loving, and silly lady and we miss you a lot. We hope you enjoy your day at Taylor and we cant wait to see you in a few weeks!

Love to you both!

Happy Birthday Allie Marie!

Happy Birthday Allie!

Ari Walking with the Wagon

Much like her parents, Ari is one determined and focused task-doer. Here she is walking with her wagon...

Celebration Station in Tampa

Someone in the house feels like this:

She's blowing snot bubbles and her cough sounds worse than it is...But, I just fed her some toast, cheese and water and now she's jammin' to Black Eyed Peas. I think we're on the upswing!! Dang, airport germs. We just returned from a very fast and extremely celebratory weekend in Tampa Florida to celebrate this guy:

My dad turns 50 this week and my sisters and mom planned a HUGE surprise for him. It involved four of his siblings, two of his nieces, three of his grandkids and some other Tampa residents who are somehow related to Dan or to me. (haha!) It was a really good surprise. He had no idea all those people loved him so much. There were lots of good times and family story swapping.
My sisters and cousins Karen and Jennifer. So fun to see all these people outside of Indiana where we usually reunite. (not pictured, Uncle Mark, Aunt Sis, Aunt Mary Grace and Aunt Carrie, Granny Claire, Uncle Denny, Aunt Jenny .... my camera was replaced by taking care of the baby).
We also had a tea party baby shower for Raschelle and soon-to-come Ella! It was a neat little Bed and Breakfast and we got to visit with more family and bless the Myricks with lots of lovely little baby things.

Here are the two pregnant sheilas in the fam: 20 weeks and 35 weeks...give or take a few:
Oh yah! David Haller lives in Tampa. Though the weekend seemed to be focused on DeGeyters, we penciled in some Uncle Dave time and saw him for a second or two!! It was a cold night on the beach but still so good to see him!

Lastly, we celebrated Allie's birthday! We had a strawberry shortcake themed breakfast and partied in the sunshine with Allie and Zach. Such a fun filled weekend

13 Months

As a present, God gave us a 70-degree Sunday afternoon family funday. We packed up a picnic lunch and headed to a Huntersville park and playground.

We swung/swinged/swang on some swings. (help...grammar police?)

Ari is slowly learning to walk with our hands. She loves it. She'll walk really quickly though not yet 'on her own'.

(I love this pic above)

I was unbelievably grateful that Dan had Sunday off. We deserve a day like that more often!

At 13 months, Ari is around 21 pounds, talks and babbles all day. She says many words and will repeat anything that you say. Her favorite words are: dadda, mamma, dog, bird, bunny (or a word for it, sounds like gurney), shoe, sock, more, hi, hey, byebye, no, go...and some other words that she makes up along the way. Her word for most things is 'gah'. She eats a lot of food and sleeps really well.

Whats under there? 'UnderWHERE?"