FOR ANNIKA: HAPPY EIGHTH BIRTHDAY!

Today marks our oldest granddaughter's eighth birthday!  I want to wish Annika a wonderful birthday, and I couldn't wait to do so.  She has grown into such a sweet, loving, and beautiful young lady in only eight years.  How is that possible??

Annika has quite a sense of humor, too.  In fact, if someone comes up behind her and scares her out of a year's growth, she thinks that is so funny!  And I've been impressed by her ability at a young age to "get" it when we'd joke with her or use puns.  She's always loved shoes, and our family enjoys her "Annika-isms," like this statement she made when she was three:  "Mom, I'm just a shoe junkie." 

A tradition in their family, Annika's bed was decorated to the hilt after she went to sleep last night, and was greeted with the sight below the first thing this morning:

Wait til you wake up
and see this!

"What in the world??"

Our daughter Holly is preparing a chef birthday party for Annika.  A friend of theirs made chef aprons for the children who attend the party--they will decorate them with their names and whatever else they want, using fabric pens.  The children will also wear chef hats and enjoy a food scavenger hunt in the backyard where they'll discover small hidden packages of snacks.  The children will be supervised (of course) in making their own individual pizzas from refrigerated biscuit dough for the crusts, and topped with pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni.  They'll enjoy this interesting and unique food party, decorated with kitchen utensils, pictures of chefs, along with the plates, cups, and napkins sporting the chef theme.

Holly created the birthday cake herself, a huge hamburger with a side of fries:

Hamburger cake with fries

 

Another tradition in our family, started by Clark's parents many years ago, is to call the birthday celebrant and sing "Happy Birthday" to them.  That's not unusual, right?  Here's the catch, though:  we try to sing as off key as possible!  Most families have their own zany traditions, and ours is no exception :).  We'll be calling her later today, doing our best to top our worst performance.

Of course, I could not end this post without including a few pictures of this lovely young lady as a small child:

With newborn Alexa, age 18 mo.

As a toddler

Age two

Pure joy at Carowinds theme park

With Alexa as cheerleaders

Her party is later today, and I'll add pictures of it soon. 


Annika, a wonderful young lady and granddaughter, is a BIG blessing to our family. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNIKA!  WE LOVE YOU!