Leah's 9th Birthday

Every year I am amazed at the passing of time. I don't know how my oldest girl is halfway to 18 but here we are. She's no longer into the princesses and dress up-- now its Barbies and make up. She cares a great deal about what other people think of her and is much more conscious of her appearance. She is very much a people pleaser, although that has always been the case. She hates to make mistakes on her school work and wants everything to go exactly the way she imagines. She's very sensitive to others' needs and quick to apologize if she hurts someone's feelings. She is great at understanding sarcasm, jokes, and slang.

She helps out a lot with Jacob and Abi and, although she can sometimes get an attitude, she will usually comply with what we ask. She is at the age of BIG feelings, where her friends are all her BEST friends and everything is a huge deal. At nine, she starts attending big church instead of Children's Church, and she's totally ready. She's motivated to learn her AWANA verses on her own, she enjoys reading her Bible and she really "gets" things of Christ. We love to see her grow and understand more and more each day, although I still see her as that little six pound baby we brought home from the hospital.

She opened some presents from us on her actual birthday. She really didn't ask for anything super expensive. She's into Barbies, so she got two of them, and she's also into American Girl dolls but all she wanted was a special hairbrush for her dolls. She also says she loves exploring and one day wants to go to Brazil to be a missionary and work with animals. So we got her a little compass/ explorer tool.

The weekend following her birthday, she had four girls over for a sleepover. Yes, it was loud, and yes that was a LOT of squealing and giggling, but they are all really well-behaved girls, and I really did enjoy having them all over. They made homemade pizzas, ate cake, made bracelets, then played downstairs quite a while, so they weren't really all over the house. They watched a movie downstairs before bed and it was at least 10:30 before they settled down to sleep. Some may not have slept at all, but at least they were quiet and I got my sleep upstairs.

This was my first attempt at a cake with fondant. It didn't go exactly as planned and I definitely learned some lessons for next time, but it wasn't half bad! It was supposed to be like the stars on the American Girl logo. Leah liked it, and it tasted good so that's all that matters.

Leah was in heaven surrounded by all her "BFF"'s and was overwhelmed with all the excitement. A sleepover party really wasn't all that bad and I would definitely let her do it again, although maybe with a few less girls next time.