Ellie's Officially 9

Why, why do they grow-up so fast?  This is my last year with all of my children in the single digits.  She woke-up and was sitting at the bar looking at her present while Steve cooked her favorite breakfast eggs benedict.  I came out and said, "What you think it's your birthday so you can get up early?"  She laughed and smiled.  I told her she could find an unwrapped present for her in our room.  She giddily ran off in search of it.  When she saw it she said, "Are you kidding Mom?"

She has been using Jake's old TeeBall bat because it was the lightest one she had so while at Walmart the other day I decided to look at bats and bought this one then when I realized how close it was to her birthday I decided it could be a present. :)

When Lila woke-up they opened the other present together--roller blades.  The girls she scooter's home from school with have been roller blading home so she has been wanting to get a pair for a while.  There was also a cute owl coin purse taped to the top of the package.


I took lunch into the school again for both of the girls.  Since it was Ellie's birthday she chose not to skip recess to eat with Lila so I spent a little time in the lunch room by myself with Andrew. :)  After school she opened the traditional birthday card from Grandpa and Grandma Moore then she put on her roller blades and practiced around the house.

Mimi and Grandpa came just in time for dinner.  Ellie opened their present--a beloved owl beanie boo and a bag for her softball gear.

We have been talking about going to the batting cages since the weather has been so rainy that they girls haven't had a softball practice yet so we decided it would be a great birthday activity and we loaded up and went up to Swan Lakes.

Ellie took 50 pitches then I took a turn then she took another 25 pitches--she did good and it was good practice for her we'll be going back. Then Grandpa and Steve took a turn at in the baseball machine.

Mimi and Lila kept Andrew entertained in the stroller.  At one point someone let him out of the stroller and he tried to run out into the cages.

We came home and stuck 9 candles in a cupcake and sang to Ellie.

Then we watched an old video of when I turned 8.  It was fun to spend some quality time together celebrating Ellie.  She is an amazing big sister who is learning how hard it is when siblings grow-up and don't follow your every wish/command--we're learning how to compromise more and listen to everyone's feelings.  She is still reading the Book of Mormon every night and has a true desire to learn and do what is right.  We love her so much and are so grateful she is a part of our family!

Ellie's Night Owl Party

Ellie really likes owls so we decided to have a night owl party to celebrate her birthday. Ironically, the previous two friend parties she has had have been in May 16th so when we looked at the calendar we decided to avoid Memorial Day weekend which was after her birthday and yep do the party on May 16th again.

Steve was wonderful and helped me setup and decorate in between rainy soccer games which weren't canceled because they were the final games of the year and him working so he would be ready for his trip to Yuma the next day--let's just say it was a full day.

 

Here are the girls awaiting the party guests.  We passed out boas instead of party hats since every owl needs some feathers.  On Ellie's I stapled some letters that said "Birthday G'owl" you know like Birthday Gal--she thought it was fantastic.

The girls made pizzas and then played just dance while we cooked the pizzas.  

After dinner they picked the game Apples to Apples to play and it was quite humorous to listen to them play that game.

Then we opened presents.

Had cupcakes.

 





Played Hoot like an Owl--where one girl is blindfolded and sits on someones lap and tries to guess who it is by having them hoot like an owl or make other animal noises.

We watched the TinkerBell short, "Pixie Hollow Games".  Then played Mafia Murder with the girls while we waited for the parents to show-up.  Note: I think the girls really liked the games because Ellie went to a friends house almost a week later and came home and said they played Hoot like an Owl and Mafia Murder. ;)

It was a lot of fun!  The girls just went with the flow, included everyone, and giggled and danced a lot!  We are so grateful for all of the wonderful friends Ellie has.  She passed out these cute owl totes with an owl pencil, owl slap bracelet, owl chapstick, and bubbles as a thank you.  It was a wonderful evening!

Final Break of the School Year

It has been a busy break.  We loved our trip to Tahoe then we came back and it was straight back into soccer, Ellie started machine pitch softball, we all had our teeth cleaned and a few cavities fixed, Lila had her follow-up appointment with Primary Care Urology and all of the tests that go with that which I found a bit frustrating because they did a different test than last time and then had the nerve to tell me things look better--how can you tell me that when you cannot compare directly--well it looks minor--you said it was minor last time and we had 10 UTIs in 10 months needless to say we are stopping the antibiotic that she has been on for the last year in a few days (they told us do to a few more days since she had had a catheter for the test that day) so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it all works out, Andrew also had his 18month checkup where after visiting with the doctor about his chronic cough that leads to throw-up more often than I would like--decided to treat him for viral asthma with an inhaled steroid.  We also had normal piano and dance classes, scouts, and volleyball so we managed to stay busy.  The weather has been rainy rainy rainy which has made us all a little stir crazy and ready to go back to school on Monday at which point soccer will be over (the only reason why I decided to sign Ellie up for softball while soccer was still going was because the overlap time happened to also be our break from school).  Oh the good life!

This past weekend for Mother's Day the kids and I decided to drive to Idaho to visit Mimi.  Steve was out of town at a grad school friends wedding in New Jersey and it was raining here so all of the girls activities got canceled so we loaded the car and headed to Idaho where the weather was absolutely beautiful.  We met Mimi & Grandpa at Burgers Etc for lunch then went to visit Grandpa Olenslager where the kids tried to figure out there new spinny toys from the kid's meal.  It was a nice visit.  Then we stopped at Burgers Etc on the way home for ice cream--they make the best fresh lime shake--yumm!  Then we flew kites at Mimi and Grandpa's house.  The girls rode the lawn mower with Grandpa and got in the hot tub with a pair of Grandpa's water proof headphones.

Sunday I did Mom's hair for her since she hadn't been able to do it since her surgery on her hand on Monday--she probably wished she would have done it herself, there may or may not have been a point where a piece of her hair was sticking straight up. ;)

We enjoyed a lovely sacrament meeting where about half-way through Andrew kept pointing to the door and saying, "GO! GO!" as loud as he could.

After church we visited Grandpa and Grandma Merrell which is always fun.  The girls talked Grandpa into playing darts with them while Andrew ran around trying to interfere.

We left straight from their house for our home which was a bit of an eventful drive (Andrew coughed and threw-up a little within the first 15 minutes of the drive, the CD player we were using to listen to a book stopped working (since then I have figured out it was a user error--oops), and Lila had a little melt down, but we survived and had a quick bowl of cereal before going to bed.