Elise Turns 9!

Hard to believe, but one of my babies is now nine years old.  She is growing and changing by leaps and bounds and is very excited she is getting closer to being a teenager, which she is very much looking forward to (and I am very much dreading).

Elise's birthday fell on a Friday and unfortunately we had a lot of family commitments that day and evening, so we ended up extending her birthday celebration over two days.  On Friday we celebrated with family and on Saturday Elise celebrated with her friend.

We started celebrating right away Friday morning with a couple of presents.

Hamming it up

Just what I wanted!

Friday evening Elise got to pick what she wanted for dinner (pizza), and we celebrated with a few more presents and some cake.

The birthday girl,

and the whole family.

Make a wish, birthday girl!

Jason took a short, fun video of Elise blowing out her candles, you can see it here.

Several months ago Elise asked if she could have a sleepover birthday this year.  I said that was fine, but just two friends could stay over and they had to be girls.  (laugh if you want, but I have learned I need to be specific in my expectations or someone ends up crying and it could be me.  Also, I limited it to two for my sanity).  In the end, Elise decided she just wanted one friend, her best friend, to stay over.  So, Saturday afternoon we picked up Elise's friend and we all came back to our place. Elise had her choice for dinner again (pizza again.  Really.  All kids do that, right?)

 The girls had a great time doing some crafty stuff.

We had some more cake, candles and singing.

And playing around, and watching a movie.  Even Dutch got into the spirit.

It was a long night, but the girls had fun and that is the most important part. (I say that now, two weeks later.  It is not what I was thinking at midnight on Saturday when they were still awake and coming to me with questions about what they could and couldn't do.)

On Saturday afternoon, Elise fell asleep on the couch.  She looked so sweet laying there, I almost didn't feel jealous of her nap time.