And…She’s Nine.

How can it be? I say this every year. But seriously. Nine?
It blows my mind. THIS. is. my. BABY.
This is the little one I still sing “Jesus loves me” to every night.
This is the one whose kicks in my belly I can still recall like this mornings whole wheat English muffin.
This is the one who I would keep little forever if I could,
but brings me more joy than I knew possible watching her grow.

My Clara.

Is nine.

No one milks a birthday like the Clara-Girl.
Every year she manages to make it at the VERY LEAST a three-day event.
It falls on or around Easter, AND during the school year–so the party goes on, and on….and on.
Each year, the appearance of the “birthday duck” signifies the BEGINNING.

Then of course, being OCD like I am, and a t-shirt/invitation designer…I tend to go a little overboard.
I made tees for all the invitees and mailed them along with the invites–by the skin of my teeth.
The whole event sneaked up on me —
I was frantically researching water bottles for Garnet Hill and packing for Spring Break, and oops–
had to plan the whole birthday party THE DAY we were leaving for Charleston.

Here’s Miss Priss on her actual birthday, preparing for school 🙂

She chose to open the first from Posie (the puppy 🙂

And it’s LOVE! 🙂 She is obsessed with stuffed animals right now.
Which means they are taking OVER the house.
Not sure how I feel about this.

 At school she had a fun cupcake party…

There’s Louise (better known as “tweeze”, sportin’ her Tootsie and Tweeze Tee 🙂

Sweet Anne Douglass who couldn’t make Clara’s B-Day party this weekend because she’s a dancer and had a competition this weekend.
We’re so happy they are classmates 🙂

We love Mrs. Clarks’ 3rd Grade class. So many great kids, and Mrs. Clark is so wonderful!

(I need Clara here with me to help with everyone’s names, yikes! we’ll have to come back and edit!)

Millie and Lili

After school Tweeze came over and Clara opened her family goodies…

a rare, and ADORABLE moment between Henry and Clara…

and it’s CAPTURED ON FILM!!!!!!!

Ha. And a glimpse of the usual dynamic 🙂

Just what she needs…MORE converse tennis shoes (let’s see, that’s white, chocolate, grey, pink, red, navy…)

BUT in her defense, she wears them ALL!!!!! And it’s literally ALL she wears.

Toots and Tweeze

Another stuffed animal…this one from the CAT.

You know, the one that remained unnamed for ages
and finally we just pinned him with “blue” but no one was ever happy with that.
Eventually we all just started calling him whatever suited each of us.
Matt and Henry call him PoopahTink (don’t ask, cuz I have no idea),
I don’t really know what Clara calls him, she just carries the poor the thing around all the time
but I call him Ted (Kazinski), or Uni-bomber–cuz he’s CRAY-CRAY.

Dad, undoubtedly in disbelief that she’s growing up so fast ):

Reading Nana’s card

oooooooo. Time for the biggie.

I LOVE THIS PICTURE. This is UNDOUBTEDLY the MOST excited I have EVER seen this child.

LOOK at that face. Priceless!!!!!!!!

And if you could have heard the squeal. Heck, you may have!
(Ha. Look Louise is holding her ears!!!)

hurry it up dad!

Oh, these moments….too precious for words

Beautiful little girls.

Then we headed out to dinner…and lucky for you, those pictures are on my phone and I will upload them later 🙂
Clara and Louise chose Mugshots
(burgers, chicken fingers, fries…typical 9-yr old fare).

Saturday we took a brief birthday breather….ahhhhhhhh.

But then there was Sunday.

 

 SuperSkate. Took me back. I had a party with my friend Melanie at about the same age, in Columbus, Georgia at the Skate Center.

This place is RETROOOOOOOO. Love it!

Cutest little buncha girls I ever did see 🙂

Cate, Mae-Mae, Megan, Lili, Mary Alice, Clara, Louise, Maggie, Lucy (I sure hope I didn’t mix the twins up!) Campbell and Emma Claire

And yes, I did dare to skate

Thanks to Lili’s mom Missie who took over camera duties at some point and got some great shots!!

Not sure how but she managed to actually win something out of one of those
machines-rigged-to-be-sure-every-child-spends-all-their-parents-money-and-leaves-empty-handed.
Maybe they also have a special rig for birthday kids.

Note to self: Don’t ever allow someone on roller skates carry the cake to the party room
(see conspicuous photo cropping)

I think a good time was had by all…
except mama had a major lapse in judgement in planning a THREE HOUR party at SuperSkate.

Clearly, I was under duress.

The important thing is…this sweet little nine-year old girl is loved by many (and had a ball)

She is growing into a wonderful young girl. Her heart is pure, she is kind (MOST of the time)
and I couldn’t be more thankful for the nine years I’ve been blessed to know and love her.

Happy Birthday my dear girl.

I love you.