Hope's 9th Birthday

My favorite girl, my joy, my freckle-faced angel ... turned 9!

Since her birthday was on a Wednesday, we kind of got to drag it out over two weekends. The first weekend, Grandmom and Grandad came to town to celebrate with Hope, and together we enjoyed a little hike, some crab cakes, plenty of time at home, and good times playing Frisbee in the backyard. They took Hope shopping, which she thoroughly enjoyed, and gave her the new bedspread she's been wanting to update her bedroom.

On her actual birthday, Hope requested that we go for Hibachi. Grandma and Grandpa met us for dinner, and we gave Hope the gift we went in on together - an iPod Touch. She was SO thrilled she nearly burst into tears! Normally we don't do electronics at dinner, but that night she had a blast setting her background and taking pictures and playing with the sounds. Grant was very jealous, and had a bit of a hard time, but he did his best to have a stiff upper lip! It helped that Grandma brought him a little package to take his mind off Hope's new gadget - thanks, Grandma!

When Saturday rolled around again, Hope had a bunch of friends over for a slumber party. She's had one or two girls spend the night before, but an actual "slumber party" was a first for us, and man, it took some time to recover afterward!

ELEVEN girls came, and they had a good time dressing up and performing plays for each other (this was all Hope's idea). It was loud and chaotic, and I was so glad that Aunt Kate came over to help with that part! We had little plastic Oscar awards for Hope to hand out, and she did so by either recognizing each girl's part in the play or by saying something sweet about them. My favorite part was when a girl that Hope isn't particularly close with got up to present an award to Hope, and said how she is "such a sweetheart, and just the best friend you could hope to have!"

There was minimal "girl drama" throughout the evening, which I consider a success given the number of 9-year-old girls in the house. And they FINALLY went to sleep around 11pm after multiple trips down the stairs to cajole, remind, and threaten them! We were all pretty exhausted the next day, but I think it was a memorable birthday for my Hope!