Olive's 9th Birthday

It's birthday time for this big 9 year old!!   Olive is one of a kind.  I can't put into words the joy she brings to our family.  She is wise beyond her years, yet full of childhood magic and imagination.  She experiences full emotions and has such a beautiful ability to be deeply present in whatever she is doing.   She isn't fast and efficient like Brad and I, but I have learned to love that so much about her because she is rarely frazzled and stressed.  She is deeply present, and not pressured to rush, or hurry to get through things, she wants to enjoy the journey.   She is in tune with her emotions and has a wide array of them, and I love that about her too.   So all that to say, she has many strengths that I do not and I've learned so much from her!  I love you Olive, and continue to admire you deeper and deeper as you get older!

She got to have all the celebrations this year - a friend party, a celebration with her school class and popsicles, and a family party too!  There's never too much celebrating when you're with Olive!

Her birthday party with friends happened on the Friday night before her birthday. She wanted to have a fashion party.  So we had dinner and then got right into our fashion designing!

We had tons of colors of plastic table clothes  and they were tasked with helping each other design a beautiful dress.  Karly was my model as I demonstrated to the girls different ways they could put their dresses together.

They were all so excited, but it turned out to be a little harder than we were anticipating.  So I had to recruit Eden and Brad to come help with the designers that were struggling a bit.

In the end, we had some pretty nice dresses and they were excited to walk the cat walk one by one to model their designs. They seemed to really have a lot of fun with this.

Then we went and had cake and ice cream.  She's so silly and loves to sing along and dance and take all the attention while everyone sings happy birthday to her.  It's never too much attention!

Karly somehow got buried in all the pieces of dresses that got ripped to shreds after the fashion show!

Olive was so funny as she opened presents.  She is so expressive, and truly excited about things so it was fun to watch her reactions, and the reactions of her friends.  So much pure joy.

As the party started winding down and girls were beginning to get picked up, the after party turned in to cheerleading routines and Karly was loving every minute of being the smallest person there.

Overall the party was a huge success and Olive felt very loved.  On her real birthday the following week, I was able to meet her at recess with popsicles for the class.  It just so happened to be Karly's class recess too so they got to join.  When I'm at the school and observing, it's very clear that everyone loves Olive and wants to get her attention.  She is so kind to everyone and they all love her.

That evening we had a fun family party, with more presents and treats of course!

Her birthday wish list included clothes (for her and her doll Amelia), new shoes, makeup, and fake nails.  Olive, you're turning 9, not 14!!   She was thrilled.

Karly had planned and prepared an entire scavenger hunt for Olive, full of clues and lots of very random surprises.  It was so thoughtful and sweet.

Then we had Olive's favorite dinner - chicken pot pie!

And no birthday is complete without more treats, even if she did already consume a birthday cake. :)

She had lots of helpers to blow out her birthday candles!

Then we finished her special day by measuring to see how much she has grown this year.  She continues to hold the record for the tallest at each age.   Maybe it's a 3rd child thing - I'm a 3rd child and am tallest of all my siblings too. :)

Then we even got a special bonus of adding grandma and grandpa to our growth chart.  But I guess for them we will be measuring to see if they are shrinking.  ha ha

Grandpa wanted to make sure he was starting out really strong, and was stretched as much as he could go!

But back to the birthday girl - Olive, whom we all adore.  It was a wonderful week, full of celebrations for our favorite #3.  Thanks for adding such sparkle to our lives Olive.  I hope you will always remain confident in your emotions, creativity, imagination, and presence.  You have a beautiful soul and people everywhere are drawn to you.  Happy birthday my girl, I love you deeply.