O turned 9, and we did stuff.

I kid you not when I say that Olivia is the best thing that has happened in my life. This girl is so full of personality and spunk, I can hardly keep up with her. She talks ALL. OF. THE. TIME. and she is perpetually overflowing with interesting things to say. She is bursting with ideas and energy, she even overwhelms herself at times. I love her more than words can say. I don't have enough arms to hug her with, I can't kiss her rosy cheeks enough and I never tire of her spirit. This girl is unique, and I get to have her in my life.

Pinch me, how did I get so lucky?

Wow..... what a sweet girl.

My girl turned 9. The other day she was arguing her case about something and told me, "I'm almost 13." Not yet dear, not yet. Let's just get through 9. 9 means 3rd grade, it means "late-overs", and it means being able to stay home alone while I run a quick errand.

It also means a birthday party to celebrate!!!

I have to admit that I didn't go all out with her party this year. Aside from last year, ALL of her other birthday parties were a really big deal. There was a great theme, we had cool decorations and games and I had planned it for weeks in advance. O wanted to do an "Into the Woods" themed party this year and she had some very, very creative, and mostly plausible ideas of what we could do with it. I was totally on board, and then.... I just didn't really feel like going all out. Her invites weren't as cool as years past and I was feeling embarrassed about how I was going about the whole thing. AND THEN.... I realized, it doesn't really matter all that much. She's going to have a good time because she gets to be a part of planning it. She's going to remember it because her friends came and they had a good time. So, I decided to pause, and I made an effort to chill out and quit fretting. Granted, I came to that conclusion 30 minutes before the party started, but hey, I did it!!

O had a great time. She got to dress up, she played with friends, she ate pizza and drank root beer. Life was good.

PHOTO BOOTH!!

I have NO IDEA what is going on here, but the look on A's face is enough to 

creep me out for decades. She is such a funny kid. 

The kids discovered the photo BOMB and they took so much 

delight in bombing every single picture they could.

Okay, it is just silly to have a princess crown on an archer, right?

I dressed up as a witch and sent them on a quest to find "magical" objects.

A has the squeaky pig.

A piñata is a birthday tradition in the Hill family. 

Here O takes a whack at the evil monkey.

H pauses to let me take a picture.

Another thing we do to celebrate birthdays at our house is have a nice dinner out. This year O chose to invite my BFF, Genny, as her guest. I bring this up for two reasons, one, it is relevant to this birthday post and two, G let me know she felt she wasn't featured enough in my last blog post. So, here are some pictures from our dinner. It took many tries to get a decent pic and I'm not sure which one qualifies as the "decent picture." :p

O is THRILLED to have strawberry and blueberry syrup.

O and her bunny ears. She's always doing the bunny ears.

Okay, G's smile is the same in the following three pics. I'm waiting for O to give me a smile 

and she is getting increasingly bored with my attempts to get one.

Finally G is done too!