Happy 9th Birthday, Willow!

Happy 9th Birthday Willow!! 

 Willow has really enjoyed reading Harry Potter with Chris lately. They're currently on Book 6. We'd thought about having a Harry Potter birthday party but her friends don't know enough about it for them to "get" any games/activities. We've never hosted a sleepover so we decided to do that for her party instead. Due to the anxiety of her parents (!!!) we decided to keep it to 3 friends. Due to some "girl drama" at a previous party, I thought it'd be best to have quite a bit of structure and activities to keep them busy (and supervised!). They had an activity written on a paper inside each of these balloons (open gifts, paint nails, Pie Face, Just Dance on the Wii, make cookies, make a ring [thanks Aunt Linda!!]). I'd warned her that not all the girls would be excited about each activity and that'd be ok, and that held true, which was fine. The activities didn't last quite as long as I anticipated (they only did about 4 songs for Just Dance) but afterwards they did great playing Clue and learning Skyjo (a card game Chris got me for Christmas). My two goals for the evening were (1) for the girls to sleep (**see notes about lack of sleep at previous sleepovers**) and (2) for there to be no drama. Thankfully both goals were met!!! The girls laid down with the lights out at 11:40 and were told they could talk until midnight. It was quiet by 12:10 and when I went down at 12:30 they were all asleep. Hooray! Willow was the first one up at 6am and the last girl woke up at 9! I think they had a great time!

Singing Happy Birthday

Is she turning 9 or 6? ;)

Willow opted for "funfetti" cake this year!

We got the Pie Face game for the kids last Christmas but they've never been in to trying it. Willow took one turn but then was happy to just eat whipped cream off her finger while Maggie and Scottie took multiple turns, really enjoying getting pied!

 Even Chris had a turn!!

We celebrated with family at Golden Corral and had a brownie "9."

When Willow was little we joked that once Willow was able to read on her own that we'd never see her because she loved books so  much. Well....that's pretty much true. Chris says that she'll head upstairs after school for her 20 minutes of reading homework, but will often still be reading after 45 mins to an hour! Nana and Grandpa got her these books for her birthday. We think they might last her a couple weeks:

She measured 11" of books :)

Here are her 20 questions!

9-yr old stats (August appt):

Height: 4'6" (85%ile)

Weight: 70 lbs (61%ile)

BMI: 15 (41%ile)

School Pictures

3rd grade

Kindergarten

Willow's School Performance

Willow's school recently had a performance done by the 3rd and 4th grade students. It was a School House Rock performance which brought back some memories of singing the same songs. Unfortunately my phone ran out of space in the  middle of the performance but here are a few of the songs: Interplanet Janet (she was happy to be a "planet" dancer on stage), USA, and 3 is the Magic Number. (can you tell it's hard to see at these things???) She had a great time!

First Day of School

Somehow time flew by so fast that we now have TWO children in elementary school! Gasp!!! 

Willow has two "first day" pics because her fun shirt sequence is two different shades depending if you have them pushed up or down (hard to tell in the pics). 

I asked Owen if he was going to wear a Lego or Star Wars shirt on the first day of school and he said no. I asked if he was going to wear one of his new collared striped shirts and he said no. I asked if he was going to surprise us and he said yes. And he sure did picking out the one and only button up shirt in his whole closet! He sure looked handsome though!

Burning off some excitement by climbing the tree before we drove up to school:

Owen has Ms. Bray, as we requested, since we were so happy with her when Willow was in Kindergarten.  When we walked him into the building on the first day, he quietly asked Chris how he was going to get home at the end of the day. Somehow after being asked multiple times if he was excited about riding the bus, we never explicitly told him that he'd get home on the bus and that we lived at the first stop. Whoops!! At the end of the day when I asked him how it went riding the bus, he said that he got off when he saw another boy get off. Eek! Good thing we live at the first stop!!

He wasn't up for a picture at Open House but we got one on the first day of school when we dropped him off. 

Willow has Mrs. Washington, who is new to the school this year. 

Both kiddos reported having a good day at school. Owen said his favorite part of the day was getting on the bus to go home. He excitedly told Gramma that he didn't have any math papers for homework. 

 Some of their work from the first day:

Gramma made them a cake like she did for Willow when she was in Kindergarten.

We're looking forward to a great year!!