A's birthday

As I mentioned before, sweet Aiden Elizabeth turned 9 the other day.  It is pretty unbelievable to me that she is already so grown up, but me being sad about it isn't going to stop her so I'm just going to work on enjoying the ride and not being frustrated that she's halfway through her time at home with us.  Sniff.  She's so great. One thing about her is that she was born with such a strong personality.  Even if you only knew her as a little kid, you really know her.  I feel like my other kids have taken at least a couple of years to grow into themselves, but she came out with a strong sense of self and strong opinions.  Like not wanting to sleep.  Just last night Lewis and I were talking about how much stress getting her  to sleep caused us when she was a baby.  She just wouldn't sleep.  Naps were a nightmare and bedtime made me want to poke my own eyes out.  She was a great baby, she just hated to sleep.  I always just thought it was my fault, that I should have made her cry it out early on or that I did something wrong but three kids later I realize that it is just who she is/was.  And we love her to pieces. Once I had Brooks and saw that he could be sleep trained and then had Cate who just slept and slept all the time the guilt went away.  Although I think every parent worries about how they are messing up or have messed up their kids.  We're all just doing our best.

 The actual birthday day was really a fun day.  This year she decided to not have a party but I am going to take her to see Wicked next week instead.  I'm so excited about it, I know she will love it.  She has had the music memorized since she was 4. No really.

 We did pick up some pretty rainbow balloons on our evening of hunting for a cupcake.

 And we had a big pretty, yummy chocolate cake with toasted coconut and vanilla frosting the day after her birthday to make up for the cupcake fiasco.

 The best present was her new bike.  It is perfect and now with gears her rides with Lewis (running) will be much easier on her little legs.  She has been riding around the cul de sac nonstop since her birthday.

 We went on a family bike ride slash run to try out the new bike and had dinner at her choice, Genghis Grill.

 Yummy dinner and then they came and sang happy birthday, gave her s huge brownie and ice cream, and lit the fire on the grill for her!

 Cupcake fiasco details:  she decided that she wanted cupcakes from GiGi's instead of a cake for her birthday so before dinner we went over there to pick them out.  There was a super long line and lots of cupcakes so we decided to go eat and then come back.  Well, when we got back after dinner there was only ONE birthday surprise cupcake left.  The little girl in front of us said repeatedly "I want the birthday surprise".  A looked up at Lewis with sad slash mad eyes so we headed out of there in search of another cupcake.  By this time Costco was closed (their big chocolate cake was her second choice) so we tried several other bakeries and none were open.  It was only 6:30 or 7!  Finally we found some cakepops in a coffee shop and also got to enjoy some live music.  The had 2 red velvet cupcakes left and Lewis bought one and brought it home to put candles in.  A was such a good sport the whole time and we got to spend lots of quality family time in the car driving all over the place hunting for a cupcake. 

All in all I think it was a really great birthday and we're so proud of our A!