Growing Up

Mary Grace is now officially 9 years old!  Her birthday was a few days ago on December 2.  Since that was a Friday, we took the day off school to do whatever she wanted to do.  She also gave her brother and sister the day off school too.  :) 

It's hard to believe that my youngest child is 9!  I'm thankful for my children, and I choose to try to enjoy them at each stage of their lives.  It's sometimes a bit difficult not to get a little sad as they grow up, but I'm so glad that I have them right now to teach and train and love! 

We all watched a Barbie movie that she picked out.  Then Mary Grace and I went to the store so she could spend some of her birthday money that her grandmother sent her.  She used it to buy a few small gifts for her daddy and her brother and sister.  And, of course, we made our annual gingerbread house like we do each year on her birthday.  That evening we had cake and ice cream after dinner with her grandparents.  It was a good day.

Here is a picture of her sitting by our Christmas tree on her birthday.  Her grandfather gave her a pretty necklace, and she's showing it off here.  :)  I always have to be sure to label her birthday and Christmas photos so I'll know which is which.  Most of her birthday pictures end up having Christmas decorations in them, so I get them mixed up if I don't have them labeled!

She got a mini cupcake maker from her grandmother, and she loves it!  She made several batches of mini cupcakes from scratch all by herself!  I'm trying to allow her to cook more and be more independent (I'm always right there supervising) so she'll enjoy cooking and be good at it when she grows up.  I never had cooked much when Scott and I got married, so I practiced on him.  Poor guy.   

To the right is a picture of her birthday cake.  It was a beautiful chocolate cake with a bunch of chocolate roses in the middle.  Mary Grace wanted to spruce it up a little, so she added lots of those little sugar decorations--you know--the ones that peel off of the little piece of paper.  There were some hearts and some of castles and crowns and that sort of thing.  She also added those wacky twisted candles.  It certainly turned out to be a very interesting cake!              
                                                               

The day after her birthday, Saturday, we went to see our friends the Millers in Louisiana.  We had such a wonderful trip!  The picture to the left is of the Miller children along with Mary Grace.  We had a great time with them and are so glad we got to go visit.  It was Mitch's birthday that day, so we decided to have a joint celebration with them.   In the next photo you can see Mitch and Mary Grace blowing out the candles on their cake together.  While we were there, Mitch cooked some delicious meat on the grill.  And Jennifer and the girls made some very yummy potatoes and corn and fruit salad and homemade bread to go with it.  I don't know how any of us had room for cake and ice cream, but we did! 

Days like the ones we just had make me so thankful to have friends and family members close by.  I'm so glad to be able to share special occasions with folks we love!