One Year Older and Wiser Too

Natalie is nine and we had such fun celebrating her birthday as a family. We let the girls choose the order of events on their special day and Natalie had her plan in place weeks in advance of the actual day. We would start by opening presents, then go out for dinner, and finally come home and have birthday cake. Once everyone was home from their various schools, jobs, and other activities we began the celebration!

Present opening with Natalie is fun because she is basically overjoyed about every single present. She  loves everything she receives and is always so immediately grateful for what she's been given. This year the one thing she wanted more than anything else was an SD card for an old digital camera we've passed on to her. For some reason it didn't have one already so she could only take seven or so pictures before the camera's internal memory was full. And there was no way to get those pictures off the camera because we long ago lost the cable that would let us upload them to a computer. 

A wallet from Samantha was "the perfect place to keep all her birthday money!" 
A sparkly new dress was "just what she needed to wear at Christmas!"
And when she opened her new SC card? All she could say was, "Oh no. you. did. not." I wish we'd had the camera set to video because it was hilarious!
We were all happy to go for dinner at Red Robin because Natalie had initially planned Golden Corral for dinner and she was the only one who was even a little excited about that. The only thing she really likes there is the desserts anyway and since we were going to have cake at home I was able to convince her that Red Robin (Yummm) would be a better choice.



Her requested cake was a present cake just like the one Emily had for her seventh birthday. She'd been looking through old photo albums and decided it was the only cake that would do for her big day. It's a pretty simple cake, just two square layers, some candy circles, and a fruit by the foot bow. That and trick candles made for Natalie's dream cake!

Nine things we love about Natalie:

  1. Her imagination knows no bounds. 
  2. She is always looking for ways to make others happy.
  3. She faithfully says her personal prayers without reminders.
  4. Natalie finds the positive in everything.
  5. Her love for her family and friends.
  6. Her sweet smile and infectious giggle.
  7. She can sound so grown up sometimes but is still a sweet little kid.
  8. Natalie will talk and talk, even if no one is listening.
  9. She'll always share her chocolate!

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