Birthday Girl is 9!

The weekend before Claire's birthday, she celebrated with a birthday slumber party at Mimi and Papa's house.  They all (Fielder too) went out to their favorite, Leonardo's.  All the staff came out to sing to her and she got a giant piece of chocolate cake.  Rob and I got a date night, except that I had to be up at 4am the next morning to volunteer at a race - so needless to say it was an early to bed Saturday night!  Claire came home with a new suitcase on wheels for all of her traveling adventures and several new Diary of a wimpy kid books!  Even Fielder got his own little suitcase and they were so excited about showing Rob and me their new things.

Sunday afternoon the Barnes side of the family came over for a birthday pizza dinner.  (What is a party for Claire without pizza?!)  And by Claire's request, we had dirt cake (Ganny's recipe) for dessert.  I wish I had taken a picture - I got just about every bowl I own dirty making all shades of brown for the dirt and then added gummy worms.  Popa and Abu gave Claire 2 new books and a gift card for Justice!  Uncle Matt, Aunt Alison, Katie and Jenna gave her Tsum Tsums (?!) and a gift card for Build A Bear which was exactly what she was hoping for!  

Birthday morning, here's a sleepy Claire with her sprinkle pancakes (a birthday must) and her first gift of the day, a Pokemon book.  That night we had a birthday dinner at home and she got American Girl legos from us.  She was anxious to get to school and hoping for something special since it was her birthday, but seems like 3rd grade is serious business.  No more birthday crowns, treats, or even a "happy birthday" from your teacher!!  But she did get her name on the announcements.

The following weekend we hosted her roller skating party.  She has been wanting to do a roller skating party for more than a year and was so excited.  It was wild - glad some family members and another mom stayed to help!  The kids really seemed to have fun and I was thankful to not have a house to clean up afterwards (see last year's Barbie party!!!!!)

 They loved the "freeze" game where they had to stop and pose.

 Me and Samara on our Couples Skate :-) It was so sweet!

 Even Fielder and Rob skated, but unfortunately I didn't get a picture.  I was a little looney-tunes skating all over the place, checking on kids, helping to fix skates, fetching ice and band-aids, etc!  Claire loved it and said it was everything she had hoped for.  Success!

She got a lot of really nice gifts including a sew-it-yourself owl from Mrs. Dameron.  Of course she wanted to make the owl the next day and there was no convincing her to save that project for Mimi's assistance.  I did my best to help her.  Here she is making a face at how her owl looks compared to the picture on the box!  But she really loves her owl and thinks she's perfect!

She got several Shopkins things (I guess that's a trend that just won't quit?!), a nice lego set which we just finished building together, a stuffed animal and diary, and a spirograph drawing kit from Aunt Tara, Uncle Andy, and Samara.

This past weekend, we cashed in gift cards and went on a girls shopping trip!  She picked out a leopard from Build a Bear and found a matching small one to attach to her bookbag.  She named her Israel (?) and the small one Kathy because I noticed when we were making the birth certificate that Israel would share a birthday with Grandma Kathy!  Then at Justice, after a lot of debating, she picked out a Pokemon t-shirt, a necklace which she said she has been looking for for years, and a Best Friends bracelet that also happens to match Israel.  She gave the other half to Samara because they had a slumber party at Mimi's that night!!