How did that happen??

Last Thursday we celebrated Katey's 8th birthday. Seriously, how did that happen?? It is hard to believe that the tiny little baby I held in my arms just yesterday is now 8! (And, by the way, how did I get old enough to think that 8 years happened in the blink of an eye?!?)

Katey got to choose her birthday dinner. It came down to Costco Rotisserie Chicken with mashed potatoes and corn (all squished together with salt added, of course!) or homemade pizza - Katey's 2 favorite meals - and chocolate cupcakes. In the end, pizza won out so we rolled out dough and Katey spread on sauce and cheese and was delighted when the pizza crust bubbled up while baking. It is the little things in life, isn't it? :-)

I assume that you are now wondering why there is an enormous chocolate cake sitting in front of the birthday girl instead of cupcakes. Yeah. So Mike's mom makes an AWESOME chocolate cake recipe for all the birthdays and everyone always raves about how delicious it is. I talked Katey into letting me make Grandma's special cake but doing it as cupcakes and she was super excited about it and I was all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about what a special privilege it is to make your child's birthday (cup)cake and how a tradition is being passed down through Mike's family. However, that isn't exactly what happened. Katey was at Costco with me and as we walked past the bakery she began to drool at the sight of all the delicacies. She eyed the ginormous chocolate cake (the thing weighed 7 pounds, y'all - no joke!) and quickly changed her mind from wanting homemade cupcakes to needing this cake. I think you can connect the dots. While it definitely wasn't Grandma's Chocolate Cake, it was pretty tasty and our family enjoyed it for 5 straight days!

While pizza was baking Katey made a beeline to her presents. As you can tell from the picture below, she was happy to be opening the gifts. Though, when we asked what her favorite present was we were told, "Darien giving me a hug for my birthday." Uh-oh. Darien is our 8 year old neighbor that both the kids love to play with. Katey always wants to give him hugs and he always runs away screaming that he doesn't want any hugs. So, it really was a big deal when he brought a card over and hugged her when giving it to her. Sweet.

One of Katey's other favorite gifts is the i-pod she bought with birthday money. All of the sudden this child LOVES music and loves listening to my i-pod. So, we found a used one on e-bay. Now Mommy just needs to get music downloaded to it so she can use her own!

It certainly was a great birthday! Seth is already telling us he can't wait for his birthday (in 3 months) because birthday's are so much fun. We think it is because he and Katey get to eat cake for so many days in a row. :-) But, he is right - birthdays are a lot of fun! A little bittersweet for Mom's and Dad's, but fun none-the-less. Happy birthday, Little Monkey!