Nine Years

In between settling in from a month in Massachusetts and starting school our girl turned nine.  It's seems unbelievable that she's reached the final year of single digits.  This was a low key birthday (especially compared to last year) which seemed ok with her.  She's gotten into cake decorating as of late and so her big want was to make a Minecraft themed cake for her birthday.  The Tuesday before I took her to Michael's and let her pick out some tools from the Wilton aisle.  She was like a kid in a candy store.  Not only that she seem to know exactly what she wanted and needed.

We baked the cake together on her actual birthday (the 21st) and she decorated and we had a belated mini-celebration the next day.  Our girl was so proud of her finished product:

I realize that with this birthday Katherine is slowly creeping towards those "tween" years.  Right now she is still very much a little girl.  She loves dress up and Barbies.  She spend a good hour last weekend playing with her Julie, her American Girl doll. She still believes with all her heart that Santa comes every Christmas to deliver presents and the Easter Bunny every spring.  The tooth fairy paid us a visit last night, leaving her a treat in the pocket of her tooth pillow, a reward for another lost tooth and being so brave at the dentist that day.   Then she will ask to turn up the radio in the car (she'll still innocently sing along on occasion, oblivious to the others in the car).  She thinks justice is one of the best stores around and she now has a definite opinion on what she wants to wear to school everyday.

As she heads into fourth grade, we have a girl that prefers math and science over reading and writing any day of the week.  Aunt Colleen got her a Tinker Crate subscription last Christmas and she loves it when the box arrives on the doorstep.  Most times she has the project built and working within an hour of it arriving.  Aunt Carrie got her a Roominate Studio for her birthday and she ran right to the kitchen table to start working on it as soon as it was opened.

While her and her brother have their squabbles at home, I have seen a protective Big Sister emerge when Teddy was a bit overwhelmed by his first day at kindergarten.  She's assured him that she will make sure he gets to his classroom safely each morning and she will sit with on the bus on the way back to daycare in the afternoons ("No matter how many people ask me!")...for the next two weeks (cause hey, even Big Sisters have their limits).

So I head into the next year of her life proud of the little girl she has become and looking forward to how she changes as the months creep closer to ten.

Happy Birthday Miss K!