Mother of a Nine Year Old? Oh, Nuh-uh, Not Me!

Or...Happy Birthday, Stomper!

No way that my little son really turned nine, right?  I guess this happens to all of us, and I know a lot of my friends are thinking, "Nine?  That's nothing!  Just wait until you send your baby to highschool!  Or on their first date!  Or on their mission!!!"  I'm still in total denial about all of that.  Let's just focus on the first decade.

So yes, my son turned nine.  His birthday landed at the end of one of the busiest weeks I've had in a long time - I had a total of FIVE COUNT 'EM FIVE events at school in four days that all needed multiple volunteers - one of them needed more than 50.  That would be the Halloween Carnival.  And it's over.  And it went well. Yay.  Stomper's birthday, in fact, was the  very same day as the carnival.  Nuts. 

We had a great celebration, though.  The morning began early with Stomper's favorite breakfast: Swedish Pancakes, aka crepes.  And a few little presents to open: lego hero guys, paper airplane book and a "How to Draw Dinosaurs" book. Then it was off to school. We decided to start alternating years of having parties - this year was a not party year for Stomper and it turned out great.  He picked one special buddy (that was hard!  He's got so many good darling buddies!) and we took him to Build-A-Bear with us.  Stomper and his sisters and Brandon all picked out a toy, and the birthday boy got to also choose an outfit.  That was great.  Then we sped home - I got ready for the carnival, my brother Peter and his wife Sheri came into town and totally bailed me out by watching the girls for an evening, including taking them to the carnival, while Stomper wisely chose to skip it and go to dinner and a movie with his Dad.  I don't know who was happier - Stomper or Troy.  The Halloween Carnival gets pretty nuts.  And that's an understatement. 

This is what I thought when Bundle was trying to pick out a

purple teddy bear with rainbow and silver hearts all over it.  Not that I was going to

 let her know that's what I thought about it.

The other time we went to Build a Bear we ended up with a Bear, a Wolf and a Cat and they were named Beary, Wolfy and Kitty, respectively.  This time the kids produced slightly more creative names; Stomper chose a Koala named Timmy, Bitty chose a Bear named Vanilla and Bundle chose a dog which looked so much like her daddy's childhood pet that she graciously named the dog Bandit in the dog's honor.

Stomper of course picked sea food for dinner and happily chomped away at crab legs and shrimp before heading to the dollar flicks for another screening of HP7.2. Luckies.

Then on Saturday we had some cake and ice cream with grandparents, a couple of aunts and an uncle, three cousins, two sisters, two parents and one friend. We gave Stomper a large collection of modeling clay. That's been a hit. Stomper's been making creatures with it ever since, and he and his daddy went so far as to make a couple of stop-motion movies, which are completely awesome. And I'm sure there are many more to come.
 

The kids spent an hour or two in the leaves in the back yard having a complete and total ball.  It was the MOST gorgeous fall day you've ever seen.
 

It was a great celebration for my darling son.  I love him dearly.