Happy 9th Birthday, Devyn!

Can't believe it-I have a 9 year old....On November 18th, we went out to Bubba Gump's for dinner to celebrate her ACTUAL birthday. I can't remember ever drawing a birthday out for quite so long. We had her party so early this year, that it seemed like she really milked it. Hadn't been to Bubba Gump's in a long time-went to the new one in the Garden Walk (Anaheim/Garden Grove???). Aunt Mary and Uncle Robert went too! Devyn was thrilled that Auntie M made her all UCLA themed gifts (her future college choice, of course). New jammies, pillowcase, and fleece blanket. So cute! Her teacher at school even gave her a handmade birthday pillowcase-I thought that was really nice. Anyways, hard to believe she is 9. Makes me feel old. For some reason, 9 seems a lot older than 8. Getting close to the teen years-a tween I suppose. Seems like they get an attitude and hormonal a lot sooner these days.... Well, I just have to say this (if you are reading my blog, Devyn). I am amazed to see what you have become so far and look forward to many more wonderful surprises. At 9 you love sleepovers, socializing, Webkinz, your IPOD (stolen from me), your cats and turtles, the Wii, school, reading (which makes me happy), dancing (especially Irish), and singing. You do well in school-and I am happy that you excel in Math and Science-not my two stronger subjects. Is it possible you skipped a generation and got those skills from your grandpa??? I look at your baby pic and you have changed so much. Pretty soon you will be "borrowing" my clothes and shoes. I watch you eyeballing the shoes already.....Happy Birthday, Davidah Malkah ("beloved queen" in Hebrew....)

October Craze

Long time, no blog. I have been soooooo busy. No excuse. That's the truth! I guess it started with the 14 hour Halloween Crop at the Bee in October. I spent a lot of time helping plan games, set up, make food, etc. It was a lot of fun though but exhausting nonetheless. My daughter decided she wanted to join temple, finally. SO, we joined temple, started Sunday school, joined the choir, and got a private tutor for Hebrew lessons. Guess we are in it for the long haul now. Kiss all of my money goodbye. A Bat Mitzvah was expensive when I had one-a million years ago. Can only wonder what it will cost me when she is 13. Maybe this will be in lieu of a wedding. Can I convince her to run off to Vegas when it is time?

Halloween is my favorite holiday so we did it up pretty big. I had the Halloween Bunco AND Devyn's birthday at the house which gave my husband the needed justification to spend a ton of money on Halloween decorations. We went to Treats in the Streets and of course hit the houses on Halloween. Devyn's birthday party was the day after Halloween (early but we wanted to milk the decorations/theme), and we walked the Buddy Walk for Down's Syndrome the next morning. UGH! I was tired.

Back to the birthday-I came up with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme. It was cool AND pretty original if I do say so myself. However, due to Disney licensing, it was also impossible to find party supplies, games, etc. SO, I did everything myself. We had lots of skeleton decorations, black, orange and purple, bones, etc. We played pass the bone (hot potato), the mummy wrap (with toilet paper), drew Jack Skellington on our heads on paper plates,and pin the nose on Zero (Jack's dog. We had strobe lights, blacklights, and a disco ball. The kids danced and screamed. I bought a lifesize cutout of Jack, Sally, and Zero and took a pic of each kid with Devyn. We made cool frames that I had prepped and the kids got to put their pictures in them. They had glow jewelry and left with a cool CD that Ron had compiled. Spooky Nightmare music and pre-teen stuff. I also gave them sparkly notebooks that looked like presents with pointsettia flower pens that I had made. Food was pasta, fruit, munchies and bone-shaped breadsticks that I had made. The cake was amazing though-our friend made a purple fondant covered cake with Jack and black stars. Everything on the cake was edible except the sticks that the stars were on and Jack. I love fondant but the kids didn't care for it as much.

I will post some pics. Sorry for the long blog. Am I caught up now?