Niiiiine Yeeeeears!

What Olivia's Birthday looks like in Mt. Home, Idaho.

I'm baaaack.  Wow, even I'm surprised at this.  I need to go on vacation to Wide Open Spaces more often, I think.  It's good to get this stuff out of my head.

Today's my girl, Olivia's, 9th birthday!  Unbelievable!  She's really grown up a lot this year.  I'm not just saying that to say it, it's been noticeable.  She's losing her baby face, she's leggy, she's more "private" about her body, I embarrass her way more and she tells me, she's made a best friend that I can see her hanging on to all her life, she cares more about her hair, fresh breath, she sleeps in and she'll wear jeans now.  There's a million other things.  She's just been fun.  And challenging, but I'm not talking about that stuff now--it's her birthday--a grumble free day.

I'm a little concerned at how tall she's already getting.  A couple more growth spurts and the girl will be eye to eye with me. Good thing I'm perfecting The Werewolf good now. It's also border line freaking me out that this time next year, she'll be ten!!  How?  What?  I can't wrap my head around that fact!  A friend pointed out to me this morning that she's halfway to college and moving out! (faint) Slow down!  Let me enjoy this. I think we've been good at keeping our kids young, innocent and perhaps, naive.  Good.  I want them to be their age as long as I can.  There's plenty of time for everything. I'm just now getting little peeks into The Everything. Olivia's already asking for a cell phone, which is hilarious to me.  And...absolutely not.

For the first time we are celebrating Olivia's birthday away from home--Mt. Home, Idaho.  It's also the first time we're not having a kid party.  She's totally cool with it.  She did make a special request to go bowling with all of her family and her best friend, so this Sunday all 17-20 of us will be ringing her 9th year wearing ugly, but awesome shoes!  Memorable.  I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner tonight and she requested, "hot dogs with ketchup and barbeque chips." I love this kid.  What did I do before I had kids to entertain myself and feel full?  I.am.stuffed.

Okay, now, as your reward for reading my blog, I would like to share a story.  An embarrassing one.  I don't really tell it at all, cuz I sound...LAME.  The Hubbs brings it up often to tease me, and I cringe every time and wish for a big old REWIND button.  Here goes.

After 36 hours of labor with my girl, with her working really hard to get here, guess what was the first thing she heard...ever?  Oh yeah, this is good.  She heard her MOTHER say, "Welcome to Texas!"  Wecome.to.Texas. Lame, right?  Do not do this at home, folks. A second after I said it, I was like, "Who the flip said that?!"  Me.  Yup. Man, it still sucks.  Totally nothing like A Baby Story. At least she was actually born in Texas and I wasn't screaming that from a bed in Oregon. Though, that might be even funnier. Man, for nine years I've tried to make that cool. Can't do it.