Sarah turns 9

I have a 9-year-old. That's so weird.

Sarah opened presents first thing that morning and picked waffles for breakfast. She got Sourpatch Watermelons, Cheetos and Chewy Chips-a-hoy, a new hat and scarf, Mastermind, sewing scissors, Perler Beads, drawings from Erica, and a new sleeping bag.


She got a new sleeping bag because she had outgrown her pink one and needed one for more serious camping. Erica realized on the ride back from school that it meant she could have the pink one. This is Erica literally 2 minutes after we got home.

Instead of a cake, she wanted S'more Cookie Cups. I used this recipe but the cookie cup part came out a complete failure.

I think the recipe had waaaaay too much butter. They had a great graham cracker flavor but they were so greasy and chewy and totally flat. There's a lot of "cool completely" steps to this recipe so I had to hurry to try again. I felt like a contestant on The Great British Baking Show that scraps their first attempt and rushes to complete their second attempt in time. 

This time I used the dough recipe from my favorite baked smores. I doubled the dough recipe and used my 3 tablespoon cookie scoop and it made 24 cups. Whew! They turned out perfectly. I was hesitant to use the ganache and marshamallow cream recipe from the original idea since the cups turned out terrible but those parts turned out great.

Then I made the marshmallow cream (I didn't double it; the recipe made plenty). Any time I get to use my stand mixer and candy thermometer I love. I piped it on then used a kitchen torch to "roast" them. Despite initial failures, they were really fun to make. And now that I have a better cookie recipe, they will be even more fun. My completely adapted recipe is linked here for next time.

They were as good as they look.

All of this was while Sarah was at school so she was surprised to see them done when she got home.

Her friend Violet and cousin Allison came over for pizza for dinner then more family came over for cake and presents. 

She got birthday money from Grandma, a dress and headlamp from Nana, a fuzzy journal with a lock from Rachel and a balloon and Pez from Meredith

She is so cute and helpful and fun and sweet and smart. And I can still hold her.

Here are 9 things about Sarah.

She loves to clean but her room is a mess. I don't know how someone so organized and who loves structure can be so messy.

She loves math and is so good at it. She wants to be a teacher when she grows up. Her teacher asks her to help the other kids in the class all the time.

She loves to cook and sew. She can make scrambled eggs all by herself and is getting really good at using the hand mixer and measuring ingredients.

She is always coming up with fun games for Henry and Sarah to play. She keeps them entertained for hours. 

She is one of James's favorite people. He gets so excited to see her. She's going to be a great mom.

She reads so much. She's into the American Girl books right now and loves the Little House series. I can't take her to the library often enough.

She loves the piano, riding her bike, telling us every detail of her day, getting so giggly we can't even understand her and staying up too late reading.

And she's really pretty and is looking way too grown up in some of these photos.

Octoberfest

Young Women in Excellence was this month. I had this great idea to make silhouettes of each of the young women with a quote written on them. I didn't know how to actually do it though. It was a group effort with the other leaders but we got them done. My contribution was to put them in the frames. I think they turned out so great. It was fun to see the young women try to find their own. They were better at spotting others than their own profile.

 As part of ribbon week, they had camo day at school. Justin has tons of camo but nothing that would fit the kids. Sarah rolled up his sweatshirt and called it good.

This is a slap bracelet on Erica's nose. She's pretty much always goofy. Her latest thing is to follow up any answer to her question with "How do you know?"  It goes something like this:

Erica: Is this made from wood or glass?
Me: Your spoon is made from metal.
Erica (all judgy and irritated): How do you know?

James is kind of cruising. I remember Sarah just going around and around the perimeter of living room and into the kitchen but he doesn't do that. James likes to pull himself up to things to see what he can pull down then he crawls to a new spot and tries again.

I borrowed my mom's button tin to finish Sarah's Halloween costume. She had so much fun looking through all the funny buttons.

 She especially liked these fancy things although we have no idea what they're for.

Erica got "ready for the dance" which means putting on tons of elastics as bracelets and headbands as necklaces and sweatbands. She looks ready for something. She didn't want me to take her picture so this is the best I could get.

Sarah got the closest guess for where my nephew Tyler is going on his mission. She guessed England and he got called to Scotland and Ireland. He brought her doughnuts for winning. We are all so excited for him! No one is more excited than Sarah.

Here at the library James is taking a break from pulling books off the shelf and is playing with toys.

 Erica loves her some tablet games. I don't have games on mine so she is all about it at the library. I told her she looked fancy in her scarf.

 We went to the park one day during fall break. We were so excited to play in the leaves.

 Erica liked to throw them.

 James liked to do yoga in them.

 Sarah and I made a leaf house. I did this all the time as a kid---making a floor plan with the leaves.

 Sarah is lying in her leaf bedroom.

 I don't know if I made this up or if my older sisters did but it was so fun to do again after 25+ years.

 On Saturday Sarah had a piano recital. She wasn't too nervous and she did great!

She loves the piano and it's hard to get her to stop practicing some days. It's fun to hear her teach herself songs now that she's pretty good at reading notes.

 Henry's selfie of his feet.

 Henry finally finished his all about me poster back to school. He got this on the first day. Oops. I don't think the teacher uses it until their birthday so I guess it's okay.

I have no idea why he put peanuts as his favorite food. He doesn't know why either. "I guess hamburgers and chicken nuggets are really my favorite." He wants to be a dad when he grows up. So sweet.

I don't know if it was the smartest thing or the dumbest thing for me to show him how ask google about sports scores. Every morning he says "okay google, who won the game last night?" and then he spends forever looking at sports scores and telling Sarah and I all about them. And he's found links to video highlights. Sigh. At least I don't have to look them up for him anymore. I also hear him say things like "Okay google, what kind of dog should I get?" or "What should I have for lunch?"

James and Erica having fun with their shadows one morning.

I love me some October weather. I hope these super sunny, high of 60 days never end.

 So my next door neighbor unloaded about 60 tires between his house and mine. They were stacked neatly but tall and wide and were there for a few weeks. Who wants to see that everyday? Not me. What do you do with a bunch of old tires?? It was ugly and I was afraid of the vermin that would soon take up residence.

And then this morning, this beautiful truck rolled up.

 Here I am stalking them a little more discreetly.

 And now from upstairs. I've never been so excited to see a semi before. B-bye old tires!

Now if they'll do something with the appliance graveyard in their backyard.