9th Birthday Celebration

This year for your birthday you wanted to celebrate at home with just our family. This has been our style for the past couple of years and I try my best to make it memorable and fun. You requested a Marvel superhero theme celebration. This one was a bit of a challenge for me since this is more of Dad's thing, but I think I did alright.

We often celebrate birthdays on the nearest weekend so we planned to celebrate a few days early this year. I put up decorations while you were at school on Friday so you would have a fun surprise when you got home.

After you went to bed on Friday I put out a few final things and you found this baby Groot when you woke up on Saturday morning, along with an agenda for the day's celebration (there is a better picture of this agenda later in the post so don't bother trying to read it here).

You spotted Groot right away and he sat with you to read while I prepared breakfast.

And he joined us for breakfast too.

You were ready to open presents as soon as breakfast was over.

Long anticipated crocheted Hedwig stuffy that you didn't even know I had started yet.

Your biggest surprise this year was something Dad and I spent a lot of time pondering over before deciding to go ahead with it. You had absolutely no idea and we couldn't wait for you to find out.

It is a little hard to tell in the video, but here's what was in the box:

When you were 5 years old you wrote a note that said "Get a cat" and posted it on your bedroom door in hopes that Dad and I would oblige. Instead, we suggested that Aunt Brandee get you a stuffed cat for Christmas and thus, Caticat arrived.

I was certain I had kept that note and I searched everywhere I could possibly think of to no avail. Finally I tracked down a picture of the original note, printed it, then traced your writing onto the same decorative paper that the original note was written on. And THAT'S what was in the box.

I considered wrapping a cat collar or something like that, but ultimately we really wanted you to be able to pick out everything yourself.

Cat pajamas, cat socks, and cat book from Grandma and Grandpa. I *might* have tipped them off in advance.

Here is the full agenda for the day. I really did spend a lot of time planning the day, though to be honest, once the CAT was out of the bag, the rest of the day seemed fairly insignificant, though we did still manage to fit in everything that was planned.

I don't know why it didn't occur to me to take any pictures at the shelter, but here you are on the way home with Ares in the carrier. We went to WAIF (Whidbey Animals' Improvement Foundation) and a kind lady took us around to show us all the cats they currently had for adoption. Ares was the second to last cat and you were pretty smitten with him immediately. He was lounging in a cozy bed and you stood there petting him and falling in love while I asked a million questions. He was meowing the whole way home and you talked to him gently trying to calm him.

We got Ares all set up in the spare bedroom when we got home and then we continued your birthday celebration with more activities and cake! You requested a baby Groot cake. I'm not sure that this is exactly what you had in mind, but I think it was adorable. Plus, meringue frosting!!!

Here's that Hedwig, who was only exciting until you found out about the cat. That's alright though.

Your first Silly String experience. This was our Spider-Man web slinging activity.

I found this late in the day and it made me smile.

Your actual birthday was on a Wednesday and at that point we'd already done our main celebration, but there are a few pictures anyway. Unfortunately, Grandma Tami fell and broke her arm the day before so Dad made an unplanned trip to go be with her and wasn't here on your big day. You had school and got to share birthday cake flavored granola bars for snack. You had your library virtual book club when you got home. And Ares was extra generous with his time, which was maybe the best part of your day.

We also saved a couple of gifts (and cake) for your actual birthday, so that was fun too.

All in all, I think you would agree that it was a great birthday.