#2 Favorite Memories From Fall Cont.

SARAH TURNED 8!!

What a cutie! My baby is 8 years old now. She is getting so grown up! For her birthday this year she got a new mattress! Wahoo - just what every 8 year old dreams of. But there was something extra special about getting a mattress. This new mattress meant that we could set up her own bed in her own room!! This was HUGE for Sarah. It was time, for all of us, for Sarah to switch with Angela. Angela moved from her toddler bed to the bottom bunk. Her toddler bed was really the crib without the front - sniff sniff - I was sad to take this down after 8 years of being occupied. Then Natalie moved up to the top bunk. It was quite the switch-a-roo and things still aren't exactly in order the way I want, but at least every one's clothes are in the right rooms now! Sarah has been so excited to stay up and read by her "shabby sheek" lamp light (which she bought with birthday money from family - Thanks!) and be more independent. For her birthday, daddy and I also got her a Wii Pet Cat game (kind of a foreshadowing, but we didn't know it for the next in our top ten) and an alarm clock. That may sound even more lame than a mattress, but Sarah has been asking for one since last year. It has made getting her up in the morning soooo much better.

Supposedly, Sarah said her room would be super clean because she would only have to clean up after herself. She had a point - Natalie and Angela make quite a mess in the big bedroom during the day when she's at school and she got stuck helping clean it a lot. However, I think she's starting to notice that, hey, she is kind of messy too!

On Sarah's actual birthday, Angela and I surprised her at school with a SpongeBob balloon during math. She was excited and said everyone wished her happy birthday after that wherever she went. She also picked her favorite dinner - pancakes and we ate Aunt Shanna's yummy chocolate angel food cake for dessert. (Well, I made it, but it was Aunt Shanna's recipe - too bad Aunt Shanna couldn't come from D.C. to make it!)

It was a more low key birthday, but we had plenty of excitement the following week with her friend party and baptism! More on that to come...