9th birthday

On December 28th we celebrated Lauren’s 9th birthday! My family was still here, so we celebrated Lauren all day and then that night had a combined birthday celebration with Lauren and Ari, whose birthday is January 6th.

Lauren had an indoor climbing birthday at Philly Rock Gym. Since the party was on a Tuesday and between Christmas and New Years there were a lot of friends out of town. But even with a small crowd, Lauren had a great time.

That night the Sharps came over and we had pizza, chocolate cupcakes, and opened presents. Lauren’s favorite gift was moon bounce shoes from my mom.

Happy birthday to our sweet, funny, full of energy girl!

Sophie decided that for her birthday party this year she wanted to have an America’s Got Talent – themed party, so we put together “Cynwyd’s Got Talent,” complete with the four judges from the show. My parents, Becky, and Ariana all come up for the weekend. At the party all of her friends performed a talent, and it was too hard to select just one winner, so all were winners!

Here are all of the performers. We enjoyed dancing, singing, jokes, a piano performance, and a magic trick.

Here are the judges, Dave (pop pop) as Howie Mandell, Dave as Simon, Becky as Heidi Klum, and me as Mel B. We all did our best to get into character.

Sophie’s friend Dior was the host, playing her best Tyra Banks.

Lauren and Ari had a great time at the party too. Lauren did a ballet dance to a song from The Greatest Showman, and Ari did a dance and song on roller-skates.

That next day we had a family party with everyone.

The birthday girl!

It’s been a while since I made a cake, but was happy to get back into it again. Sophie requested a chocolate cake with a salted caramel buttercream frosting. It was pretty good.

Happy birthday to our sweet Sophie! It’s hard to believe that she’s 9 already. We’re going to do everything we can to enjoy this last year of single digits!