The Owens Family: Emelyn Turns Nine!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Emelyn Turns Nine!

Yesterday was Emelyn's 9th birthday! (I feel so old!) We had a party for her last weekend followed by a sleepover. 6 kids came to her party - 3 girls (who stayed for the sleepover) and 3 boys (who didn't :) ). It was a great party. Garr and I talked about what an easy party it was- one great thing about the kids getting older. All the kids she invited were wonderful, respectful, all-around super kids. We started off with dinner - pizza and punch that my Grandma always used to make for holidays - just mix kool-aid and gingerale - it doesn't get any easier! The kids raved about the punch - it was the funniest thing. After that the kids did apple bobbing. I was a little concerned over the sanitary issue but my mom commented, "No one has ever died from apple bobbing!" I had to agree. The kids were so excited and had a lot of fun. Then we went down to the basement for a couple games of tug-a-war. We did equal teams - boys+Abby against the rest of the girls, then we did boys (3) against girls (5). Abby was on the winning team each time, so of course, she thinks she was the clincher! Then all the kids against Garr- that was so funny! The kids won! Then Chris won the singles tournament - no one could beat him. The rest of the night was spent opening presents, eating cupcakes and ice cream, having a coloring contest, making "ghosts," and playing in general. After the boys went home, the girls stayed up to watch a movie. Then in the morning, we did pedicures and they painted and decorated wooden dolls. I didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked (my batteries died), but we had a great time. Instead of goody bags, I made "candy apples" out of rice krispies on a pretzel stick dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. They were SO good! I got the recipe here. There are a lot of other neat rice krispy ideas on there. I think for Christmas we are going to do them again. This time we'll use candy canes for the pretzles, possibly use food coloring to make the rice krispies red or green, and then dip them in white chocolate (for snow!) and colored sprinkles. Yum Yum!

Yesterday, for Emelyn's actual birthday, we surprised her with tickets to go see High School Musical 3 at the theatre. Mom and I took the girls. Katie met us there with Justin. Katie walked around the mall with Daniel while we took the kids into the movie. Justin slept through half of it. The movie was cute. Afterwards, we came home for dinner, cake, and presents. All in all, a very special birthday!

Listening to us sing 'Happy Birthday'