We had a lovely weekend this past weekend – Jocelyn turned 9 on Sunday. Saturday we had a party at the local skating rink with a handful of her friends and classmates. One boy she invited from her class loves Doctor Who – he arrived wearing a tshirt with a bow tie that said, “Bow ties are cool!” and the card he attached to the gift was beyond awesome:

and the BACK!

As he was packing up to go, I bid him adieu with, “Just remember – lots of planets have a north.”

I had a moment of shame on Friday. I took 2 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts in to Jocelyn’s class right after lunch to celebrate their birthday — forgetting that she had more than 24 kids in her class. DOH! Severely embarrassed mommy. Several kids split theirs and shared with their classmates.

Jocelyn’s major present was a new bike. We got her a bike that she will hopefully be able to ride into high school or beyond, though since I think this tall string bean of a girl we have may hit the 6 foot mark, that will remain to be seen. The downside of new bikeness is it snowed up a storm her birthday weekend, and now, 2 days later, it sprinkled on us again, so she hasn’t even gotten to ride it around at home (she helped pick it out in the store a week before her birthday). This is Colorado however, I’m sure we’ll have some 50-60 degree weather, oh, any minute now!

However, we let her know that the bike was her major present, and then she could also have $40 to spend at the American Girl store – and that was it, that was ALL she was getting from us. We got her an American Girl doll last year for her birthday and she and many of her friends are mightily into all this AG. When the magazine comes each month, she pores over it spending all her imaginary money. Once she said, “How can they expect a little girl to AFFORD THIS STUFF?”! To which I heartily agreed!! In fact, I was initially kind of faintly dismayed, because that stuff is PRICEY. However, it is also just as adorable and wholesome as all get out. I have gotten over any squidginess I felt about it and switched over to “I hope to GOD that she plays with this stuff FOR YEARS AND YEARS.”

Her grandma also gave her $10, and she had $8 of her own, so she had quite a little kitty of cash to spend at the store – we had never been before, and it might quite an impression (on both of us!) The historical dolls are really pretty fascinating (to me) and the doll hair salon was above and beyond amazing (to her). She picked out a “feel better kit” with crutches and a cast and all kinds of cute mild doctor-y things, and also a little squished face puppy named Meatloaf.

Here she is standing with a photo op they had set up with the new doll of the year, Saige (who totally rocks, by the way!)

They have free ongoing events that now we will have to trek down and go to every now and again. It’s probably about a 40 minute drive which will save us from going EVERY WEEKEND EVER as Jocelyn would prefer us to do.

This was all on Saturday, which made for a full day! Sunday we had a lazier day. James took the kids sledding, then much studio rearranging and computer gaming and doll playing ensued until we took ourselves to Jocelyn’s chosen birthday dinner venue: Red Robin.

My sweet baby girl – 9 years old. Hard to believe this baby is so grown up.