Dicie Turns Eight!

On Thursday, October 1st, my little girl turned 8 years old! Happy Birthday Miss Dicie! She was a lucky girl and her birthday coincided with a day off of school, so we made the most of it. I've recently made it a goal to start making my kid's birthdays a little more fun and to make sure they feel extra-special on their day. Dicie's birthday was our first chance to try out some new birthday traditions. The day started with a twist on one of Brett's family's traditions: birthday pancakes. I poured pancake batter into a condiment bottle and cooked up Dicie's name right on the griddle. She, and the other kids, loved their personalized pancakes!

Brett and I had fun sneaking up and decorating Dicie's door the night before. We put up streamers and balloons and little notes saying all the things we love about Dicie. She loved it! 3 days later it's all still on her door.

It has also been a tradition of ours to put out pictures of the birthday child. In years past I have just thrown out a few pictures of whatever I had. This year I finally got some decent frames and got pictures printed to represent each year of Dicie's life. How fun it was to look at her life in pictures and see how much she's grown! We also like to wrap the kid's gifts the night before and set them out all day on their birthday for them to look at. Finally, I made a new birthday banner to hang in our new house, which turned out pretty well. For lunch on her birthday I took Dicie, her friend Madison from down the street, and our other kids to McDonald's. The kids had fun getting happy meals and playing.

The big highlight of the day came in the afternoon with the arrival of our good friends, the Medinas! Daphney and her four kids drove up from Utah to visit for a couple of days. It was the best! Daphney's little girl, Aleaha, was born on Dicie's birthday 2 years ago, so it was fun to celebrate with her! For months now Dicie has wanted to go to the YMCA to go swimming for her birthday. She had even wanted a YMCA birthday cake! It was easy enough to fulfill her wish and we had a lot of fun swimming there with the Medinas. Afterwards we went to Golden Corral, per Dicie's request. Every kid loves a buffet! We were so stuffed afterwards that we could barely eat cake and ice cream when we got home!

Dicie received a few gifts, including a new bike which she loved!

Then it was cake time! Dicie gave up on the YMCA cake idea and chose this present cake, which was lucky for me because I have yet to learn any cake decorating skills! Making a special cake was a tradition I wanted to do better at, so we did our best and it turned out pretty cute.

Dicie had a great birthday and we had a lot of fun celebrating with her. 8 years old is such a big milestone and Brett and I can hardly believe that we are the parents of a child who has hit the age of accountability and who will be baptized at the end of the month. Life has certainly flown by and at times I feel so sad that I can't hold onto these moments longer. But I have such great joy in my children. Dicie is such a sweet girl who has the heart of a nurturer and such a happy spirit. She loves to sing and truly has a blossoming talent with her voice and music in general. She is so helpful and really makes my life easier. I am so thankful to be her mother!