Bowers Blog: Ellie is crazy 8!!

Ellie turned 8 on Monday, September 19th, and we have had a week long celebration for her birthday.
At 8, Ellie is still a very busy child. She doesn't have much of a down time in her brain. The only time she really sits still is when she is holding a book or if the tv happens to be on. She loves any sport we throw at her, and she's good at all of them. She has a challenging personality, constantly questioning EVERYTHING, and she is very stubborn and convicted when it comes to what she wants to do. I know these will all one day be positive traits, but man oh man do they exhaust me now. She is full of joy, though, and consistently brings light to any room she walks into. She is always laughing and smiling, and is never without some sort of pretend scenario to act out with her siblings. She loves to be the center of attention and to have fun with everything she does. We love her so much and are enjoying watching her character develop.

Monday morning of her birthday, she woke up to gifts and singing from the entire family. We then headed to school with cupcakes for her class snack for that day. On the ride to school, she was given a shout out on the morning Kids Place Live radio show by Absolutely Mindy.

I checked her out of school early Monday afternoon, because she had an appointment with the hand surgeon to get her cast removed in Douglas, GA. This, I do believe, was the highlight of her birthday. The cast was removed, and Ellie was discharged from seeing the doctor again. She was advised, however, to hold off on gymnastics for 3 more weeks - not what Ellie wanted to hear.

We rushed back to Tifton and met Worth, Emma, and Mack for dinner at the kids' favorite restaurant, The Mill. We had dinner, played games, then went for frozen yogurt. We were all worn out by the end of the afternoon!

This past Friday, Ellie hosted her first spend the night birthday party. She had her 2 best friends, Abby and Sammy, over. Including Emma, it was only 4 girls. (Not too bad for me.) Mack decided he wanted to go stay the night with grandma and papa. So with him out of the house, the girl craziness could carry on.

The girls came at 5:30pm Friday. We began the party with a dip in the pool, a dance party, then they had a fashion show, played shopkins, ate pizza and cake, opened gifts and were watching a movie all before 7:30pm. After the movie, they decided to write some comics of their own. (Ellie's favorite books right now are the Diary of the Wimpy Kid series. This is the movie they watched which I'm assuming inspired the comic writing for the night.)

At 9:30pm, I made them a big comfortable palette on the floor with blankets and sleeping bags. They all cuddled up to go to sleep. By 11:00, Worth had already had to go up to Ellie's bedroom to ask them to try to go to sleep or at least be quiet. At 5:00am, they were up and ready for the morning. They finished up their comics, I made them breakfast, and there was a pirate play enacted all before 8:00am. (Worth and I were 3 cups of coffee in by 7:00am.) For fear of waking up the neighbors, I made them wait until after 8:00am to get in the pool. The girls then swam until moms came to pick up at 9:00am.

Needless to say, Worth and I have been exhausted all weekend. So exhausted, in fact, that we couldn't even get upset over the UGA loss to Ole Miss on Saturday:( Ellie said it was her best birthday yet, and that is all I needed to hear!

Ellie and Emma in front of the table that greeted Ellie for her birthday morning. Notice the love for her sister early on a Monday morning. i can assure you, this is NOT what normally happens at breakfast!!

Emma made Ellie a card. She was so sweet and wanted to do it all by herself without my help.

Emma's artwork of her and Ellie in the card.

Ellie got to open most of her gifts that morning before school. Her big gift from Worth and I had to wait until Worth got home from work later that afternoon. She mostly got clothes, which she was not to thrilled about for some reason. However, when I offered to return the clothing to the store, she had a quick change of heart.

She had just heard Absolutely Mindy announce her birthday on the radio.

Cast is gone!!!

Hot and sweaty at the Mill.

Air Hockey with Daddy. I'm not sure who likes this more, the girls or Worth.

Ellie hit the 500 ticket mark on the crank game. I'll let the pictures tell the story!

Froyo for the win

Once we got home from dinner, Ellie finally got to open her big gift from Worth and I. It was a new set of golf clubs. This redeemed my earlier gifts of clothing. (God forbid you buy a child clothes when she has grown out of all of hers.)

The spend the night party was off to an awesome start. Music, pool, and dancing.

Time for the party favors. (I found them all matching PJs on clearance at Target. It was cheaper than buying a bag of junk for party favors, and they LOVED it!)

Ellie wanted a UGA themed birthday party. I decorated the dining room and surprised her with it, and her comment was: "Man, Daddy is going to love this!" Well, that was not who I was trying to impress, but whatever.

I had forgotten how exciting it is at this age to GIVE a gift. The girls could barely get through eating pizza without worrying about when Ellie would get to open her gifts.