Her last year in the single digits!

On Friday June 11, Alexis turned nine years old. Our kids begin counting down the days until their birthday months before the actual date, so this was an exciting and well anticipated day! Alexis, Tori and Levi all had a little "sleepover" in Levi's room the night before. Brandon and I went in to wake Alexis up and say happy birthday. Tori and Levi were almost as excited as her! They immediately gave her birthday hugs. The pictures are a little blurry but oh so cute!

After the birthday hugs she could hardly wait to get downstairs to see her birthday surprises. She has been wanting a new bike for some time. The bike she has been riding for years is a barbie bike, and she will be the first to tell you, she is "so not into barbies anymore" =) We wanted her to be really surprised about her bike, so we kind of let on that she probably wouldn't get one right now, and not to get her hopes up. Well imagine her excitement when she turned the corner into the kitchen to find out that she in fact did get the bike she had wanted so badly!

Since she was having a birthday party that night, we let her open up all of her presents from us in the morning. She of course didn't mind that one bit.

A birthday cake was included in her birthday party package, so I decided to get her donuts for breakfast, and we sang happy birthday to her with a candle in one of the donuts.

That evening we had a birthday party at The Ridge, which is a fun indoor swimming pool. She wanted to do a swim party outside, but the weather has been so unpredictable here, that we didn't want to take any chances on it being bad weather on the day of the party. We are so glad that we made that decision, because as it turns out, on the day of her party, it was rainy and hailing!

She ended up inviting all of the girls from her school class, church class, and a few others. I didn't think anything of it until they all started coming and we had 20 kids! It ended up being really fun though. If I had to do it again, I would probably extend the party one additional hour to give the kids more swimming time. It was hard squeezing everything into 2 hours.

Nana and Papa, and Grandma and Grandpa came to help us celebrate. It was so fun to have them there, and we definitley needed the extra hands to help!

The party was a success, and everyone had a blast. After all of her friends left we ended up staying and swimming until closing time. We had the pool pretty much to ourselves and we had a blast going down the slide and off the diving board.


Here are a few things we want to remember about Alexis at the time in her life.

~ She loves to talk. She will happily carry on a conversation with anyone that will listen, and will barely stop to take a breath! One time while I was driving her to tumbling she literally did not stop talking the whole way. We try to enjoy these long winded conversations, because far too soon, she may not love talking to us so much!

~I have never been able to get her to love reading, until we discovered that she loves to read long chapter books. They hold her attention much better then shorter books, and she is now on her 4th one this summer.

~She loves little stuffed animals and has quite the collection of them.

~She loves to listen to books on CD with Brandon and listen to books that Brandon will read to her. She definitely gets that from him. I have never been able to sit and listen to a book on tape without my mind totally wandering. Her and Brandon both have the ability to really imagine what is happening and feel like they are right there.

~She is in advanced tumbling and is loving it. She practices hard and and is seeing the fruits of her hard work.

~ She doesn't like to sing in front of people or get up and talk in front of people, but after seeing her uncle Michael in a play recently, she has decided she wants to give acting and singing a try!

~ She loves to ride her bike, and would go on bike rides every day if she could. Brandon and her have recently started going mountain biking at Waterton Canyon.

~She is still only in the 5th percentile for height and weight in her age group. Tori is quickly catching up with her, and we often get asked if they are twins.

~ She loves to hear stories about when I was little.

~ She loves to play truth or dare.

~ She has a really great memory. She will remember things that happened when she was really little. She also remembers so much about us that we have told her. Her favorite game to play when we are at restaurants is for us to ask her a question about ourselves and for her to see if she know the answer. She always wins, and I can't believe how much she knows about us!

~Her favorite foods are shrimp, crab and tomatoes

~She loves to write in her journal.

~She loves to play on the computer and DS

~ She has a fashion sense all of her own, which I am trying hard to let her have! LOL

~ She has a huge problem with tags on clothes or seams of socks. We have often spent far too long trying to make her foot comfortable in her shoes, and very often have to turn her socks inside out so they don't bother her. This has been a great lesson for me in patience!

~ She loves babies and toddlers, and is so great with them.

~ Her favorite singers are Selena Gomez, and Demi Lovato. She loves to listen to music with her friends up in her room while dancing and jumping on the bed. (one of these sessions actually resulted in a broken board on the bottom of her bed)

~ She loves to DVR all of her favorite shows

~She loves sending and receiving emails.

~ She loves to sew, and has made many "creations" out of fabric and stuffing =)

This list could go on and on. Alexis is such a joy and brings so much fun and happiness to our family and those she comes in contact with. She has such a fun loving spirit and we learn so much from her every day. We love you so much Alexis!!