My Karalee turned 9!

Karalee's 9th birthday was on Saturday. I asked her if she was surprised to wake up to find her gifts and balloons. She said, "Not really, since you do that every year". So I guess I'm not as fun as I'd like to think.

Our morning was kinda busy. Luckily, she wanted pop tarts for breakfast, so that was quick, and then Evie had swim lessons and Kara had a basketball game. Her team lost pretty badly, but she said she still had fun, and I did notice she played more aggressively than normal. She wanted Jimmy John's for lunch, so that was also pretty quick, and then she opened all of her gifts before heading to her friend's birthday party. I actually almost forgot about the other party, because I got caught up in watching her open everything. Luckily, she was on top of things and reminded me in time to get there just a few minutes late.
Evie was very excited to have bought her own gift for Kara with her own money this year. She gave her something to put colored stripes in her hair and some barrettes.

Kiersten also spent her money on a gift. She gave her a leopard print hairbrush, which she loved.

She always gets mostly clothes for her birthday, since it's so soon after Christmas. But I tried to get things I knew she'd be excited about, and she seemed pretty happy with everything.

She was really happy about this leopard balloon. She clipped it to her pants and wore it all around the house. I was going to tie it to the mail box, but she was too worried about the possibility of it floating away.

For her "big" gift from us she got her own sewing machine. She's so excited to use it, and wants to make a shirt. I'm not sure she's ready for a shirt yet, but I guess we can try.

She also got a jewelry armoire, which I intended for her to keep in the closet, but she insisted she wants it by her desk so she can stare at it from her bed.

This is a rando, but I wanted to include a picture of the girls with their balloon animals they learned to make in their magic class. Kiersten really wanted to take another after school magic class, but it was going to be canceled due to low enrollment. So when the coordinator told me that they were only shy by one student, I went ahead and enrolled Kara as well. She's pretty busy right now, but seems to like the class.

I was overwhelmed with all of the things she wanted to do at her birthday party, so I made her help out with a few things. She wanted to have a fishing pond, so Ben bought some long dowels, and I had her paint those. I also cut out a bunch of fish for her to decorate.

She wanted to make cat cups, so I had her do most of that as well.

Making cat-pops. These are just oreos dipped in chocolate, and we pre made eyes and ears, so it was easy to put them together. Then I used some pink melting chocolate for the nose and mouth. I thought we could use shredded coconut to make whiskers, but she thought that would mess up the flavor.

The first one didn't work out, so I practiced my piping on it. She had to leave for basketball practice, so I had this waiting for her when she got back.

They were still cute without any whiskers. I made enough for all of her party guests to have 2, and Kiersten and Evie to have 1 each. There were lots of left over eyes and I planned to use them to make some other fun animals for the little girls, but they ate all the extra eyes, so that didn't happen.

I helped her with some of the faces. They turned out pretty fun, but I thought some looked more bunny-like than cat-like.

I had a fun idea for a cat face cake, but she saw a silhouette cake idea on pinterest, and really wanted that instead. It was actually really easy to make. Especially compared to the over the top smurf cake she requested last year. She also wanted it not to have a face, which Ben and I both disagreed with, but I wanted to make sure she got her way. This is just made from 2 round cakes. One of the easiest birthday cakes I've had to make.

She loved putting together this "litter box" with rice krispies, Hershey kisses, and tootsie rolls. She was able to do the whole thing herself, so that was great.

I laminated all of her fish, and we used paper clips so they could be picked up by the magnets on the poles. I wanted to use my eyelet setter to put some metal grommets on their mouths, but didn't have time. I wish I had because the paper clips kept falling off. I still might do those, so they can play with this game over and over. She refused to use the fish that Evie and Kiersten decorated, but I laminated them anyway so they could play later.

She was in bed, so didn't get to help me make these cat headbands. My friend showed me this idea on her phone when I told her I had to throw a cat party. They turned out pretty fun, and were cheap to make.

I made this big mouse hunt board to attach balloons for a dart throwing game. This was Kiersten's idea, and Kara was so excited to do it. I was less enthusiastic about it, but did it anyway. I did make her help with the coloring, because that took forever. Is it strange that I had to google a "wedge of cheese"  to figure out how to draw one? I also googled "cartoon mouse" for ideas, and you can imagine, that pulled up tons of Mickey and Minnie images. I didn't think she'd appreciate that.