She's # 9 and Feeling Fine!

Birthday Outfit for School Today

As of 5:29 PM today, Andrea is celebrating day 3,287 of life! She tipped the scales this morning at 63.1 pounds, or 28,622 grams, 65 times her birth weight. She measured 52 1/2 inches tall, exactly 5 times her length at birth.  When she was born, I took to Blogger to keep the interested people up-to-date on her story. In the intervening nine years, technology has changed so much that most of her day-to-day happenings wind up on FaceBook!  However, since there are some people who don't "do" FB, or who may not be connected to me that way, I've decided to continue posting here, at least for a few more years.  It is kind of nice to have the year in review all in one place.  Let's see how long before she demands I stop writing about her!








I usually like to start with a picture from her birthday party, or something similar. Among the girls in her circle, this is the year of the ROLLER SKATING PARTY.  Many of her friends have had their parties at the rink, so she'll be doing the same in a few weeks. Santa even brought her her very own rollerblades for Christmas.  I admit to loving the skating parties. I flash back to the 80's, and I have vowed to put on a pair of "quads" for the party.  I figured it was time to start embarrassing her...let her get used to it now before she's a teen-ager.

Andrea spent another summer last year playing softball with Daddy as a coach. She likes it well enough but doesn't love it. Most likely, this was her last summer, since we'd rather not push her if she's really not crazy about the sport. She's still taking swim lessons at the Y, and just starting learning to ski. We have NOT had a good winter for the skiers - Andrea got one lesson in, then the second was canceled due to lack of snow. We're hoping for enough cold weather to get in a few more classes before spring, but I'm not optimistic!  She's also expressed an interest in learning tennis, so getting her started there is Daddy's next assignment.

After a few weeks at Camp Discovery again, we went on our first family cruise. Andrea loves traveling (just like Grammy!) so is usually happy to go anywhere at any time, but she LOVED being on the ship!  We went to Bermuda, but I think Andrea would have been fine never getting off the boat. She loved the pool, of course, but also the never-ending ice cream at the buffet. Her favorite thing was the Pullman bed that came down from the ceiling of our cabin. If we could install one in her room at home, I think she'd be in heaven.  While on the cruise, we went snorkeling. As much as Andrea likes the pool and even the ocean, she didn't love snorkeling. I think the mask was hard to get used to. She and I just wound up swimming around while the guys looked at fish.

Getting ready to snorkel on the cruise

Halloween Jack-o-Lantern Stuffed Peppers

She's still Mommy's girl in the kitchen - and getting more and more independent. If I play this right, I might soon be able to stop cooking entirely.  She doesn't like the oven - if she's baking she leaves that part to me, but she's getting proficient at decorating desserts and she likes to experiment.  For Halloween, she made jack-o-lantern stuffed peppers. She did all the carving herself, and helped stuff them. Sadly, she won't eat most of the healthy stuff she cooks with me - she eats almost no meat, no matter how it's prepared. However, she has yet to meet a cookie or cupcake she won't try!

She's also decided that she's big enough to scoop out her own Halloween pumpkin.  You can see from her face that she was not a big fan of the insides. She wasn't interested in trying the roasted seeds, either. We wound up putting everything outside for the squirrels and deer.

Removing the "guts" from her pumpkin

Andrea is still a fashionista and is lucky to have several women in her life who love to dress her. She has strong ideas about what she wants to wear, and we've learned to let her run with them, as long as she's dressed for the weather! She does enjoy getting dressed up and will change at the drop of a hat. She plans her outfits well in advance for special occasions.

In September, she began THIRD GRADE, which is a huge big deal, at least in New Jersey. It's the year of cursive handwriting, multiplication tables, and the dreaded RECORDER. (All my music teacher friends are laughing at that, and all my friends with elementary school children are commiserating). She likes her teachers and school in general, but she prefers writing to just about everything else. She doesn't love to read, although she's happy if we read to her.  

She continues to be very artistic and enjoys making arts and crafts. She is always drawing, writing or designing something.  She LOVES to watch all the home shows on HGTV - and she critiques the designers all along the way.

We have been continually blessed by this child. Most people who meet her now have no idea what her start in life was like. She is mostly a happy person, but boy, she does have a temper at times. I have to own that one...she got her short fuse from me.  She has a great sense of humor and the most infectious laugh. What an interesting nine years it has been!

Thank you, as always, for taking the time to keep up with Andrea. We continue to be grateful for everyone who shares her journey - regardless of where they got on the train!

"Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it."~ Dennis P. Kimbro