Leo's birthday bike

Serafina had completely outgrown her bike by the time she got one for her birthday.  Leo was in the same boat.  He would ride my bike instead of his because it was too small.  He wanted a nice mountain bike for his birthday and Tom found a good one that he ordered online and was delivered to our local sporting good shop.  He wanted to give it to Leo early, just like Serafina got her bike a little early.  After I picked Leo up from school today, we ran a quick errand and then I headed to the sporting good store.  Leo was blissfully unaware where we were going because he was reading in the backseat.  When I pulled into the parking lot, I saw Tom riding around on the new bike.  I said to Leo "look at that grown man riding a kids bike.  What a weirdo".  Leo finally looked up and said "hey, that's dad.  He rode his bike here?  Wait, that's not his bike."  And it all clicked and he got very excited.  Tom was nice enough to dismount the bike and give Leo a turn.  He was really happy with it.  

 And yes, it is giant.  It's bigger than my bike.

 We went back into the shop to have the bike guy check out the sizing, but he assured us Leo would be just fine on this size while he grows into it.

Student Council Representative

Leo was chosen to be the student council representative for his grade.  He said "well there are only four of us fifth graders, but it's still pretty cool".  I'm very proud of him and the shirt is cool too.  

500 classes

When I got to Orangetheory Fitness on Wednesday, the coach stuck her head into the lobby and asked "did you see it?"  I didn't know what she was talking about until she pointed to the sign outside.  That's when I saw that I was about to attend my 500th class.  500 in under three years!!! That's big.  Lots of people hit 100 or 200, but not very many have 500 under their belts.  

 Two other milestone members were in the same class so we took a picture outside after class.  Next to me is Coach Jen (who is the best coach), then Katie (300 classes) and Sarah (400).

 My friend Mary was in class too and helped me dork out with some pictures to celebrate.

$5 mug day

 We had so much fun painting at Color Me Mine earlier this month that we went back to take advantage of $5 mug day.

Color Me Sleepover

The Serafina birthday celebration continued this Friday.  I picked up her friends Sunny, Millie, Emma and Lane (Emma's little sister) and headed to Color Me Mine for them to paint some pottery.  

 Four of the girls picked mugs, which was surprisingly practical.

 Leo had never been to Color Me Mine and Serafina didn't mind him tagging along.  He was so thrilled about getting to paint this skull.

 After a long painting session, we headed to In-n-Out to pick up burgers.

 They had a lot of fun waiting for the food.

 I've never needed a box before so I had to take a picture of the box of burgers.

 All six kids were happy to eat burgers and fries.

 Then Nana came to whisk away Leo so the girls could get to some serious slumber partying.

 Emma and Lane decided everyone needed these matching panda yoga shirts.

 It was so cute.

 There were movies and silliness and popcorn and ice cream.

 Here's the aftermath of my nice ice cream sundae bar.

 And here's my living room the next morning.

It was absolutely exhausting.  Tom was spared because he was in the city having a slumber party with some old college friends.  Everyone had fun and got alone well, but I won't be doing it again for a long while.

Happy 9th Birthday, Serafina!

Nine!  Nine!!! NINE!!!  I'm simply amazed that she's already nine.  She was up early and very excited to celebrate her birthday.  Since the pool party was planned for later in the day, we had time to go get some birthday pedicures.  

 Serafina has a love/hate relationship with the massage chairs at the nail salon.  She can't resist turning it on, but I also don't think she actually likes it that much.

 Her toes turned out super cute.  We didn't mention it was her birthday but they still did her up with the cute flowers.

 Everyone came over at three for the pool party.  The kids didn't swim for too long and while we waited for Tom to fetch the pizza, Nana took them all outside to teach the kids Plansies-Clapsies.

 Pizza time.

Serafina had a very specific vision for her cake.  She wanted a marble cake with this rainbow design.  I ask my baking buddy, Kristi, about making a marble cake and she advised against it.  We've had marble cake from Safeway in the past and it was good.  I wasn't sure if their decorators would be willing to do a custom design from a piece of paper but they said no problem.  

 And they nailed it!  She was thrilled with how it looked and it was delicious.

 My friend Mary is very good at cutting perfectly even portions of cake.  It's like her thing so I asked her to do it.

 I didn't take many pictures but it was a fun time.  The last guests didn't leave until 10:20pm so we are all pretty pooped.

Here's a little retrospective of little Serafina.  I miss that bob haircut.

I wrote a little thing on Instagram about Serafina's bravery.  Don't get me wrong, she cries and whimpers about things but she still does them!  She was scared of the ropes course in Tahoe and had a pretty serious freak out, but it didn't stop her.  She was scared in the cenote in Mexico, but she kept going then too.  And she was definitely worried and anxious about starting a new dance school, but she soldiered through that.  I'm in awe of her.

Birthday Eve

I can't believe Serafina is turning nine tomorrow.  Her birthday snuck up on us but we managed to plan a pool party with some friends tomorrow afternoon.  Not our most original idea and because we've done that several times for her birthday, I will be taking her and some friends for a special outing next Friday.  

Yesterday we went for some after school ice cream to kick off the long birthday weekend.  She picked some disgusting birthday cake flavor that she found delicious and appropriate.  

 Today, she went with her dad on a special outing to pick out her big birthday present...a new bike!  She outgrew her bike several months ago so there hasn't been too much bike riding.  She was so thrilled.

 He even bought her riding gloves.

 If this bike looks huge for her, that's because it is.  But she manages it just fine and she'll grow into it (and then out of it).  Leo was pretty interested in checking it out but she wasn't ready to let him ride it.

 Tonight we went out to dinner at a restaurant she picked.

 Nana joined us.  The food was great and everyone was well behaved.  We couldn't ask for anything more.