December 26, 2022 - Monday


Happy, happy 9th birthday to my biggest girl!!!! Clementine is such a gift to me and to our family. She honestly is kind of the glue for the kids. She keeps an eye on her sisters, she pulls everyone together to play fun games, she includes everyone in everything, and she is incredibly helpful to me. Clemi has boundless energy and a beautiful optimism that I just love. She is a natural cheerleader and it gives me such pleasure to spoil her a little on her special day. This year was mostly clothes, clothes, and more clothes. She's reached that age when having her style outwardly represented is super important to her. I also got her some new art supplies, a teensy bit of makeup, and a few toys. I love being her mom. I could do with about 95% less tattling, but I know she'll grow out of a lot of that as she gets older. 

Today was a chill day with a very early start. I didn't prep her cinnamon rolls early enough yesterday, so I had to get up this morning and roll out the dough, etc. before everyone got too hungry for breakfast. Ben had to run to the store for more butter and to grab the ingredients for her dessert. Lunch was "mom's homemade oatmeal"...her request. Crazy, right? The kids are obsessed with my oatmeal. Dinner will be spaghetti and for dessert is lemon cheesecake pie. 

I did a lot of cleaning and laundry to prep for our trip tomorrow afternoon. Still some more wrapping ahead, but it has been a good day. *Hopefully hopefully hopefully* I'll do Clemi's 9-year-old photo shoot tomorrow. I still need to do Jonas's! 

Clementine shot this picture randomly on Christmas Eve and I just love it so much. I love that she got us kissing as Ben was on his way out the door and I love Ruby's expression as she watched us. 

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